Boiler
Turns heat into steam. Sits over a fire like a Crucible does. Its steam drives a Steam Engine.
A boiler with nowhere to send its steam builds pressure, and can explode. Read Pressure before you put a valve on one.
Crafting
P P
P P P
P is a Steel Plate.
Using it
- Put it on top of a Firebox, over lava, or on a Heating Coil.
- Fill it with water: right-click it with a Water Bucket, or feed it with a Pump. It holds 4000 mB of water and 4000 mB of steam.
- Once it reaches 120 Tu, it starts turning water into steam.
A boiler needs far less heat than metalwork. It starts boiling well below a red glow, so even a modest fire runs it.
How much steam
At full output it makes 10 mB of steam a tick, using 10 mB of water. That keeps one Steam Engine running.
Making steam uses up the boiler's heat: 20 Work for every mB. A weak fire holds the boiler just at boiling and makes a trickle. Full output needs a fire about 330 Tu hotter than the boiler, so roughly 450 Tu or more. Logs (760 Tu) are plenty. If your engine is starving, the fire is too weak, not the boiler too small.
Getting steam out
There are no pipes. A Steam Engine placed touching the boiler draws steam from it directly. Put a Valve between them to cut the steam off. A Condenser can turn the engine's exhaust back into water for the pump to return.
Pressure
A boiler holds pressure in Pu:
- Steam it's holding: 1 Pu for every 1000 mB, so a full steam tank is 4 Pu.
- Heat with nowhere to go: while the steam tank is full, the fire keeps pushing and every Tu the boiler climbs past 120 adds 0.004 Pu.
A boiler sending its steam somewhere spends its heat boiling water and sits near 120 Tu, however big the fire. A shut one (valve closed, engine gone, nothing drawing) has no outlet. Its steam tank fills, and then the fire drives it toward the fire's own temperature, and the pressure with it:
| Pressure | What happens |
|---|---|
| up to 3.5 Pu | nothing |
| above 3.5 Pu | Weeping: the seams leak steam (6 mB a tick for every Pu over), hiss, and scald anyone within about 1.5 blocks for 1 heart |
| above 5 Pu | each tick there's a chance it bursts, climbing the further over it is |
| 7 Pu | it bursts |
A shut boiler on a fire at 870 Tu or hotter reaches 7 Pu. That's any coal or charcoal fire, or lava. Even a log fire gets it well into the danger zone.
A burst is an explosion that wrecks blocks around it and scalds everyone within 4 blocks for 4 hearts. Steam gets in under gloves; only Fire Resistance helps. See Hazards.
Weeping lets a little pressure off, and a boiler only slightly over the line may settle there, hissing. One on a real fire won't. The warning is the hiss and the cloud. Open the line or put the fire out.
A boiler that's merely full and idle sits at 4 Pu and weeps a little. That's harmless; it's the fire under a shut boiler that kills it.