Electric Blast Furnace (GregTech 5)

The Electric Blast Furnace, or EBF, is an industrial evolution of the conventional Furnace. It is a 3x3x4 multiblock construct, powered by electricity (EU), and allows for the smelting of more advanced materials than the Furnace.



Construction
The Electric Blast Furnace is a 4-block high hollow 3x3 box. The top layer is constructed from 8 Heat Proof Machine Casings around one Muffler Hatch. The Muffler Hatch must be facing up and must be facing an air block.

The two hollow middle layers are constructed from 16 Heating Coils.

The bottom layer is more mixed, and must contain the following: The bottom layer may also contain 1 Input Hatch, used to input fluid Oxygen gas for some recipes. The control block is crafted as follows:
 * 1 Electric Blast Furnace control block, placed in the middle of a side
 * 1 Maintenance Hatch
 * 1 or more Input Buses
 * 1 or more Output Buses
 * 1 or more Energy Hatches
 * 0-4 Heat Proof Machine Casings, occupying the space not used by the other components

There are two limitations on what materials an Electric Blast Furnace can smelt: Voltage and Heat Capacity. Both are determined by the structure of the EBF. Voltage is determined by the tier and number of Energy Hatches used. Heat Capacity is determined by what Heating Coils were used.

Cupronickel Coils have a Heating Capacity of 1800 Kelvin.

Kanthal Coils have a Heating Capacity of 2700 Kelvin.

Nichrome Coils have a Heating Capacity of 3600 Kelvin.

Do not mix different types of Heating Coils.

Usage
All Electric Blast Furnace recipes consume either 120EU/t or 500EU/t. However, the MV Energy Hatch requires Aluminium to craft, and Aluminium cannot be smelted outside an EBF. Therefore, the first time an EBF is constructed, in order to operate, its structure must contain 3 LV Energy Hatches. (Two would be enough ordinarily, but if any Maintenance problems are present, the EBF's energy consumption jumps from 120EU/t to 132EU/t, greater than the 128EU/t afforded by two LV Energy Hatches.)

Power is the most important problem with using an EBF. As it requires MV Electricity when only LV is available, it requires 5 Basic Diesel Generators, Gas Turbines, or Steam Turbines. 5 Steam Turbines consume 510L Steam/tick, equal to 34 High Pressure Coal Boilers, 17 High Pressure Lava Boilers, or one fairly expensive Large Bronze Boiler. If, however, a supply of Oil is readily available, a Distillery can easily supply enough Diesel to run a Blast Furnace.

One of the primary uses of the Electric Blast Furnace is the smelting of Iron into Steel. While the Bronze Blast Furnace can also produce Steel from Iron, the Electric Blast Furnace is much, much faster and more energy efficient. (The Bronze Blast Furnace can smelt one Iron Ingot into one Steel Ingot in 6 minutes for 4 Charcoal. The Electric Blast Furnace can smelt one Wrought Iron Ingot into one Steel Ingot in 5 seconds for approximately 20,000 EU, including Oxygen and Wrought Iron processing. Using High Pressure Coal Boilers, 4 Charcoal can produce far more than 20,000 EU.)

Another important use of the Electric Blast Furnace is the smelting of Silicon Ingots, for when Applied Energistics 2 is installed alongside GregTech, all of its circuit recipes consume Silicon Plates. Silicon Dust can most easily be acquired by electrolyzing Silicon Dioxide Dust, a process which also generates 2000L Oxygen (useful for Steel or Annealed Copper). Silicon Dioxide Dust is most easily acquired by centrifuging Glass Dust.

As with all other GregTech multiblock machines:
 * Insufficient energy supply will destroy the currently processed material.
 * When the Output Bus is full, the Electric Blast Furnace will continue to work and will destroy all newly produced items.
 * Do NOT build a multiblock machine over chunk borders. Doing so can lead to unpredictable behavior. If you have NEI installed (which you should), chunk borders can be viewed by pressing F9 (by default).
 * Before using the Electric Blast Furnace for the first time, maintenance must be performed.
 * To activate or deactivate the Electric Blast Furnace, hit its control block with a Soft Hammer.