Wireless power
Fit a Tesla Module to a Voltaic Cell and power every machine around it with no cable, step by step.
The problem#
An engine only powers what touches it. Once you have a room of machines (an ore line, a row of Ecotones, a rack of Distillers), you run out of faces to put engines against. The Tesla Module fixes that: the cell reaches out to every machine inside a box you choose, so the machines can sit anywhere in it.
You will need#
Crafting Table
Crafting Table
Plus an engine, or several, to fill the cell, and the machines you want to power.
Step by step#
- Place the cell near the middle of your machines. The box is centred on the cell, and starts at its largest.
- Power the cell. Put an engine against the cell with its front touching it, or against any face of the cell set to take FE. Cells take FE on every face except the front by default. Fuel the engine; see Choosing an engine and fuel.
- Fit the Tesla Module. Open the cell, go to the Upgrades tab and put the module in the Tesla slot. The Configuration tab gains three rows: Show area, Area and Offset.
- Turn on Show area. The box is drawn in the world as an outline, so you can see which machines it reaches.
- Size the box. The Area row has one stepper for each of the three directions, from a single block up to 9. Each click grows or shrinks it on both sides at once, so sizes are odd. The start is 9 by 9 by 9.
- Move the box. The Offset row slides the centre away from the cell, up to 4 blocks in each direction. Put the cell in a corner and shift the box over the room.
- Place or move the machines inside the outline. A machine takes up to a second to be noticed, then starts charging.
- Turn Show area off when you are done.
What it powers#
- Every machine that accepts FE inside the box, including those from other mods. Enthalpy's processing machines take FE on every face, so there is nothing to set on them.
- A formed Ecotone counts without a port set to Input, as long as its controller is inside the box.
- Not other Voltaic Cells; they are skipped, so power cannot bounce between two. Not engines, which only make power.
How much it can carry#
Everything the cell sends shares one limit: the tier's transfer rate. The charging slot goes first, then the faces, and what is left is wireless, split evenly across the machines in the box. A machine that is already full hands its share to the others.
| Cell | Transfer | Stored | Lanes of the same tier it keeps working |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base | 1,000 FE/t | 1,250,000 FE | 50 |
 Tempered | 2,000 FE/t | 2,500,000 FE | 50 |
 Fortified | 3,000 FE/t | 3,750,000 FE | 50 |
 Luminous | 4,000 FE/t | 5,000,000 FE | 50 |
 Harmonic | 6,000 FE/t | 7,500,000 FE | 50 |
A cell keeps pace with machines of its own tier: the same number of lanes at every tier. Machines carrying many modules draw more than their tier alone, and a crowded box can ask for more than one cell sends. Two answers: raise the cell's tier, or use a second cell with the boxes placed apart so they do not overlap.
Only machines that are working draw power, so a box of mostly idle machines costs very little. The store behind the limit also matters: a base cell holds 3,125 s of one base lane's work, which is the margin an engine outage leaves you.
Pitfalls#
- A new machine takes a moment. The cell looks for machines about once a second. If a freshly placed one stays dark, wait, then check it is inside the outline.
- Machines at the edge. A machine counts if its block sits in the box. Turn on Show area and check against the outline, not by eye.
- The faces go first. A machine touching the cell's front is served before the wireless share. With little power, that machine gets more than its neighbours. Turn off Auto-output on the cell if it should serve only wirelessly.
- The cell is only a store. It sends what it has. If every machine reads Charging, the engines, not the cell, are the limit. See Troubleshooting.
- Redstone stops it. A cell switched off by its redstone setting sends nothing.
- A cell is not an engine. It cannot charge itself or another cell.