Industrial Arc Furnace

The Industrial Arc Furnace (IAF) is an LuV tier multiblock for extreme heating and disassembling of materials with an electric arc. The IAF is a direct upgrade from the singleblock arc furnace because it runs up to 1,000% speed, grants generous overclock factors, and offers up to 1,024 parallels. The exact bonuses depend on the tier of the electrode in the electrode hatch. Only one electrode is required but they have limited durability and need to be occasionally replaced. Additionally, electrodes below 30% durability have a 5% chance for a random arc surge and electrodes below 10% durability have a 2% chance to void items in the random arc surge. Use an electrode detector hatch to measure the current durability of the electrode and automate its removal when it gets too low.

The IAF also has an alternate blast mode and ore mode. Blast mode processes Electric Blast Furnace recipes at 16x the power cost regardless of the heat capacity required and ore mode quickly processes ore-based furnace recipes. Ore mode has a startup time of 10 seconds during which the queued ore cannot exceed the maximum capacity and there must be at least one ore entering the machine every 5 ticks. Neither of these modes are really worth it when the Volcanus, Exothermic Hearth, and Multi Smelter exist.

The IAF has no tiered components. The heating coils can be any tier and has no effect on the operation of the machine, even in blast mode. Buses/hatches may replace any solid steel machine casing anywhere on the structure. Laser energy hatches are not supported, but there can be several multi-amp or regular energy hatches for overclocking. There is no mandatory air inside the structure which makes it perfect for hiding any automation setups. Use the Multiblock Structure Hologram Projector to visualize/build the structure with subchannel "coil" to specify the tier of the heating coils.

Unique to the IAF is the electrode hatch and electrode detector hatch. The former is effectively a ULV input bus for an electrode and the latter emits a redstone signal when the durability of the current electrode is greater than the durability threshold. The signal can be inverted and the threshold can be entered as an absolute value or a percentage.

Structure

• Controller: Front center, 4th layer
• 175 Steel Frame Box
• 10-172 Solid Steel Machine Casing
• 101 Steel Pipe Casing
• 72 Bolted Naquadah Casing
• 30 Heating Coil
• 17 Blast Smelter Heat Containment Coil

• 

  15 Refined Graphite Block
• 12 Insulated Fluid Pipe Casing
• 12 Heat Proof Coke Oven Casing
• 1 Electrode Hatch: Any steel machine casing
• 0+ Electrode Detector Hatch: Any steel machine casing
• 1+ Energy Hatch: Any steel machine casing
• 1 Maintenance Hatch: Any steel machine casing
• 1+ Input Bus/Hatch: Any steel machine casing
• 1+ Output Bus/Hatch: Any steel machine casing

Wallsharing

IAFs may wallshare both substructures behind the main body to save on casings, frame boxes, heat containment coils, and buses/hatches. However, do not share an energy hatch because the startup surge and unique overclock factors would cause both machines to powerfail.

The IAF has three operating modes, listed below. Switch modes in the GUI of the controller or by right-clicking the controller with a screwdriver. Blast mode is not recommended for bulk crafting and should only be used for recipes that require a higher heat capacity than currently available. Ore mode is never recommended because it is much easier to just use the Multi Smelter or even the Forge of the Gods for the few ores that do have a furnace recipe.

• Normal - Runs arc furnace recipes.
• Blast - Runs blast furnace recipes at 16x power cost regardless of the heat capacity required.
• Ore - Runs ore-based furnace recipes with nearly unlimited throughput as long as ores are supplied every 5 ticks or less for at least 10 seconds.

The IAF is a direct upgrade from the singleblock arc furnace because it runs up to 1,000% speed, grants generous overclock factors, and offers up to 1,024 parallels. However, the IAF has a six second warm-up phase prior to processing any recipe and a six second cool-down phase after all work is complete. This temporarily halts processing to safely ignite and extinguish the arc inside the machine, but it consumes the maximum power cost during the entire warm-up phase. No power is consumed during the cool-down phase.

In addition to the warm-up and cool-down phases, an electrode is required in the electrode hatch to run any recipe in the IAF regardless of mode. Electrodes have limited durability and must be replaced occasionally, but they each offer their own unique bonuses, as seen in the following table. Only one electrode may be active at a time and it cannot be removed or swapped out while the IAF is running, or else the machine immediately shuts down and voids the current recipe. Electrodes also cannot be repaired and lack integrity at low durabilities:

• When < 30% durability, there is a 5% chance for an arc surge to occur.
• When < 10% durability, there is a 2% chance to void the current recipe in an arc surge (0.1% chance overall).

Surge refers to the power multiplier applied to the machine during the six second warm-up phase and any random arc surges caused by a low durability electrode. The throughput or speed is NOT increased during these periods so it is strictly a penalty. Surges should never cause the IAF to powerfail because the maximum power consumption is required to generate the initial arc before any recipes are processed; it is factored in at the very beginning.

${\displaystyle {\displaystyle {\text{Max EU/t}}={\text{Base EU/t}}\times {\text{Max Parallels}}\times {\text{Amps/Parallel}}\times 4^{\text{OC}}\times {\text{Surge}}}}$

The minimum power consumption always assumes the max number of parallels so it is extremely wasteful to process small batches of recipes. That is also why so many multi-amp energy hatches are required for the machine to run despite parallels never consuming more than 2A of power each.

${\displaystyle {\displaystyle {\text{Min EU/t}}={\text{Base EU/t}}\times {\text{Parallels}}\times {\text{Amps/Parallel}}\times 4^{\text{OC}}}}$

Overclock factor refers to the speed bonus with every overclock. For example, an imperfect overclock is 2x speed for 4x power (2/4) but a molybdenum electrode boosts that to 3x speed for 4x power (3/4). A few electrodes such as tungsten and tungstensteel have an overclock factor of 1/4 which does not increase the speed at all with each overclock and therefore encourages using the lowest tier energy hatch possible.

The challenge in using the IAF effectively is measuring the durability of the current electrode and replacing it once it gets too low without causing the machine to shutdown or void the current recipe. At a minimum, use an inverted electrode detector hatch to emit a redstone signal when the durability is less than the durability threshold.

The core mechanic behind this approach is using an electrode detector hatch and machine controller cover to disable the IAF once the durability of the electrode is less than 20%. An activity detector cover then triggers a swap once the machine reaches an idle state. This approach is simple, compact, and flexible. There are no significant downsides.

• Electrodes cannot be repaired in the Thaumic Restorer or Energy Infuser.