Windmill and Glass Fibre Cables

[Tirm]

Hi all!

I'm having a frustrating issue trying to get power from my windmill to my batbox. I have 4 wind mills going on, with a length of cable around 60 blocks, reaching up above 100 on the Y, so pretty tall. I cant seem to get it to draw any power into the batbox.

Any pointers on what might be going on? Am I loosing too much power in the cables?

Cheers for the help.

[Chezzik]

Using Glass Fibre doesn't instantly prevent you from having EU loss. It just makes the EU loss that you have more manageable. The most important thing is not the cables, but how big the EU packets are. To combine many small packets into large one, just put a batbox (32 EU packets) or MFE (128 EU packets) up by the wind generators.

If you don't have a batbox up by the wind farms, then all the power is being sent in 1-4 EU packets.

Glass Fibre loses 1EU per packet per 40 blocks, rounding down. So, if a 2 EU packet is sent down glass fibre that is 80 blocks long, it will lose 2 EU during transmission, and come through as nothing. If it was a 1 EU packet, then even if it is just 40 blocks long, it will be lost.

If it goes through a batbox first, then it will drop from 32 EU packets to 30 EU packets during transmission, which isn't too bad. If it goes through a MFE first, it will drop from 128 EU packets to 126 EU packets, which is almost negligible.

[Torezu]

Use tin, put a batbox halfway up the cable. Make sure the output's on the correct side (down, probably).

[Tirm]

Batbox did the job perfectly. Although I didnt see Torezus post only Chezzik, and put the bat box near the top. I already had a load of Glass Fibre made up, so might as well use them right?

[Torezu]

Tin cable is so much cheaper that I would actually take the time to go in and replace them if I were you. Those glass fiber cables will probably come in handy later. If you've got 60 blocks of cable in place, putting a batbox on one end or the other will probably mean you're losing some power, as both tin and glass fiber cable start losing at a 40-block stretch.

[ravenbomb]

I myself am having trouble with actually getting the mills to pop up as generating. I have have them placed 1 block apart hooked up to copper cable. When I check from my perch (a cobble tower, FYI) at Y=102 (same as the mills) the windmill symbol isn't lit. my MFSU is not receiving power either. Is this a problem with the cables/ texture pack, placement, or just a bug?

[Torezu]

It may just mean they're not producing power (windmills are...temperamental), or it may mean your cable losses are too high to get any power to your MFSU. Where's it located relative to the windmills? Picture(s) might help.

[ravenbomb]

um yeah. hopefully you can see the green wire leading to the MFSU. The generating symbol is not lit in the GUI.

http://imgur.com/YTPsU

and me, standing on my MFSU.

http://imgur.com/fSNXo

[Xylord]

um yeah. hopefully you can see the green wire leading to the MFSU. The generating symbol is not lit in the GUI.

http://imgur.com/YTPsU

and me, standing on my MFSU.

http://imgur.com/fSNXo

Copper cable won't work, it loses too much power.

[Torezu]

As Xylord said, but I'll elaborate on, you'll lose all the power from those windmills before you've gone 15 blocks down, let alone the 40-50 or so it looks like. Use tin cable (ULV cable) or glass fiber, or put a batbox every 5 blocks (4 cable in between) to avoid power loss. Read this for a bit more information.