Weird dreams, great ideas

Ok, sorry for the quick update, byproduct of a random mind in a hellish speed thanks to too many hours toying with Minecraft...

Anyway, I was making automatic factories in my new base, in a new world, and enjoying the speed you can build stuff with Equivalent Exchange installed (the destruction catalyst allows me to make a room in the mountain quite quickly ^^), when I realized something (two somethings, actually... One being that I need the rotary macerator from the IC2 Advanced Machines' addon XD). That something was that a solar power station is not enough to cover my hunger for energy, so nuclear power should be harnessed! However, Mark 1 and Mark 2 reactors are too bad at producing energy at the levels I want it, so... I want to make a Mk III. And that means a reactor that needs babysitting... theoretically.

Let's have a look at a screenshot I made with a small circuit as a proof of concept, shall we?

You can expand the image, by the way XD.

I'm using Redpower 2 here, the parts that didn't changed much (if at all) from 1.7.3. You can see a big, glowing block, that is a placeholder for the nuclear reactor. The rest? Two clocks, a toggle latch and a counter.
The idea behind the contraption is to make a clock that will activate and then deactivate something for a given amount of time, once every X time. In the screen:

• Clock connected to green cable ("long Clock"): this marks the time between activations, for example once every 30 seconds it will tick.
• Counter connected to a clock, a green cable and a white cable: the counter is connected by the substraction side (set at "2") to the long clock using the green cable, this acts as resetting. The white cable blocks the short clock from ticking (unless the counter is "reset"), and the adding part is directly connected to the short clock (maximun count: "2").
• Clock connected to counter and white cables ("short Clock"): This one activates and deactivates the target device by moving the setting of the toggle latch twice.
• Toggle Latch: this keeps the device on/off.

How does this works?

It's simple, really, if you have trouble understanding this is because I'm bad at explanations (I always got blamed for the missing cookies...). First, the long clock ticks, moving the counter's powered side and thus liberating the short clock. Then the short clock does one cycle and ticks, moving the Toggle Latch's powered side, which in this situation will stop sending redstone current (and allowing the nuclear reactor to start producing power for a full cycle of the short clock); the second tick of the short clock will take the counter to a position where it blocks the short clock from ticking, and at the same time it changes again the Toggle Latch, returning everything to the starting position.

Option two: I found this on the official Industrialcraft 2 forums here.

Obviously, I am NOT the author of this one, and it has a really clean and streamlined distribution (also, I have tested it and it works). The way it is settled, the upper clock is sets the time the reactor will be "on", and the lower clock will set the time it is "cooling down".

I also found an interesting java app that allows to test the time of your reactor's disposition. Again, in the official forums of IC2, in this thread, but you can go directly from here (I'll add soon a link in the sidebar).

My next project will be an attempt to exploit Equivalent Exchange capabilities to allow for an endless (and safe) BC2's Combustion engines power plant.

Ah, on a sidenote, I published a video a few days ago with how to make IC2's solar plants now that you don't need to use the solar flower disposition. Here you have it for reference.

See ya!