Confusion with Mechanical Power (Moved, sorry)

[jagoly]

First of all, here is my mob killer:

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What I am am really confused about is the fact that the gearbox attached to the water wheel is breaking occasionally. As in, somtimes it's fine for ages, and sometimes I'll come down here only to see it broken.

Now, I'm just not sure why. Is there a limit to how many gearboxes can be chained together? If that's the case, then I've only got at most 5 chained together. Wondering if anyone with a bit more knowledge of the power system could give me a hand.

On a side note, my Windmill seems to be rain proof in the last few releases. It's survived hundreds of storm without breaking, all the while working away. I've stopped bothering to turn it off. Was windmill breakage removed? I'm not sure, can't find anything about it in the changelog.

[thekyz]

Still not the good board ... Not wanting to be rude here but you should 'at least' read the board names.

[jagoly]

Seriously? I read the rules of both boards beforehand because I was so worried I'd post in the wrong one! DX

What board should this be in?

Also, this sure seems like discussion to me...

[FlowerChild]

Just leave it here as it's borderline as to which section in should be in.

[jagoly]

Come back down, and now I'm even more confused D:

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[Whisp]

Thanks for the last screenshot, it gave me a clue I missed before.
Considering all the obsidian blocks all around, is it possible that your setup is place near/inside an old lava pool?
If that's the case and there are still some lava sources around or below your setup, I'd say your gearboxes simply catch fire and burn up from time to time.

[Elusivehawk]

Yup, I think it's fire. Same thing happened to me back when I was still using BTB. The only way to fix it without doing some major mechanical refactoring is to cover any exposed sides of your gear boxes with cobblestone, or any other solid block that doesn't catch fire for that matter.

[jagoly]

Fire huh? I hadn't thought of that! Yes, this room was a lava pool. Although, the blue stuff is just the lowest strata smooth stone, and the black stuff is bedrock. TP is Derivation.

Hmm... How would they manage to catch fire though? That gearbox in the last screenshot has air or cobble or axle to every side, so how could lava get to it? Also, the lava went to the bottom left back of that screenshot, so that was never actually surrounded. I'll dig it up and check though, thanks!

[jagoly]

Just checked, there is no lava within at least 4x4 of either of those gearboxes. Drat :/

[Mason11987]

Fire huh? I hadn't thought of that! Yes, this room was a lava pool. Although, the blue stuff is just the lowest strata smooth stone, and the black stuff is bedrock. TP is Derivation.

Hmm... How would they manage to catch fire though? That gearbox in the last screenshot has air or cobble or axle to every side, so how could lava get to it? Also, the lava went to the bottom left back of that screenshot, so that was never actually surrounded. I'll dig it up and check though, thanks!

Lava can set things on fire even if there is no access to the lava.

If there's within X blocks of lava then they will eventually burn as long as they have at least one non-solid face

I'm not sure what X is exactly, but I'd just clear out all lava within 5 blocks of those and then let it sit for a while and see if that solves your problem.

It's definitely fire.

[Wibbles]

"a fire (or still lava) block can turn any air block that is adjacent to a flammable block into a fire block. This can happen at a distance of up to one block downwards, one block sideways (including diagonals), and four blocks upwards of the original fire source."

http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Fire#Spread

most logical explanation I can think of is that you've got a lava block somewhere underneath that setup. You checked under the floor too?

[jagoly]

The floor is bedrock, but I'll look for pockets.

[jagoly]

Haven't gotten a chance to check for those pockets yet, but thought I'd ask if anyone knows what the changes to windmill breakage are / when they were introduced? Because I can't find anything about it anywhere.

[FlowerChild]

Haven't gotten a chance to check for those pockets yet, but thought I'd ask if anyone knows what the changes to windmill breakage are / when they were introduced? Because I can't find anything about it anywhere.

That's because there weren't any.

[jagoly]

So, are you saying that my windmill shouldn't be rain proof? I've broken it manually even, to see if re-placing would change something, but it didn't make a difference. Still stormproof.

[FlowerChild]

So, are you saying that my windmill shouldn't be rain proof? I've broken it manually even, to see if re-placing would change something, but it didn't make a difference. Still stormproof.

No, I'm saying that the Wind Mill itself was never destroyed by weather and you don't understand how that feature worked in the first place.

[jagoly]

As far as I know, it should destroy the first gearbox attached to it. That's why we are supposed to have to apply redstone power to that gearbox in a storm.

That was how it worked when I started this world, but hasn't for quite a few releases now.

I have not switched it off in ages. When it rains, the "windmill" itself spins faster, the dark particles emit from all gearboxes, but nothing breaks.

I was refering to the windmill as a whole, which usually includes the mill part as well. But I'll use windmill for the item itself from now on.

[Daisjun]

The only instance I've found where a windmill can be physically knocked off is when a spider shoots a web at it.

[jagoly]

I know, I know. That was just poor wording on my part. What I'm saying is that the GEARBOX isn't breaking.

[Daisjun]

Is it connected by more than one axle? I just did some testing then, the gearbox breaks if it's connected by only one axle to the windmill, any more than that and it's fine. Probably a result of update 4.89999 where FC increased the number of axles that could be connected to a power source. This is actually a valid bug.

[jagoly]

windmill with axle, then axle, then axle, then gearbox

I thought this was a bug, but FC scares me too much to report it as such. Also, it seems kinda major, so I didn't think it would be something FC would miss. :P

[Daisjun]

Haha ok, I'll report it then.

[thekyz]

Are you by any chance in a desert biome ?

[Daisjun]

I'll let you figure out for yourself what's wrong with what you just asked...