Category:Shaft Power

Shaft Power is a way to transmit kinetic energy between devices, generally used in power generation setups.

Shaft power can only be transmitted along the x and z axis, there is no way to transport shaft power vertically.

Blocks with Shaft Power interfaces

• Generator - allows conversion from shaft power to electrical power (and at 75% efficency, from electric power to shaft power)
• Steam turbine - converts steam (up to 7.2B/s) to shaft power
• Gas turbine - burns fuel to create shaft power (up to 80mb/s) - can't start at slower than 400rpm (you need to use a 3.2kV feed to start the shaft up to speed)
• Joint - allows connecting devices together in a line
• Joint hub - allows connecting devices together in any x/z direction
• Flywheel - stabilizes the rotational speed of the shaft by introducing A LOT of potential energy (all shafts have some potential energy).
• Tachometer - allows one to monitor the rotational speed of the shaft by converting a range of speeds to a signal from 0v to 50v.

It is worth noting that there is some "lag" to the steam turbine's response due to the interta on the steam turbine being 4x more than the gas turbine. It is not advised to limit shaft rotational speed or voltage with input fuel/steam alone on a lightly loaded steam turbine, but it's typically alright with a properly configured rheostat/generator combination, or a very well calibrated PID.

Trivia

• Shafts will explode at 1,000rad/s
• Generators and Turbines will sound different at different rotational speeds and loads
• Shafts tend to start rotating slowly, and increase rapidly once above 400rad/s, depending upon the style of turbine you select. Be prepared for some interesting performance curves, depending upon your input turbine style
• Flywheels will cause your shaft to begin rotating very slowly. Be prepared to dump lots of power into the generators to start shafts with flywheels
• When removing a device, the shaft will not change speed, but if you add a device, it will instantly set the rad/s to 0, for all attached shaft devices
• While all devices have mass, the Flywheel has 100kg, and most other devices (joints, generators, turbines, tachometers) have a shaft mass of 0.5kg by default
• The steam turbine has 4x more intertia than the gas turbine. If paired correctly, they can provide stable voltage and power to a base.