Energy use meter

  • So after reading this post, I got the idea to make a system that can measure EU flowing through a cable (mostly for SMP, to charge people for energy, but I'm sure are other uses).


    It works by alternately charging and discharging a batbox/MFE/MFS. The picture shows it in the discharging phase - left is input and right is output (with an extra batbox for buffering). Because the batbox is charging half the time, the maximum average output is 16 eu/t (or 64 with MFE, or 256 with MFS).


    At the bottom left is an output wire - I have it connected to a pulse former then a redstone engine, which moves a piece of dirt from one chest to another with every 40000 EU. That way, I could come back every now and then to see how much energy the customer has used and charge them for it.


    Unfortunately, I don't see much use for this in the server I play on, because of its size (we have 10x10 town plots, and the town is the only place an electric company would be useful. Although as I was writing this I remembered RP2 devices can be vertical - the meters could possibly be built vertically under the 3-wide roads...


    Edit: Forgot to mention - it needs a certain minimum amount of current flow or it will overcharge (further edit: overcharge as in charge too much money, not as in overcharge the batbox). If you feed, say, a single luminator from the output, current will stop flowing when it charges, making the circuit think the batbox is empty. There's no way around this as far as I can tell. A similar thing happens with the input. It will think the entire 40,000 EU has been transferred when really only one packet has.

    Disappointed with the bugs and nerfedness of AtomicStryker Corp's Advanced Machines, and the unupdatedness of Snyke's Enterprises?
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    Battery snot included.

    • Official Post

    Interesting design, I myself had started thinking about ways to detect how much current flows, and I soon realized that it was much to complicated, and could be easily solved with a bit of coding possibly. I haven't look at how the energy net would like this, but if I remember the basics of the energy net, then I think this would be reasonably realistic to do...


    1. Add an interface to the detector block, by default working how it is now, but configurable for other things...
    2. Add configuration to pulse redstone around it every x Eus that pass through the wire, thus enabling us to use simple counter setups to detect how much power has flowed, without too much effort.


    What do you think?

    Lesson 1: Watch over your crops....

  • I think that would be more easily done with a separate block - like the old Energy-O-Mat, but measuring energy instead of dispensing it. It would be like a transformer but would not change the voltage, and would come in LV, MV and HV variants. (and possibly EV?)


    There should be a way to make it so only the person who placed it can access it. It also needs a reset button.

    Disappointed with the bugs and nerfedness of AtomicStryker Corp's Advanced Machines, and the unupdatedness of Snyke's Enterprises?
    Need low-lag renewable power?
    Come to ImmTech Intragalactical this thread for free UUM!

    Note: UUM may stand for Unnerfed Unbuggy Updated Machines and may not be actual UUM. The extra U was lost due to a bit error.
    Battery snot included.

    • Official Post

    Interesting, though I guess I would want an option for automated reset/payment. Hmm, I'll have to think on that one for a bit...

    Lesson 1: Watch over your crops....

  • Intresting design! And the redstone-engine setup for counting was an nice idea!


    I think/got a feeling that AlbOS will have an feature to measure/count upwards from redstone pulses.
    Create a powerplant, distrubution network, and a computer running albOS, charge people and terrify them with shuting down their power through a console :D

  • Edit: Forgot to mention - it needs a certain minimum amount of current flow or it will overcharge (further edit: overcharge as in charge too much money, not as in overcharge the batbox). If you feed, say, a single luminator from the output, current will stop flowing when it charges, making the circuit think the batbox is empty. There's no way around this as far as I can tell. A similar thing happens with the input. It will think the entire 40,000 EU has been transferred when really only one packet has.


    couldnt that just be fixed by another one accepting the unused power and adding it back to the grid, and subtracting the incoming to the outcoming therefore giving you the total used. i dont know if that is what you were looking for but it might help. :)

    • Official Post

    Well I thought about it, and we already have on the list to make it so that batboxes ect. emit rs power when they are full, rather than the way it is now. Thus we can make a perfect eu meter, without too much trouble, and no glitches.

    Lesson 1: Watch over your crops....

  • Intresting design! And the redstone-engine setup for counting was an nice idea!


    I think/got a feeling that AlbOS will have an feature to measure/count upwards from redstone pulses.
    Create a powerplant, distrubution network, and a computer running albOS, charge people and terrify them with shuting down their power through a console :D


    The redstone engine actually seems to miss most pulses, if it wasn't just a test world I'd change it to a transposer to make it actually work.


    You don't need a computer to charge people with RP2. Set up "chest -> filter -> item detector -> chest" and an SR latch. When the EU meter pulses, reset the SR latch and pulse the filter. When the detector detects an item, set the SR latch. The SR latch would be connected to another splitter cable at the meter's input.


    Edit:

    Well I thought about it, and we already have on the list to make it so that batboxes ect. emit rs power when they are full, rather than the way it is now. Thus we can make a perfect eu meter, without too much trouble, and no glitches.


    It needs a way to detect empty batboxes too. A perfect EU meter could be made with the current system, probably with a loop to guarantee power input and output.

    Disappointed with the bugs and nerfedness of AtomicStryker Corp's Advanced Machines, and the unupdatedness of Snyke's Enterprises?
    Need low-lag renewable power?
    Come to ImmTech Intragalactical this thread for free UUM!

    Note: UUM may stand for Unnerfed Unbuggy Updated Machines and may not be actual UUM. The extra U was lost due to a bit error.
    Battery snot included.

    • Official Post

    I'll think on it, however I still think that it would be possible without too much work, even with simply emitting power from a full box.

    Lesson 1: Watch over your crops....

  • It is, and it's easy:




    This is a design to fulfill an entirely different purpose, but the important part to this discussion is where the output of the first batbox splits off to the left, goes through the LVT, the EU-detector, and back into the batbox. If there's any juice in the batbox, the EU-D will always be ON.


    One drawback; it cuts the output from the batbox/MFE/MFS in half. However, no power is LOST in the process, as that 'cut' half feeds back into the batbox.


    I have a similar setup for 1.64 RS power emitting storage blocks. This loop still works.