Here's a little design I made in about 1-2 hours (almost half of that being small timing tweaks or corrections to once-working redstone I broke during concealment) that shows off some of the functionality of the truly awesome Hopper and Redstone Comparator! Since hoppers can't move items upwards, only sideways or downwards, how does one get their items to whisk themselves up 40 blocks from your diamond mine to your base? Minecarts, of course! This build detects the number of items in the hopper to "know" when the chest-cart is not accepting items, even though there's presently no way to directly test the contents of a minecart. Once the cart is full, just keep placing your items into the chest, and eventually the cart will shoot down the track "of its own accord" and send back an empty one in its place.
Pictures:
The entire logic circuit. Wow. Simplicity at its best.
The unloading station.
Top chest at "Unloading Station", outputting a comparator signal that can warn you that you need to empty your chests.
Video:
Materials/Logic:
-1 receptacle chest and 2+ storage chests
-5-7 required hoppers, add 2 for each extra double chest
-4 Comparators
-Less than a stack of redstone dust, some redstone torches, a few repeaters
-Varying amounts of all three rails. This build is essentially extendable as far as desired, but watch out for unloaded chunks!
-Two Minecart w/Chest.
+Extremely compact comparator-gate. No extended wires for signal-weakening. Essentially compares the active hopper's level of fullness with that of a static hopper filled to the desired trigger fullness.
+Brand-new design for a pulse limiter, 3x2x1, using a comparator and a 4 tick delay repeater. The comparator turns on (almost) immediately, powering a powered rail. 3 1/2 redstone ticks later, the repeater facing into the side of the Comparator outputs a signal with 15 strength, cutting off the output of the Comparator. The output will only go again after the signal is cut, so it produces a 3-tick pulse each time the input is turned on.
+Visible button to manually launch the cart-switch by turning on a torch that is next to the dust that inputs into the Pulse Comparator. Since it inputs a signal strength of 15, this circuit allows you to launch the cart even if the Repeater is outputting a signal. Useful for if your unloading station chests were full and a full cart was returned, unable to empty the hopper to allow a reset of the pulse limiter. After emptying some chests, simply manually launch the cart-switch.
+2-wide railway, extendable to any length. One side is an unloading station and one side is a loading station. When a cart is headed for the unloading station, a series of pistons and railing will send the unloaded cart along the parallel track where a piston will move the cart into the correct area of the loading station to receive items.
+Entire setup is concealed to being a chest and a button on one side, and a stack of chests and hoppers on the other side, with a redstone lamp if desired. The carts should never need to be seen or manually handled.
+Notification that your Unloading Station has almost filled its chests, comparator coming out of the side of the top (last-filled) chest and powering a Lamp.
How it works:
The Chest on the surface gets its items sucked out by a Hopper below it which feeds the items into a Minecart with Chest. When the Hopper can't deposit items into the Cart-Chest, it starts to back up with extra items. When the Hopper is nearly full (4/5 full), it will output an equal or stronger signal to the Comparator's "Main Input" as it does the "Test Input", allowing a signal to pass. The Comparator's "Test Input" comes from a second Comparator hooked up to a second Hopper which is 4/5 full (the fullness I want the mechanism to trigger), making the Comparator logic gate extremely compact. The signal travels around to a Comparator that will launch the Cart with Powered Rails, but the signal also loops around to a 4-tick-delay Repeater that inputs into the side of the Comparator (turning the Powered Rail off to prevent an infinite loop- new Pulse Limiter design!).
As Chestcart A travels to the "Unloading Station", a Sticky Piston (Detector Rail-activated) will move Chestcart B and the Powered Rail landing pad off of the Hopper and onto a block powered by a lever, launching Chestcart B back towards the "Loading Station". The Sticky Piston retracts just in time to catch Chestcart A on the Powered Rail over the Hopper, beginning the "Unloading" of the cart.
Simultaneously, Chestcart B (previously emptied at the Unloading Station) travels back over to the Loading Station, being pushed by a timed Piston back onto the original launcher-Power-Rail. Even though the Hopper is still outputting a signal (it has never emptied its items), because of the Pulse Limiter the Powered Rail is not turned on, and so Chestcart B will sit patiently as the Hopper starts to empty its items. Once the Hopper has emptied its inventory to below the threshold for a signal to output, the entire system is reset and it will trigger the same way the next time your hopper begins to overflow.
There is also a button right above the chest that will manually activate the Launcher, to ensure that none of your precious goodies from your mining trip end up hidden and forgotten in the Cart part of the item mover. Not to mention the Redstone Lamp which indicates that your base-side chests need to be emptied soon!
All I can say is: Awesome! I had my doubts about the comparator when envisioning long lines of redstone to create circuit strengths. But your ways of optimizing the circuit (with the pre-filled hopper for comparing, and the pulse limiter) show the comparator is going to be quite useful.
Thanks dockerty! That was definitely my biggest concern, but when I realized that you could output any signal strength you want with only two blocks (a container and a comparator), I almost wet myself. Especially since you can run a comparator right into the other comparator!
3x1x1 blocks behind the container you are testing is literally the smallest capacity detector you can get, no question.
ALSO, this map is now available for download. I am sure that some parts can be optimized to be even smaller, especially the manual-cart-switch circuit. If you want to play around with it, here you go:
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse PremiumHere's a little design I made in about 1-2 hours (almost half of that being small timing tweaks or corrections to once-working redstone I broke during concealment) that shows off some of the functionality of the truly awesome Hopper and Redstone Comparator! Since hoppers can't move items upwards, only sideways or downwards, how does one get their items to whisk themselves up 40 blocks from your diamond mine to your base? Minecarts, of course! This build detects the number of items in the hopper to "know" when the chest-cart is not accepting items, even though there's presently no way to directly test the contents of a minecart. Once the cart is full, just keep placing your items into the chest, and eventually the cart will shoot down the track "of its own accord" and send back an empty one in its place.
Pictures:
The entire logic circuit. Wow. Simplicity at its best.
The unloading station.
Top chest at "Unloading Station", outputting a comparator signal that can warn you that you need to empty your chests.
Video:
Materials/Logic:
-1 receptacle chest and 2+ storage chests
-5-7 required hoppers, add 2 for each extra double chest
-4 Comparators
-Less than a stack of redstone dust, some redstone torches, a few repeaters
-Varying amounts of all three rails. This build is essentially extendable as far as desired, but watch out for unloaded chunks!
-Two Minecart w/Chest.
+Extremely compact comparator-gate. No extended wires for signal-weakening. Essentially compares the active hopper's level of fullness with that of a static hopper filled to the desired trigger fullness.
+Brand-new design for a pulse limiter, 3x2x1, using a comparator and a 4 tick delay repeater. The comparator turns on (almost) immediately, powering a powered rail. 3 1/2 redstone ticks later, the repeater facing into the side of the Comparator outputs a signal with 15 strength, cutting off the output of the Comparator. The output will only go again after the signal is cut, so it produces a 3-tick pulse each time the input is turned on.
+Visible button to manually launch the cart-switch by turning on a torch that is next to the dust that inputs into the Pulse Comparator. Since it inputs a signal strength of 15, this circuit allows you to launch the cart even if the Repeater is outputting a signal. Useful for if your unloading station chests were full and a full cart was returned, unable to empty the hopper to allow a reset of the pulse limiter. After emptying some chests, simply manually launch the cart-switch.
+2-wide railway, extendable to any length. One side is an unloading station and one side is a loading station. When a cart is headed for the unloading station, a series of pistons and railing will send the unloaded cart along the parallel track where a piston will move the cart into the correct area of the loading station to receive items.
+Entire setup is concealed to being a chest and a button on one side, and a stack of chests and hoppers on the other side, with a redstone lamp if desired. The carts should never need to be seen or manually handled.
+Notification that your Unloading Station has almost filled its chests, comparator coming out of the side of the top (last-filled) chest and powering a Lamp.
How it works:
The Chest on the surface gets its items sucked out by a Hopper below it which feeds the items into a Minecart with Chest. When the Hopper can't deposit items into the Cart-Chest, it starts to back up with extra items. When the Hopper is nearly full (4/5 full), it will output an equal or stronger signal to the Comparator's "Main Input" as it does the "Test Input", allowing a signal to pass. The Comparator's "Test Input" comes from a second Comparator hooked up to a second Hopper which is 4/5 full (the fullness I want the mechanism to trigger), making the Comparator logic gate extremely compact. The signal travels around to a Comparator that will launch the Cart with Powered Rails, but the signal also loops around to a 4-tick-delay Repeater that inputs into the side of the Comparator (turning the Powered Rail off to prevent an infinite loop- new Pulse Limiter design!).
As Chestcart A travels to the "Unloading Station", a Sticky Piston (Detector Rail-activated) will move Chestcart B and the Powered Rail landing pad off of the Hopper and onto a block powered by a lever, launching Chestcart B back towards the "Loading Station". The Sticky Piston retracts just in time to catch Chestcart A on the Powered Rail over the Hopper, beginning the "Unloading" of the cart.
Simultaneously, Chestcart B (previously emptied at the Unloading Station) travels back over to the Loading Station, being pushed by a timed Piston back onto the original launcher-Power-Rail. Even though the Hopper is still outputting a signal (it has never emptied its items), because of the Pulse Limiter the Powered Rail is not turned on, and so Chestcart B will sit patiently as the Hopper starts to empty its items. Once the Hopper has emptied its inventory to below the threshold for a signal to output, the entire system is reset and it will trigger the same way the next time your hopper begins to overflow.
There is also a button right above the chest that will manually activate the Launcher, to ensure that none of your precious goodies from your mining trip end up hidden and forgotten in the Cart part of the item mover. Not to mention the Redstone Lamp which indicates that your base-side chests need to be emptied soon!
▲▲ 6,000+ subs looking for Creators with 2k+ to collab - Click to visit my channel! ▲▲
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse Premium3x1x1 blocks behind the container you are testing is literally the smallest capacity detector you can get, no question.
ALSO, this map is now available for download. I am sure that some parts can be optimized to be even smaller, especially the manual-cart-switch circuit. If you want to play around with it, here you go:
http://www.mediafire.com/?3fiw7mqo9cpip5t
▲▲ 6,000+ subs looking for Creators with 2k+ to collab - Click to visit my channel! ▲▲