Hobbyist's Steam Engine

The Hobbyist's Steam Engine is an engine from Railcraft. This machine is used to create Redstone Flux, also known as RF.

Usage
This engine requires a redstone signal, and a supply of Steam to operate. The internal tank holds up to 4000mB of steam, and when full the engine will use 10mB of steam per tick to generate 20RF/t. Alternatively, a slot will accept solid fuel, and a second internal tank can be filled with 4000mB of water to build the internal temperature up to 500C. Once the temperature reaches 100C the engine will start to produce steam. Fully heated to 500C it will produce sufficient steam to keep the internal steam tank half filled and 16RF/t.

Adding water to a hot and dry engine will cause it to explode. If it runs out of water, to avoid an explosion, it should not be refilled with water until it has cooled down below 100C. The internal energy buffer will fill up to about 80000 RF over time allowing the engine to continue outputting RF for a while after it runs out of steam. Leaving it running with nowhere to output power will fill this buffer faster, and make it malfunction when the buffer reaches capacity. Breaking and replacing the block fixes the malfunction, losing all energy, steam, and heat in the engine.

The Hobbyist's Steam Engine has a fuel efficiency of 1.5 - Fuel will burn 50% longer than in a Furnace. Once heated up, each unit of Coal will produce 38,400 RF, but there is a startup penalty as the Engine heats itself from 20C to 100C so the initial piece of coal produces only an effective 31,000 RF. Additionally, the engine delivers its power very slowly when heating up.

While the Hobbyist's Steam Engine nominally generates 16 or 20 RF/t, it actually delivers the energy as packets of 160RF.

Minecraft Joules
Prior to Minecraft version 1.7, the Hobbyist's Steam Engine generated Minecraft Joules (MJ), producing 1.6MJ/t when generating its own steam internally, or 2.0MJ/t when supplied with 10mB of steam per tick.