A lot of people do not understand this as well. If you hook up 6 solar panels to a cable such as a tin one that can only handle ULV packets of 5 or less, it will not explode. Every solar panel is outputting 1 EU/T, they do not combine to form a 6 EU packet.
And because it's a great quote, please take Zjarek's explanation on this subject also
QuoteIn IC2 electricity is only a buzz word for small magical dwarfs carrying nanobatteries. From every energy source or storage there is one dwarf released every tick. Size of a dwarf is determined by amount of energy they are carrying. Cables are in reality just a tunnels where they run. If a cable or machine don't provide enough space for a dwarf it will get angry and blow up.
However many dwarfs are happy to run alongside each other and will in cooperation carry any amount of energy through a cable. Big dwarf will still prefer to blow up, then to split, but he can split into smaller dwarfs in transformer. Every smaller dwarf which is produced by transformer can go to the same output tunnel.
These useful little creatures are also sometimes nicknamed packets.
I think its time to put Zjarek's explanation on the wiki.
And the funny part is that will be still HAYO-ish.
the limit on the cable is the package size, e.g. a copper cable can handle the 32EU packages of a batbox but will melt with a 128EU package from a MFE. on the other side it's totally irrelevant how many packages per tick go through the cable. four batboxes could send 4*32EU packages worth 128EU/t through a copper cable and it won't melt. there is no limit on how much packages per tick can fit through a cable. the only side effect of doing so is that the cable will deal dmg to everyone close to it. glass fiber cables are the only cables which won't deal any dmg.
i think that pretty much covers everyting to know about packages and cables, except for EU loss
I'll add the analogy to the wiki.
So technically EU/t is a unit for Voltage and Ampere, which is... well as you can tell rather confusing.
So technically EU/t is a unit for Voltage and Ampere, which is... well as you can tell rather confusing.
That just means that cables are based on a wattage limitation... if the Watts get too high on either spectrum, it'll fry the wire...
May be a bit unrealistic, but technically is logical....
So technically EU/t is a unit for Voltage and Ampere, which is... well as you can tell rather confusing.
it has to be confusing if you're trying to understand apples while looking at pears 
That just means that cables are based on a wattage limitation... if the Watts get too high on either spectrum, it'll fry the wire...
May be a bit unrealistic, but technically is logical....
It's better not to think of IC2 wiring like real world electricity or else you'll end up confused. There are similarities, yes, but the laws of physics for IC2 electricity are different than real world physics so they don't function the same way. Just like Gaxx said in the post above this one, apples and oranges really.
121 mfsu discharge thru fibre glass wire to mass fabricator.
the only condition is: energy packet's size should fit the cable capacity (max eu/t and min eu/t).
if packets are bigger than cable can carry: cable explodes.
if packets are less than cable can carry: energy isnt transferred thru the cable.
Okay, thanks all !
I understand, the limit is only the package size of 512 EU, but you can emit unlimited Packeges (With more parallel generators or bat or ...)
Okay, thanks all !
I understand, the limit is only the package size of 512 EU, but you can emit unlimited Packeges (With more parallel generators or bat or ...)
Yes, and through the proper use of transformers, cable loss can (in most cases) be reduced to 0 or almost 0
Yes, and through the proper use of transformers, cable loss can (in most cases) be reduced to 0 or almost 0
One can also use energy storage devices to eliminate energy loss as well as increase the amount of energy storage you possess.
For example, if you have a distance of some three hundred squares, you can simply space MFSU's every 40 blocks with fibre cable between them and you'd have no energy loss AND quite a bit of energy storage. Kind of expensive on the diamonds, though. Using copper cabling and spacing batboxes every four squares would be more copper intensive, but it would work as long as the original input is LV.
Do packets still "bounce" if they find no place to go?
