Changing Gears
Just alone having components rotate is not enough. Sometimes more control over the speed of rotation is necessary. This is especially important for machines that require a minimum level of speed to operate (e.g. the Mechanical Mixer). To make this possible, some kinetic blocks have the ability to speed up or slow down connected components:
Cogwheels are not only useful for relaying rotation, but also serve as a simple way to control the speed. By attaching a large cogwheel diagonally to a regular sized one, as seen below, one can double/half the speed of the other.
Powering the large cogwheel results in the smaller one turning at double the speed
Powering the small cogwheel results in the larger one turning at half the speed
The Adjustable Chain Gearshift, when used in combination with encased chain drives, gives finer control over speed than cogwheels. It can increase input speed for attached chain drives, or decrease output speed of shafts connected to chain drives.
While acting as an input, the Adjustable Chain Gearshift will increase the speed of attached encased chain drives based on the analog redstone signal it receives. A full power of 15 will double all chain drives' speed while values below will interpolate the factor from 2x to 1x.
While acting as an output, the Adjustable Chain Gearshift will decrease the speed of connected shaft. A full power of 15 will half the speed and values below will interpolate the factor from 0.5x to 1x.
When unpowered, the chain gearshift will not affect the speed at all and behaves like an encased chain drive.
While having a more expensive recipe, the RSC also has the finest control over speed change. When a large cogwheel is attached to the controllers top, it will try its best to keep it spinning at the speed configured in the scroll field. When holding down shift while scrolling, the speed will increase/decrease by 1.
Connecting faster components to other slower components directly will cause the faster network to overpower the rest, aligning the speed of the component network (that is, if the direction lines up).