Do you build interesting automated things too?

[Nova Sol]

Hello and welcome. I'm Nova and I like automation. Recently I've made a simple but fairly effective autofarm using Project E, EnderIO and Gany's Surface, with some help from Thermal Expansion (for storage) and Thermal Dynamics (for transport). The thing makes potatoes faster than my 4 redstone furnaces can handle, runs day and night without any need for light and it's completely free*. So now I'm interested in seeing what kinds of automatic devices you, fellow Minecrafters, have made. I'm not talking about just plain Forestry farming, pulverizer to redstone furnace or things like that, oh no. Automatic things that took some real effort to think up.

*: this does not include possible lag, noise, material costs or mental damage caused by the complaints of your neighbours.

Instructions for my farm (with pictures). Half of 'em are a bit dark because I forgot to disable night-time, but I'm too lazy to retake them.

Step 1: just make your regular 9x9 farm. You night want to wait until it's finished before tilling it, though.

Step 2: place a Dark Matter Pedestal under the water. The water has been removed for clarity, THIS IS NOT REQUIRED

Step 3: place a vacuum chest (EnderIO) on top of the water. The vacuum hopper (Open Blocks) does not have enough range to get everything.

Step 4: place a Farm Manager (Gany's Surface) two blocks above the chest, then connect the top of the chest with the bottom of the manager via some manner of item transport.

Step 5: hook up some kind of storage, maybe add some sort of overflow.

Step 6: do something else that doesn't involve three dots. Just let this thing run.

Step 7: profit.

That was like... 15 minutes or something...

Now go and post your own thing that isn't a one-mod-wonder. Heck, post a Rube Goldberg if you want! Just think of something that works, no matter how strange it is, and post about it. I'm eagerly awaiting your contraptions.

tl;dr: free farm, pictures, potatoes for potato-gun fun, post your own not-boring thing.

EDIT: I have changed this from a post-your-thing autofarming thread to a more general post-your-thing interesting automation thread.

 

[Master_Builder_800]

ooh! i like this thread, i'm gonna post my auto stuff when i get the chance.

 

[Nova Sol]

ooh! i like this thread, i'm gonna post my auto stuff when i get the chance.

Awesome, thanks! Do you think I should try to keep this autofarming, or should I turn it into more general 'post your thing' thread for interesting automation?

 

[Master_Builder_800]

I love automation so whatever, i'm one of those guys that build underground a big square, but i just love to make automatic things, and then compact it, and compact it again

 

[Master_Builder_800]

It'll be a bit before i can show off my stuff though, I'm at a friends place for the week

 

[Nova Sol]

It'll be a bit before i can show off my stuff though, I'm at a friends place for the week

Take your time, I can wait. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's amazing!

 

[lenscas]

looks at my build that uses railcraft+buildcraft+advanced generators to make power for my ex nihilo ore processing that consist of industrial craft, computercraft,buildcraft and ex astris.

Nope nothing at all.

 

[Nova Sol]

looks at my build that uses railcraft+buildcraft+advanced generators to make power for my ex nihilo ore processing that consist of industrial craft, computercraft,buildcraft and ex astris.

Nope nothing at all.

Nothing, sure. I totally, absolutely believe you. That was sarcasm, in case you didn't pick up on that already. PICS PLZ!

 

[lenscas]

because some people are apparently interested here are some pictures.

Spoiler: the room

this is the room where all the processing is. The turtle is used to make the ore dust,ore sand and gravel ore. It then puts it inside the chest at the frond where it will go to the automatic hammerers or to another turtle which job it is to determine if it is allowed to go to the furnace(if it was dust) or if it simply got there because the hammers where full. Another function of the turtle that you see is to put all the processed items in the chest above

Spoiler: a better look at the hammering

This picture was made a bit later, at this point I made a third turtle to make blocks from the processed items, I have not yet programmed it though. Another thing uou can see here is the turtle that checks if the items are dust and thus needs to be smelted, if they are then it puts it in the chest in front else it puts it in the chest at the bottom. All the items go back to the iron chest to then either go back for another round of processing or in the storage chest.

Spoiler: the cart reset

As I already mentioned I use railcraft to get lava from the nether, I teleport the cart using a nether portal and as you might know entetys like minecrafts have a delay before they can enter the portal again. So I cerated this mechanism to replace the cart before it goes back to the nether to get more lava. In the nether I use a similar setup but then it activates when the minecarft comes out the portal. Some redsonone is under the floor to change the direction of the turn.

I don't think it is worth it to see the advanced generator setup as it is a very basic one and everyone has already seen lava->steam->power and except for the fact that I used advanced generators I didn't do anything special with it. I also don't think the 3 macerators to get the gravel dust and sand that I can then sieve are worth extra pictures especially since most of the pipes are under ground.

This was the first automation I did in the world and because of that there are some things from the building that I still need to clean up for example some of the extra chest and the furnace I also need to over-clock the macerators as they are very slow right now.

 

[Nova Sol]

Looks nice! I personally prefer using Refined Relocation's block extenders though. It lets you hide those pipes on top of your automatic sieves in the wall.

 

[lenscas]

Looks nice! I personally prefer using Refined Relocation's block extenders though. It lets you hide those pipes on top of your automatic sieves in the wall.

I personally don't mind those pipes but thats just me probably

oh and before I forget: if someone wants the scripts for the turtles you can just ask.

 

[Nova Sol]

I personally don't mind those pipes but thats just me probably

oh and before I forget: if someone wants the scripts for the turtles you can just ask.

Eh, I don't really mind pipes in my machine room, which is usually such a mess you'll need a Portal Gun to get around anyway, but I do use extenders if I build things in my 'living room', AKA the room you walk around in. But to each their own.

I'd love to see how you coded your turtles. I'm not the best at LUA, so seeing your scripts would help me learn.

 

[lenscas]

the turtle that does the crafting of the ore dust,sand and gravel.
Note that I forgot to actulay made it handle sand/dust ores that got send back there is also an issue with the fact that crushed uranium ore has the word crushed in it and thus is seen as an item that needs to be processed. I think I will revisit the scripts at a later date to fix these issues but only time will tell.

--set all the variables correctly this includes peripherals
--wrap all the periphreals
--the chest on the bottom is where all the resources that need to be "sorted" are
local chest     =    peripheral.wrap("bottom")
--the crafting module is on the left of the turtle because reasons
local craft     =     peripheral.wrap("left")

--other variables without a starting value
local items,craftAmount,found=nil

--variables with a start value
-- is used to place the items in the correct slot of the crafting grid from the turtle
local craftGrid={1,2,5,6}
-- used to check if it can be compressed
local compressTable={"Broken", "Crushed", "Powdered"}
--used on startup to check if items that are in the turtle need to go down or forward
local goForward={"sand","gravel","dust"}

--create the needed functions

--check if the amount is dividable by 4
function checkOre(amount)
    if amount % 4 ~= 0 then
        return false
    else
        return true
    end
end

--clean the turtle since last use to minimize the chaches of stuff sticking because of new items entered the chest while processing the chest
function cleanUp()
    --loop over all the slots the turtle has
    for i=1,16 do
        if turtle.getItemCount(i)>0 then
            items=turtle.getItemDetail(i)
            --look if the item needs to be processed
            for key,word in pairs(goForward) do
                if string.find(items['name'],word) then
                    print("item needs processing")
                    turtle.drop()
                end
            end
            turtle.select(i)
            turtle.dropDown()
        end
    end
end

-- here it begins

--make sure there is no trash inside the turtle since last boot and make sure the chest is tidy
chest.condenseItems()
cleanUp()

print("start-up completed going to main loop")
--main loop
while true do
    --make sure that all the items are in as few stacks as possible
    chest.condenseItems()
    --get all the item data
    items=chest.getAllStacks()
    --loop over all the "item slots"
    for place,dataTable in pairs(items) do
        --look if it needs to be compressed and processed
        found=false
        for key,str in pairs(compressTable) do
            if string.find(dataTable['display_name'],str) then
                found=true
                break
            end
        end
       
        if found then
            --look if the amount allows it to compressed
            if checkOre(dataTable['qty']) then
                --this is used to determine how much items total needs to be crafted and is also used to nicely split it into 4 smaller stacks
                craftAmount=dataTable['qty']/4       
                for times=1,4 do
                    chest.pushItem("up",place,craftAmount,craftGrid[times])
                end
                --craft the four stacks into 1 item
                craft.craft(craftAmount)
                -- at the front is the way to the processing thus DROP IT!!
                turtle.drop()
            end
        else
            --there was a item but it couldn't be procesed it needs to go up up and away
            chest.pushItem("up",place,dataTable['qty'],16)
            turtle.select(16)
            turtle.dropUp()
        end
    --clean the turtle just in case
    cleanUp()
    end
    --turtle is done with this round and needs to rest. Even turtles need a break every now and then
    sleep(5)
end

And the code for the turtle that filters the dust. Also note that if there are other items that have the word "dust" in are inserted they are seen as ore dust and thus will be send to the furnace. Another thing to note is that I made this script when it was late and I was tired so it may contain some bad coding, I can see one already with the fact that I don't seem to have made the data variable local. Same is true about the "fixing" in this script as the last one: I might do it.

while true do
    os.pullEvent("turtle_inventory")
    for slot=1,16 do
        turtle.select(slot)
        if turtle.getItemCount()>0 then   
            data=turtle.getItemDetail(slot)
            if string.find(data['name'],"dust") then
                turtle.drop()
            else
                turtle.dropDown()
            end
        end
    end
end

 

[Nova Sol]

Can't you replace this:
if string.find(data['name'],"dust") then
turtle.drop()
else
turtle.dropDown()
end
with this?
if string.find(data['name'],"dust") then
if string.find(data['name']),"insert blacklist here") then
turtle.dropDown()
else
turtle.drop()
else
turtle.dropDown()
end
If I remember my lessons correctly, replacing insert blacklist here with for example coal dust should filter out coal dust. If this works you might want to consider adding a few of these to extend the blacklist:
elseif string.find(data['name']),"insert blacklist here") then
turtle.dropDown()
And if that doesn't work, then sorry. I'm not very good with CC, I'm afraid.

 

[str8jkt]

I was able to fully automate Botania's Spectrolus. It was a fun build - http://imgur.com/a/HiduI

 

[lenscas]

Can't you replace this:
if string.find(data['name'],"dust") then
turtle.drop()
else
turtle.dropDown()
end
with this?
if string.find(data['name'],"dust") then
if string.find(data['name']),"insert blacklist here") then
turtle.dropDown()
else
turtle.drop()
else
turtle.dropDown()
end
If I remember my lessons correctly, replacing insert blacklist here with for example coal dust should filter out coal dust. If this works you might want to consider adding a few of these to extend the blacklist:
elseif string.find(data['name']),"insert blacklist here") then
turtle.dropDown()
And if that doesn't work, then sorry. I'm not very good with CC, I'm afraid.

You should be able to do it that way but I would switch it to a table and use a for loop to loop over the list, this makes it a bit easier to add or remove items. Sorry for the late reply I just saw that you replied to this thread

 

[Nova Sol]

I was able to fully automate Botania's Spectrolus. It was a fun build - http://imgur.com/a/HiduI

Long live sheep that resemble Twilight Forest sheep! But seriously, that looks sweet! Kinda Rube Goldberg-ish, though that's probably because of the cart. Those explanations are neat too. What are you going to automate next?

You should be able to do it that way but I would switch it to a table and use a for loop to loop over the list, this makes it a bit easier to add or remove items. Sorry for the late reply I just saw that you replied to this thread

Ah, that's probably the better option. Then again, I wouldn't know how to use tables. I'm not great with LUA. But if you ever get around to editing that code of yours you know where to post it. Hint: either here or on Pastebin. If you go for the latter, post a link instead. And don't worry about late replies, the fact that you reply in the first place is good enough for me.

 

[str8jkt]

Long live sheep that resemble Twilight Forest sheep! But seriously, that looks sweet! Kinda Rube Goldberg-ish, though that's probably because of the cart. Those explanations are neat too. What are you going to automate next?

I have been working through some of the Botania flowers. The Entropynnium, Thermalilly and Endoflames are all done (they were easy in comparison with the Spectrolus). Might attempt the Keki flower next. It eats cake dropped on the ground by it so will have to automate a "cake farm" first.

I also have a fully automated refined bee setup I just finished a couple days ago. 4 industrial apiaries are buzzing away with refined bees (who output oil and petroleum combs). These are automatically routed through the centrifuge, then squeezed. 2 refineries change the oil to fuel and then its all sent off to a massive Railcraft steel tank to hold it. Now I just need to come up with something to use all the fuel....

Have also done the (overdone) MFR tree farm, into sawmills, into three railcraft HP steam boilers, into a big reactors turbine for power. All self sustained and automated fully.

 

[Nova Sol]

Try making a fully self-sustaining cake crafting Rube Goldberg device. If there's one thing that tops every other form of cake-baking automated goodness, it's a crazy, overcomplicated, why-did-you-do-this-? monster contraption that takes half an hour to make a cake. I recommend making a creative world for that. Not superflat, just a regular world.

If you don't know what a Rube Goldberg device is, where the (insert curse word here. thank you) have you been living? It's a chain of completely unneccesary steps that usually have little to nothing to do with the task, but ultimately result in a rather amusing but slightly what-is-going-on experience that ends with the task being completed. Somehow. Check Vswe's YouTube channel, he made a few.

EDIT: when I say fully self-sustaining, that means it can reset itself and does not run out of materials. Just use creative energy cells for power.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Direwolf did a cake machine in Season 2 of his LP. It was pretty awesome.