Automatic Tree Farm Discussion

[gftweek]

I discovered this too after several mishaps, and since this is a tree farm, the chests are free, plus you can store the processed wood in them!

I've given up on a simpler lifting design. While I can get the up stage and the down stage to work perfectly well on their own, the timing problems with detecting when to change between them, and when to start in the first place make the simple design much too complicated.

I think a push from the top design is simpler as you can exploit the fact that the gravel will fall right past the piston that pushes the logs to make the design simpler (I hope). Also the timing can probably be a lot looser as you don't have to release the gravel at the exact moment the piston is down, but before the stack of gravel above starts to fall.

I can release the broken completed design, or initial working but incomplete design if anyone is interested, before I trash it and start again.

[grimper12341]

Um finite I've managed to recreate the lifting gravel lifting mechanism you used for the tree farm. Goes up and down perfectly, and I've figured out how to get the timing right for switching between up/down, but for one problem.

Problem being when the gravel has moved 11 blocks up and is kept there (while the circuit goes thru the long clock and eventually brings it back down), the gravel gets crushed back into item form from the gravity, and keeps getting crushed until it stops at 3 blocks above the bottom piston.

How'd you get around that?

[gftweek]

Your piston is probably pushing up and down too fast, both sand and gravel will itemise like this (as shown in Jeb's first video showing vanilla pistons).

If you reduce the clock speed it shouldn't happen.

[grimper12341]

Ohs kay, thanks ^^

[finite8]

I think a push from the top design is simpler as you can exploit the fact that the gravel will fall right past the piston that pushes the logs to make the design simpler (I hope). Also the timing can probably be a lot looser as you don't have to release the gravel at the exact moment the piston is down, but before the stack of gravel above starts to fall.

I can release the broken completed design, or initial working but incomplete design if anyone is interested, before I trash it and start again.

This is why you need to exploit the pistons maximum push distance. You can the be assured that at the maximum height it cannot push any further. If you use a sticky piston to pick up the top most piece and let it fall back down again if gravity effected BEFORE the next attempt to push the stack up again, you can precisely control what gets collected and what doesn't.

Problem being when the gravel has moved 11 blocks up and is kept there (while the circuit goes thru the long clock and eventually brings it back down), the gravel gets crushed back into item form from the gravity, and keeps getting crushed until it stops at 3 blocks above the bottom piston.

How'd you get around that?

Cause: This will occur when a space for the gravel to fall down to is seen. The gravel starts falling from bottom to top but WHILE it falls, you push the piston and or a new piece of gravel back up again. You will then be pushing a block of gravel INTO a non-solid form of falling gravel. This results in it breaking.

Solution: Never give the gravel a chance to fall back down until you want it all to. If you are pushing up 11 blocks of gravel, have the system designed so it tries to push up 12. The result is that the piston won't push, and the gravel doesn't move up OR down.

This is easily controlled if you have a sticky piston pull gravel INTO the line to be pushed up, rather than just have a BD place the block the second a piston retracts. If you do it with only a piston pushing up and a BD placing the block to be pushed, you will have a few seconds in the cycle where the BD consumes the gravel infront of it (which it anticipates that the extended piston should be there) which results in the gravel falling down. The piston will now extend and cause the gravel block to break.

If you use a sticky to move back and fourth, you will always have the bottom most space consumed even if there is no capacity to extend (because when the sticky retracts and the piston cannot push, the gravel stays there. The Sticky then extends still holding the gravel up and THEN the BD collects and subsequently replaces the Gravel on the extended sticky arm.)

I will try to make a video when i can to demonstrate this.

[grimper12341]

Don't worry I got most of it working now :D

Pretty much finished actually cept for a couple of minor things. My biggest redstone creation yet ^^ (re-creation rather)
Main ideas of the big glass clock and the gravel pushing came from you, redstoning and logic gates me nutted out myself, tho it's probs ended up very similar to yours anyway.




Not sure whether I need that smaller clock powering the big one...and trying to find a smaller pulse generator too.

Only problem I have now is the automatic replacement of the dirt/sapling.
This is what I got for that atm:


Block detector that detects the trunk is wired up straight to the dispensers and inverted, so when a trunk is detected it removes the dirt, and once the sand has gone up and comes back down, the signal from the detector stops and turns on the dispensers to replant again.

But what's happening is the sand is falling back too slowly and the dirt/sapling is blocked by the falling sand. Only way around that I can think of atm is a super long delay with repeaters but there must be a better way, I'm tired atm >.<

Also if I implement that super long delay the dirt block won't get removed in time for the rising sand either... :\

Anyway once that's fixed I just gotta do the sapling recycler and direct the planks that are produced either straight to a chest or thru that more advanced system you made.

rather than just have a BD place the block the second a piston retracts. If you do it with only a piston pushing up and a BD placing the block to be pushed, you will have a few seconds in the cycle where the BD consumes the gravel infront of it (which it anticipates that the extended piston should be there) which results in the gravel falling down. The piston will now extend and cause the gravel block to break.

Actually that's the system I'm using, but I've avoided the breaking by just slowing down the clock.


EDIT: Lol just noticed you used the same system for your auto replanter with the lazy man's delay...I don't really pay attention to complicated vids except for the main ideas >.<

EDIT 2: Seems my setup is chicken/duck/rogue sapling proof by accident :3
Needs a constant signal from the tree detector to function which only a solid block can provide.

And I'm thinking the only way to do the auto replanting in a reasonable amount of space is with a turntable...but I'm currently in no position to think straight (been awake 2 days straight >.<) and I've never used them before either :\

EDIT 3: *smacks turntable* ragerageragerageragerage

[grimper12341]

Mkay managed to find a smaller pulse generator, and I turned the big glass timer into a clock, removing the small clock that was powering it and replacing it with a pulse generator to start the big one.

Also managed to figure out turntables on my own but the result is kinda meh.

What I've got the system doing at the moment is this:

1. Truck is detected and block detector sends out a signal, dirt is instantly removed and clock is started to push sand up.
2. Tree is pushed up, sand comes back down, block detector signal stops.
3. Dirt and sapling are put back after 16 seconds which lets the sand go all the way down.
4. Clock powering sand stack stops.

However to get that working it requires 2 RS-NOR latches, 2 pulse generators, a handful of NOT gates, and the turntable + associated water wheel.
So it ends up taking up as much space as the rest of the circuit minus the big clock -.-'

Me is learning a hell of a lot about redstoning doing this tho. Biggest project I'd done before this involved the use of a single RS-NOR latch and that took me ages to figure out x3

[finite8]

Mkay managed to find a smaller pulse generator, and I turned the big glass timer into a clock, removing the small clock that was powering it and replacing it with a pulse generator to start the big one.

Also managed to figure out turntables on my own but the result is kinda meh.

What I've got the system doing at the moment is this:

1. Truck is detected and block detector sends out a signal, dirt is instantly removed and clock is started to push sand up.
2. Tree is pushed up, sand comes back down, block detector signal stops.
3. Dirt and sapling are put back after 16 seconds which lets the sand go all the way down.
4. Clock powering sand stack stops.

However to get that working it requires 2 RS-NOR latches, 2 pulse generators, a handful of NOT gates, and the turntable + associated water wheel.
So it ends up taking up as much space as the rest of the circuit minus the big clock -.-'

Me is learning a hell of a lot about redstoning doing this tho. Biggest project I'd done before this involved the use of a single RS-NOR latch and that took me ages to figure out x3

Nice work. Your steps 1-4 are exactly how my system works. It definitely refines your Redstone skills. The turntables are good, but the big timing gap between the two lowest settings are really significant. Makes it hard for precise timing.

[grimper12341]

So no simpler way to do the auto replanting then? :\

And I'm thinking for more precise timing you could chain turntables together, but that's just gonna take up even more space.
At the moment it needs 12 seconds for the sand to fall from the block detector right to the bottom and the turntable gives it 16 so it's close enough.

EDIT: This is the setup I got for the auto replanter at the moment


Pulse generator 1 only activates when the signal from the block detector turns off which is pretty nifty.

[finite8]

And here is my final design, all prettied up and looking like a proper building.

[gftweek]

No where near as pretty as finite8's design, but I have slimmed my proof of concept design down to only need one clock and 3 RS-NOR latches, 2 detector blocks, 2 block dispensers and 3 pistons.

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It is a primarily redstone design, and currently has no features in place for processing harvested logs nor for restocking the saplings or sand used, but an average oak tree will only require 10ish blocks of sand, so will harvest 57 trees before it needs restocking with sand (collected in the second BD).

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The RS-NOR latches control the clock, when to stop dispensing sand, and when to reset the system when the used sand is all collected again.

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It currently wastes a block of sand as there is an extra pulse out of the clock as it turns off, this may be an easy fix, but is minor enough that I haven't looked too closely. The main aim of the design was to make it as small and use as few resources as possible. World Save, also includes 2 larger or failed attempts.

[finite8]

No where near as pretty as finite8's design, but I have slimmed my proof of concept design down to only need one clock and 3 RS-NOR latches, 2 detector blocks, 2 block dispensers and 3 pistons.

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It is a primarily redstone design, and currently has no features in place for processing harvested logs nor for restocking the saplings or sand used, but an average oak tree will only require 10ish blocks of sand, so will harvest 57 trees before it needs restocking with sand (collected in the second BD).

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The RS-NOR latches control the clock, when to stop dispensing sand, and when to reset the system when the used sand is all collected again.

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It currently wastes a block of sand as there is an extra pulse out of the clock as it turns off, this may be an easy fix, but is minor enough that I haven't looked too closely. The main aim of the design was to make it as small and use as few resources as possible. World Save, also includes 2 larger or failed attempts.

DropBox? NOOOO! My work blocks that Url. Sigh. Will have to wait till i get home.

I take it though that it is using the Push-Down method?

[gftweek]

Sorry, is there a better easy way to upload this?

Yes it is the push down method, I may try replicating the push up method again, but I think that is still easier using timing. Although it is simpler with only one BD required for the sand/gravel.

[finite8]

Finally got round to taking an MCEdit snapshot of my design.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36477635/Minecr ... .schematic

Enjoy.

Thanks @emmasteadman for the prompting to do it!

Sorry, is there a better easy way to upload this?

lol, nah. It's fine. Just my stupid works firewall.

[petrus4]

Uses Foul Food as fertiliser, which is of course from BTW. I've got a semi-automated flour mill and foul food factory as well, which I might cover in subsequent videos if anyone is interested.

[Stormweaver]

This is definitely the kind of project that test your skills :|

Still halfway through putting one together (so it's just a messy proof of concept design) but since I found out that block dispensers + boats make for a very space efficient counting circuit, when compared to a ring pushed around by pistons. As such I've got the clock+counter+reset section all in a very tidy 7x8x2 area. *pride*

Here's the pic of that little lot:

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A few things:
- The netherrack (orange blocks) and pressure pad are just stand ins, to make the SS look a little less messy :p
- The 'Counter' is made up of 2 upwards-facing BDs, powered via repeaters. Each has a few boats and a pumpkin in. Yes, I wire with pumpkins. and boats.
- I'm using Phoenixterrain, and upped the spawn rate of dungeons in this world. Hence all the BDs ^.^

EDIT: Ignore the bit at the top-right, it's the corner of the sand lift thingy. Which was still huge when I took the screenshot :|

I've managed to get the sand/gravel lift working fine, and need to get the final wiring done that disables the pistons and resets the counter automatically, but I'm tired. Didn't realise it was almost 4am >.> damned minecraft...but oh well. I should finish it tommorow, I'll post a couple more SSs then.

[finite8]

This is definitely the kind of project that test your skills :|

Still halfway through putting one together (so it's just a messy proof of concept design) but since I found out that block dispensers + boats make for a very space efficient counting circuit, when compared to a ring pushed around by pistons. As such I've got the clock+counter+reset section all in a very tidy 7x8x2 area. *pride*

Here's the pic of that little lot:

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A few things:
- The netherrack (orange blocks) and pressure pad are just stand ins, to make the SS look a little less messy :p
- The 'Counter' is made up of 2 upwards-facing BDs, powered via repeaters. Each has a few boats and a pumpkin in. Yes, I wire with pumpkins. and boats.
- I'm using Phoenixterrain, and upped the spawn rate of dungeons in this world. Hence all the BDs ^.^

EDIT: Ignore the bit at the top-right, it's the corner of the sand lift thingy. Which was still huge when I took the screenshot :|

I've managed to get the sand/gravel lift working fine, and need to get the final wiring done that disables the pistons and resets the counter automatically, but I'm tired. Didn't realise it was almost 4am >.> damned minecraft...but oh well. I should finish it tommorow, I'll post a couple more SSs then.

The only problem is that your clock is going to Jam on a Save / Load although, as you only have a small line of 3 repeaters, it should be easy to reset using a biological clock but takes up some extra space.

Nice setup though. Definitely saves on space.

[Stormweaver]

The only problem is that your clock is going to Jam on a Save / Load although, as you only have a small line of 3 repeaters, it should be easy to reset using a biological clock but takes up some extra space.

Nice setup though. Definitely saves on space.

I plan to replace it with a turntable once I'm at the tech level - I'm still using hand cranks on this world, having only found one slime (who refuses to respawn) :|

Thanks though. By entire build is on three small islands, so space was an issue. I dealt with the issue. *pride*

[Williamson]

I'm actually working on a way at the moment to toggle between the up and down cycles without needing a timer, by pushing the sand across with the logs. It then falls back down, passing a DB, before hitting a torch to reduce it to an item, and falling into a hopper which feeds it back into the sand dispenser. The DB then triggers the switch to down sequence.
Still having problems with the end of the down sequence though, so I'm probably going to have to redesign that to be able to plant the tree. I'll post some pics when it's working.

[grimper12341]

q.q my design is so massive.

Guess I didn't learn enough >.<

[gftweek]

I'm actually working on a way at the moment to toggle between the up and down cycles without needing a timer, by pushing the sand across with the logs. It then falls back down, passing a DB, before hitting a torch to reduce it to an item, and falling into a hopper which feeds it back into the sand dispenser. The DB then triggers the switch to down sequence.
Still having problems with the end of the down sequence though, so I'm probably going to have to redesign that to be able to plant the tree. I'll post some pics when it's working.

Nice idea, I was going to try a DB up the top of the stack, but this idea is much easier!

[Stormweaver]

Proof that these things can be small.

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See annotations for details. I suck at explaining things, but if there are any questions, I'll do my best ^.^

I took the SS here because the next bit is going to be a pain in the ass; the original circuit fits in a 10x10x2 *including* the inputs and outputs, so the next bit is raising the sand lift above it (and actually neatening it up), then setting up a detector and BD to finish the 'automation' bit. I'm just going to stick another BD and Detector at the top to deal with harvesting, I don't have saws yet >.> but it should be able to be independent of the main mechanism, which is always nice.

It *should* fit in a neat 10x10x15 area once it's done, and since the timer's on the side I can switch it out for a turntable the moment I have one :D The setup as it is right now will lift 12 blocks of sand straight up, and 1~ second after the last sand block is pushed it proceeds to eat the stack again. I've already got the points for the last few bits to be attached to, so now to tidy it up.

...and when I say now, I mean when I can stand to look at minecraft again. Before this, the most complicated thing I made was a cobble generator :|

[Harcion]

Those builds are pretty nice.

While reading the thread I could not stop thinking about the earlier post by JammerUno:

New suggestion:

Just tested it, pistons can move gears/axles/saws. If you use pistons to move the saws into place, you won't be limited to big trees, since you'll be fulfilling the space requirement for small trees too (no blocks around the trunk). That should seriously cut down growth time. Then you just need to make sure to cut through any leaves between your saw and the trunk before moving there.

edit: the bottem bkocl of the trunk doesn't have that restriction, do you a) don't have to shift the bottom saw, b) can place a DB there.

and I got all excited about making a retractable piston stack to move a saw up and down - something I thought would look way cooler than the sand/gravel-pushing piston-setups.

I managed to get the stack working but it was a lot of work and in the meantime I lost track of the main point of it all: no blocks in the growth area of the sapling. Of course, to retract stuff you have to power it somehow and then you end up with blocks at the same level as the top-most piston anyway. In my probably most stupid moments in Minecraft yet, I did not realise this until I was actually planting the tree to try it out.

At least the stack works - but as I say in the Youtube description, there's not much point to it since you could as well just use an opposing stack from the top and not have to worry about retracting in the right order at all. Bah. There is no way you could fix this approach, right? I don't trust myself at the moment.

Here is a video of how it looks:


I've removed everything from the tree except the 5 lowermost trunk blocks so you can see what happens. Leaves would get automatically destroyed if they were in the way.

There's no replanting mechanism or even anything to gather up the wood since I'm not going to use it after realising how much of an epic fail it was.

[finite8]

Proof that these things can be small.

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See annotations for details. I suck at explaining things, but if there are any questions, I'll do my best ^.^

I took the SS here because the next bit is going to be a pain in the ass; the original circuit fits in a 10x10x2 *including* the inputs and outputs, so the next bit is raising the sand lift above it (and actually neatening it up), then setting up a detector and BD to finish the 'automation' bit. I'm just going to stick another BD and Detector at the top to deal with harvesting, I don't have saws yet >.> but it should be able to be independent of the main mechanism, which is always nice.

It *should* fit in a neat 10x10x15 area once it's done, and since the timer's on the side I can switch it out for a turntable the moment I have one :D The setup as it is right now will lift 12 blocks of sand straight up, and 1~ second after the last sand block is pushed it proceeds to eat the stack again. I've already got the points for the last few bits to be attached to, so now to tidy it up.

...and when I say now, I mean when I can stand to look at minecraft again. Before this, the most complicated thing I made was a cobble generator :|

Can you send me a video how circuit C works? I've never seen that configuration before and it's driving me nuts trying to figure out how it works from the picture.

[Stormweaver]

Can you send me a video how circuit C works? I've never seen that configuration before and it's driving me nuts trying to figure out how it works from the picture.

No FRAPs >.< I'll get it DLed at some point, but my minecraft runs slowly as it is.

I've typed this up fast, but i'll be back here in 10 mins and I'll explain it better.

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I'll just explain it. the first part is a simple Bd AND Gate - the flip-flop powers the BD, and the clock sends the pulse through the block. That's simple enough.

The...innovative bit is probably the bit you're confused on. The Bds are set into the ground, powered from ground level using the repeater. Each has a number of boats and a block (pumpkins in this case). When the clock sends a pulse through, it powers the BD, and it dispenses and sucks back in a boat. Then it moves to the next item in the inventory (another boat) and it repeats till it hits a pumpkin. The pumpkin passes current via the repeater to the second BD, which also has boats and pumpkins in. when the second hits the pumpkin, the pulse manages to get through both pumpkins to the Flip-flop, resetting the circuit.

New, slowly typed explaination

Sorry about that. If I explain how the BD interacts, you should be able to get it. I'm quite impressed with the concept myself tbh. Here goes.

Imagine you have a clock as the input to a repeater powering one of the inset BDs. The BD contains boats (a non-stackable, non-conductive entity) and a pumpkin (a conductive block). Each time a pulse travels through, it forces the BD to dispense it's contents, which go in order - in this case boat, boat, boat, pumpkin (repeat). The boats do not conduct the redstone, but the pumpkin does - when the pumpkin is dispensed, current passes through it to the output. As such, every b+1 pulses (where b is the number of boats) there will be an output. When put in series, the final output is equal to (b+1)*(B+1) where b and B are the number of boats in each dispenser.

As a result, for a 2x3 or 1x4 footprint, you can have a circuit that can count up to 81, so long as the number is the product of 2 numbers between 2 and 9. this also increases exponentially with each extra BD added, allowing for very, very long counters. It's like having a bunch of T-Flip flops in series, with more than 2 possible states each.

...I hope that's better >.> I suck at explaining. Might be easer if you hook up a button, repeater, BD and a light block and mess around with it if I've failed :s note that any non-stackable non-conductive entity paired with any conductive block will work; I used boats and pumpkins because...Who doesn't work to use boats and pumpkins in a circuit at some point in thier MC life ^.^

I'm cringing at how awkward me trying to summon the termanology for circuits sounds :(