Talk:Energy Unit/@comment-128.227.98.100-20120928162402

Here's an interesting scenario. I understand that an EU packet is basically like voltage and in a way EU/t is like power and when EU/t x number of ticks, you get just EU; essentially energy. But I think we missing an important variable: current. Imagine this, you have a nuclear reactor producing EV at 2048 EU/t. You want to step it down so you put a HV transformer and step it down to 512 EU/t.

Now logically, you will see that 2048 to 512 EU/t mean somehow a loss of 1536 EU/t. Where did it go? It is explained elsewhere that transformer acts as a pseudo-storage so the HV transformer takes in 2048 EU packet and basically spilt it into four 512 EU packet and send it out. Here where it get funky; assuming that the your cpu will proccess 20 ticks/second, this means that the nuke is sending in 20 x 2048 EU/t = 40 960 EU of energy. If HV then send out the 512 EU/t then it will need 40 960/512 = 80 ticks in one second to completely drain out the stored 40960 EU.

So the transformer receives 40 960 EU in 20 ticks (in 1 s) but have to send the same out in 80 ticks which means it needs 4 seconds in real life. Meanwhile your nuke send in another 40 960 EU the next second! Something gotta give.

I used the EU meter to test the line from before and after HV transformer. Given an EV input (2048 EU/t), both input and output of the HV transformer is actually the same, even though the output should be 512 EU/t. B

The theory is that the HV transformer does send out 512 EU packet but actually at a much faster rate per tick. So in 20 ticks, the stored 40 960 EU is sent out as 512 EU packets but at 4 packets per tick. Therefore, you can either send the same amount of energy in few, big EU packets or numerous, small EU packets. This is essentially, P = IV.

The misleading part is to say that machines, transformers or cables accept certain max EU/t before it blows up. The correct way is to say that they can only accept max EU packet (aka voltage) but it doesn't matter how fast the packets are coming in (aka current). Multiple both variables and you get EU/t (aka power).