I'm kind of new to AE so there may be a simpler way to do this but what I think everyone is referring to is putting "one dust = one silicon" on a pattern, and then putting that pattern in the "processing" slot of an ME interface block that is connected to any type of furnace. What then happens is whenever you request silicon the system sends dust to the furnace and smelts it. If you have an import bus also attached to the furnace, it then puts the resulting silicon back into your AE system.
I really wish I had the LUA skills to pull off a bit of Direwolf style turtle/computercraft magic but I simply do not.
That would be perfect though. If I could LUA, I would have a master computer controlling everything and displaying everything on to a monitor in my base and then exporting it onto an Excel spreadsheet which was emailed to me hourly so I wouldn't even need to login to enjoy FTB.
Sweet, sweet data.
Don't beat yourself up. AE specifically does not do well with the task you want to do. "Keep exactly N items in system" or "keep exactly 14 things in this" or "conditionally check to make sure there are 4 coal in the furnace if it's not on". AE can't do any of these tasks well.
Also, as someone else pointed out, you want to level emit the furnace itself rather than the import bus. This will shutoff the furnace immediately.[DOUBLEPOST=1377701852][/DOUBLEPOST]