Automatic Tree Farm Discussion

[Harcion]

I finally managed to get my "moving saw"-contraption to work. Yay. It's completely impractical, but hey, it has a moving saw!

I got a little dispirited after my last failure in the automatic tree farm business, but I didn't give up. I really wanted a moving saw even though it's really impractical, and I've now finally managed to get it to work.

While filming I realised there a still a few very minor issues with the drop control to fix, the (temporary) door placement and fully encasing the water path, but otherwise it should be fully automatic now. Except for having to refill the planter with saplings, that is, the layout did not quite let me catch the falling ones in any good way. I also suppose that a few planks will get lost if the leaves do not prevent them from jumping away from the trunk.

Please do not ask me about the wiring, it's completely awful. All the parts were nice and quite small to begin with, but wiring them up to work together was a small nightmare - not to mention when I realised I really needed more features than I had originally planned and could choose to either redesign it all or do some 'clever' stuff...

The reason for it being so slow is that it takes a while for the mechanical power to travel to the saw after I stop redstone power to the relevant gearbox. I did not want to use several timers so everything is as slow as the slowest component.

There's also no way I'm building this again in my legit world, the amount of repeaters (for one thing) is huge. I'll probably go with either the standard sand-pushing machine or a simple column of saws.

[finite8]

I finally managed to get my "moving saw"-contraption to work. Yay. It's completely impractical, but hey, it has a moving saw!

I got a little dispirited after my last failure in the automatic tree farm business, but I didn't give up. I really wanted a moving saw even though it's really impractical, and I've now finally managed to get it to work.

While filming I realised there a still a few very minor issues with the drop control to fix, the (temporary) door placement and fully encasing the water path, but otherwise it should be fully automatic now. Except for having to refill the planter with saplings, that is, the layout did not quite let me catch the falling ones in any good way. I also suppose that a few planks will get lost if the leaves do not prevent them from jumping away from the trunk.

Please do not ask me about the wiring, it's completely awful. All the parts were nice and quite small to begin with, but wiring them up to work together was a small nightmare - not to mention when I realised I really needed more features than I had originally planned and could choose to either redesign it all or do some 'clever' stuff...

The reason for it being so slow is that it takes a while for the mechanical power to travel to the saw after I stop redstone power to the relevant gearbox. I did not want to use several timers so everything is as slow as the slowest component.

There's also no way I'm building this again in my legit world, the amount of repeaters (for one thing) is huge. I'll probably go with either the standard sand-pushing machine or a simple column of saws.

Holy crap. That is cool. I agree that it is impractical, but the way you got the saw to work is rather ingenious.

[Harcion]

- My own post -

Holy crap. That is cool. I agree that it is impractical, but the way you got the saw to work is rather ingenious.

Thanks. :) Couldn't have made it without the sand-lifting mechanism.

If we ever get a block that cuts stone like the saw cuts wood I'm going to repurpose it into a drilling factory and prospect for oil. (Once I figure out how to push further than 12 blocks down...)

[Albalbalb]

I have an idea for pushing further than 12 blocks.
You could take a piston as 12th block and then you could always power that piston first, let the power down and then power the other piston.

[Waughoo]

Here's a short vid of my tree farms. It's not nearly as awesome as some I've seen, but it gets the job done :)

[razar51]

just a concept build of a tree lifting mechanism for the 'sawmill' approach

[finite8]

just a concept build of a tree lifting mechanism for the 'sawmill' approach

I'm more impressed with the rapid "Drop Down" mechanism. Very clever. Only problem is it would exceed the pistons maximum push distance required to extract all of the tree trunk.

It has made me think of an alternate approach however. It would take up a lot more space, but would be VERY quick on both the push up AND the push down if it can be done without too much complexity.

[razar51]

just a concept build of a tree lifting mechanism for the 'sawmill' approach

I'm more impressed with the rapid "Drop Down" mechanism. Very clever. Only problem is it would exceed the pistons maximum push distance required to extract all of the tree trunk.

It has made me think of an alternate approach however. It would take up a lot more space, but would be VERY quick on both the push up AND the push down if it can be done without too much complexity.

yeah i realized that soon after completion of the concept, can only push up about 5 blocks or so, and would need some modification (possibly zigzag or something) to push more

[Harcion]

Also, wouldn't the stacked pistons prevent birch and pine trees from growing? If you are going to have blocks there anyway, you could as well use saws directly?
Perhaps I'm missing something - I haven't actually built a practical tree farm yet...

[razar51]

Also, wouldn't the stacked pistons prevent birch and pine trees from growing? If you are going to have blocks there anyway, you could as well use saws directly?
Perhaps I'm missing something - I haven't actually built a practical tree farm yet...

the concept was to plant the tree above the pistons, but there are flaws in that design

this one is what i assume is the normal for the 'sawmill' and it is quite slow(can be sped up a bit from what is shown):



And here is a very rough version of a 90% complete auto tree farm (still need to add the sapling recovery mechanism.):
Sorry i recorded it at night.

[Stormweaver]

An interesting little thing I came up with last time I made a tree farm (yet another unfinished project >.>) was that if you put a repeater on both sides of the sapling (like you were passing current through a solid block) and then stuck a clock on the input, you can use it as a detector without anything going above the level the sapling is at. Useful if you want a high success rate on a birch/pine farm, or have a bunch of tree farms you want to set off only when they're all fully grown.

...or like me, you suck at finding lapis.

If I get to the point of building one this time around, I'll post some screenshots. I might make it to having the whole thing finished this time >.>

[gftweek]

Heh, yeah, I've been using that repeater setup for a while, saw it on a video a while back, my tree farm has a single birch tree, which thanks to all the free space means I'm swimming in wood/gears/corners/panels, use moulding a lot though for axles. The single drawback is that you can't restock the sapling dispenser automatically, but they are easy enough to collect and do manually from time to time.

It's not something I can take pictures of easily, but I'll try and extract it to it's own map and tidy up the redstone. The logic requires two RS-Nor latches, two turntable timers, and a BD counter.

My current setup is bigger than it needs to be, but works perfectly for 5-7 log high birch trees, and can be made higher if you want to use pine (just need to change the counter).

[Harcion]

Also, wouldn't the stacked pistons prevent birch and pine trees from growing? If you are going to have blocks there anyway, you could as well use saws directly?
Perhaps I'm missing something - I haven't actually built a practical tree farm yet...

the concept was to plant the tree above the pistons, but there are flaws in that design

Ah, yes, of course. Sorry, stupid moment. :)

An interesting little thing I came up with last time I made a tree farm (yet another unfinished project >.>) was that if you put a repeater on both sides of the sapling (like you were passing current through a solid block) and then stuck a clock on the input, you can use it as a detector without anything going above the level the sapling is at. Useful if you want a high success rate on a birch/pine farm, or have a bunch of tree farms you want to set off only when they're all fully grown.

Thanks for sharing this nice idea, I never thought about that. I'll be using that for sure, soon.

[razar51]

My final Auto tree farm design using the sawmill approach (regular trees only due to using a block detector instead of the repeater method of detecting a tree has grown).

Enjoy!

[Waughoo]

My final Auto tree farm design using the sawmill approach (regular trees only due to using a block detector instead of the repeater method of detecting a tree has grown).

Enjoy!

Very nice, well done! I was going to try and add the automatic sapling harvesting to mine, but I ran out of room :(


I think I may try a different approach on my next one.

[razar51]

-snip-

Very nice, well done! I was going to try and add the automatic sapling harvesting to mine, but I ran out of room :(


I think I may try a different approach on my next one.

Thanks!! I've already constructed an automatic farm using a different approach, and i'm fairly certain you guys will like it.

I present, my Tree Factory:



With how many saplings you can stuff in a block dispenser, I decided automatically refilling them was a waste of time. This design should collect 50%+ of the fallen saplings, so all you have to do is clear out the storage area and refill the sapling planters every few hundred trees

edit: wow, battosay watched and commented on my design!!! definately going to sig that!

[Waughoo]

-snip-

Very nice, well done! I was going to try and add the automatic sapling harvesting to mine, but I ran out of room :(


I think I may try a different approach on my next one.

Thanks!! I've already constructed an automatic farm using a different approach, and i'm fairly certain you guys will like it.

I present, my Tree Factory:



With how many saplings you can stuff in a block dispenser, I decided automatically refilling them was a waste of time. This design should collect 50%+ of the fallen saplings, so all you have to do is clear out the storage area and refill the sapling planters every few hundred trees

edit: wow, battosay watched and commented on my design!!! definately going to sig that!

Wow, I really had to look to see where your block detectors were in that. I'm like "How the crap does it know when the tree has grown!?". I always put them right against the trunk, but I can see how your method would work better. This is kinda the idea I was going to do, but I was just going to make several floors of trees.

[grimper12341]

Finite I figured out a better way to get saplings back into your dispenser, havn't got around to making it yet on my farm tho so no pics.

Anyway, me noticed that hoppers always dispense their items straight down with 100% accuracy. So I'm gonna extend the height of the sapling elevator, and have a stream of water running from it, over the top of the logs coming from the log collector, and ending at a hopper placed directly over the top of the one way down below that collects saplings. This way none will miss and you don't have to have that AND gate there to prevent accidental set offs.