[Suggestion] Alternator

    Name: Alternator


    Description:
    I love industrial craft, but I feel that the eu loss on wiring is just "Too Damn high"
    I have come to the conclusion that this is caused because all industrial craft wires are running DC voltage, which experiences a high loss rate.
    My solution, much like Tesla, is very simple: AC Power.
    AC power works in a fundamentally similar way to DC, however due to the alternating current, receives much less power loss.
    My Proposal is a new machine, called the Alternator. this will take a High voltage current as an input, and output a constant AC current.
    The alternator will only output to High voltage wiring, and must be converted back to DC before being used in current machines.
    I can hear you asking already "Cave, what was in that phone book of a description I signed?" "is this really safe?" let me answer your questions with another question;
    "Do you like to save energy?"
    The AC Power would allow you to transfer power over large distances without any EU loss, and is generally a more efficient system.
    "But doesn't that make fiber cable useless? I mean, who would waste diamonds!"
    Well, AC requires both sides have alternators and in high voltage. So you would need to do the following to have a voltage line:
    Generator -> high voltage transformer -> Alternator -> [HV Wire] -> Alternator -> LV transformer -> machine.
    Frankly, it would be easier to do Fiber line for short distances. But if you wanna have a decent power line between towns or, from a power plant, This would make more sense.
    Even though Fiber has a loss of 1 / 40 EU, when you have a distance of 2000 blocks between towns, that's a TON of diamonds.


    Recipe:
    Key:
    [HV] = High Voltage Cable / Glass Fiber
    [TR] = High Voltage Transformer
    [RI] = Refined Iron
    [EC] = Electronic Circuit
    [RI] [EC] [RI]
    [HV][TR][HV]
    [RI] [HV] [RI]


    Or, using smiles:
    :Refined Iron: :Advanced Circuit: :Refined Iron:
    :Glass Fibre: :HV-Transformer: :Glass Fibre:
    :Refined Iron: :Glass Fibre: :Refined Iron:

    When in doubt, Shift out!
    GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the


    generation. Social experiment.

    1. Might want to edit the title before the thread is removed to something like: [Suggestion] Alternator Never mind, you got it.
    2. Do want! +9001

    Quote from ultimate_omega

    1. Might want to edit the title before the thread is removed to something like: [Suggestion] Alternator Never mind, you got it.

    Sorry about that, first post on the forum. Shoulda read the help first xD
    oh, and do you think that is a reasonable recipe?

    When in doubt, Shift out!
    GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the


    generation. Social experiment.

    Definitely reasonable. But perhaps make the :Electronic Circuit: -> :Advanced Circuit: considering by the time you have the diamonds for the GF cables you should have enough Lapis to make the circuits (for me anyways). Opinions?


    I'm gonna watch were this thread goes, I like this idea.

    Quote from ultimate_omega

    perhaps make the :Electronic Circuit: -> :Advanced Circuit:

    Sounds like a good idea to me too.

    When in doubt, Shift out!
    GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the


    generation. Social experiment.

    Should the Alternator be added? 33

    1. Yes (17) 52%
    2. No (8) 24%
    3. I like Kittens (8) 24%

    Adding a poll. Cause I can. :)

    When in doubt, Shift out!
    GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the


    generation. Social experiment.

    High distances power transportations are highly inefective, not because of the power loss (Although thats a reason), but because chunks unload if there isnt a player nearby to force those chunks to load and stay loaded.


    I guess its a good idea but from 1 EU per block loss to 0 Eu per block loss, i dont really find that much realistic, Energy is lost you like it or not what really matters its how much you loss. But meh im not electrical engineer or something similar that knows how these shenanigans actually works.

    I'm afraid that I can't vote correctly, as I like kittens enough to impact my vote.


    This... really does remove any need for Glass Fibre, even if the recipe requires a few. Make one cable lead out of your base, and just split it off to all the places you want. From there you just need a few transformers.


    Gives a use to HV wires, though.


    And not losing any EU at all is unrealistic, even for Minecraft.

    ...What? There's no pineapples here.


    GENERATION Pineapple: The first pineapple you see, copy it into your sig on any forum and add sqrt(-1) to the generation. Pineapple experiment.

    Well, considering that I know for a fact that even AC has loss (though miniscule), how about this:


    There are three Alternators for LV, MV, and HV. When EU is run through one, the normal EU-loss is halved depending on the cable employed.


    Huh?

    Have you ever heard of the original proposal for Niagra falls generator transmission? Edison said use DC, but that required using 8 repeater stations from Niagara to Buffalo. Tesla Came in and preached AC power. So they built it his way. AC required no repeater towers, and maintained power over a distance of 20 miles.
    Maybe we have it lose 2 EU / kilometer. That seems fair. (1 / 500 blocks)

    When in doubt, Shift out!
    GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the


    generation. Social experiment.

    Quote from primis

    Have you ever heard of the original proposal for Niagra falls generator transmission? Edison said use DC, but that required using 8 repeater stations from Niagara to Buffalo. Tesla Came in and preached AC power. So they built it his way. AC required no repeater towers, and maintained power over a distance of 20 miles.
    Maybe we have it lose 2 EU / kilometer. That seems fair. (1 / 500 blocks)

    You cant simply compare Minecraft distances with real life distances. And if you bothered to read my post, Really long distance power transmisions have the problem of Chunk unloading making the whole process useless, unless you are using the BC teleport pipes chunk loaders.


    And you have to think of balance too, not everything can be advantages advantages advantages, otherwise the game becomes boring and mechanical in the long run.

    Quote from primis

    Have you ever heard of the original proposal for Niagra falls generator transmission? Edison said use DC, but that required using 8 repeater stations from Niagara to Buffalo. Tesla Came in and preached AC power. So they built it his way. AC required no repeater towers, and maintained power over a distance of 20 miles.
    Maybe we have it lose 2 EU / kilometer. That seems fair. (1 / 500 blocks)

    I'm well aware of the Edison-Tesla Niagara Falls thing (a la Physics Class), but what I was trying to do is a way of balancing the whole idea and try to fit into terms of IC2.

    Oh and just a small note. AC loses more energy over distance due to capacitive and induktive effects effectivly limiting AC-transmission to 50miles. The reason AC is used is because it is so easy to transform. But for really large distances you use HVDC the longest on is in china and has a length of over 2.000km. You lose about 3% over 1.000km with HVDC.

    I think we don't need this.


    Send packets of 512 EUs from an msu via glasfibre. For 400 Blocks you only loose about 10 Eus. I think this is very reasonable... :D



    FarFar

    How about instead of getting rid of glass fiber make it so that only glass fiber cable is the only one that can transmit AC and all the others are only able to transmit DC current. Then we can go with the cheaper recipe for the alternator instead of advanced circuits.


    I dont know how accurate that is, but for game balancing, maybe that's an idea.

    Quote from Deathbyfire222

    How about instead of getting rid of glass fiber make it so that only glass fiber cable is the only one that can transmit AC and all the others are only able to transmit DC current. Then we can go with the cheaper recipe for the alternator instead of advanced circuits.


    I dont know how accurate that is, but for game balancing, maybe that's an idea.


    Hmm... how about for game balancing let it be as it is?


    Actually if you move energy over 160 Blocks you will reach the limit regard-less of losses because you will reach onloaded chunks.


    And of course IC2 neither uses AC nor DC. The more likely approach is to view the Enet as an AC-System, since all of the generators but one (solars) produce AC. So implementing a cheap device to let glass-fibres do the exact same thing they do now seems like implementing something totally useless, because the Enet lacks any thought about being AC or DC it's just not that complex.

    Quote from Rick

    There is already a low loss when you transport power over long distances. Just use glassfiber and you can transport power far out of chunk load range.

    Once you're far enough in the game, you can have 39 Glass Fibre cables, followed by an MFE, then repeat.


    This somewhat helps with chunks unloading, and (if I'm right) causes no EU loss, period.


    Just costs a lot of diamonds.

    ...What? There's no pineapples here.


    GENERATION Pineapple: The first pineapple you see, copy it into your sig on any forum and add sqrt(-1) to the generation. Pineapple experiment.

    Quote from raa1337

    Once you're far enough in the game, you can have 39 Glass Fibre cables, followed by an MFE, then repeat.


    This somewhat helps with chunks unloading, and (if I'm right) causes no EU loss, period.


    Just costs a lot of diamonds.

    Sadly, those kinds of setups only works one way.