Hand Crank Generator - or HCG for short - implements a simple hotkey based power production entity. It is intended to be a tutorial for modding beginners, but also fits well into modpacks with delayed electricity availability.

CC BY-ND 4.0 (Factorio license applies to factorio assets)

As of June 2025 this mod is in the public domain under The Unlicense regardless of what any of the old files say.

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Factorio Mod Portal
Factorio Wiki

Bug reports are preferred on github or the mod portal. If you just have some comments you can also leave then on the mod portal.

The mod is based on a joke on the official IRC channel. At the time custom hotkeys were brand new! While being updated to every major factorio version the mod was already mostly feature-complete in 1.x. Initially you would really get only a single HCG, with no way of building more, and with no way of picking it up again after placing it somewhere. It was already too damaged from the crash to be transported further! Or so says the lore. These restrictions confused many people into thinking the mod was broken. Starting from 2.0 the HCG behaves like any normal entity. You can craft as many as you want once the recipe is researched, and move it around to your hearts content. But you still get one free from the brand-new-but-already-destroyed Factorio 1.0 anniversary spaceship!