Solar Powered Lamps

[Lisa Marie]

My apologies in advanced if this is int he wrong location and if a moderator needs to move this, then by all means, go ahead, just signed up and I and hoping that this is in the proper forum.

Anyways, I've been playing vanilla Minecraft for a while and recently started getting into Tekkit, and I'm still playing in creative mode to understand the mechanics of all the mods, so my knowledge of anything past basic machines is incredibly minimal.

That being said, I've been playing with designs for streetlamps for a map I'm putting together, and I'm not sure how to make them turn on once the sunset cycle begins automatically.

I've played around with wireless redstone transmitters/receivers and timers and sequencers, but they don't work with the lamps. My boyfriend suggested having a solar panel as a switch mechanism, and I played with that as well, but to no avail.

I don't know if I'm hooking anything up wrong, or if I'm trying to put together two incomparable mods. I would love it if someone could help me out, or perhaps share their designs if they have something like this. Credit will be given where credit is due if I ever release any of these maps for public use.

[Backplague]

Use a Light Detector (or whatever it's called). It will give out a redstone signal when enough light hits it. It's sensitivity can be adjusted by shift+clicking it with a Screwdriver.

[Lisa Marie]

Can you set them to send a signal out when there is no light, or would it serve the same function as using a solar panel as a switch?

[Backplague]

They send a signal when light hits them, otherwise they wont send a signal.

[b0bst3r]

Problem with light detector is it sends a redstone signal where there is light so that doesn't help you much because you dont' want your lamps on when there is light. So use the light detector (it will need adjusting) and then use a "NOT gate" to switch the redstone signal, so when your light detector is on your lamps are off and when your light detector is off your lamps are on.

[Lisa Marie]

So after much fiddling with the mot gate and settings of the light sensor, I got it working, and with a wireless transmitter as well. Thank you for the help! :D

[theprolo]

You've solved that problem,but I thought I'd mention the method I use for street lamps anyway since you asked for us to share designs.

Basically, I use redstone cables from Redpower to power the lamp, and replace the support with it. It looks really neat and awesome, so if you're trying to power the lamps any other way, try that, and it should look a lot better than before.

[Lisa Marie]

theprolo, when you say "replace the support, could you elaborate? I'm not picturing what you're saying very well, but I tried building up with the insulated wire, but I'm not able to. My game might just be glitching if the physics SHOULD be letting me do it.

As of right now, this is what I have set up. There is just one, so the design can change.

I'm using cobblestone covers and wood corner blocks, and running inside is cable, two blocks down, there's a wireless receiver set up and the light sensor is sitting on the roof of my sorting facility (seen in the bottom right quadrant of the minimap).

[Xylord]

theprolo, when you say "replace the support, could you elaborate? I'm not picturing what you're saying very well, but I tried building up with the insulated wire, but I'm not able to. My game might just be glitching if the physics SHOULD be letting me do it.

As of right now, this is what I have set up. There is just one, so the design can change.

I'm using cobblestone covers and wood corner blocks, and running inside is cable, two blocks down, there's a wireless receiver set up and the light sensor is sitting on the roof of my sorting facility (seen in the bottom right quadrant of the minimap).

Actually, he meant Jacketed wire. It can stand on it's own, like a block, and connects to lamps and others.

To connect it to red wire, you actually have to right click it, too, the red wire.

[Lisa Marie]

Ahh, nice one! Thank you for clarifying. I wasn't aware that you could connect normal wire to the jacketed wire. Fiddled around and got it to work. I didn't want to keep asking noobish questions. I definitely like the single post look a whole lot better if I'm going to be doing many lamps along a road for example, but I will most likely keep the large ones that I came up with for larger spaces like a town square of sorts.

[theprolo]

Just noticed I didn't mention this, but if you have the wire coming from under the ground, the jacketed cables can go through hollow micro blocks, meaning that it looks exactly like it's coming from the ground rather than from a hole with a little wire inside. This'll probably sound confusing, so ill try to explain with a diagram

L

I

I

I

HG

R

The l is the lamp, I is the wire, g is ground, h is hollow block, and r is red stone current. Basically, the current comes from underground and the hollow block hides the wiring, so it looks as if its just a kind if plank supporting a lamp rather than just a wire with circuitry exposed.

[Lisa Marie]

Thanks for that, I wasn't sure how to make it do that. :)

[Bangers]

Allow me to hijack this thread, now that you have got your lamps working...

I'm trying to get lamps to switch on, with a light sensor! And it won't work. I have it set as the light sensor, not gate, redstone dust, jacketed redstone wire that connects to all the lights in the factory. I can see the jacketed wire light up when it goes dark but none of the lamps light up. I can even replace the redstone dust with a redstone torch and the lamps suddenly work. Am I missing something super obvious?

I'll upload a picture later on (minecraft login server appears to be down right now).

Help is much appreciated!

[Lisa Marie]

Here's my current setup.

(Instead of dirt blocks, I have covers and stacked corner blocks to have a thick lamp column thing, as seen in one of my previous posts in this thread)

Light sensor > Insulated wire > Not Gate > Insulate Wire > Wireless Redstone Transmitter

Wireless Redstone Reciever > Insulated Wire > Lamps

I had to fiddle around with the not gate a lot, and I set the light sensor to is smallest setting so that it had to be full on day time to detect light and turn off the lights. As you can see, it's raining and the lamps are turned on, so the only time they are off is when it's full on day time. I liked having the wireless transmitter/receiver setup cause it would minimize wiring under the ground (which I want to save for another part of this project.

I tested this same design out with the jacketed wire as opposed to the covers, partial blocks and insulated wire. It works just fine.

[efflandt]

This is an example of jacketed redstone wire used as lamp posts. Covers conceal the wiring to them and to the red lamps in floor of walkway. Note that a hollow cover must be used at the base of a post (a solid panel would block the current). It is a garden in a sky castle under construction.