Minecraft - BuildCraft Coal Power Station

An easy-to-use coal power station in BuildCraft. Put coal in the input chests, start the pumps, and the power station does all the distribution and energy collection.

Each floor (there are 6 total) has its own system with an isolated coal circuit to ensure maximum efficiency. Coal is pumped into each floor's chest, which is then distributed evenly among each floor's 54 steam engines. Extra coal is dropped into the collection pipes, which send it back to the chest it came from (in the main distribution pipe, it drops it back down to the original chests; in each floor's system, it sends it back to the floor's chest). The engines run energy up through the collection array into the main line, which goes down underground. In this instance, it comes back up just outside the entrance and heads to a pump used as a current draw, but can be easily set up to power a lot of equipment.

Each floor also has switches to shut off the pump and each engine individually in case of overheat, although I have never gotten any of the pumps above green, even with several refineries connected.

There are a lot of optimizations I could do here, such as replace the diamond sorting system with a simple set of stone pipes (similar concept to the self-powering engine pumps). But hey, I've only been using this for less than a day.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• minecraft
• buildcraft
• coal
• power
• station
• energy
• electricity

[n00byie]

Not going to lie this build is cool to look at but terribly inefficient. You could increase the amount of coal each floor gets by using gold piping to get floor to floor, or having each floor have its own coal pumped in vise one chest for all the floors. Also, if you route your overflow back to a chest, it just recycles it through the system versus yoou having to move the overflow. With the recycling, it goes through the system until it gets used before pumping on more.

[OfficerNelson]

@n00byie The coal is already recycled. Once it goes in the chests in the front, it recycles until it gets used. It's still stupidly laggy.

[n00byie]

@OfficerNelson Ah. Hard to see. You didn't video the underground well in the darkness and it was quick. Also, what was with the sorting pipes for? Didn't really see a need for them seeing as how it was all coal- you did beifly say something about making the coal distribution even but again, i didn't see how.

My only other question is- have you ever run your plant for a long time and had anything blow up, or turn red? Not that I think steam engines blow up, provided you draw off the current.

[OfficerNelson]

@n00byie I wasn't aware that splitting a stone pipe would do the same thing as what I was doing (just had one coal per outgoing pipe so it split coal somewhat evenly). I've never had anything blow up, in fact it never even gets to green since there is so little draw (the higher the draw, the faster it heats up IIRC).

[n00byie]

@OfficerNelson I think you're right on the draw bit. Not sure and I'm too lazy to buy that Buildcraft guide for 2 bucks. I'll figure it out the hard way.

Yeah, i figured that out myself today while duplicating (to some extent) what you've done here. If you used gold pipe corners (Like I am) it speeds up the movement of coal, and it's easy to leave a redstone torch there to power it.

Before running it, did you have to let the coal saturate the engines, or did you run it and let it power up?

[OfficerNelson]

@n00byie You can just flip it on and let the coal populate, it's fast enough that it won't blow up the engines that start up first.

[TheSupaCamaMan]

@ClAyMoReAcR You have to have wooden condctive pipes ABOVE the engines, and the engines have to face up.

[n00byie]

@tictac111100

Not all engines need cooled.

[iced199]

this creates so much electricity!

[ClAyMoReAcR]

Dude Idk how but the "power" system wont work on my buildcraft everything else works perfectly but the energy just wont transport (im using engery pipes) do you have to change anything in the config or sumthing?

[tictac111100]

@101m4n all engines explode if theyr not coolened by water or turned off

[101m4n]

Jesus Christ that's a lot of power XD hook it up to a dozen or so quarries and have it fill itself, also, stone engines don't explode I don't think, and even if they did, it would be pretty easy to set up some sort of duty cycle :)