Storage Cells, Magmatic Engines and Management

[H4RV3Y]

Hi all. I have Google'd this, I've seen a few FTB threads (which didn't help) and seen a few Youtube Videos but couldn't see the answer.

I have a simple setup where a nether lava pump feeds a few magmatic engines into two storage cells that feed my machines/quarries etc. What I'd like is when the second storage cell in series hits half full, the engines turn on, and when the first cell in series gets half full, they turn off.

http://imgur.com/a/99R6s

The first image is the storage cells, the right one is the first in series and obviously the left is the second.

The second image is the Magmatics on the floor above.

The third is the Rednet cabling that I use a manual switch to turn off/on.

Firstly, I appologise hugely if this is a simple answer and I should have seen it but I did try to locate the answer on my own and even tried some testing a singleplayer environment with no luck.

Thanks.

[jakalth]

cobblestone pipe + gate. Place this in contact with the energy cube and change it's first setting to detect the level of energy in the cube(half full for example), then the second to output redstone signal when the first is met. Not sure how to use this to control the engines the way you are talking about... Not very good with redstone circuits... something about using a toggle latch to switch on when first one sends a pulse, then off when second one does. How you go about a toggle latch in tekkit I do not know...

[weirleader]

If I'm understanding what you're looking for, you might take a look at this thread. We discussed exactly that issue, with somewhat different on/off criteria, and it was enough to get my system set up in that way. I think there's a latch explanation in there somewhere, but if you find you need more info let me know.

[H4RV3Y]

Thanks for the replies.

Weirleader, the link was awesome and gave me 99% of what I needed. I'm at work atm so can't figure out the rest until I get home. The only thing that I'm unsure off is the type of gates I need to make. I've never made 1 gate yet or even have a assembly table built yet so will be a learning curve, I'm going to export my server into single player and play about with it tonight. My head logic says that:

If #2 Storage is 1/2 full

then power = on :: System is generating power

If #1 Storage is 1/2 full

then power = off :: System is draining power

This way, my system should always have 600000MJ of power available.

It should also be easily expandable by adding more storage units in the middle of these current 2 and leaving the gates as is - each storage cell would then add a further 600000MJ of buffer.

[weirleader]

yeah, it's not too complicated. And I think they may have been the most basic gates... but my memory is hazy and I don't use gates that often myself. If you have trouble, just drop another comment here.

[H4RV3Y]

Had a play and couldn't get it to work. I hadn't realised I needed a Rednet Controller box thing, added one in single player and my brain exploded.

If I do need one, could you screenshot your set up for me please? There were no pictures on the previous thread.

I got it to work to some extent, the second always stays full, the first seems to activate when it gets to 0 and the engines turn on for a brief second then off again straight away.

That is using just 2 gates, the ones that are just "Gate" but obviously powering the engines for a second isn't ideal.

[plowmanplow]

This is my solution for cycling combustion engines: http://imgur.com/a/91Qme

Since combustions have to cool to zero degrees before they can be turned on they have to be "cycled" by a PRC. Magmatics, which have no cycle time, can just be controlled directly by the gates on a redstone energy cell (REC). However, you can easily setup magmatics with the same design I use for combustions.

[weirleader]

Here's what I have: http://imgur.com/a/v4cId#0

[H4RV3Y]

Weirleader, you've been amazingly helpful. Thank you! I've set my system exactly like yours now so hopefully it will work. I'm in the middle of quarry'ing so can't see if it works yet but will test. Thank you so much for the help and the screenshots really helped a lot.

[H4RV3Y]

Just a FYI regarding my problems with managing power.

I never got the gate version to work and just resigned to it constantly pumping and using lava. The gates just never managed to turn the system off, even after identically matching the one you posted.

However

I recently upgraded my server to 1.1.8 and decided to look at the problem again and actually found a fairly cheap, simple system to manage my power system.

I want to share it here in case anyone has had the same issues as myself, additionally, I know there are some awesome coders about here and thought any feedback would be awesome.

The image gallery is here: http://imgur.com/a/wt8Lj#0

The way it works is a computer using open peripheral checks the power level of the REC every 10 seconds and if it is under 100k, turns the system on, if the system is above 500k it turns the system off. Simple.

The code for it is:

local rEC = peripheral.wrap("bottom")

while true do

sleep(10)

local mjStored = rEC.getEnergyStored()

mj = tonumber(mjStored)

  if mj<100000 then

    rs.setOutput("back",true) -- Power On

  elseif mj>550000 then

    rs.setOutput("back",false) -- Power Off

  end

end

[Fyrst_Igor]

Cool.

Myself i use gate, doesnt demand the same strain on the server to have gate than computer programs running on forever loops, i think dont know.

I have a setup where i have 50 magmatic engines running, putting power into 10 REC, recently upgraded from 10 engine and 2 REC, but the system is the same. It doesnt work with half full or half empty, cause the gates cant test for that, they have only "battery empty" "can store power" "battery full" or atleast mine does.

But all my engines and my lave pumps all turn off when my RECs are full, and when just 1 can store power, they all start up for a split second until the power have been restored, it works, its reliable and easy to setup.

[H4RV3Y]

I didn't want it to do that as an AE system constantly draws power form the system, and I would have thought that magmatics constantly starting and stopping would cause more lag.

[cmwatford]

Just wanted to point something out. If memory serves, running cells in series is somewhat inefficient as you loose power with each hop through the conduits. That may have changed at some point though.

[Fyrst_Igor]

Conduit have no loss, so no.

I have an AE network besides my magnetic engine, u just gotta make more power than u consume. But my magnetic engine can run with out AE network, so they dont consume anything to have running.

Dont think them starting and stopped does anything, cant see any change in preformace when they do. But dont know, mb they do.

[H4RV3Y]

is the while loop the best way to loop the program? I'm not very clued up on programming LUA so wasn't sure on the best option for it. Any help there would be appreciated, maybe I should ask that over on the CC forums. :-)

[Fyrst_Igor]

Im not used to LUA programming, but in other launguages, it doenst matter much what kinda loop u use, when its only a small program, u cant feel the differens.

But i think the while is pretty good though, cause it will keep itself running, where as other loops u would need some kinda goto command to run through the loop again.

[jakalth]

Having a computer program loop doesn't have the same draw as say redstone , since the program just runs while with redstone it has to render which uses many times more resources to do then just simple code. As long as you include some type of relay or sleep between cycles so it's not cycling at the clock speed of the computer, but instead say, once every few ticks.

[H4RV3Y]

I have it on a 10s sleep timer.

[Fyrst_Igor]

Nice to know, guess im gonna switch it all out with programs when it starts lagging.

[jakalth]

Well, gates seem to run on the same idea as a computer, but you don't need to program it. They just are not as versatile as a computer. It's basicly on or off with a gate.