Electric Blast Furnace

Before you Begin
The Electric Blast Furnace is a Multiblock structure. It is 3x3x4 blocks (3 long, 3 wide, and 4 high)

When building your first EBF, you will need:


 * The controller block ("Electric Blast Furnace" in NEI)
 * 16x heating coils ("Cupronickel Coil Block" in NEI, can be upgraded later with better coils)
 * 1x input bus (For inputting items and the control circuit- you'll need at least an LV one, otherwise you won't be able to do most recipes)
 * 1x input hatch (For inputting fluids- any tier will work)
 * 1x output bus (For outputting items- you'll need at least an LV one, otherwise a lot of outputs will be automatically voided)
 * 1x maintenance hatch (For doing maintenance. The controller will tell you what maintenance needs done. 5 of the 6 maintenance items are done with basic tools, while the 6th requires a soldering iron. Alternatively, duct tape can be used to fix all of them at once. If you do not have a soldering iron, you can run the EBF with one maintenance problem not fixed, but will need 3 energy hatches.)
 * 2x or 3x LV energy hatch (Each hatch accepts 2 amps. Since most EBF recipes require 120 EU/t, you will need to supply 4 amps of LV to reach MV. If you do not have a soldering iron, you will need 3 LV hatches accepting a total of 5 amps of LV.)
 * 1x muffler hatch (This affects your pollution output. It also spews smoke and looks cool while the EBF is running.)
 * 1x output hatch (OPTIONAL. This will allow you to get CO2, CO or SO2 from certain recipes, mostly from processing certain ore dusts in the EBF. The muffler hatch controls what percentage of the fluid is returned.)
 * 9-11x heat proof machine casings (number depends on whether you have 2 or 3 energy hatches, and whether or not you have an output hatch)
 * 4x or 5x LV generator of choice (Keep in mind that the EBF consumes a LOT of power, and will need to run for hours at a time. Make sure you have enough infrastructure set up!)

Building your EBF
Once you have all your materials, you can start building!

Keep in mind that while the EBF can survive rain just fine, the generators or battery buffers that power it DO NOT and will explode in the rain.

DO NOT build your EBF over chunk borders. Press F9 twice to display the chunk borders in a green wireframe. Multiblocks built over chunk borders are prone to deforming or exploding.

The total size of the EBF is 3x4x3 (3 wide, 3 long, 4 tall)

Bottom Layer

Start by placing down your controller. It goes in the front middle of the bottom layer.

After that, your input hatch, input bus, output bus(but NOT your output hatch, if you use one), your maintenance hatch, and your energy hatches can go anywhere on the bottom layer.

Finally, fill in any gaps with heat proof machine casings.

Middle Layers

The second and third layers of the EBF are for your 16 cupronickel coils. The inside of the 3x3 should be hollow.

Top Layer

The maintenance hatch goes on the very middle of the top layer, facing upwards.

The output hatch, if you choose to use one, goes in any of the other 8 positions.

Finally, fill in the rest with heat proof machine casings.

Making Your EBF Work
Congratulations! You've now built your EBF. Next, you will need to perform maintenance, set up your EBF's power sources, set up your inputs and outputs, and then, finally, start it up.

Maintenance

To maintain your EBF, you will need to use tools on the maintenance hatch. The controller's GUI will have a list of the maintenance problems- when you first build your EBF, it will require all maintenance to be done, and maintenance problems will periodically (but rarely) pop up after that. The "Better than Duct Tape" quest has a list of all the maintenance items and what tools fix them. Open the maintenance hatch GUI and click on the slot in the center with your tool.

The "Circuitry burnt out" message is the hardest to deal with- it requires a charged soldering iron, a soldering material (a tin, lead, or soldering alloy fine wire or rod. Tin fine wire is recommended- it's very cheap and commonly available) and 10k EU from the soldering iron.

The rest are easy, and only require a small amount of durability from a tool you should be able to easily craft.

Alternatively, use some duct tape to fix all 6 problems at once.

Powering your EBF

The EBF requires 120 EU/t to make aluminium or steel. If you do not have the "Circuitry burnt out" maintenance fixed, it will instead require 132 EU/t.

Each energy hatch can accept a maximum of 2 amps, which is 64 EU/t. Thus, you will need 2 energy hatches, or 3 if you don't have all maintenance problems fixed.

When powering your hatch, use as few cables as possible. If you have more than two blocks of cabling, cable losses will deplete your power to 29 EU/t- 4 amps of that is only 116 EU/t, and your EBF won't run.

Keep in mind that you will need cables that support at least 2 amps.

You can use battery buffers to make life easier. Each buffer needs at least 2 batteries to provide 2 amps. Buffers are HIGHLY recommended for use with steam turbines, due to their inconsistent nature. They are not necessary for combustion generators or gas turbines, but can be useful.

Input and Output

Thankfully, automating an EBF is extremely easy.

Input hatches accept fluids from any pipe, or manually in the GUI using cells.

Input buses accept items from item pipes or hoppers.

Output hatches will automatically output fluids into pipes, but will void them automatically if the hatch is full.

Output buses will automatically output items into any container in front of them, or into an item pipe or hopper, but will void any new outputs if completely full.

Using and Troubleshooting your EBF
Finally. All the hard work is done. All that's left to do is check NEI for a recipe, put in the necessary items and fluid, then right-click the controller with a soft mallet to turn it on.

Many recipes require a programmed circuit- this goes in the input bus, and is not consumed in the process. Make sure you have the right one for your recipe.

Troubleshooting
The EBF runs for a while, or for only a second, and then turns off, usually deleting inputs in the process


 * Make sure you are giving it enough power. See "Powering your EBF" for details.

The EBF will not start, or flashes a green light but does nothing when turned on


 * Hit the EBF with a Soft Mallet to enable it.
 * Double check the recipe using NEI. Integrated circuits is needed together with the dust inside the input bus. Make sure you have the correct processing gas.
 * Make sure the Muffler Hatch is not blocked by another block.
 * Make sure the Muffler Hatch is facing up.
 * It could also be caused by the EBF not getting any power at all.
 * Make sure you have the proper circuit in the input bus.

Upgrading your EBF
Now that you've got your EBF running, it's time to upgrade it to make it run faster and more efficiently!

Power
Running at 120 EU/t, your EBF is at its most efficient. Keep in mind that upgrading the voltage will decrease the efficiency.

Cabling

With a functional EBF, you can create redstone alloy cables, which are completely lossless. Make a few- the minor efficiency boost will add up when you run your EBF for hours at a time.

Using an MV generator

You can use one MV generator, instead of 4 LV ones. If you choose to do so, make sure you only have ONE MV energy hatch instead of two, otherwise it will not work.

Upgrading the Voltage

120 EU/t is not enough to smelt many things, the most important one being stainless steel. You'll need to supply 4 amps of MV to reach 480 EU/t, the required energy for stainless steel. Keep in mind that running 120 EU/t recipes (such as aluminium or steel) will consume TWICE as much power at 480 EU/t.

Coils
Upgrading your coils provides two main advantages- the higher heat capacity allows for smelting certain recipes that cannot be performed with cupronickel, and there are two bonuses that will increase the efficiency of your EBF when running lower-heat recipes with higher-heat coils.

Every recipe has a listed "Heat Capacity". This value tells you how much heat you need to perform the recipe, and how much of an efficiency bonus you will get.

High-Heat Recipes

Some recipes will require more heat than cupronickel coils provide. For instance, energetic alloy requires 2200K, while cupronickel coils only provide 1800K- thus, you cannot smelt energetic alloy until you upgrade your coils.

Efficiency Bonuses

When you are above the heat capacity of a recipe, you will get two separate efficiency bonuses.

Every 900K above the heat capacity gives you a .95x multiplier to the EU/t consumed. This makes your EBF 5% more efficient for every 900K over the minimum for your recipe.

Every 1800K above the heat capacity gives you an "upgraded overclock". This allows you to run a recipe at a higher voltage, while still maintaining max efficiency.

Example- Normally, smelting aluminium with nitrogen consumes 144,000 EU per ingot at 120 EU/t, or 288,000 EU per ingot if at 480 EU/t, with a heat capacity of 1700K. If you use nichrome, you have a heat capacity of 3600- 1900K over aluminium's required heat capacity. Thus, you get two .95x multipliers and one upgraded overclock. Thus, your actual cost for one aluminium ingot would be 129,960 EU per ingot at 108 EU/t, or 129,960 EU per ingot at 433 EU/t.

Useful information
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. Put a diamond chest on the output to capture items.
 * If you add an output hatch to the top layer, you can capture output gases for processing.
 * 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.
 * EBFs can share walls, just like the BBF. They can also share input and output hatches. Energy hatches sometimes work if shared, so recommendation is to not share them.
 * There can also be more than one input hatch or bus. This way you can dedicate one hatch per input gas.
 * Large fluid cells (search for large*cell in NEI) can be placed in the input hatches to do large batches of items.
 * Because of the high pollution levels, keep your muffler upgraded to the highest tier available.
 * Do not mix different types of Heating Coils.