Steam Engine

Usage
Steam Engines are the second tier of engines in Buildcraft. Steam Engines can explode. The easy way to tell if they're about to explode is to look at the middle tube; Blue means its cool, Green means it's warm, Green - Orange toggle means it's beginning to get hot, Orange means that it is hot, and when its an Orange -red toggle then it means it's about to explode. They use vanilla minecraft fuels OR Equivalent Exchange fuels to operate (EE fuels can sometimes be buggy!). They also require a redstone current (Or use Red Alloy Wire from RedPower, I find it's more effective).

Steam Engines can be used to run the Quarry, but it's recommended you use 3 or more to run it. It also pumps out 16 items per pump if used to take out items from a chest. Unlike a Redstone Engine, it DOESN'T pump out items faster the hotter it gets. Using this on a Pump will pump out liquids much more efficently than the redstone engine can. It is negotiable that water surronding it may slow down heat building up. PROTIP: If you are using Equivalent Exchange, you should favor Charcoal over Coal, since Coal is worth 4x more EMC than Charcoal. So by using a Transmutation Tablet, you can trasmutate one Coal into four Charcoal, and since Coal and Charcoal will power a Steam Engine the same amount, using this process will make your Steam Engines four times more effective.

PROTIP#2: When making charcoal with the red matter furnace and putting a wooden chest next to the furnace, the produced charcoal turns into regular coal when it transfers from the furnace to the chest.

Fuels
Need help choosing a fuel? Well look no further than here! this will list its stats and how well it works; even what will happen f you put in a stack of that item.

Coal & Charcoal: Each piece equals a total of 32 pumps of the machine. That means with a full stack, it will pull out a total of 2048 pumps. Putting in a stack of this will NEVER heat up your engine to exploding point if you give a buffer time of 5 minutes after the consumption of each stack.

Sticks & Saplings: Last for a total of 3 pumps each. That means that with a full stack, it will pump a total of 192 times. Your pump will NEVER heat up from this, regardless how many you put in.

Planks & Wood: Last for a total of 7 pumps each. That means with a full stack, it will pump a total of 448 times. Your pump will RARELY heat up from this method of fuel.

More coming after i do some research!

NOTICE: This is what you get if you use redstone pipes to transfer electricity instead of directly into the device. I found this out while testing.

Video tutorial
How to make and use a steam engine f0YVSZDIOMw