Solar panel factory tutorial?

[Cougar281]

Does anyone know of any good tutorials for making a solar panel factory? I've been googling and youtubing, and there are some neat ones out there (Sblat's HV Array factory is cool), but the problem is, every one I've found uses EE Condensers. The server I play on has EE disabled, so they won't work, and I've been having all kinds of trouble trying to adapt something to work.

I've managed to get something working... sort of.... but the problems I've encountered are: Distribution of materials; I know how to send materials to specific destinations, but how about sending the same materials to multiple destinations in a specific amount? for example, each solar panel needs 1 refined iron for each circuit, plus 8 for the machine block for the generator. I've tried setting up separate runs for the crafting of the machine blocks and circuits, but the problem is getting the materials to 'balance' between multiple destinations. I've tried sending all the refined iron to a chest and then having multiple ACT's around the chest pulling from it, but the problem there is I'll end up with a billion circuits and no machine blocks. Similar issue with redstone and insulated copper cable for the circuits and re-bats. With BC pipes, you can set a pipe to send x number of items down each path, so I could set a path to the circuit bench to get 2 refined iron while the one for the machine block gets 8. I don't believe there's anything like that for BC pipes.

Another problem I've found is the ACT MkI's don't work right with Filters. The filter will pull out of the crafting space regardless of which side it's on (I've tried top, bottom and all 4 sides). Another problem is the ACT MkII's inventory doesn't work like a chest. Each row is filled from a different face, so it's very easy to fill up the inventory and have production halt. This is especially problematic for the last step where you could have a ton of glass & coal dust, which could prevent circuits and generators from entering. I've tried piping in multiple sides but had issues there as well. To add to that, apparently, the MkII can't pull from a chest like the MkI (If it could, that would solve the inventory issue).

What I'd like to make is something that if I give it the base materials (Copper Ingots, Iron Ingots, Redstone, Tin Ingots, Resin, Glass, Cobble, Coal) that are initially created using UU-Matter (that's a different assembly line that I've been able to make, although horribly sprawling and inefficient; If someone's made something similar that's nice and efficient, I'd like to try to duplicate it), it'll fab the panels automatically. Extending that all the way to HV Arrays would be neat, but making HV Arrays from stacks of panels is far less tedious than making stacks on stacks on stacks of panels to make the arrays.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[progrendon]

distribution pipes will send specific numbers of items to the place selected and what i use when i am trying to make automated factories

[Cougar281]

distribution pipes will send specific numbers of items to the place selected and what i use when i am trying to make automated factories

Except those are BC... IDEALLY, I'd like to avoid using BC as much as possible.

[LazDude2012]

Wait for RedPower pr6; Eloraam added the equivalent of Logistics Pipes into RP2.

For now, though, to control item distributions, regulators are your friend.

And yeah, you really should use BC auto-crafting. Then you can use relays to put the items into your pneumatic tube network.

[progrendon]

personally i'm not very familiar with ted power but i'm trying to use it in my new world so its something i am going to learn but a sorting system is top of my list

[BurningCake]

Wait for RedPower pr6; Eloraam added the equivalent of Logistics Pipes into RP2.

Source? I'd love to see any sort of upcoming features list or the sort for the next RP2 release.

[progrendon]

they have some cool stuff like sortirons i think there new and theres some managers and my source is direwolf20 on youtube hes doing a server play with the developers inc eloram

[racingpro]

I'd think that the best source would be Direwolf20's Season 3 SMP LP. I'm still on Season 2, but I know that they have a beta copy of RP2 for 1.3.2

Edit: 'd

[rossb654]

ted power? can we now make electricity with our teddy bears?

[progrendon]

yea its a crafting recipe you have to make needles and combine them with draw plated wool to make a knitted teddy bear then you plug the blue alloy wire in the back and when you "hug it" right click you get power if you put it in your bed you get tons of power (lol my bad typo)

[rossb654]

Ah. I see.

[BurningCake]

Ah. I see.

I hope you didn't just take him seriously...

[rossb654]

Nope hehe

[NetherApprentice]

yea its a crafting recipe you have to make needles and combine them with draw plated wool to make a knitted teddy bear then you plug the blue alloy wire in the back and when you "hug it" right click you get power if you put it in your bed you get tons of power (lol my bad typo)

Seems legit?

On topic: as Lazdude said wait for Tekkit to update

[Portablejim]

Source? I'd love to see any sort of upcoming features list or the sort for the next RP2 release.

No feature list that I am aware of. (From what I can tell, Eloraam is secretive about her development).

As others have said, Direwolf20's videos are where the information on new features are coming from (as well as some streamers). The reason for this is they (quite a few devs + hand-picked few) are playing on a server with the development version of the mods to test them out. There have been cases where somebody points out a bug or a feature and later that day everyone on the server updates the mods to discover the bug fixed.

<shameless plug>

You can find information about what is in direwolf20's videos (including when he talks about new features of mods) at a wiki I set up.

</shameless plug>

[Sacrieur]

Sounds like you have a logistics problem on your hands.

[LazDude2012]

<another shameless plug>

Even a halfway finished world is more beautiful when viewed through the lens of JohnSmith Technician's Remix.

</asp>

[Jorcer]

<another shameless plug>

Even a halfway finished world is more beautiful when viewed through the lens of JohnSmith Technician's Remix.

</asp>

I don't see what this has to do with anything in this topic.

[Sacrieur]

I just thought about it and figured most of your problems could be solved if you used a RP2 computer to control it all.

[LazDude2012]

It was another shameless plug. But for helpful information, you can use Buildcraft temporarily, and to protect from overflows, use a loop with insertion pipes.

[Maximus930]

A computer might be more compact and ultimatly less expensive, but you can just have timers make the ratios. one transposer pulses every eight seconds, while another pulses every second.

[Kmartinator]

A computer might be more compact and ultimatly less expensive, but you can just have timers make the ratios. one transposer pulses every eight seconds, while another pulses every second.

Ooo, building on that idea, you have those transposers set to pull from a refined iron chest (you'd want the ratio to be 1 machine block to 2 circuits though, right? since it takes two circuits and one machine block per panel?). That refined iron chest would be fed by a filter pulling from your input chest, set to pull only 10 refined iron at a time. That way, you can leave the machine automated without worrying about, say, 7 refined iron getting in, resulting in 7 circuits and zero machine blocks over time. I imagine you could set it up similarly for all the materials, right? It might not be a bad idea to use filters set to the right quantities rather than transposers, but maybe that's not a huge concern.

Also, on the supply side, I haven't tried it just yet, but I think it could be viable to set up a giant auto-recycler to make scrap boxes and use the items from those to make your raw materials. The ratios of the chances to get the materials you need are pretty low, but it looks like you can get items that can be crafted/processed to get you all the items needed to make panels. No EE required!

EDIT: The idea of suggesting the scrap box route was because of the rather high amount of iron required with how little you get for your UU. Maybe there's a super amazing compromise between those two?

[Torezu]

EDIT: The idea of suggesting the scrap box route was because of the rather high amount of iron required with how little you get for your UU. Maybe there's a super amazing compromise between those two?

Super amazing compromise: Make tin instead of iron with UU. Process it, make buckets, run it through an alloy furnace. Voila! 150% more iron! It does add some steps to the factory, though.

[Kmartinator]

Super amazing compromise: Make tin instead of iron with UU. Process it, make buckets, run it through an alloy furnace. Voila! 150% more iron! It does add some steps to the factory, though.

Oh yea! And speaking of alloy furnaces, you can feed that bad boy the minecarts from the scrap boxes to turn to iron, and you could feed sticks into the fuel slot (since scrap boxes make lots of sticks). Wooo mod interactions!

[vScourge]

To the OP, you can use a Retriever next to an auto crafting table. If the Retriever is set to default "AnyStack Sequential" mode, it will cycle through the materials you put in its inventory, and only move to the next if it can pull that amount from somewhere upstream. This basically gives you the same ratio control as a BC distribution pipe.