Power Generation and Distribution

[Dewfire]

I have 15 Bio Generators connected to my energy conduit network with Energy Cells spaced through out, but not In line, to power pretty much everything. My problem is, when I start intensive power drain on my grid, the generators all sit idle and say no energy is requested, however all the energy cells are being drained.

Is there some logic in the way the Generators and Energy cells work that I'm not aware of? I've even configured many of my systems to have a backup Energy Cell powering them and a direct line into the the grid. But with an Assembly Table running 12 lasers, 3 quarries and all the machines processing the ores coming in, all my generators are just sitting there hanging out while all my cells get drained until things just stop working.

Too much to sum up in a screenshot, but if any further details are needed please ask. I'm just frustrated at this point reconfiguring my power grid and not seeing anything happen.

I even placed an empty energy cell directly connected to a Generator, and nothing happened. *yes I made sure the input/outputs were correct on the conduit*

[TokiWartooth]

sorry but this is one of those things that need to be seen to be fixed, I can't think of any reason it wouldn't work in the setup you have described, however all you need to show is the generators to the REC's as that seems to be the problem site.

[jakalth]

Energy cells can be funny at times... But their oddness can usually be to your benefit.

Probably a dumb question, but do you have separate input/output conduits on those cells? Also, have you tried running some of the power through parallel conduits(not connected to each other) to lessen the load on them?

Not sure if there is a limit to how much power you can push through a conduit. I know there is a limit to the volume of flow in a liquiduct... I do know that you can push at least a total of 2 million Mj of power through an interlinked chain of conduits, with 4 outputs, in about 2 minutes. Have not tried more Mj then that.

Oh, have you changed the input/output values of the energy cells themselves? They default to 100Mj/tick out, 50Mj/tick in. So if your power demand is more then 50Mj/tick, and you haven't adjusted this, they will run out of power faster then they are refilled. You might even want to run the energy cells in pairs for the higher demand hookups.

[Dewfire]

I have changed the input/outputs, and I have maxed the In/outs on the Energy Cells as well. I have also run conduits in parallel to eliminate any cap the Cells may impose with the 100 m/j limit. Using a Multimeter the saturation is only at 4-5%, so I can't be capping the conduit out.

If I directly connect things to the network, and remove the Energy Cells all together, then the Bio Gens still sit and pulse power and all the stuff hooked up to it flashes on and off... I'm going to draw up a diagram later and post it on how I have everything laid out. I'm thinking the Bio Gen's may be bugged somehow.

[TokiWartooth]

I doubt it is a widespread issue, as I have run my bio gens for 100+ hours and never once had an issue like the one you are describing. Diagram may help but screenshots would be better.

[Dewfire]

See if any of these help. Tried drawing up a schematic, but just couldn't get it to turn out right.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2H2CVPoRTUdMEZYbjcwMzdnM1U/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2H2CVPoRTUdVkt2NXh4VjRoLTA/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2H2CVPoRTUdTDY3Yk14djlUcEk/edit?usp=sharing

[TokiWartooth]

ok issue #1 to test, I think this is an issue with some MFR stuff, have you tried pulling the power from the sides? If that doesnt change your issue, let me also remind you if they are glowing yellow that means they are full of energy and have no where to send it, they should be black when they are in operation. I can't see in the pictures the outflow from both generators in that setup but I assume the are orange for outflow. Also check and make sure the generators have fuel, again not sure but I only used the sides of the generators for in-out never tried to mess with top and bottom.

Edit: you may also want to do the math on your energy production versus consumption and see if you have any bottlenecks. your production seems kinda low given your storage setup im not sure though, also remember that a single tesseract can only send 100mj/t so even if it is directly hooked up it still has that as a cap.

[jakalth]

I have not had any issues with top/bottom energy output or the same with fuel, for the generators. So that much seems fine. My only other question, do you have anywhere in your power grid where 2 seperate conduit lines can somehow make a loop back? The loop back would need to be through another device other then another conduit or an energy cell. Not sure if tesseracts will do this with multiple inputs, they might. Also, are the tesseracts linked to your main feed line set to output only, or both input/output?

Redstone conduits and energy cells are smart enough to know if another conduit is trying to input or output from them. So they will not waste power in the connection. Other devices might not know this and could cause the conduits to bleed off large amounts of power from them trying to send the power backwards through the line. Rather doubt this is the case since the conduits are rather "smart" about power transfer.

You could try having an energy cell directly under each bio reactor to act as a buffer/gate to help persuade the bio reactors to output power. But this is a bit costly to do, especially if it does not help. You would want them outputting to conduits since they do not like feeding into each other.

*math* 15 bio reactors = about 165 MJ/tick @ 11Mj/tick each. 3 quarries use up to 165 MJ/tick @ 55 Mj/tick each if nothing limits their power draw(energy cell can do this nicely). 12 lasers use up to 48 MJ/tick @ 4 MJ/tick each. Plus the various machines you probably have add their own demands as well.

so with this you have:

Production = +165 MJ/tick

Quarries = -165 MJ/tick

Lasers = -48 MJ/tick

Misc equipment = -30 MJ/tick(pulverizer/powered furnace/induction furnace/magma crucible/liquid transposer/others)

Input/output = 165/243 giving you a loss of 78 +/- 20

So with everything running you lack the power to have them run at full speed. probably only enough for maybe half speed.

[Dewfire]

Hmm, thanks guys. Loop back did cross my mind. Will experiment some with the layout and add more generators.

[Dewfire]

Thanks for the math, I removed some of the redundancy I had in place and I doubled the number of Generators. Now everything seems to be working better!

I guess I had the image of the generators backwards Toki, I thought if they showed fire they were generating power, not storing it. I think the multimeter is bugged or the Gens are in how they report, because while I'm sucking all my power out, they report to the multimeter that no power is requested!

[jakalth]

Yeah, something is off a bit with the bio generators. They change textures backwards from normal, so maybe do the same with their readout to the multimeter... Yeah, in the little windows, black = producing power, flames = idle.

It's easier to just check if they are running by right clicking on them and looking at their internal power meter in the gui.

[TokiWartooth]

Generators don't request power. Ever. requested power only works on machines that have inputs, the generators don't have power inputs.

[Dewfire]

Generators don't request power. Ever. requested power only works on machines that have inputs, the generators don't have power inputs.

*Facepalm* okay, yea good point.