Why not allow steel in the recipes for EU transformers? It’s allowed in other recipes, and in real life I think steel is at least as suitable for transformer cores. It would be convenient since often I’ve turned all my normal / wrought iron into steel or other alloys. Maybe a similar change could be done for recipes like LV dynamos that use magnetic iron, too.
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Wait what Recipe are you talking about and is that Material you are complaining about even part of the Transformer Core?
I am talking about the step-up / step-down transformers for EU, like ULV-LV, LV-MV, etc. They all require a machine casing, wires (any copper up to MV-HV, annealed copper for HV-EV and higher), and two double iron plates, which can be one of various types of iron like normal iron, wrought iron, pig iron, cast iron, meteoric iron, and so on but does not accept any steel like steel or meteoric steel. I interpreted the recipe components to correspond with the windings and core that a real life transformer would have, and since steel has a carbon content intermediate of normal iron and pig iron, it makes sense “lore-wise” for steel to be a valid material for such a core.
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wait it SHOULD accept steel, i think i mightve messed up if not.
and fixed it indev
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Thanks Greg. What about allowing magnetic steel rods to be used instead of magnetic iron rods? Such as in LV dynamos or LV small electric motors
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No steel should not be used for transformer cores. Either silicon steel (special kind of steel that can be used in transformers cores) or just iron. There is some info: +https://www.quora.com/What-happens-if-a-transformer-core-is-made-of-steel-instead-of-iron
Basically steel has more hysterisis and therefore is not suitable for use in a transformer, but can be used to make permanent magnets. In a transformer you want something that will magnetize and demagnetize easily when you stop applying current.
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The part about magnetize/demagnetize easily is true but imo its about not generating opposing force when you magnetizing it the other way so less heating and efficiency loss
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I see, but then wouldn’t cast iron (currently a valid material for the recipe) be also unsuitable for transformer cores? And according to those quora answers and wikipedia it’s not just “plain iron” but soft iron, which is annealed iron. In gregtech where there’s no real annealing process I guess that could just mean forcing use of wrought iron (which is not wrought either). Personally I would be fine with that since there is a real-life justification and it’s only a small hassle to keep some wrought iron plates around.
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Well I guess it does not matter that much but I wanted to add some opposition to the argument that steel would be just as good as I heard somewhere that steel is really not good as transformer core, electrical steel should be used instead. Also gregtech has electrical steel, but it seems its not used. @Gregorius maybe you should add electrical steel instead of normal steel.
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