I know they're out there and I've been looking and looking to find a setup for one, but everything I've found has been in a Let's Play and doesn't really go over it. Currently I'm in a Direwolf20 server and having trouble figuring out how to automate a biofuel farm. I'd really appreciate some advice here, I've messed with Biofuel before but I've never been able to automate it and have always needed to supply the saplings, mulch, etc. Does anyone have a tutorial for an automated set up? That'd be amazing, I've looked and looked but haven't been able to find a single one. :/
Help with an automated biofuel farm?
- Thread starter BlueDragoon212
- Start date
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The easiest way to automate it is using AE simply using export buses on the fermenter to supply it with saplings and fuel, another way to do it would be simply using buildcraft pipe along with gates and pipe wire in order to avoid overflow of items
I take it from your post your a bit of a novice & thats not a bad thing btw, I will try to outline a simple setup for you.
first off I take it, its the multi block forestry tree farm or a steve's cart, as multi farm is a little newer I will try cover that one, you should go to the forestry wiki & check out the requirements, first the farm blocks needed plus valve, gearbox, & two hatches are all needed the controller can be done with out for now, now the for bricks, use stone brick as its easy & fast to make from spare cobble, by this time you should have read the required multi block info & have a fair idea of how to set a farm, I find it best to built its level with the ground, when you have you 3x3x4 or what ever you pick in place it will change into a multi block farm you can see this by the band around it, now we need to lay out the brick for the farm to plant on, again follow the info on the forestry wiki but my advice is to dig down 2 blocks & place the brick at that lvl so the finished soil level will be level with the ground, now to autiomation of this part, its really not that hard as the hatches use gravity to import & export items if setup correctly, take 6 stacks of ditrt & fill the top left slot, add any valid sapling to the top right, the bottom to sections are the output, now to semi-automate fertilizer try this on the top face of the multi farm remove a farm block & replace with a hatch block on top of this put a vanilla hopper & on top of that a chest, fill the chest with fertilizer & the farm depending on size of farm & chest will run for days or weeks.
I forgot to mention the circuits, there are 2 types you will need the automated intricate one (managed arboretum) with 4 copper tubes, for this you will need a soldering iron, hold the soldering iron & clicking will bring up its gui, do not add the circuit untill you have selected managed farm & placed the 4 copper tubes in place, after your sure you have it correct add the circuit, the finished circuit is added to the farm in the slot on the left matching the shape.
now we need to get the excess sapling to turn them into biomass, I tend to do most all this machine setup under the farm its self for easy of use & for safety (it really hurts when a cheeper comes creeping) you will first need to hook up water to feed the farm, the easy way is a TE aquarius accumulator, you can use bc water prof pipes or liquiducts to fill the farm in normal biomes 1 AA is enough but in hotter more will be required, next is some form of bc power to start one Stirling or any other engine will get you started, I use TE steam hooked to the same AA & some charcoal from the excess wood, you can also turn the wood into planks & burn them in the engine, you need a gearbox on the under side of the farm this you power with conduits as then are self buffering & help regulate the engines & you have less power loss, now we are ready to add the second hatch & remove the excess saplings add the second hatch some place on the under side of the farm make sure you have clear access on 3 sides, you may wish to add a diamond pipe to the hatch so you can sort the apples/wood/sapling out, send the apples too a barrel at least 8 blocks away, we will use the apples later, this is what I like to do with the wood to make the farm self supporting & the reason I use TE steam engines, make from 2-6 engines & hook them up to the water pipes on one side not under them, over each engine drop a TE furnace & set the output to bottom & input to top, pipe wood into top, this way the furnace will feed & buffer charcoal to the engines, now add your power conduits, now we have a multi farm that can support its self & is semi automated fertilizer, the power from the engines will power the farm & the fermenter/s to form the next step in the chain.
now step back & think about the layout of the next part & if you wish to store biomass or convert to biofuel asap, if you intend storage you must allow room for tanks there are 3 types normally used the stanard BC galss, the RC multi block iron tanks or the xy craft multi block, this I will leave to you to work out but I would advise not making huge tanks as liquids can be the result in lag, so lets say no tanks we will process all first & then if required store teh end product, so dig out a new room off from the farm room, now we need a fermenter or two, place a fermenter conected a water a pipe & power,(yes I know apple we will get to that later) over the fermenter at least 2 blocks above place a barrel, pipe the sapling into the top of barrel, this will be the buffer to stop any overflow, now make some red pipe wire & one Iron and one antarctic gate in an assembler, on the bottom of the barrel place a wooden pipe & any other pipes down to the fermenter click the pipes with the red pipe wire, place the antarctic on the wooden pipe set it to red pipe wire signal on - engine on, on the pipe touching the fermenter place the iron & gate set to resource 25% - red pipe wire signal, this will keep the fermenter working, the boimass can be piped directly into a still & turned into biofuel, this then can be used in boilers or on some engines, as a side note I normally add a chest & 2 more gates to keep the fermenter full of firtilizer/mulch.
I have typed this from memory if I made any minor mistakes I will fix in an edit later, I will add a part 2 tomorrow.
first off I take it, its the multi block forestry tree farm or a steve's cart, as multi farm is a little newer I will try cover that one, you should go to the forestry wiki & check out the requirements, first the farm blocks needed plus valve, gearbox, & two hatches are all needed the controller can be done with out for now, now the for bricks, use stone brick as its easy & fast to make from spare cobble, by this time you should have read the required multi block info & have a fair idea of how to set a farm, I find it best to built its level with the ground, when you have you 3x3x4 or what ever you pick in place it will change into a multi block farm you can see this by the band around it, now we need to lay out the brick for the farm to plant on, again follow the info on the forestry wiki but my advice is to dig down 2 blocks & place the brick at that lvl so the finished soil level will be level with the ground, now to autiomation of this part, its really not that hard as the hatches use gravity to import & export items if setup correctly, take 6 stacks of ditrt & fill the top left slot, add any valid sapling to the top right, the bottom to sections are the output, now to semi-automate fertilizer try this on the top face of the multi farm remove a farm block & replace with a hatch block on top of this put a vanilla hopper & on top of that a chest, fill the chest with fertilizer & the farm depending on size of farm & chest will run for days or weeks.
I forgot to mention the circuits, there are 2 types you will need the automated intricate one (managed arboretum) with 4 copper tubes, for this you will need a soldering iron, hold the soldering iron & clicking will bring up its gui, do not add the circuit untill you have selected managed farm & placed the 4 copper tubes in place, after your sure you have it correct add the circuit, the finished circuit is added to the farm in the slot on the left matching the shape.
now we need to get the excess sapling to turn them into biomass, I tend to do most all this machine setup under the farm its self for easy of use & for safety (it really hurts when a cheeper comes creeping) you will first need to hook up water to feed the farm, the easy way is a TE aquarius accumulator, you can use bc water prof pipes or liquiducts to fill the farm in normal biomes 1 AA is enough but in hotter more will be required, next is some form of bc power to start one Stirling or any other engine will get you started, I use TE steam hooked to the same AA & some charcoal from the excess wood, you can also turn the wood into planks & burn them in the engine, you need a gearbox on the under side of the farm this you power with conduits as then are self buffering & help regulate the engines & you have less power loss, now we are ready to add the second hatch & remove the excess saplings add the second hatch some place on the under side of the farm make sure you have clear access on 3 sides, you may wish to add a diamond pipe to the hatch so you can sort the apples/wood/sapling out, send the apples too a barrel at least 8 blocks away, we will use the apples later, this is what I like to do with the wood to make the farm self supporting & the reason I use TE steam engines, make from 2-6 engines & hook them up to the water pipes on one side not under them, over each engine drop a TE furnace & set the output to bottom & input to top, pipe wood into top, this way the furnace will feed & buffer charcoal to the engines, now add your power conduits, now we have a multi farm that can support its self & is semi automated fertilizer, the power from the engines will power the farm & the fermenter/s to form the next step in the chain.
now step back & think about the layout of the next part & if you wish to store biomass or convert to biofuel asap, if you intend storage you must allow room for tanks there are 3 types normally used the stanard BC galss, the RC multi block iron tanks or the xy craft multi block, this I will leave to you to work out but I would advise not making huge tanks as liquids can be the result in lag, so lets say no tanks we will process all first & then if required store teh end product, so dig out a new room off from the farm room, now we need a fermenter or two, place a fermenter conected a water a pipe & power,(yes I know apple we will get to that later) over the fermenter at least 2 blocks above place a barrel, pipe the sapling into the top of barrel, this will be the buffer to stop any overflow, now make some red pipe wire & one Iron and one antarctic gate in an assembler, on the bottom of the barrel place a wooden pipe & any other pipes down to the fermenter click the pipes with the red pipe wire, place the antarctic on the wooden pipe set it to red pipe wire signal on - engine on, on the pipe touching the fermenter place the iron & gate set to resource 25% - red pipe wire signal, this will keep the fermenter working, the boimass can be piped directly into a still & turned into biofuel, this then can be used in boilers or on some engines, as a side note I normally add a chest & 2 more gates to keep the fermenter full of firtilizer/mulch.
I have typed this from memory if I made any minor mistakes I will fix in an edit later, I will add a part 2 tomorrow.
My set-up uses the MFR in the ultimate pack
Basically, my set-up is, harvester gathers all the material from the farm, sends this to a diamond pipe under a planter which sends the potatoes all up to it, that way when the planter is full, the next valid inventory is the unmarked tube, this then leads to a second planter or a bio reactor. Bio reactor directly produces biofuel, which I then send to biofuel reactors that are running the planter and harvester.
To supplement the farm, I have a huge excess of lilypads of fertility so that I can run a quarry at a decent speed off this set-up.
I'm not sure about how efficient this is, as each item that goes into the bio reactor produces 80mb of biofuel each, unless there's more than one, but you can look up how that works.
Do you know about any figures for the forestry one? I'm curious to see how they compare
Basically, my set-up is, harvester gathers all the material from the farm, sends this to a diamond pipe under a planter which sends the potatoes all up to it, that way when the planter is full, the next valid inventory is the unmarked tube, this then leads to a second planter or a bio reactor. Bio reactor directly produces biofuel, which I then send to biofuel reactors that are running the planter and harvester.
To supplement the farm, I have a huge excess of lilypads of fertility so that I can run a quarry at a decent speed off this set-up.
I'm not sure about how efficient this is, as each item that goes into the bio reactor produces 80mb of biofuel each, unless there's more than one, but you can look up how that works.
Do you know about any figures for the forestry one? I'm curious to see how they compare
As requested by the OP some info on gates:
Gates are from BC & made in the assembler, they can read states from a machine they are touching this we use to send & receive redstone signals that can control how & when items are sent down pipes, there are lots of types of gates that have more & more options & uses, but for now we will look at the iron versions as these fit the needs of the build, the basic iron gates have 2 versions & a 3rd more advanced type, the basic types are iron AND gate & the iron OR gate, for this we need the AND gate as its used to send a state from the fermenter down the pipe using red pipe wire, this wire is made in the assembler from rose red, the advanced form is the antarctic gate this needs ender pearls in its make up, & has an option to pump items into a pipe from a chest barrel or machine (from any valid inventory) it can read the red pipe wire signal & be set to react or pump on demand, this means we can setup a pipe system that will refill the fermenter but never overflow, the basic idea works like this:
B = Barrel
AG = Antarctic gate
IG = Iron and gate
P = BC pipe with red pipe wire
Fer = Fermenter
Option 1
B
AG
P
IG
Fer
Option 2
B
AG
P
IG
Fer-IG-P-AG-chest (of fertilizer or mulch)
Now lets set the states on the gates, the bottom gate the one touching the fermenter is set to resources 25% send RS pipe wire signal, this mean when the fermenter has less than 25% of the resource in this case saplings it will turn on a RS signal that will travel up the piper wire to the antarctic gate, this gate needs to be on a wooden pipe as if you were using a RS engine, because that is what an antarctic gate is, its a gate with a built-in engine to pump items into a pipe network, the gate is set to RS pipe wire signal engine ON, this way the antarctic only turns on when the 25% resource signal comes on, it may seem a bit complex the first time but its soon all falls into place, now option 2 is the same but has a second set of gates & pipes on one side to keep mulch or fertilizer in the fermenter too, so this way you can totally automate the fermenter, the gates & pipes are set up the same way the iron gate touching one side of fermenter is the controller set it to fertilizer 10% RS pipe wire signal ON, this as we learned sends the signal to the antarctic gate telling it to turn on when it has less than 10% fertilizer remaining in the fermenter, this then pulls fertilizer from the chest, remember with BC pipes/gates the wooden pipe & antarctic is at the chest/inventory you wish to pull items from, the other end of the red pipe wire must have a gate that sends the signal, the signal in most cases is a simple ON or OFF if this or that state is in effect.
gates may seem complex but really its easy to understand as soon as you get the basic idea, if it helps make a creative world & make a couple of test builds just to get the hang of how the system works, untill you have the basic idea of how gates work dont try the more advanced types like gold diamond as these have even more advanced features that may make it harder to grasp the basics concept, small steps is best way mho.
Gates are from BC & made in the assembler, they can read states from a machine they are touching this we use to send & receive redstone signals that can control how & when items are sent down pipes, there are lots of types of gates that have more & more options & uses, but for now we will look at the iron versions as these fit the needs of the build, the basic iron gates have 2 versions & a 3rd more advanced type, the basic types are iron AND gate & the iron OR gate, for this we need the AND gate as its used to send a state from the fermenter down the pipe using red pipe wire, this wire is made in the assembler from rose red, the advanced form is the antarctic gate this needs ender pearls in its make up, & has an option to pump items into a pipe from a chest barrel or machine (from any valid inventory) it can read the red pipe wire signal & be set to react or pump on demand, this means we can setup a pipe system that will refill the fermenter but never overflow, the basic idea works like this:
B = Barrel
AG = Antarctic gate
IG = Iron and gate
P = BC pipe with red pipe wire
Fer = Fermenter
Option 1
B
AG
P
IG
Fer
Option 2
B
AG
P
IG
Fer-IG-P-AG-chest (of fertilizer or mulch)
Now lets set the states on the gates, the bottom gate the one touching the fermenter is set to resources 25% send RS pipe wire signal, this mean when the fermenter has less than 25% of the resource in this case saplings it will turn on a RS signal that will travel up the piper wire to the antarctic gate, this gate needs to be on a wooden pipe as if you were using a RS engine, because that is what an antarctic gate is, its a gate with a built-in engine to pump items into a pipe network, the gate is set to RS pipe wire signal engine ON, this way the antarctic only turns on when the 25% resource signal comes on, it may seem a bit complex the first time but its soon all falls into place, now option 2 is the same but has a second set of gates & pipes on one side to keep mulch or fertilizer in the fermenter too, so this way you can totally automate the fermenter, the gates & pipes are set up the same way the iron gate touching one side of fermenter is the controller set it to fertilizer 10% RS pipe wire signal ON, this as we learned sends the signal to the antarctic gate telling it to turn on when it has less than 10% fertilizer remaining in the fermenter, this then pulls fertilizer from the chest, remember with BC pipes/gates the wooden pipe & antarctic is at the chest/inventory you wish to pull items from, the other end of the red pipe wire must have a gate that sends the signal, the signal in most cases is a simple ON or OFF if this or that state is in effect.
gates may seem complex but really its easy to understand as soon as you get the basic idea, if it helps make a creative world & make a couple of test builds just to get the hang of how the system works, untill you have the basic idea of how gates work dont try the more advanced types like gold diamond as these have even more advanced features that may make it harder to grasp the basics concept, small steps is best way mho.