[Question] Artificially limiting power transfer

Reznoriam · Mar 5th 2012

I'm looking for methods to artificially limit the amount of total power transfer from a source to a destination so that the power transferred through a particular channel doesn't exceed a particular amount (say arbitrarily 5EU/T).

The reason for this is I have a machine that's capable of eating vast amounts of power with very little result which the creator of the mod says is by design. The problem is it's consuming vast reserves of power while not actually doing anything which is essentially making the machine check for work to do about a bajillion times a second. I can feed this machine 5-10 eu/t (currently by setting up a separate and isolated power grid) and it will perform just fine because it doesn't have that much work to DO most of the time. The goal here is to hook this machine up to my main power grid without having it drain millions of EU just to see if there's any work to be done.

NovaEona · Mar 5th 2012

I don't know if you're looking for a pure-IC solution (no idea if so), but if you're using or can use Redpower, you could set up a tube link between two batboxes(or MFEs, or even MFUs) carrying 1+ batteries(or crystals). By varying the timings and/or numbers of energy carriers, this could give you a lot of control over how much power gets to the system; in this way it would technically be on a separate circuit, but drawing power automatically from the main one. You could set up a similar system with Buildcraft too, but you'd have less control. With either, avoid building the system across chunk lines; rarely tubes and pipes will drop items on edges as a chunk loads or unloads.

If you want your machine to draw a little power when checking for work, but then a lot when it actually has work, is there a way you can monitor its output to see when it's actually working or not? If you could do that, you could mix the above system with an EU-Splitter cable; trickle-feed it power from batteries when idle, then open a direct connection if it detects work is actually being done. If there's no way to detect when it's out of work to do, you could hook it up to a redstone or (preferably) redpower timing system.

FenixR · Mar 5th 2012

A pure IC solution its sorta difficult, requires some math and will probably make you waste 27EU per tick for that 5EU tick you want to send. (If we are talking about conexions with Batboxes and similars only, its easier to do if you connect some low output generators to the machine like windmills/solar/water)

bbqroast · Apr 8th 2012

Transform the power into LV and feed it through a BatBox? Then use a splitter cable feeding one half the the machine and the other to a MassFab. That's 16EU/t.

2weirdy · Apr 10th 2012

If you can deactivate the machine with redstone, use a redstone clock. Otherwise you have to use a splitter cable, with which you also need a redstone clock. With a basic pulse type clock, you get roughly only half the amount of EU consumption as usual.

Zudguard · Apr 11th 2012

Hi all

I think i may be able to sort this one out to make it nice and simply, as long as you have the redpower2 mod.

no need to use more than one batbox.

So the setup is a standard batbox with the redstone setting on "never emit energy when redstone is applied".

you then connect it to a not gate so that most of the time a redstone signal is applied thus stopping the flow.

Connected to this not gate you use a timer so that when it provides a signal, the batbox is allowed (momentarily) to emit a few EUs then stopped until the timer comes round again. To adjust the EUs that are emitted just change the length on the timer. A quicker timer will give the batbox more chances (per sec say) to emit EUs and a slower timer will reduce EU output.

Some trial and error is required, but I think this might be a good way to do it. You have a nice regular EU output (compared to slowly transferring energy crystals), and is fairly simple.

you could do this without redpower2, however it would be harder to calibrate the timer to get the required EU output.

Just a quick thankyou to people who come up with these types of ideas. I love bending my head round these issues.

bbqroast · Apr 11th 2012

Quote from Zudguard

Hi all

I think i may be able to sort this one out to make it nice and simply, as long as you have the redpower2 mod.

no need to use more than one batbox.

So the setup is a standard batbox with the redstone setting on "never emit energy when redstone is applied".

you then connect it to a not gate so that most of the time a redstone signal is applied thus stopping the flow.

Connected to this not gate you use a timer so that when it provides a signal, the batbox is allowed (momentarily) to emit a few EUs then stopped until the timer comes round again. To adjust the EUs that are emitted just change the length on the timer. A quicker timer will give the batbox more chances (per sec say) to emit EUs and a slower timer will reduce EU output.

Some trial and error is required, but I think this might be a good way to do it. You have a nice regular EU output (compared to slowly transferring energy crystals), and is fairly simple.

you could do this without redpower2, however it would be harder to calibrate the timer to get the required EU output.

Just a quick thankyou to people who come up with these types of ideas. I love bending my head round these issues.

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It may be easier to calibrate. One torch = 1 tick, a torch will be on for 1 tick fuss a five clock would emit power 1/5 ticks (32/5 = 6.4EU/t).

Zudguard · Apr 11th 2012

mmm, true. However the timer in rp2 can be adjusted by ticks as well (.05 of a second), however the fastest you can get is .2 second timer

GregoriusT · Apr 11th 2012

Quote from Zudguard

mmm, true. However the timer in rp2 can be adjusted by ticks as well (.05 of a second), however the fastest you can get is .2 second timer

10 ticks per second, that's every 0.1 second or 100ms but the RP-Timer has a physical minimum of 200ms (one tick for ON and one tick for OFF).

Just to throw in a few facts.

Zudguard · Apr 11th 2012

Sorry Gregorius, there are 20 ticks per second.

"Minecraft's game loop runs at a fixed rate of 20 cycles per second, so one tick happens every 1/20th of a second. An in-game day lasts exactly 24000 ticks, or 20 minutes."

straight from the minecraft wiki.

also, if there were only 10 ticks per second the solar panels would only produce 6525EU per day, not the 13050 they well and truely do. (assuming there isn't any rain to lesson production)

I know full well what I am talking about here, having done numerous calculations using EUs and energy production.

Ah, I found what you were refering to with the 10 ticks a second. redstone repeaters minimum delay is .1 of a second, (or a 1/10 tick as they say in the wiki). As it is I think my 20 ticks a second still stands.

bbqroast · Apr 21st 2012

Quote from Zudguard

Sorry Gregorius, there are 20 ticks per second.

"Minecraft's game loop runs at a fixed rate of 20 cycles per second, so one tick happens every 1/20th of a second. An in-game day lasts exactly 24000 ticks, or 20 minutes."

straight from the minecraft wiki.

also, if there were only 10 ticks per second the solar panels would only produce 6525EU per day, not the 13050 they well and truely do. (assuming there isn't any rain to lesson production)

I know full well what I am talking about here, having done numerous calculations using EUs and energy production.

Ah, I found what you were refering to with the 10 ticks a second. redstone repeaters minimum delay is .1 of a second, (or a 1/10 tick as they say in the wiki). As it is I think my 20 ticks a second still stands.

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Indeed, people always seem to assume the number is ten for some reason :(.

GregoriusT · Apr 21st 2012

Quote from bbqroast

Indeed, people always seem to assume the number is ten for some reason :(.

That's, because the minimum length of a Redstonepulse is 1/10/tick, and the Wiki is not very helpfull by determining the amount of Ticks per Second.

Buster Bunny · May 2nd 2012

A very simple way, lol.

Generator -> 27 Uninsulated HV cables -> EUEatingGayassMachine =p

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