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[DeathToGamer]

alrighty, so Im making my FIRST EVER!!! pump stack... and I have to power it some how. so I decide hey! lets try a perpetual motion scheme!

well I pull it off the wiki trying to figure out a little of it through research and I get it so my pump is built and I build one of the water wheels then BLAM! the entire room floods... luckily I had for some reason built a door closing this section off from the rest of the world!


i head fed the room from a river if that makes any difference, and there was a gear assembly over the channel infront of the light side of the pump (pump isnt running yet)

the other thing is that the river is 1 z-level BELOW the entire operation. Do waterwheels mess with water pressure? because last time I researched it water cant go up z levels with out pumps interference...

[gtmattz]

If you have a river, then you don't need to build a reactor.  Water from a river has natural flow, so when you built that water wheel, the pump started going, pumping water up to the same Z level as the pump.  All you need to do to power your pump stack is build some water wheels over that river and connect them to the pumps. 

Also, the reactor design from the wiki is designed as a closed system, the v shaped layout of the water reservoir is very important for proper functioning of the reactor, it is intended to be filled via a buckets.  If you have an infinite source of water on the bottom, the thing WILL flood.

[BigJake]

I'm not sure I understand your set-up here.  First of all, is the river constantly filling the reservoir?  That's what it sounds like and that'd do what you're talking about real quick.

[Argembarger]

From my own ill-advised attempts to make the water reactor I think you're referring to, yeah, if the reactor is attached to an infinite water source, it'll just flood the area around it. Lost a few dwarves that way, mostly because once the reactor starts going, it can be pretty hard to stop.

[Namfuak]

It is totally possible to fill a reactor with a river, you just need to put down a pressure plate so that it closes the floodgate feeding it when the water underneath the water wheels is at 6/7.  Personally, I kind of like that because you can set it up so that it automatically refills a little when the water starts evaporating off naturally, and I hate using bucket brigades.  Having a second floodgate connected to a lever is always a good choice as well.

[BigJake]

Sure, but once it's full the system needs to be closet or the raised water has no where to go once it falls.

[Hyndis]

Always build your water reactors in closed rooms and ensure that there is drainage so that water will not build up. A DWR is very dangerous once it gets going!

To jumpstart it use the pumps closest to the exit, on the opposite side where the water intake and drainage system is. The exit can be either stairs up, or just a simple door that will contain the inevitable minor flooding. So long as you have a drainage system so that excess water can drain away you should not encounter any problems.

[Namfuak]

Sure, but once it's full the system needs to be closet or the raised water has no where to go once it falls.

That's what the whole part about the floodgate and pressure pad were.  And the backup level-activated (or animal activated, if you are paranoid) floodgate.

[Shoku]

You don't need to cut off the source at all so long as you still have that V shape. Well, the only way to do that is a Y shape unless the source is pressurized just right to raise water up to the input from below.

General mechanical infos:
The middle tile of the water wheel blocks water, the back of the pump (lined up with those middles of the water wheel tiles) blocks water, and pressure doesn't go through diagonals. This gives us a bendy U shape body of pressurized water that can't pressure-warp anywhere. The diagonal lets it regular flow into the input though and that one tile of flow is what makes the wheels turn.

If you dug out both of the walls next to the input, built floors and walls and things so the thing couldn't lose it's water, and then jump started the whole thing with a mechanism above it linked to useful power sources it wouldn't give you any power. The pump would just be teleporting water past the wheels and that doesn't make anybody happy or even qualify as FUN.