Self Sustained Coal Power Plant

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So im at the coal stage of development. And i have this idea. What if i put down a coal miner, a water pump and a coal generator, hook it all up together, and then jumpstart it with a couple small solid fuel generators. Then i remove the small ones from the system, will the coal generator sustain itselt?

I mean i get it, this is a perpetum mobile type of scenario and it shouldnt really work, but this is a game after all, so ...

And yes i tried it already and it looked like it was working at first, but when i left it for a while and then came back it wasnt working anymore. And i cant figure out what causes it to shut down, it could be that pump stops working for some reason. I have no idea. What am i doing wrong?

[festivneer]

yes it will work. and there are several possible reasons for it not working:

1. do you have pipe line pumps before any inclines in the pipeline?
2. is your coal miner able to keep up with demand?
3. did you overload the grid?

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3. No, they are not connected to the main grid, i did it for science so they are standalone to eliminate this factor exactly

2. Its feeding with a miner mk2, and belts mk3, from a rich coal node, and yes its a massive unefficient overkill but i did it just for testing because i wanted to overclock the plant to max and see how much will it consume/produce. So no, its keeping up with coal just fine.

1. Yes and no, the plant is somewhat higher above the pump, but it still fills it up even without the help of a line pump. But i added the line pump later, cause im new to the pump aswell and i was wondering if the line pump increases the flow/pressure in the system or not.

So its the line pump isnt it?

[Shriker]

Yes, I have 6 self sustaining coal plants in my build right now served by one tractor from my coal mine so using MK3 belts is more than enough to keep up with the coal.

When you left it for a while and it was no longer working, click on the plant and see what it's missing. It can only be missing two things, water and coal so if one of those is empty, and it pretty much has to be if it stopped working, then that's your problem.

If both are full, then you've somehow overloaded the system and the breaker turned off.

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Yes its clearly a water issue. Here's how it goes. I jumpstart the system, the pump starts spining and doing its thing, but when the generator's water tank is filled the pump stops, to save up on power i guess, cause no more water demand in the system atm. As the generator is working it drains the water from its tank slowly, but the pump doesnt seem to care anymore. It doesnt want to keep it full at all times from what i see. Wierd.

[Mister Fabulous]

A picture would help if possible.

How many generators, how many water extractors, how are your pipes connected, how high above your extractors are your generators, what is the power demand? When you open the generator after it's shut down, which resource did it run out of?
EDIT: late post, see it's a water issue. Another question, does the extractor start back up at all? What is the water flow at the pipe exiting the extractor and what is the flow at the pipe(s) entering the generator(s)?

Pumps increase the height water can be moved up, they do not increase the flow rate. Extractors have a head lift of 10 meters which is measured from the output pipe. There is no indicator on what the actual lift is from an extractor like there is on a pump. A pump adds 20 meters to the lift from the bottom of the pump (I've been told). Head lift is not cumulative. Building 2 pumps right next to each other on a pipe will not give you a head lift of 40 from the bottom pump.

And yes, if a building does not need to produce anything because its output lines/belts are full, it will not run.

[Weaver]

Originally posted by |||||||||||:

So im at the coal stage of development. And i have this idea. What if i put down a coal miner, a water pump and a coal generator, hook it all up together, and then jumpstart it with a couple small solid fuel generators. Then i remove the small ones from the system, will the coal generator sustain itselt?

I mean i get it, this is a perpetum mobile type of scenario and it shouldnt really work, but this is a game after all, so ...

And yes i tried it already and it looked like it was working at first, but when i left it for a while and then came back it wasnt working anymore. And i cant figure out what causes it to shut down, it could be that pump stops working for some reason. I have no idea. What am i doing wrong?

It does work, it is standard, it's the entire point of coal (and further) power, fully automated systems. If you are having issues, it's due to your math. A coal generators at 100% needs 15 coal and 45 water a minute. A water generator pumps 120 a minute. Pipes can carry 300 water a minute. These are the numbers to pay attention to.
So to being with, assuming you have a miner set up and feeding coal, 1 water pump can supply 2(2.6) coal generators. Above 6 coal generators (270 water, so 3+ water generators needed) you must make sure there isn't a single pipe bottleneck between the water generators and the coal generators, otherwise it will strangle your water supply. Beyond that it is just a matter of coal mining.
And if everything becomes completely backed up with no power use out, then yes, everything will just stop till some sort of demand is introduced.

[Dark Phoenix]

It will work as weaver said, but i would reccommend leaving a biofuel genny connected in case of accidents that cause a lack of resources.

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Update.

I have no clue why it didnt work before, i torn it all down rebuilt it from scratch, hooked up and doublechecked everything. Fired it up again and now it works like a charm.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2127504049

Work is still in progress but the first gennie is up and runing. Im planing 6 generators on each side. 1 pump for every 3 generators. Overclocked the pumps by 13% to meet the water requirement of 270 for every cluster of 3 generators.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2127508791

Im happy how it all came about, soon to be a sweet power plant and a mass coal production facility 2 in 1. Btw this place has 4 coal nodes, 3 rich, 1 normal, and a lake right next to them.

[Falaris]

A mine mk 2 with conveyors mk 3 will feed the coal plants with 240 coal per minute.
A coal generator uses 15 coal per minute at full capacity (which it usually will not run at).

So you can run 16 (15*16=240) coal power generators with your current setup, for a total of 1200 MW. That's probably overdoing it a bit though, and you will usually want a healthy chunk of coal for steel.

The challenge is to supply them with enough water, in particular if there is a bit of an incline.

In reality this is not a perpetum mobile, because it usually means a small, self-contained system with no outside (like coal mines) input. Still, in-game, it's a permanent, self-replenishing energy source, and it is a major step forward to get that sorted. No more harvesting leaves and wood, jay!

[Lil Puppy]

I have a lake right next to my base location, the nearest coal is 1km away in every direction... are there other power generation options besides annihilating all the greenery?

[phillip_lynx]

Originally posted by Lil Puppy:

I have a lake right next to my base location, the nearest coal is 1km away in every direction... are there other power generation options besides annihilating all the greenery?

Later :)
Oil driven
Geothermal driven and
Nuclear driven.

[Hakase]

Originally posted by Lil Puppy:

I have a lake right next to my base location, the nearest coal is 1km away in every direction... are there other power generation options besides annihilating all the greenery?

It is not so far! Make a truck

[Mansen]

Originally posted by Lil Puppy:

I have a lake right next to my base location, the nearest coal is 1km away in every direction... are there other power generation options besides annihilating all the greenery?

Truck or longbelt.

[Beric01]

Originally posted by Mansen:

Originally posted by Lil Puppy:

I have a lake right next to my base location, the nearest coal is 1km away in every direction... are there other power generation options besides annihilating all the greenery?

Truck or longbelt.

Or, just find a lake near a coal source and avoid the transportation.

[archmag]

Originally posted by |||||||||||:

Work is still in progress but the first gennie is up and runing. Im planing 6 generators on each side. 1 pump for every 3 generators. Overclocked the pumps by 13% to meet the water requirement of 270 for every cluster of 3 generators.

There seem to be some mistake here. I use 150% overclock to support 2 fully overclocked generators. 120*1.5=180. If you want to use one pump for 3 fully overclocked generators you will need a pump working at 225%, not 113%. Unless you wanted to say 130% extra but missed a zero. Then it will be correct.

Originally posted by |||||||||||:

And yes i tried it already and it looked like it was working at first, but when i left it for a while and then came back it wasnt working anymore. And i cant figure out what causes it to shut down, it could be that pump stops working for some reason. I have no idea. What am i doing wrong?

Maybe you linked the water pump to extra power source that you used to jump start the generators and then when you turned it off you also turned off the pump.