Powering a Laser Drill to the max

[Flextt]

Hey guys,

I am currently trying to fully power (or increase its input MJ for starters). Unfortunately, my Fusion Reactor is in a chunk-loaded Pocket Dim and for lag reasons, I would like to put it somewhere else.

Long story short: I would like to fully power my Laser Drill by Energy Tesseracts. For some reason, these suckers pull way too low amounts of MJ / t as opposed to their theoretical limit of 80 MJ / t, when they are connected with the Prechargers by Conduits. As a sidenote, the Precharger requests 1000 MJ / t, the Tesseract consequently requests 80 MJ / t, but the conduits only send less than 10 MJ / t.

However, if I do not use Conduits and bury a Precharger in Tesseracts, they all request 80 MJ / t and it works nicely.

Unfortunately, these circumstances mean, the theoretical limit of energy transfer is 400 MJ / t. (Precharger has 6 sides, 5 can be covered), while the Conduit limit is 500 MJ / t. Furthermore, this has some ugly implications for the effectiveness of my wiring. Does anyone know, what I am facing here and can provide some insights?

[TokiWartooth]

actually the pull 100 mj/t output they can actually take in ~120 per side input and have 100 output I think I would need to see your setup to really help, oh and just because it requests a value doesen't mean thats how much it can actually use or needs to max out, (see fusion reactors requesting 200mj runs fine on 50.)

[Digdug83]

Conduits are almost certainly not your problem as they can transmit up to 3000 MJ/t (unless you changed something in your config file). The tesseracts are the problem unfortunately. Tesseracts can only accept 100 MJ/t input per face for a total of 600 MJ/t into the 'system' as it were. Outputting is a different matter and can be configured in the server files but by default it's 500, which makes sense for your math as there's a 20% loss to use the tesseract in the first place. I would advise increasing the output limit to some ridiculous number (I use 10K). As for input I would look over your power production and make sure that you have enough tesseract faces accepting power so it's not being wasted.

I've typically found the most reliable way to measure machine power draw is to use the multimeter on a non-input/output piece of conduit and look at how much of the network saturation is being used to power the device (assuming you have only one device being powered). My prechargers accept 150 MJ/t according to this method.

[Flextt]

Conduits are almost certainly not your problem as they can transmit up to 3000 MJ/t (unless you changed something in your config file). The tesseracts are the problem unfortunately. Tesseracts can only accept 100 MJ/t input per face for a total of 600 MJ/t into the 'system' as it were. Outputting is a different matter and can be configured in the server files but by default it's 500, which makes sense for your math as there's a 20% loss to use the tesseract in the first place. I would advise increasing the output limit to some ridiculous number (I use 10K). As for input I would look over your power production and make sure that you have enough tesseract faces accepting power so it's not being wasted.

I've typically found the most reliable way to measure machine power draw is to use the multimeter on a non-input/output piece of conduit and look at how much of the network saturation is being used to power the device (assuming you have only one device being powered). My prechargers accept 150 MJ/t according to this method.

This. Although I have now covered my prechargers with 20 energy tesseracts w/o conduits and the MJ consumption seems to be roughly okay (as precise as a 5 digit number each second gets).

The interesting thing though: My large Turbine setup feeds 14 RECs (1 per Turbine) into only 2 faces of a Tesseract. When I use Conduits, taking your advice makes sense and might explain the lack of actual power transmitted, because they are not the only consumer but one out of many.

Using no conduits however, it doesn't make sense, why they would successfully request and transmit a higher MJ amount by factor 10 when compared to the conduit use.

[Digdug83]

What's requesting 10x the power, the tesseract or the precharger? Like Toki said above those readings aren't necessarily accurate, especially on non-TE machines. The multimeter is a TE tool so I wouldn't trust it to measure anything outside of that mod, but that's just me.

How long does it take your drill with the 20 tesseracts to produce one ore (assuming it still requires 300 work to produce one)? Have you compared that time to using one tesseract and conduits?

[Flextt]

The Energy Tesseracts each request 80 MJ / t but the Conduit inputting into the Precharger only sends less than 10 MJ / t, measured via Multimeter. I am unsure if I measured right and how the discrepancy can exist

[Digdug83]

Alright so I did some testing. Please bear in mind that my tesseracts are configured to allow 10,000 output (not default value) and operate at 0 loss (not default value) as I'm lazy. The following tests are time based and determine how long it takes a laser drill (I have 6 foci in there but I don't think it matters, in any event they were always present) to produce one ore given that it requires 300 work (default value) to do so.

The first test was using 4 prechargers connected to one tesseract via separate redstone energy conduits, with each one connecting to a different face. Time: 1' 25"

The second test was using 4 prechargers connected to one tesseract each with no redstone energy conduit. Time: 1' 25"

The third test was using 4 prechargers connected to 5 tesseracts each with no redstone energy conduit. Time: 1' 36" (there was a delay between when I started the test and when the drill started receiving power for some reason)

The fourth test was using 1 precharger connected to 5 tesseracts each with no redstone enegy conduit. Time: 8' 20" (extrapolated from 30 work as it took 50 seconds just to get to that level)

So as far as my testing can discern it doesn't matter how you hook them up so long as you have the actual power to use them. I still maintain my 150 MJ/t rate although I'm going to test my network saturation theory with some of the TE machines in my processing room to be sure as they have clearly defined power requirements on their interfaces.

Edit: Huh, redstone conduit is reading correct distribution rates for the furnace, smelter and pulverizer. I guess it's 100 MJ/t on the precharger after all, unless there's some kind of difference between the mods.

[Flextt]

I now reworked both my turbine wiring and my laser setup. In this setup, the Laser finishes an ore in about 26 seconds.

there was a delay between when I started the test and when the drill started receiving power for some reason

I think it has to do with the 200 tick waiting period, if the prechargers do not get some work to do.

Edit: Huh, redstone conduit is reading correct distribution rates for the furnace, smelter and pulverizer. I guess it's 100 MJ/t on the precharger after all, unless there's some kind of difference between the mods.

Yes, in my new setup, I can confirm the 100 MJ /t intake with 2 outputting conduits on 2 different sides per tesseract and 1 inputting

The rednet cable hides the precharger setup a little bit, but as said above: 2 outputting conduits on two tesseract faces, one inputting underneath each LDP. The inputting sends 100 MJ / t according to multimeter.

The turbine setup, while overkill for an overall constant production of ~ 80 MJ / t with 4 turbines per tesseract, can easily output 400 MJ / t per Tesseract on demand, since 4 faces are used as inputs and the RECs are set to 100 MJ / t output.

Thanks for the great help, this really streamlined my base powermanagement which I have had some issues with!

[Digdug83]

Wait, 26 seconds per ore? That shouldn't be possible.

[Flextt]

Well, the Laser shows it has an internal storage maximum of 100k MJ. Judging from the energy levels in my RECs after each ore, it seems to be around 200k MJ per ore.

==> 200k MJ : (4 LDP * 100 MJ / t ) : 20 t/s = 25s

[jakalth]

26 seconds? sounds about right to me. Dumping 518Mj/tick into a laser drill setup, through tesseracts, and that's about all the time it takes for each cycle to finish. Using 5 tesseracts to send the power into the prechargers, on 5 separate tesseract frequencies.

[Digdug83]

That doesn't make sense to me then. 3 of my tests had basically identical times and I know I have enough power output (3520 MJ/t). What the hell lol.

Edit: Huh, now I get one every 26ish seconds. My tick rate must have been way down when I did those earlier tests. *shrug*

[jakalth]

Outputting power to the laser drill seems to be a bit hit ad miss at times as well. Even with constant power input they vary quite a bit in power transfer. Probably due to how quickly they are trying to move the power around through their gui.