[Help] Automated Water Cell Crafter

[Zenatsu]

Okay, I've literally tried to google this to no end, and every topic i fine either:

1) Is not relevant to my specific issue

2) simply dose not work.

What I am trying to accomplish is an automated watercell crafter. The tools I have at my disposal are the entire Tekkit mod pack.

So let me try and paint the picture of what I have tried.

2-D plane. (I used all 4 sides, not top or down) //This actually may be part of my issue

~~~~C

~~~~|

~~~~R

~C-RAR-C

~~~~R

~~~~|

~~~~C

Legend:

C - Chest

"Line" - Tube

R - retriever

A - Automatic crafting table

So now its time for the wall of text to explain the picture above.

I have the West retriever accepting 1 empty cell to put into the table.

I have the South retriever accepting 1 water bucket to put into the table.

I have the North retriever accepting 1 empty bucket to put into a chest

I have the East retriever accepting 1 water cell to put into a chest.

Timing:

I have the West and South fire off at the same time. After that I have the East fire off with a slight delay (about .5 seconds) which fires off the North to take the empty bucket before the next water bucket enters the table.

My problem is: The retriever dosnt even take the water cell in the first place. Which back up the production and water buckets begins filling the rest of the empty squares with buckets.

I am not sure what the issue is. Can anyone help?

[Guest Ysharma]

Since you have all of tekkit at your disposal condense tin with a couple of collectors, feed the tin into an automatic crafting table. and then filter the cells into a deployer, and then deploy the cells. You need to power the deployer with a timer and a vanilla inverter, a block with a redstone torch on the other side. Its your choice how to get water in front of the deployer. You can use ic2 and bc pumps to pump it into BC tanks or you can use a redpower method to pump it into a 1*1*1 area in front of the deployer

Sorry didnt read your question carefully you want your current method to be fixed. Ill take a look and reply soon

Are your retrievers receiving bluetricity properly?

[Omicron]

I am a bit confused by your setup... not only is it far more complicated than necessary, but I am also not sure if Retrievers are actually able to do the work you are expecting them to do.

A Retriever is meant to pull items from remote inventories connected to it via tube. This works for your West and South Retrievers because they have a remote chest connected to them via tube, from which they call in items to travel towards them. A Retriever is not meant to take something out of an inventory and then send it off via tube - it retrieves, not sends! You want a Filter for that job. Mind you, I have never tried out this particular use case with a Retriever, but even if it did work as a sender also, a Filter is far cheaper to craft and does not even need Blutricity.

What I expect is happening in your case is that the Retriever you are tasking to pull out the cell from the table is not in fact able to do that in the first place. You can see if that is the case by changing your AR-C setup on the East path into an A-RC setup. First the table, then a tube, then the Retriever directly adjacent to the chest. In this setup, the Retriever should recognize the table as a remote inventory on a tube network, pull the cell from it, and place it into the adjacent chest. You will of course have to do the same for the North path that is supposed to take out empty buckets.

Of course, while you're at it, I recommend you scrap the whole thing and rebuild it in a more simple and more cost-effective manner

EDIT: here is a sample design I made with my amazing MS Paint skills.

orange = Chest

blue = Pneumatic Tube

green = Retriever

black = Automated Crafting Table

purple = Wooden Transport Pipe

yellow = Redstone Engine

In this setup, all you need is a single Retriever instead of four of them. Set it to sequential mode, and have it retrieve 1 Water Bucket, 1 Empty Cell, and 1 Empty Bucket. This means on the first pulse, it will attempt to fetch one filled bucket from an input chest, on the second pulse it will attempt to fetch an empty cell from an input chest, and on the third pulse it will attempt to fetch an empty bucket from the crafting table... namely the very empty bucket that has just been produced after the first two items were fetched. The Retriever will literally "clean up after itself" and won't move on until it can get that empty bucket removed from the crafting table, making the system impossible to clog up.

The product is pumped out by a simple Redstone engine because well, it's dead cheap.

Of course, this means that the empty buckets end up in the middle chest and accumulate there. This is why there's a lone tube going off towards the north - you can connect it to another Retriever elsewhere that will pull empty buckets out to for example get them recycled into the system (you can of course also put a Filter directly next to the chest instead of a remote Retriever). The beauty here is that you don't need to coordinate timing at all. The presence of empty buckets in the chest is completely decoupled from the cell crafting process.

Ysharma's suggestion is even simpler, but I intentionally wanted to reproduce the "combine buckets and cells into product" path in this example.

[Moridrex]

Are you using a standard Automatic Crafting Table or the Mk II version? The first one doesn't work with redpower. You need to use a Filter to pull the cells off the TOP side of the MK 2.

And from what you said, you just want water cells, you are handling the empty cell production elsewhere, in which case this is all highly complicated...put an IC2 water pump over an infinite water source, put a chest next to it, and pipe in the empty cells to the top of the pump (I think it's the top, haven't automated this one). Then pipe the filled cells out of the chest. Note that the water pump has to be in the next block above the water source, I've not seen them work if there is empty space between the pump and the water source if that makes sense...this will fill your cells without buckets being involved.

[gavjenks]

You're making this like 40x more complex than it needs to be. All you need is a deployer next to an infinite (2x2) water source. Feed it empty cells (could be with a simple transposer), and then pull (with a filter) filled cells out a different side. Power all three with the same timer. The end.

[Moridrex]

O.o dammit Gav that is too much simpler LOL. I like it.

[Guest Ysharma]

O.o dammit Gav that is too much simpler LOL. I like it.

Yeah I forgot all about the 2*2 water source. nice one gav

[Zenatsu]

@Ysharma

I watched a video that deplores would not work filling empty cells with water, and after my own testing it seems to reflect the same outcome. I already have designed automating cells and buckets to be automated, but water cells were a tricky subject.

@omicron

This is possibly due to my own limited exposure and understanding of what all the machines do. I did not know a retriever was capable of retrieving items through different pulses. But in my own design.

The retrievers are able to take from a chest, and place it into the autocrafter, but not take out a finished product. Also, I know my system is not 'optimized' but what I tend to do is "get it to work first, then optimize the system." So far, I am at square 1 :/

I'll try your design and see what happens.

@Moridrex

I am using a standard crafting Table. From what I have researched an MKII is not able to work with any automation

[Guest Ysharma]

Ive already said before in this thread or another one you need to use a vanilla invertor, a block with a redstone torch on it to power the deployer or it will not work you must do that.

Heres a model for the first part you should be able to get the rest

W=Water Source

D=Deployer

G=generic block

Rt=redstone torch

\\\\\G

\\\\\Rt (this torch must be attached to the face of the generic block.)

WWD

WW

[GreenWolf13]

Your research is wrog. The mark 2 automatic crafting table is cabaple of being automated, hence the name automated crafting table mark 2. You need to pull items from the top of the table using a transposer/filter/retriever.

[Guest Ysharma]

Your research is wrog. The mark 2 automatic crafting table is cabaple of being automated, hence the name automated crafting table mark 2. You need to pull items from the top of the table using a transposer/filter/retriever.

Are we talking about the BC auto tables, or the RP ones? Are they not all capable of automation?

[GreenWolf13]

Are we talking about the BC auto tables, or the RP ones? Are they not all capable of automation?

The mark 2 ones are the ones made to work with red power. He was saying that they couldn't be automated, which is stupid, as they are called automated crafting tables.

[Guest Ysharma]

oh i see. i just use redpower crafting tables since i like them better

[Moridrex]

Yeah...now if only they'd make the damn Rolling Machine work with Redpower instead of just buildcraft...I hate the buildcraft item piping.

[Guest Ysharma]

Yeah...now if only they'd make the damn Rolling Machine work with Redpower instead of just buildcraft...I hate the buildcraft item piping.

Yeah the whole pumping thing takes up way to much room, filters, transposers, retrievers and redstone tubes are far better

[Moridrex]

That, and the overflow issues, plus BC pipes are just damn slow.