Question about the Mass Fabricator, and Eu Packets

  • So I was reading the wiki about how the Mass Fabricator, and how it works...I can't help but notice the part that mentions it exploading if fed too much energy-- Currently that's not a problem for me, I have kind of half- a--ed geo-generator setup atm. But I was thinking of adding a HV-solar array to the MF, to speed up a rather slow process. However, being honest, I'm not totally sure how Eu packets work, compleatly, save the different levels of energy there are [low, meduim, high, extream, all that.] My issue is, I'm not sure if adding the HV array, with an cable input on another face, will cause the unit to expload or not.



    So, much question is, what -exactly- will cause a unit to expload? And how exactly do packets work?

    • Official Post

    there are two things, the eu you can read with the reader and the eu packages actually fed through the cable.


    What the eu-reader reads: All eu that are passing through the cable, no matter in what kind of package it is.
    What are packages? Packages are packets of eu's. These are the things that limit the ammount of energy you can feed a machine. For example, if you feed your Massfab 2048 eu/t in the form of 4 * 512 eu/package, it will work well. If you feed your machine with 2048 eu in 1 package from an HV transformer, it will explode. That is the difference. You can feed your massfab 50k eu/t with enough HV solars, thats no problem, as long as the individual package does not exceed 512 eu.


    dk if you're good with electrics, but its like this: packages are Volts and the ammount of packages are Ampere. You may feed your machine 512 volts, but not more. But your machine can take endless ammounts of Ampere.

  • Okay, I see now. I am actually good with electrical workings, I build computers for a living. The main issue was, I didn't get what Packages were. But, just so I fully understand, each package is how much -can- go through the line, not how much is, and the Eu reading itself is the total of the energy flowing through it, is that about right? And what is the pakage size of each cable?

  • ZJAREK! I NEED YOUR QUOTE AGAIN!

    Quote

    In 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.

    Is the answer to this question no?


    Quote

    Hey don't take it so hard. Ignorance is part of this generation it seems. -the wise words of XFmax-o-l

  • ULV cable (aka tin cable) = Ultra Low Voltage: support MAX 5 EU/t packet size, best for connect low EU gain generators.
    LV cable (aka copper cable) = Low Voltage: support MAX 32 EU/t packet size, used to power most IC2 machine.
    MV cable (aka gold cable) = Medium Voltage: support MAX 128 EU/t packet size, used to cheaply connect machine with 1 transformer upgrade.
    HV cable (aka glass fibre cable) High Voltage: support MAX 512 EU/t packet size, used to connect high EU consuming machine like teslacoil or massfab, or even normal machine with 2 transformer upgrade.
    EV cable (aka iron cable) = Extreme Voltage: support MAX 2048 EU/t packet size, used to connect reactors to HV transformer or for long distance energy line

  • Cables are rated by EU/packet -- copper is 32 EU/p max, gold 128 EU/p, etc. -- details should be on the wiki pages (EDIT: or just look at the post above mine). And a cable can have effectively infinite packets in it.

  • Okay, thank you both for that, I wasn't 100% sure on which was which from how the wiki chart was setup. Alright, thanks all :3