[bug 1.337b] Luminator bug: does not accept energy directly from solar panels.

1st Official Post

    I've tested luminators with wind and water, now that solar's have been fixed I ran in to a snag testing them. Solar panels, even with tin wire or copper wire, are unable to power luminators.

    no batboxes in between??? that could fix it. sorry, cannot help otherwise.

    Hell, prove me wrong, Happy to be so 99% of the time, then I can learn stuff :)

    The whole point is to /not/ have a batbox inbetween. A batbox is a 32eU/t transmitter, while the wire I want to use for lighting runs is 5eU/t.

    What we need is for luminators to accept energy directly from the solar panels, lol. IMO, the whole point of the luminator being capable of "charging" is so they can be charged prior to night-time, then last through the night when they are needed the most. ;)

    Quote from RawCode

    ultra low is stupid solution, it designed as cheap one way cables, not 39 blocks energy transport.


    Yeah, because imagine using the lowest voltage solution just to power the lights in your house without a lot of loss. :rolleyes:

    Quote from Alblaka

    Luminators accept 0-32 EUt from cables (and cables only) "behind" them. All there is to it.

    Ok, so I ran some tests with a single solar panel a bunch of tin wire a copper wire, and a batbox.


    39 tin: Batbox charges (luminator still doesn't work)
    31 tin + 1 insulated copper: Batbox charges, luminator re-tested, still doesn't work off the insulated copper cable.
    31 tin + 1 insulated copper + batbox + 1 insulated copper: luminator now works.


    Expected behavior: Luminator to work where-ever a batbox would (just as other machines already do).

    I am positive; unless someone's messed with it, the test rig is setup on a public server here (it does require some other mods and addons to visit though, and I'm at work so I can't login to take a snapshot).


    http://forum.industrial-craft.…page=Thread&threadID=2911 (IC 1.337b, the other mods that will work with it + reactor thermometer and a buildcraft energy converter from the addon section here).


    Edit: Additionally, yes the cable is connecting to the back side of the block-face sized luminator (and providing it with support).


    This is the same way I've made working Luminators dangle off of wire from windmills and watermills, and batboxes. (actually come to think of it, the watermill design is dangling off of a batbox too; it might have the same problem?)

    Quote from Alblaka

    Doesn't make much sense to me, both use the same algorythm for receiving energy (Batbox and luminator).
    Are you sure you didn't just mess up the luminator placment? (only luminators placed upon cables receive energy at all)


    I dunno about the above but I did notice some odd behavior with a luminator on ULV cable from a small solar array. It was all strobe light special and flashing like mad.


    sticking a bat-box in there and wiring the luminators up to copper cable from the bat-box however worked fine.

    Quote from FnordMan

    I dunno about the above but I did notice some odd behavior with a luminator on ULV cable from a small solar array. It was all strobe light special and flashing like mad.


    sticking a bat-box in there and wiring the luminators up to copper cable from the bat-box however worked fine.

    Odd, a single luminator should be more than sufficiently powered by even /one/ solar; given solar's output 1eU/t //any// power at all should have been enough. The behavior's description makes me wonder if the luminators are forcing a lossful connection calculation...

    Quote from MJEvans

    Odd, a single luminator should be more than sufficiently powered by even /one/ solar; given solar's output 1eU/t //any// power at all should have been enough. The behavior's description makes me wonder if the luminators are forcing a lossful connection calculation...


    No idea, it was 12 solar panels and 4 luminators though. (forgot to mention that) still should have been enough.
    Not entirely sure if i'm even going to use them personally, I usually just stick a few torches or glowstone blocks around.
    Although the torches "flickering" tends to get annoying after a while.
    whenever I restart for 1.0 I may have to include a bit of attic space in the building for some wiring... Wonder if a luminator will work on a ceiling. (insert testing pause here) yup! great, I see wind powered light strips in my future.

    Indeed they do; the light also seems to shine through the cable (it's a transparent block?). However the need to run a backing cable and the lack of a larger AOE for 'mob on fire' means that these are actually slightly less useful than redpower lighting blocks; though they do have good aesthetics. Standalone within IC they'd be a lot more useful with an uLVtf (even if such a device would refuse to link to other TFs or batbox/etc devices on the circuit).

    Fact of the matter is... 5 bits of tin wire hooked up to a solar panel does not illuminate the luminator... but sticking a batbox next to the solar panel and drawing from THAT will let the luminator work...


    Thus far it hasn't been a HUGE problem for me, as I've been able to set up some very nice floor lighting and managed to get 4 luminators working off of a single solar-batbox combo. :thumbup: If, in the future, I can simply remove the batbox, that'll save me a bit of cabling, and I'll be getting a ton of batboxes back. :thumbup:

    I know the reason : Energy Net subtracts 1 power before it sends anything (I was tracing the code today). So solar panels, since they only output 1 per tick, get no power through to a luminator.

    Could it possibly be related to storage vs. a functional device? I'm not sure why it would be necessary to auto-remove 1EU at any point, seems like a hot-fix for something as I can't think of any other reason for it. :huh: