The BC12 - an automated mining machine

[Harcion]

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking here and in the original thread on minecraftforum.net since before the Yogaboo invasion. My only contribution so far was a paddle steamer, which, while kinda neat-looking, didn't do much.

Now I finally made something constructive, however, and I would like some input from the community.

My Steve is starting to get a little old, and picking away with his trusty (now diamond) pickaxe is just not that fun anymore, and he gets tired easily. So one day he thought "There must be some way to strip mine automatically!", and promptly set out to devise such a machine.
The result, while still requiring some manual digging, is the BC12. By using 15 block dispensers, 39 pistons, a desert's worth of sand and some semi-complicated redstone wiring, it automatically digs 12x13x13 = 2028 blocks which can then be picked up from a row of 12 BD's.

Here is a picture of the setup (read below for details):

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Basically, there is a row of 12 pistons pushing a layer of blocks from left to right to another row of pistons, which then pushes the layer downwards one row at a time. To accomplish this, a BD dispenses sand which is then pushed out by another piston to lie in front of the row of pistons. In the end, all the blocks will have been replaced by sand, but sand is easy to get rid of using torches.

12 blocks below the second piston row there is an upward-facing row of BD's that suck in the blocks as they arrive:

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When one layer is done, two auxiliary rows of pistons push the first rows of pistons down one block so that they can begin working on the next layer. This is repeated for each of 12 layers using the same sand procedure. In this picture you can see both the first "feeder" row that pushes the block and the upper piston row that pushes the pistons. In the foreground there is also a monostable circuit that limits the long pulse generated by the slow turntable.

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To automate the pushing-down of the pistons, there is a clock using pistons to drive a sequence of dirt blocks around. One of the 13 blocks in the sequence is glass instead of dirt, which does not transmit redstone current, so every 13:th block a signal is sent to the correct pistons.

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All the other timers for the pistons and BD's use the new turntables with redstone torches attached. The fastest setting with two torches and the slowest with one torch worked out very well to control the two different speeds needed.

Some things that should be noted is that a hopper full of sand is needed above the main sand dispenser since a lot of sand is needed. Actually, you need two because even one full hopper and one full BD is only 27 stacks. Also, because of the way pistons can be powered, you actually only need to power every second row on the way down. Hence it makes sense to set it up in this way, with "shelves" of redstone and repeaters (where every second repeater could be replaced by redstone I guess):

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Each layer takes about 3.5 minutes to mine which means that the whole chunk of 1872 blocks should take about 42 minutes. This is slower than doing it by hand (even for my old Steve, when he tried), but considering that one can let this run while doing something else and that there is no tool-decay involved it seems pretty useful. As for how long actually setting the whole thing up might take, I'm not sure, even though Steve knows how to do it now it will probably take a while. If starting a second excavation right beside the first excavation, I think that some of the structures can be reused but I did not really consider that yet.

A side-effect of using the BD's instead of a pick is that you do not get cobblestone but smooth stone directly. Coal ore, (and presumably also iron ore, diamond ore and such - I didn't test), are converted into coal as usual:

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Lastly, a disclaimer: I did not actually run it to the last layer yet, only until the 6:th or so. The procedure is the same throughout, however, so there should not be any problems except possibly some minor timing issues.

I will probably make a little movie that might be enlightening but it will have to wait a few days since at the moment I only have access to a computer that can barely run the contraption itself, much less capture it on film.
Here is a movie of it in action:


Hopefully someone made it through this awfully long post and has some ideas about what could be done much more efficiently! :)

[BinoAl]

Gotta say, this is pretty damn cool ^.^

[BuLLZ3Y3]

That is very impressive. Is there a reason that it only mines a 13x12x12 area? I'm assuming it's because of the size of the machine - larger machine = larger area mined perhaps?

EDIT: Ah, that would probably be the correct answer there Battlecat. I don't use pistons much, so I often forget their restraints.

All in all, that's a pretty sweet rig you've got there. =)

-BuLLZ3Y3

[Battlecat]

I would assume the limitation is due to the 12 block pushing limit of pistons. This is an incredibly cool build, I'd love to see a video of it in action.

[Thieme]

This is pretty fucking brilliant

[magikeh]

This is pretty fucking brilliant

+1 for this post!!

[Haidaes]

Pretty nice design. I like the part about pushing the pistons down the most, though it is too bad that you have to prepare the pistons first by digging holes for the wiring.

[Camerinthus]

That is beyond epic. I love it.

[Harcion]

I would assume the limitation is due to the 12 block pushing limit of pistons. This is an incredibly cool build, I'd love to see a video of it in action.

Yes, that is correct. It seems I was not really thinking when I counted, however, as all the piston lines ought to be 13 blocks long (since a piston pushes 12 blocks, and then there is the block right in front of the piston as well).

So it really should be 13x13x13. Huh. I'll have to edit the thread title and the post tomorrow after I fix it. The machine is now called the BC13.

[the_fodder]

Can't wait to see the video of it in action. Also would you consider uploading the schematics file or your saved world?

The Lens will make moving down layers better.

[Battosay]

Same here.
Well done mate :)

[Urian]

It's looking very good and an interesting combination of the mechanics for pistons and dispensers! Hopefully there will be a video soon showing what it looks like in action :)

[Harcion]

Now I'm back home and can thus post a video:



I also updated the main post because of some off-by-one errors, it excavates 12x13x13 = 2028 blocks where the number 12 (and 13 = 12+1) comes from the maximum push length of the pistons. I think it could be made into 13x13x13 if the second row of pistons were sand-fed from the side instead of from the top, but I kinda like this setup more so I didn't bother trying it out.

Note that you don't have to excavate that big shaft on one side, I just dug it out so I could show the progress of the sand.

[grimper12341]

o.O that be beyond my capability to comprehend

[akantorJojo]

will I think this is kind of a prototype (no idear id thats english ;D ) ... and i think that must be develloped i order to create something more efficient... so i will probably trie to build something that works with out that much preparation...

BUT your idear is still brilliant and will probably mark the beginning of an age... an age of auto-mining-machines ;D

[Harcion]

will I think this is kind of a prototype (no idear id thats english ;D ) ... and i think that must be develloped i order to create something more efficient... so i will probably trie to build something that works with out that much preparation...

BUT your idear is still brilliant and will probably mark the beginning of an age... an age of auto-mining-machines ;D

Thanks. I agree on it being a prototype, that's mainly why I posted it here, to see if there was something obvious I had missed. I already know that I need to have another look at the wiring since there are clearly some unnecessary delays now. You could of course speed it up (a lot) using more sand-dispensing BD's, but I tried to keep that number low to minimize the amount of mossy cobblestone I need to gather in my main legit world.

Also, in view of the recent ice issue with BD's, here's a question to FlowerChild or any passing Flying Turtle that can pass it on (or knows the answer): When the BD eats smooth stone, should it really remain smooth stone or be converted into cobblestone like when you mine it? Without a BD there is the extra step of smelting it to get smooth stone again, but as fuel is kind of cheaply available I'm not sure if it should be considered overpowered (or an exploit).

[Battosay]

Yeah, stone remaining smooth when swallowed by the BD is intented :)

[Harcion]

Yeah, stone remaining smooth when swallowed by the BD is intented :)

Thanks for the quick answer. :) Back to looking for more dungeons.

[Harcion]

A little update on this from the reality-check department.

I've been building three versions of this contraption in my legit world to see how feasible it actually is for large-scale strip-mining.

The conclusion: not so much.

The first one I made only semi-automatic (push the pistons down manually) and even though I only stood around pushing buttons I couldn't really do anything meanwhile.

For the second one I made several off-by-one errors that only showed up after 3-4 layers when the timing got slightly out of sync. This kind of ruined everything and I had to rebuild one half of it. Tedious, yes. I also realised one big problem which I don't think can be solved: caves. Sand drops into them instead of pushing the stone on the other side, leaving stuff hanging in the air, and then that sand will just be eaten by the BD's without having accomplished anything.

For the third version I modified the wiring since it was troublesome transmitting redstone power from above. Instead I sent it up from the newly excavated floor. This felt better, until the rows of pistons randomly stayed extended even after the power turned off. I believe it might be because the shelf above the pistons powers the sand blocks above the pistons while they also receive power from the current shelf. The blocks above receive power one tick later because I transmit it upwards, so it should turn off one tick later as well...but why that causes this bug I don't understand. Updating a nearby block fixed it, but then on the next push exactly the same thing happened.

Also, building those shelves sucks. You can't reuse the ones from the previous excavation since they are shifted one block, so you have to remove the old ones and then build new ones. Then you have to excavate the ones inside the mountain, above the BD's...which lead to resource losses, as you can't reach the items that end up two deep inside them. A water bucket helps, but it's really tedious and feels too much OCD.

Lastly, when you're done, the result isn't really a nice hollow cube but something quite ugly because of the shafts and stuff needed for the wiring.
In my case it looked like this:

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Here you can also see how I removed all the sand with torches. That's the one good thing about it all - the sound when you gather up all the fallen sand. It is extremely satisfying for some reason. :)

Now - what do I do with a big ugly room like this anyway?

[the_fodder]

A little update on this from the reality-check department.
caves. Sand drops into them instead of pushing the stone on the other side, leaving stuff hanging in the air, and then that sand will just be eaten by the BD's without having accomplished anything.

Wouldn't the sand just fill up the lower levels of the cave ? You are filling those levels anyway it just does it sooner, right? Or are you saying that one leg of the machine gets behind the other ones?

For the third version I modified the wiring since it was troublesome transmitting redstone power from above.
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Also, building those shelves sucks.
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Lastly, when you're done, the result isn't really a nice hollow cube but something quite ugly because of the shafts and stuff needed for the wiring.
In my case it looked like this:

I see the potential of this contraption will come back around once we get lenses , smaller shafts and simpler wires or maybe no need to pre-lay redstone just shafts for the beam to go through.

Here you can also see how I removed all the sand with torches. That's the one good thing about it all - the sound when you gather up all the fallen sand. It is extremely satisfying for some reason. :)

LOVE that sound, think I will add it to my phone for new emails.

[Harcion]

A little update on this from the reality-check department.
caves. Sand drops into them instead of pushing the stone on the other side, leaving stuff hanging in the air, and then that sand will just be eaten by the BD's without having accomplished anything.

Wouldn't the sand just fill up the lower levels of the cave ? You are filling those levels anyway it just does it sooner, right? Or are you saying that one leg of the machine gets behind the other ones?

Yes, it fills the lower levels of the cave, but because of the way it is setup the pistons only push 13 times on a single level, then they move down to the next layer. So when the sand falls down there won't be enough sand to completely push away the current layer.

Like this, where S is sand, R is rock and C is a cave. The current layer is the topmost one and the sand is pushed from the left. Because the sand falls down onto the second layer, the topmost right rock will stay in place. Here, only three pushes have been made:
SSSRRCCCCCRRR
RRRRRCCCCCRRR
RRRRRRRRRRRRR

Then after 10 more pushes, when the pistons move down to the next layer, it'll end up like this with 4 left-over rocks:
SSSSSSSSSRRRR
RRRRRSSSSCRRR
RRRRRRRRRRRRR

Hope it's understandable.

I think it would be really complicated to detect whether a whole layer has been filled by sand, certainly much too complicated for a temporary device.

[the_fodder]

That does make sense, the only solution I can think of would involve babysitting and telling it when to go to the next level. -making automation pointless.

Thinking out loud:
do all items pop off blocks when they are pushed?
Water couldlnt be used to verify completion


currently looks like it is a hey look what I can make contraption.


Maybe work on a smaller version for branch mining setting up in a 1 by 1 checkerboard to get the most out of an area? Na that wouldn't work as you couldnt see the remaining blocks and cant easily clear out the sand afterward.