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[herpderp]

first, can gear assemblies handle only one flow of power at once? Say I want to power two separate machines with one waterwheel. can i connect one gear assembly to the waterwheel, and from that have two paths of axles leading to the machines - or do i have to use one gear assembly for each machine?

second, can gear assemblies(or axles) only connect to the center tile of the waterwheel?

last, does the power source for a pump stack have to be at the top? or can i route power up z-levels as well?

[Untelligent]

1) Gear assemblies can transfer power in all six directions at once.

2) Dunno, probably.

3) You can route power up z-levels.

[Skorpion]

Nope, they can power anything they're adjacent to. However, using a gear for each machine group is a good idea anyway, so you can disconnect things in an emergency. Another thing to note is that screw pumps transfer power.

Yes.

Power transfers both up and down.

[shadowclasper]

Yeah, screw pump stacks. You can do the same thing with waterwheels. Get 500 power from 1 5 tile wide section of river!

[SquirrelWizard]

with a bit of thinking and some grunt work you can even produce your own perpetual motion power plant. I'd suggest reading about screw pumps in the wiki as they explain how to set up a pump stack as it does take some careful removal of floors to make sure power does go through the stack.

for powering a stack, the power has to attach to any pump within the stack itself. As long as one pump is connected to a power source that provides enough energy, all of the pumps will be.

With pump stacks you can connect them either from the side or the top. If you try to power it from underneath, it will result in your stack being listed as hanging, which will result in the entire stack collapsing. this can be resolved by having another connection to the stack that keeps it stable (ie a gear or a wooden axle)

for pumping remember that once the power is turned on you will not be able to stop the pump unless you remove the connecting axles/gears that provide power, or you link a gear to a lever which allows you to dis/allow powerflow through the gear. this is important especially if you discover a leak in your line which can result in alot of Fun.

also with water wheels, if you do have a gear linked ot a lever, make sure that the waterwheel is supported by something else other than that gear. Otherwise when you turn the gear off you end up deconstructing your water wheel.

[herpderp]

yeah, that's what I'm trying to do. power a waterfall via a perpetual motion machine. the PMM works, but for some reason the waterwheel is not routing power to the pump stack - only to the PMM's pump. here's the setup:

Code: [Select]

S
 sg
 cvc
  vs
 ggSw
XXX w
  www
s=screw pump(input)
S=screw pump(output)
g=gear assembly
v=vertical axle
c=open space
XXX=waterwheel(open space on the right side)
w=wall

so the waterwheel is only powering the southern screw pump, not the northern one.

[Kanddak]

Oh, you did that.

Vertical axles, are, well... vertical. They transmit power up/down z-levels, not north/south.
Instead of a continuous axle spanning from the southern to the northern gear assembly, you basically have a series of upright posts stuck into the ground between the gears. You built a fence.
You need to build a horizontal axle oriented north-south.

[herpderp]

..oh.

[Skorpion]

Don't worry, it's a classic mistake, and hard to see the 'change orientation' button on the axle building screen.

A tip: Use only as many water wheels as you need. Large amounts of power affect FPS.

[Derakon]

Do you have a source for that statement? It doesn't make intuitive sense.

[SquirrelWizard]

yeah to fix teh problem use the horzontal axle and there should be an option to change axle orientation.

[Smew]

Do you have a source for that statement? It doesn't make intuitive sense.

It doesn't, but I've personally experienced it many times, I would make large(and very un-needed) power generators only to notice a VERY large drop in FPS.

[shadowclasper]

OH! SO THAT'S THE PROBLEM! Note to self, deconstruct a few of those water wheels. Say, all but 1.

[Kulantan]

The problem is probably that they check each step if there is flow under them to determine if they provide power for that step. That you be quite a FPS drain if you had too many.

[herpderp]

one more question

if the reservoir for my waterfall has flow, will that cause flooding? I couldn't figure out why I was getting flooding, then I realized that maybe using the same reservoir for both the perpetual motion machine and the waterfall isn't such a good idea.