Am I missing something? (Long distance power transfer via transformers)

Quote from raGan

Some say you can't use EV directly in SMP for some reason, but i have never tested it.

I have, it's rather annoying. Bunch o wind directly to a HV transformer in single player? Works great.
Try the same thing in SMP? zero power transmitted.

Are you sure you didn't forget to redstone something? I have a small windfarm in SMP and /do/ get power from it like that.

Quote from MJEvans

Are you sure you didn't forget to redstone something? I have a small windfarm in SMP and /do/ get power from it like that.

100% certian. Had a lever on the HV transformer and everything.

I don't know what else to say except that the HVTF will soak up 2048 EU before spitting out a packet. Windgens can take /quite/ a while to do this, so you might not have been waiting long enough (they /are/ variable output, form 0 to 8eU/t in a storm with maximum wind otherwise)

Quote from MJEvans

I don't know what else to say except that the HVTF will soak up 2048 EU before spitting out a packet. Windgens can take /quite/ a while to do this, so you might not have been waiting long enough (they /are/ variable output, form 0 to 8eU/t in a storm with maximum wind otherwise)

Gave it quite a while, as in long enough for the (slow) trip to the ground then down two levels to the MFSU and the (slow) trip back up to fix it. Reported 0 power at the cable to the HVTF even.

I'd have to know exactly what your infrastructure looked like then. If you could place a storage device where the HVTF was and collect power, then the generators to that could be debunked. Similarly you'd need a storage device within reach at the lower end.

Once my world is really advanced i use only glass fiber cables. Why? Because you got near limitless resources and resources arent a limiting factor anymore. When 2 CASUC reactors are feeding a mass fab for several days you know what i mean.

Quote from Nightdagger

Yeah, glad you mentioned that, I hadn't thought about the fact that 10 of them would overload the input capacity of a single LVTF and produce a backlog.

Of course, that made me stop and think: Why upstep it from LV to MV to HV to EV?

And I hooked up 13 geothermal generators to 4 pieces of copper cable (4 on each side, 4 on top, 1 on the end) feeding directly into an upstepped HV (skipping the upstep to MV and HV and going right to EV), running over 1 length of 4xHV, downstepping to HV, then feeding into an MFSU. Got 258048 out of 260000 in the MFSU. Exactly the same output as having those 13 geothermals feed into a pair of upstepped LVs, then an upstepped MV, then an upstepped HV, then back down to HV into the MFSU. With one difference, of course...the 13 geothermals backlogged the two LVs, so it was actually MORE efficient not to use them!

Again, it's entirely possible I might be missing something here, but...why step up using 3 transformers when you can just upstep any voltage directly to EV and get exactly the same results?

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My hundred solar panels run along tin cable straight into a step-up HV transformer, then about 50 metres down to my base (it's under a giant overhang). No trouble at all.

Quote from raGan

First thing is - you can't be losing 3-5 EU per 2048EU packet on 70-80 block long way. Exact packet loss for 3x Ins. HV cable is 56-64EU per packet when travelling such distance.
You may as well consider using LV long distance cable setup, which can handle 128EU/t (your generators can make max 88EU/t) and loses up to 0%( ) EU. You won't need those 2 HVTs and MVT, so you can use them at more appropriate places.
Setup looks like this:
- not that expensive (1.2 copper per block of setup +some rubber and wood)(also you don't need diamonds)
- you may argue that 84-96 copper bars is too much, but using diamonds, iron, redstone and other rare stuff is worse in my opinion. Everyone has loads of copper(not sure but i do).
- loseless !

Finally did something about my power grid. Didn't want to go through *that* much hassle with the numerous LV transformers but I built a couple and ~70 glass fiber cable (when you've got several stacks of uu-matter waiting to be used it doesn't seem that expensive ) and did something like that.
So now the input power is a lot less bursty (yay!) and lossless. Not to mention safer too, no more EV nearby to make things go *bang* on a mis-click now that the power grid is LV. Almost feels like cheating using lv transformers as repeaters though.

Quote from raGan

First thing is - you can't be losing 3-5 EU per 2048EU packet on 70-80 block long way. Exact packet loss for 3x Ins. HV cable is 56-64EU per packet when travelling such distance.
You may as well consider using LV long distance cable setup, which can handle 128EU/t (your generators can make max 88EU/t) and loses up to 0%( ) EU. You won't need those 2 HVTs and MVT, so you can use them at more appropriate places.
Setup looks like this:
- not that expensive (1.2 copper per block of setup +some rubber and wood)(also you don't need diamonds)
- you may argue that 84-96 copper bars is too much, but using diamonds, iron, redstone and other rare stuff is worse in my opinion. Everyone has loads of copper(not sure but i do).
- loseless !

I didn't know that LVs act as relays.... So I made a batbox/cable system down from the sky for nothing?

The increased glass fiber recipe cost should make splitter cables properly valued. -HOWEVER- diamonds are more rare in 1.x than in the 1.8.1 you increased the cost of making glass fiber cables in. Please adjust the number of glass cables that can be created to compensate for this change (probably cables from RS+diamond to 6 and Silver(RP2)+diamond to 8 ).

Edit: GD Smilies... can we please just get rid of the smilies part of the icons?

Quote from Alblaka

Good job, guess i'll have to vastly increase the cost for the EU cables then.

This thread should never have started.

diamonds are scarse. why make another item which need them. i think better way is increase eu lost to higher value. in spliter and detector cable are iron cable. why not match eu loss to that? that mean 0.8 EU/block.

Quote from nou_spiro

diamonds are scarse. why make another item which need them. i think better way is increase eu lost to higher value. in spliter and detector cable are iron cable. why not match eu loss to that? that mean 0.8 EU/block.

Then it would be impractical to use them on tin cables.

More to the point, it would be impractical to use them on /glass/ cables.

Perhaps make it so that detector/splitter cables are updated every so often (several thousand ticks would work) based on the surrounding cables. Among the cables touching the detector cable select the highest resistance cable and mirror it's output; during scans other detector cables should be detected as a cable with infinite resistance and not allow passage. This would have an unfortunate side-effect of making each type of detector cable take up several damage values.