Trying to make 800Eu/t Reactor

  • I've been working on an experiment that involves a reactor packed mostly of uranium cells. I have a redstone circuit that allows me to control the duty cycle on it to whatever I want, anywhere from 1% to 99%. (for example i can have it run 10% by being on for a second and then off for another 9). But I am having a problem.


    I leave one spot open in the reactor for ICE. I have a system of pumps and compressors that manufacture ice at about 2 cubes per second and automatically feeds them into the core. This keeps things cool to where I can run my reactor at 50% duty cycle without any components visually wearing. All the coolant cells and plates stay fairly healthy at this duty cycle with constant ice flowing in.


    But, as I am monitoring the reactor running smoothly, it will spontaneously explode without any forewarning fires, damage, or burned internal parts. BOOM my entire base and everything gone. Luckily I have been backing up the map before every test run :) But I do not understand why it is exploding if the parts are cool. Is there a difference between core temperature and component temperature that I have no way of monitoring? Does the Ice actually do it's job or is it just an illusion and actually overheating? Do I need more plates or what? MinecraftCreeper


    http://test.vendaria.net/index…UCCUUUUXCUUUUPPCCPPXXXXXX

  • I'm not sure about the reactor planner that you're using. I re-did your design in the usual one, here: http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…=1m10101001501521s1r11r10 and it gives slightly different numbers.* The usual also provides a bunch of helpful nuggets of info.


    So this is going to give you 1180 EU/t instantaneous but require a lot of downtime to stop it going boom. By my calculations, you can only run this baby for 1 second in 30 or it'll go boom. It certainly doesn't look like the kind of design that'll run at 50% (compare the uranium vs components ration in the one in my signature). You may also care to install the themometer mod though I think you need to seriously reconsider the design.


    One final note, if you're running on SMP then be careful with network lag as it can cause problems. I once set up 8 reactors running on a 1:17 duty cycle. Rock solid in single player testing but had two melt downs before I said stuff it and went to a 50% design :)


    *Taking a closer look at that planner, it lists 31 external cooling which is a physical impossibility. Only the spaces in a 3x3 grid around the actual reactor core are counted for cooling. In a +4 chamber reactor, you thus have 22 water blocks present, not 31. Also the EU/t is dramatically different. I suggest you use the one on TalonFire :)


    edit: correct link, thanks!

    GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment or chain letter? This is left as an exercise for the reader.


    Efficiency 3, 50% duty cycle. SMP friendly. Alternate two of them slowly with an rp2 sequencer for a steady 120 EU/t.
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…=1j10101001501521s1r11r10


  • http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…=1m10101001501521s1r11r10 correct link


    At your cooling: You are right but also you aren't. You forgot to add 4 chambers and reatcor itself which gives you 22 + 4*2 +1 = 31.


    At that design: If you are not going to make CASUC out of it, I think it's useless. It has very low effective output and is very dangerous.

  • You forgot to add 4 chambers and reatcor itself which gives you 22 + 4*2 +1 = 31.

    Ah, thanks! I figured I was missing something.

    GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment or chain letter? This is left as an exercise for the reader.


    Efficiency 3, 50% duty cycle. SMP friendly. Alternate two of them slowly with an rp2 sequencer for a steady 120 EU/t.
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…=1j10101001501521s1r11r10

  • So what effect does the constant feed of ice have on my reactor? It seems to be cooling the internal components very well but is not allowing me to run the reactors with a longer on time percentage. That was my intention, to see if it were possible to increase my run vs off time through ice feed.


    Another thing I just noticed while playing with that other reactor program. No matter what config I make, when I add ice, the generation to cooldown time ratio remains the same. I add ice and say 2 blocks per second and it calculates my generation time being about 50% greater, but the cooldown time goes up 50% as well. No matter what options I pick, my Generator "on" time remains at 2.5%. This is confusing. I'm not sure about this program. The values are very confusing, glitchy and don't make sense. I think the program itself is malfunctioning.

  • So what effect does the constant feed of ice have on my reactor? It seems to be cooling the internal components very well but is not allowing me to run the reactors with a longer on time percentage. That was my intention, to see if it were possible to increase my run vs off time through ice feed.


    Another thing I just noticed while playing with that other reactor program. No matter what config I make, when I add ice, the generation to cooldown time ratio remains the same. I add ice and say 2 blocks per second and it calculates my generation time being about 50% greater, but the cooldown time goes up 50% as well. No matter what options I pick, my Generator "on" time remains at 2.5%. This is confusing. I'm not sure about this program. The values are very confusing, glitchy and don't make sense. I think the program itself is malfunctioning.


    You don't understand how Ice works.


    Every second your Reactor ticks and produces almost 1200 Heat in your scenario. If your Hull-Temperature is over 300 a block of Ice will evaporate reducing the Heat by 300. You say you produce 2 Ice-Blocks per second. This means two things.


    First you design only has one free slot, meaning it could only store one block effectivly reducing the cooling to 300 Heat per Second, this isn't enough against 1200 Heat per second. You need at least 4 Blocks of Ice every second and 4 free slots.


    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…=1m10101001511521s1r11r10


    Just use this and feed it 6 Blocks of Ice per second. If you only have 2 Blocks of Ice you need something that creates less then 600 Heat per second so try this


    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…m10101001511221s1r1323010


    (I actually placed the iceblocks and the maximum level of heat you will reach is 30 :P No idea, why it states 17mins working time under general info, but also says it will never go boom under more info). But just try to get rid of additonal parts, since the ice is only cooling the hull not parts inside. So they may still get destroyed, just produce slightly more Ice and use this:


    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…=1m10101001501521s1r11r10


    Saves you all the parts and should work with 2 Ice-Blocks per second if you are able to send in a third ice-block every 30seconds (so producing 2,05 Ice-Blocks per Second should be enough).

  • heh, just had a play with your 1560 EU/t design. Entertaining. It'd take a LOT of pumps and compressors to make enough ice to feed that baby!

    GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment or chain letter? This is left as an exercise for the reader.


    Efficiency 3, 50% duty cycle. SMP friendly. Alternate two of them slowly with an rp2 sequencer for a steady 120 EU/t.
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…=1j10101001501521s1r11r10

  • So what effect does the constant feed of ice have on my reactor? It seems to be cooling the internal components very well but is not allowing me to run the reactors with a longer on time percentage. That was my intention, to see if it were possible to increase my run vs off time through ice feed.


    Another thing I just noticed while playing with that other reactor program. No matter what config I make, when I add ice, the generation to cooldown time ratio remains the same. I add ice and say 2 blocks per second and it calculates my generation time being about 50% greater, but the cooldown time goes up 50% as well. No matter what options I pick, my Generator "on" time remains at 2.5%. This is confusing. I'm not sure about this program. The values are very confusing, glitchy and don't make sense. I think the program itself is malfunctioning.

    Reactor is heating up at 1200 heat. This is reduced by the ice with 300 so every sec 900 heat is added to the reactor. The problem is the components cant simply keep up with that and they heat up slower than the reactor which makes it possible for the reactor to go boom before even a component has melted.

  • take an small look to my first link provided in my signature.


    it might help you alot, it is an 1820 EU/Tick reactor i set up.
    look at the second for an more advanced version.

    right, time to get serious...
    i wil be offline for weeks and possibly months at an time. if you have anything to add to an post i made, and would like me to know. you are welcome to pm me, and i wil reply as soon as i am able to do so.

  • Thanks guys for helping me figure this out.


    So what I have discovered is that I can measure the core heat by simply watching the rate of ice consumption. Even though my reactor components were cool, the ice was continuously being consumed with no break. That means the core's heat was not being removed and it would eventually explode.


    I have managed to put together enough pumps and compressors to bring my reactor up to about 350eu/t average by carefully judging how much ice I am producing. My Ice cache is just barely growing over time, so the next step now is to continue hunting for resources so I can build more pumps and compressors.


    And I must say, having a massive underground room with about 22 pumps and 22 compressors in it with all those pipes, just to keep the reactor cool, IS REALLY COOL.


  • Yeah just stuff some overclockers into the compressors and you soon use more energy on compressing, then the reactor produces :P


    If you don't use advanced machines (the addon), but are using redpower to transport the ice, you could try building a bucket-casuc. Buckets don't stack and only reduce the heat by 250 if I'm not wrong. But they don't need energy to be produced and it is quite tricky to come up with good designs to actually cool the reactor and figure out if it is cooled enough.

  • be verry carefull when going on experimenting with an bucket CASUC.


    if i may advise you, i suggest you make an simple test setup as followed,


    replace the reactor with an chest. just any chest wil do. and try to get lets say.... 6 buckets of water be pumped in and out in 1 second. or 1 reactor tick. (just set the retrievers to retrieve water buckets.


    it is REALY dificult to make an bucket CASUC, if you dont know what you are starting, experiment on the safe side. (big explosion proof room) and start slow. say, 10 uranium cells. then slowly ramp things up til you feel you got it down.


    also, ice is cheap. real cheap to make using Equivelant exchange. just use one energy collector - relay - and condenser. the collector and relay at mk3 wil get you PLENTY of ice to ceep things running smoothly. or, use this setup to make water buckets from nothing and convert empty buckets into EMC, in turn the EMC back into filled buckets etc...


    like i said, start off easy, if you dont know where to start. your system should look like this:
    deployer (to fill buckets) - filter (extract buckets from deployer) - reactor (consuming buckets DOH :P) retrievers (pull back empty buckets to the filter) and make the rotate,


    also, if you feel like doing easy startup. i suggest to make the system as COMPACT as you posibly can. reducing the amount of buckets needed to spin the system.


    take in mind, i like to use 1 deployer for 2 buckets/second. this is REAL fast. and especialy dangerous if you dont know what you are doing. use 1 deployer for 1 bucket/sec to be safe. and ramp things up as you go.


    but beware, if you dont feel safe with your reactor. babysit it for 1 cycle and ceep measuring the heat levels, making adjustments as you go.
    to be safe, have 3 ice stacks ready in your inventory and 3 empty inv slots. (pull out 3 uranium cells and replace with ice) this should buy you the time to shut down the reactor and let it cool down rapidly using ice.


    wel, this is getting an long post. i wish you goodluck. for questions, Rick is probably your best bet since he knows an bit more of Bucket CASUC then i do.


    goodluck

    right, time to get serious...
    i wil be offline for weeks and possibly months at an time. if you have anything to add to an post i made, and would like me to know. you are welcome to pm me, and i wil reply as soon as i am able to do so.

  • Hmm... I find a bucket-casuc not that hard, because it is easier to produce more buckets as it is with Ice. And you could also easily measure the cooling rate with an overflow-chest. If you place the empty-bucket-retrievers on the same tick as the filters sending buckets. Just use 20 deployers for buckets to most likely produce an overkill of buckets. An additional retriever should be used (next to the overflow-chest) to empty it from time to time (just use a really fast timer).


    If you don't mind wasting space a bucket-casuc is far easier than an Ice-Casuc. Since it is easier to just setup an extra deployer for more waterbuckets than this is with Ice. Oh and you could use the overflow buckets to power watermills instead of using a chest, since the watermills will also empty the buckets and make them avaible for the retriever again.


    At least for an 800EU/t Casuc buckets are really easy. The 1770EU/T casuc is a bit harder, since you only have 1 second to get the old buckets out of the reactor and the new ones in, which makes timing more important.


    Quote

    also, ice is cheap. real cheap to make using Equivelant exchange. just use one energy collector - relay - and condenser. the collector and relay at mk3 wil get you PLENTY of ice to ceep things running smoothly. or, use this setup to make water buckets from nothing and convert empty buckets into EMC, in turn the EMC back into filled buckets etc...


    Actually there is no reason to create a nuclear power plant if you have EqEx.

  • true, eq ex takes back all reasons to make one.


    i only use it for pure testing purposes, try to make an timed system work etc. you get the point ;)

    right, time to get serious...
    i wil be offline for weeks and possibly months at an time. if you have anything to add to an post i made, and would like me to know. you are welcome to pm me, and i wil reply as soon as i am able to do so.