Redstone Guide (Auto-Sorter)  (Read 13926 times)

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doc_engie

Redstone Guide (Auto-Sorter)
« on: 8 Mar 2014, 18:33:26 »
Hello All!

Lately, I have heard of people asking or people wondering how to build an auto-sorter. While I am sure many of you have already figured it out, here is a guide for those who haven't!

*NOTE* Only items that are STACKABLE will be able to be sorted!

In this tutorial, we will be making a small auto-sorter that will sort 5 items.

Materials needed:
- Redstone*
- Redstone Repeaters*

- Redstone Comparators*

- Redstone Torches*
- Droppers

- Hoppers*

- Chests*
- Trapped Chests*

- Snowballs/enderpearls (anything that has a max stack of 16 items)*
- at least 7 items that you want to be sorted (i.e. 7 diamonds, 7 emeralds, 7 wheat, 7 bones, etc.)*

* - Denotes materials that you will need more of if you want to build a larger auto-sorter than the one in this example

Deposit Chest:
To begin, you will need a deposit area, preferably a chest or double chest so that it is easier to dump items that need to be sorted.


Next, create a "hopper pipe" going down, however far down until your each the y-coordinate that you would like the auto-sorter to be located at. To create the "hopper pipe" Shift + Right-Click the bottom of the chest, then the bottom of the hopper that was just placed. Continue this pattern until you reach the bottom. At the bottom of a pipe, put a double chest.



To create an even flow of items in the "hopper pipe" as the items go to be sorted, you will need to create an item elevator.

Item Elevator:

Materials Needed:
- 3 droppers
- 1 hoppers
- 7 pieces of redstone
- 2 redstone comparators
- 4 redstone repeaters.

Following is a picture tutorial on how to create the item elevator.

This is a stack of 3 droppers. To place these, stand on the block where you want them to go. Shift + Spacebar(jump) + Right-Click. You will need this to be 3 droppers high. Once the dropper tower is placed, you will need to Shift + Right-Click on the bottom dropper with a  Hopper, as shown in the picture below. *NOTE* The orientation of the hopper is important, it must be going into the bottom dropper.













Here is an aerial view of the first layer of redstone for the item elevator:


Continuing on with the second layer of redstone for the item elevator:


*NOTE* The half slabs in this picture are important. You can NOT substitute the half slabs for whole blocks. Any type of half slabs will work.


Same step for creating the platform for the second level of redstone, however the picture is taken from the opposite side of the dropper tower.


Second layer of redstone for the item elevator:


This step adds a block that will carry the redstone signal from the repeater at the top of the picture to the other two repeaters.


This step adds redstone to the second layer, connecting two of the repeaters.


This step adds a block to the second layer. This block will carry the redstone output signal from the comparator that will be placed in the next picture.


This step adds the comparator to the second layer.


This step adds a hopper on top of the dropper tower. This hopper is the beginning of the hopper pipeline that will go around and deposit the item in the corresponding chest.

*NOTE* The Orientation of this hopper is important. It must be facing the direction of where the auto-sorter is located.



Congratulations! At this point, the deposit chest and the item elevator should be complete! Following both of these steps, is the actual item sorter, the part of the system that will take an item out of the hopper pipe if it is a match.

Hopper Pipe:
Materials needed to craft a hopper:
- 5 iron
- 1 chest

The easiest way to make the hopper pipe is to place a block in a pillar as shown in the picture below with the top block at the same y-coordinate as the hopper on top of the dropper tower. From there, Shift + Right-Click the hoppers starting at the block pillar, until you reach the hopper above the dropper tower. If you need to make a turn in the hopper pipe, see the second picture below.



Item Sorter:
*NOTE* This step is a repeatable step. Once you complete one item sorter section, all others are exact replicas.

Materials Needed to sort ONE item:
- 3 hoppers
- 1 redstone comparator
- 1 redstone repeater
- 1 redstone torch
- 2 pieces of redstone
- 2 chests OR 2 trapped chests

When placing the chest and hoppers that feed into the chest, orientation is key. The bottom hopper (the one on the same y-coordinate as the chest goes directly into the chest (Shift + Right-Click on the chest). However, the hopper above this one, MUST be faced as shown in the pictures below.

Place the chest down, with a block (doesn't matter what type as you will break it soon after).


Shift + Right-Click a hopper on the chest/double chest.


Next, create the block structure seen on the left side of the following picture. It can be made out of any solid block. Do not forget to add the redstone torch under the bottom hopper.


Place a comparator on the top, with input originating from the hopper.


Here is a side-view of the same step:


Add a redstone repeater facing the block that the redstone torch is on.


Place redstone dust on the top of the two blocks that are left, as shown in the following picture.


Once completed, it should look like this:


Now, to add what item this unit will sort, right-click the hopper above the chest and add 4 of any item whose max stack is 16 items.

Example: Enderpearls (Another, more common item that you can use are snowballs!)


After adding the enderpearls in, add 7 units of the item you want sorted.

Example: 7 diamonds *NOTE* The seventh diamond is taken from the hopper you place and put into the hopper below (the hopper before the items go into the chest).


Continue this process of adding units to the hopper line in order to add more items for the auto-sorter to sort.

*NOTE* When adding the items to sort, i.e. the diamonds, do NOT add more than 7 units of the item at a time as this will mess up the other item sorter units around it.

Below is a picture of the auto-sorter that I have built to sort multiple items. Everything is the same with the exception of the chest which alternates between a regular double chest and a trapped double chest.



If you found this helpful, let me know! If I've left anything out, let me know as well! Need help, leave a comment!
« Last Edit: 9 Mar 2014, 14:30:07 by doc_engie »

EttaDreamfeather

Re: Redstone Guide (Auto-Sorter)
« Reply #1 on: 9 Mar 2014, 03:46:25 »
I just wanted to point out that any of the images you used aren't working... :P

itisnotyou

Re: Redstone Guide (Auto-Sorter)
« Reply #2 on: 9 Mar 2014, 07:47:43 »
When including images in your post use the i.imgur.com link instead of the imgur.com, then they will display. Alternatively you could also jus post a link to your imgur galleries as you seem to have allot of images.


doc_engie

Re: Redstone Guide (Auto-Sorter)
« Reply #3 on: 9 Mar 2014, 14:31:27 »
Sorry about the inconvenience with the pictures! :L Problem has been resolved, thank you itisnotyou for the tip!

Omega1291

Re: Redstone Guide (Auto-Sorter)
« Reply #4 on: 10 Mar 2014, 02:18:57 »
Hey Doc, here's a bit more compact way to power the item elevator. Smaller footprint, and a bit more resource friendly.





You can go as high as you want with it, or as short. It's the design I've been using for most of the automation around my Complex

EDIT: The other upside to this design is that it's pretty much silent with the odd click randomly from one of the droppers.
« Last Edit: 10 Mar 2014, 02:32:24 by Omega1291 »

Miner_man123456

Re: Redstone Guide (Auto-Sorter)
« Reply #5 on: 10 Mar 2014, 02:28:01 »
Might have to make something like this one day, but probably not for a while :p

GrumpyV5

Re: Redstone Guide (Auto-Sorter)
« Reply #6 on: 12 Mar 2014, 16:25:05 »
That's a really nice guide, I was actually wondering about how this would like in the end (nice pictures there).
The guide saves me from the trouble to actully build one myself just to see that (wouldn't need the automation, I like sorting through my "loot" by hand to much to automate that).

Also interesting addition, Omega. Might be a good alternative for the glowstone+redstone horizontal powerline i wanted to use for a different redstonething.

Omega1291

Re: Redstone Guide (Auto-Sorter)
« Reply #7 on: 12 Mar 2014, 17:00:16 »
Works fine for things needing power on the way up like the droppers, or even pistons for an elevator .If you just need to send power vertically up without powering things on the way, you can just do a torch stack (Bad ASCII illustration below).

RS______->out
[ ]
 i
[ ]
 i
[ ]____<-In

For horizontal distance signals, you can use a piston and some tripwires as an alternate method for that/ You can "send" a signal around 40 blocks without repeaters and little delay that way. Here is a youtube vid on that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YK-lUnOjdI#ws

ShaneZiggity

Re: Redstone Guide (Auto-Sorter)
« Reply #8 on: 12 Jun 2015, 14:12:32 »
The top dropper in the chain isn't working. I did the redstone method shown in the pictures. I can see the redstone working the way it is supposed to, but the dropper simply isn't activating. I can hear it clicking, but no items are coming out of it.
« Last Edit: 12 Jun 2015, 14:18:30 by kaleb0777 »

ShaneZiggity

Re: Redstone Guide (Auto-Sorter)
« Reply #9 on: 12 Jun 2015, 14:26:22 »
The top dropper in the chain isn't working. I did the redstone method shown in the pictures. I can see the redstone working the way it is supposed to, but the dropper simply isn't activating. I can hear it clicking, but no items are coming out of it.
Ok so apparently the hopper on top blocks the dropper, so I guess that part no longer works in 1.8

itisnotyou

Re: Redstone Guide (Auto-Sorter)
« Reply #10 on: 12 Jun 2015, 16:05:56 »
Ok so apparently the hopper on top blocks the dropper, so I guess that part no longer works in 1.8
To make it work you need to type
Code: [Select]
/lwc flag hopper on and then click the hopper.