Buildcraft Synchronized item sorter

[merocky]

The title is a little vague but i think we buildcraft junkies all know this problem. You got a Induction smelter or a macerator or anny other device wich Requires atleast 2 diffrent or the same items to start working. Hooking this up to your standerd item sorting systeem will onley cause jams and trouble, forcing you to go to your device remove the item inside so it can continue. A friend of mine came to me with this problem so i tought of a way to solve it. Here are some screenshots.

Topside view

When its in rest

When its active

How it works:
Its pritty simple.
The gates ontop of the chest all give a signal to a 3way AND gate (or for Feed the beast just a normal AND gate) meaning onley when all 3 chests got a item in it the redstone engines will pump 1 item. Infront of the chest is just a simple diamond pipe to sort the items to each chest. And at the end there is a iron chest to merge all 3 items in 1 pipe. Be aware to NOT use the autarchic gates, these pump to fast for the redstone to disable them meaning thay will pump out 1 extra item unwanted, meaning it will jam the system.

Feedback and support is welcome. Please give me your ideas how to make it better/smaller

 

[BearforceTwo]

This is the most compact version I came up with right now (basically a 2x2x2 cube with 1 spot not used), there might be a more compact one but I don't think so:

There is another Item Tesseract behind the Induction Smelter (bottom left) which is not shown in this screenshot. Both Routers have the Machine Filter upgrade. Settings are as follows:

Item Tesseract 1 (front right): receive only, frequency 1 - this frequency receives the first of the items you want to smelt, for example Sand.
Item Tesseract 2 (back right): receive only, frequency 2 - this frequency receives the second of the items you want to smelt, for example all ores which can be processed in an Induction Smelter.
Item Tesseract 3 (bottom left): send only, frequency 3 - this frequency will send all the outputs, for example ingots and Rich Slag.
Energy Tesseract: receive only, frequency 4 - this frequency will be connected to your buildcraft power source.
Router 1 (front): Insert into slot 0, machine filter set to machine.smelter.
Router 2 (back): Insert into slot 1, machine filter set to machine.smelter.
Induction Smelter: Top blue, Back orange, rest blank.
(You can obviously change the frequencies to any you want to use, they just have to be seperate)

Now all you have to do is setup a branch in your sorting system that sends all items to be processed to their respective frequencies. You could for example send all ores to frequency 2, sand to frequency 1, then have another one of these setups with frequencies 4-6 for say Hardened Glass where you send Lead to frequency 4 and Obsidian Dust to frequency 5 and the finished Hardened Glass to frequency 6.

 

[merocky]

This is the most compact version I came up with right now (basically a 2x2x2 cube with 1 spot not used), there might be a more compact one but I don't think so:
There is another Item Tesseract behind the Induction Smelter (bottom left) which is not shown in this screenshot. Both Routers have the Machine Filter upgrade. Settings are as follows:

Item Tesseract 1 (front right): receive only, frequency 1 - this frequency receives the first of the items you want to smelt, for example Sand.
Item Tesseract 2 (back right): receive only, frequency 2 - this frequency receives the second of the items you want to smelt, for example all ores which can be processed in an Induction Smelter.
Item Tesseract 3 (bottom left): send only, frequency 3 - this frequency will send all the outputs, for example ingots and Rich Slag.
Energy Tesseract: receive only, frequency 4 - this frequency will be connected to your buildcraft power source.
Router 1 (front): Insert into slot 0, machine filter set to machine.smelter.
Router 2 (back): Insert into slot 1, machine filter set to machine.smelter.
Induction Smelter: Top blue, Back orange, rest blank.
(You can obviously change the frequencies to any you want to use, they just have to be seperate)

Now all you have to do is setup a branch in your sorting system that sends all items to be processed to their respective frequencies. You could for example send all ores to frequency 2, sand to frequency 1, then have another one of these setups with frequencies 4-6 for say Hardened Glass where you send Lead to frequency 4 and Obsidian Dust to frequency 5 and the finished Hardened Glass to frequency 6.

mhhhkey... I m not that familiar yet with the routers cause i havent used the system yet. But are you sure this dosent jam up ? leaving onley 1 of 2 items in there so you need to manually pull out the item? The system i m made makes sure your device dosent jam. Meaning you can drop in a random amount of anny typ of item and still be sure your smelter pulver or w/e dosent jam up. Ill go take a look at the routers and see how thay work.

 

[BearforceTwo]

Well it can happen that it only leaves one item type in there (for example Sand if you want to induction smelt ores) but the items get put only in their assigned slot (assigned by the router configuration) - so even if there's only Sand incoming and no ores, the one input slot will be filled with Sand and the other one will be left empty (I guess by the system getting jammed you mean that both input slots have Sand for example so it does not process anything anymore until you remove the Sand from one of the slots right?) until more ores come in.

And do look at routers, they are pretty amazing since they can input into specific slots (same with the GregTech automation machines but I don't know if you use that in your modpack and routers can be more flexible without the need of power).

P.S.: Oh and if you don't want to use Tesseracts I did another setup too which you can directly hook up to BC (or any other) pipes, I can post a screenshot of that too if you'd like.

 

[merocky]

Well it can happen that it only leaves one item type in there (for example Sand if you want to induction smelt ores) but the items get put only in their assigned slot (assigned by the router configuration) - so even if there's only Sand incoming and no ores, the one input slot will be filled with Sand and the other one will be left empty (I guess by the system getting jammed you mean that both input slots have Sand for example so it does not process anything anymore until you remove the Sand from one of the slots right?) until more ores come in.

And do look at routers, they are pretty amazing since they can input into specific slots (same with the GregTech automation machines but I don't know if you use that in your modpack and routers can be more flexible without the need of power).

P.S.: Oh and if you don't want to use Tesseracts I did another setup too which you can directly hook up to BC (or any other) pipes, I can post a screenshot of that too if you'd like.

well the thing is, with this system i can make up to infinite amount of recipes without ever getting the machine jammed in anny kind of way. Since it pumps 1 complete recipe out at a time. I can copy this setup as many times as i want sorting it with diamond pipes this way i can drop anny amount of anny item in my input chest and still get complete recipes at the end. I dont see how your router setup will be able to do this. Since it can leave single items in meaning you have to manually get the item out. Also you need a shitload of routers induction smelters tessaracts in order to pull this off the right way without anny jams. The point of this system is that i can drop in 10 lead dust 22 obsidian dust i get 20 hardend glass with 2 obsidian dust still in the buffer chests until 1 lead passes by. Also right after i can put in 10 gold and 15 silver ingots to get electrum ores meaning 5 silver will be left in the 2e recipe buffer chest so the induction smelter onley produces COMPLETE recipes meaning after it stopt smelting its always empty ready for the next recipe. If thats hardend glass electrum or or something els dosent matter.

 

[Trunks9809]

Also you need a shitload of routers induction smelters tessaracts

True, but unless you're working in a very small space, its not exactly a big deal - they're not particularly expensive to make or complex to set up. You could fit a fair number of the tesseract setups inside the footprint of yours. An even more compact solution would be an ME Interface, but thats not Buildcraft ofc.