Boiler randomly stops working

[Mykepatch]

Hi

I'm trying lazy accomplishment, and I've got a basic electricity stuff, plus an assembler and my laboratory. While crafting necessary stuff, the boiler suddenly and randomly stops working so I don't have electricity any more and everything stops working the same!
I just make the boiler turn twice with R key and it works again, and then stops after a while, and so on.
Is this a known bug or is there any reason? I've never had this problem!

I saw the ratio was 1pump/20 boilers/40turbines... I put up to 6 turbines for 1 boiler and it worked well... Is there something I missed?

[KatherineOfSky]

A screenshot would help us diagnose your problem. 6 turbines for 1 boiler is too many. You need 1 boiler for every 2 turbines.

Is the boiler running out of coal, or water?

[Mykepatch]

screenshot

[KatherineOfSky]

Press Alt to see detailed mode.

Edit: Agreed with Khan's assessment below -- the pump may be off by one tile.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Yeah, the boiler's input is one tile above the output from the pump. Relocate the pump one tile up (pressing alt would have shown you this).

[DCYW]

probably running of coal

[DCYW]

are you making anything in that assembly plant?, looks like you stopped researching tech for some reason. Make some red scipacks for that tech youare researching.

press ALT key to see what you producing

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by Mykepatch:

...

I saw the ratio was 1pump/20 boilers/40turbines... I put up to 6 turbines for 1 boiler and it worked well... Is there something I missed?

If your power draw is very low, then all 6 turbines will spin and produce power. However, once your power draw ramps up, you will notice that only the first two turbines are getting any steam.

This is akin to your gear assemblers (or any others really): If you only need a few gears, then iron will get to all of them. However, if your gear demand spikes, then the first few assemblers will use all of the iron, leaving none for the remainder of the line.

[Mykepatch]

Sorry, It was time to eat by here...

Here is another screenshot with alt

As you can see on the first one, there is enough coal.

Everything is at the right place I think, because I just press R twice on the boiler, and it simply works again normally. The boiler pushes out some steam right the first time I press R, but it's not in the right direction then. So I press R once more to get the boiler correct, and it works fine.... for a short while, from 15 seconds to one or two minutes, and stops again producing...

Edit:
But I must say that the pump one tile upper got it working fine.
I don't understand why it functions randomly when not correctly placed!!!

Thanks for your replies everyone!

[DCYW]

Resources are missing when making red scipacks (iron gears and copper plate) smelt some copper plates then transport them to assembly plant (if you do not have any gears make another assembly plant for iron gears requires 2 iron plates), then let that coal burner inserter grab scipack for that tech to carry on researching

[DCYW]

your pump is not connected

[piccolo255]

Originally posted by Mykepatch:

But I must say that the pump one tile upper got it working fine.
I don't understand why it functions randomly when not correctly placed!!!

Oh, but it doesn't!

You've said in the OP that when you turn it twice it starts working for a while. Try it again with information layer turned on (the <alt> key toggle) to see what happens!

-----
Answer:

When you rotate it 180 degrees, the water input on the boiler will line up with the pump, and the boiler will fill with water.

Next, when you turn it another 180 degrees to reconnect the steam pipe, the water input will disconnect again.

The boiler will work until all of the water already in it is turned to steam, and since there is no new water coming in, it will then stop. With full demand this would last only a fraction of a second, but it can take a while if your electricity demand is very low, like in that screenshot.

[Mykepatch]

OK, thanks for your patience, I would never have imagined that!
Well, everything's ok now. I'll be more careful next time with connections .

Thanks again!