I'm not looking for help, I just felt like sharing my sadness over my broken Redstone sorting machine.
Over a year ago I decided to build a sorting machine according to instructions I found on YouTube. It took some doing, because the instructions were hard for me to follow, but I finally got it to work! It is a long building with labeled chests and when I dump resources in the entry chest, they travel down the line and land in the chest where they are supposed to go.
It was working great, but I left that world and only recently returned. When I visited the sorting machine the other day, it had stopped working. Stuff travels from the entry chest into the first labeled chest but gets stuck there and doesn't continue on to the other chests.
So now I'm sad and trying to decide whether it is worth looking for the initial video and trying to fix it or if I should just manually dump the resources in each chest and just forget about the broken sorting capability.
It is most likely that you accidentally fed your system a 'filler' item. With redstone, it highly pays to know the principles. Sorters are based on monitoring hopper output signal. Hopper signal is 1 when it has 22 items and 2 when it has 23. So you put one item to be sorted in slot 1, and you distribute 21 of whatever 'filler' items you choose in other four. This filler must be something that you are VERY unlikely to ever want to store. Because if you feed such item into system, first filter hopper will grab it, and in turn will have the 'sort' item sucked out, leaving first slot empty. Then this hopper will suck ANY passing item, causing them all to accumulate in the first chest.
Long story short, you should check the very first filtering hopper. It will likely have first slot empty and 22 fillers in the next four. You need to take out one of those, and put in the first slot one item this hopper should be sorting. That should fix it. Then put up a sign saying you should never ever feed whatever you chose as filler.
Way around it: suppose your filler is dirt. Then you just distribute 22 dirt into 5 slots of the first filter hopper, and have you first chest for dirt. Now any dirt you put in will get picked up by the first hopper and won't muck things up further on.
I think you can get around the filler item issue by renaming the items you wish to use as filler in an anvil. Having the name will make it count as a different item, allowing you to toss the "real" version of that item into the system without worry.
It is most likely that you accidentally fed your system a 'filler' item. With redstone, it highly pays to know the principles. Sorters are based on monitoring hopper output signal. Hopper signal is 1 when it has 22 items and 2 when it has 23. So you put one item to be sorted in slot 1, and you distribute 21 of whatever 'filler' items you choose in other four. This filler must be something that you are VERY unlikely to ever want to store. Because if you feed such item into system, first filter hopper will grab it, and in turn will have the 'sort' item sucked out, leaving first slot empty. Then this hopper will suck ANY passing item, causing them all to accumulate in the first chest.
Long story short, you should check the very first filtering hopper. It will likely have first slot empty and 22 fillers in the next four. You need to take out one of those, and put in the first slot one item this hopper should be sorting. That should fix it. Then put up a sign saying you should never ever feed whatever you chose as filler.
Way around it: suppose your filler is dirt. Then you just distribute 22 dirt into 5 slots of the first filter hopper, and have you first chest for dirt. Now any dirt you put in will get picked up by the first hopper and won't muck things up further on.
Thank you for explaining this to me! The video I watched only quickly detailed the steps to make the sorter but did not explain how it works. I guess it was made for people already familiar with how the components work, and I had no business even attempting it. As soon as I return to my base I will take a look at the hopper contents as you describe.
I think you can get around the filler item issue by renaming the items you wish to use as filler in an anvil. Having the name will make it count as a different item, allowing you to toss the "real" version of that item into the system without worry.
I think you can get around the filler item issue by renaming the items you wish to use as filler in an anvil. Having the name will make it count as a different item, allowing you to toss the "real" version of that item into the system without worry.
I don't think I tried, but would those stack? I.e. if two dirt blocks are renamed 'filler' will they stack? If they do, renaming 21 filler for each sorting bin is gonna use up a helluva lot of xp and anvils. And if they dont stack, one could use any cheap non-stackable, i.e. wooden shovels. But that changes entire design. The trigger signal becomes 12-13, not 1-2, and you need to tie up 18 sortable items in the filter hopper.
I don't think I tried, but would those stack? I.e. if two dirt blocks are renamed 'filler' will they stack? If they do, renaming 21 filler for each sorting bin is gonna use up a helluva lot of xp and anvils. And if they dont stack, one could use any cheap non-stackable, i.e. wooden shovels. But that changes entire design. The trigger signal becomes 12-13, not 1-2, and you need to tie up 18 sortable items in the filter hopper.
I prefer the version that uses 41 item_to_be_sorted [NB this must be in the leftmost slot of the hopper] & 4 'filler_items' (one in each of the right four slots) [This item must stack to 64].
RE scorrp10's question:
Only the four items filling the right most slots of the hopper are named. These do not need to be named, but the very low chance of accidentally putting an instance of the same item with the same name through the system represents a safety feature.
[Items must be of the same type ie feathers, beet seeds, polished diorite and have identical names in order to stack.]
When renaming items that stack, up to a full stack (enough to act as 'filler' for 16 hoppers) can be renamed with one anvil operation.
I generally use feathers, renaming them "Useful_Feathers".
All "Useful_Feathers" will stack with each other, but with nothing else, including unrenamed feathers and "Useful-Feathers".
@OP
If you are using a version with 18 item_to_be_sorted [NB this must be in the leftmost slot of the hopper] & 4 'filler_items' (one in each of the right four slots) [This item must stack to 64] (or the 22 item_to_be_sorted version scorrp10 described)…
… one of the ways this model can 'break' is if enough material of a specific sort is put through the system. That material 'backs-up' from the output chest,eventually raising the count in its filter hopper (the hopper intended to contain 22 items max) high enough that the associated comparator output "bleeds" to adjoining modules. [This is the main reason I prefer the 41+4 model over the 18+4 version.]
[As a general note, I try to avoid tutorials that don't explain why/how a build works (unless I already understand the underlying mechaics) simply because of the difficulty of trouble shooting if/when Ye Olde Glitche Monster chooses to pay a visit… ]
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
Hmmm… I looked at the back of my sorting system and into the hoppers and discovered the following:
The Redstone connected to the first 5 or six hoppers was not glowing and the hopper slots were empty. Further down the line there were hoppers with activated Redstone and they contained 18 of the item to be sorted in the first slot and 1 of the item to be sorted in each of the other 4 slots. For example, I have a chest that is supposed to contain beetroot. The hopper in back of the chest contains 18 beetroot in the first slot and 1 beetroot in each of the other 4 slots. I can remember that the video told me to fill the hoppers in this way using the items that belonged in each chest.
The instructions to use a "filler" item are better in my opinion because I can use something that is very commonplace like gravel and don't have to waste rare items like diamonds just to fill the hopper. I will switch out the hopper content using a filler and keep my fingers crossed that it will work.
EDIT: Repaired using the filler! I used gravel as the filler and it works like a charm now. Thanks for all your help!
I'm not looking for help, I just felt like sharing my sadness over my broken Redstone sorting machine.
Over a year ago I decided to build a sorting machine according to instructions I found on YouTube. It took some doing, because the instructions were hard for me to follow, but I finally got it to work! It is a long building with labeled chests and when I dump resources in the entry chest, they travel down the line and land in the chest where they are supposed to go.
It was working great, but I left that world and only recently returned. When I visited the sorting machine the other day, it had stopped working. Stuff travels from the entry chest into the first labeled chest but gets stuck there and doesn't continue on to the other chests.
So now I'm sad and trying to decide whether it is worth looking for the initial video and trying to fix it or if I should just manually dump the resources in each chest and just forget about the broken sorting capability.
It is most likely that you accidentally fed your system a 'filler' item. With redstone, it highly pays to know the principles. Sorters are based on monitoring hopper output signal. Hopper signal is 1 when it has 22 items and 2 when it has 23. So you put one item to be sorted in slot 1, and you distribute 21 of whatever 'filler' items you choose in other four. This filler must be something that you are VERY unlikely to ever want to store. Because if you feed such item into system, first filter hopper will grab it, and in turn will have the 'sort' item sucked out, leaving first slot empty. Then this hopper will suck ANY passing item, causing them all to accumulate in the first chest.
Long story short, you should check the very first filtering hopper. It will likely have first slot empty and 22 fillers in the next four. You need to take out one of those, and put in the first slot one item this hopper should be sorting. That should fix it. Then put up a sign saying you should never ever feed whatever you chose as filler.
Way around it: suppose your filler is dirt. Then you just distribute 22 dirt into 5 slots of the first filter hopper, and have you first chest for dirt. Now any dirt you put in will get picked up by the first hopper and won't muck things up further on.
I think you can get around the filler item issue by renaming the items you wish to use as filler in an anvil. Having the name will make it count as a different item, allowing you to toss the "real" version of that item into the system without worry.
Thank you for explaining this to me! The video I watched only quickly detailed the steps to make the sorter but did not explain how it works. I guess it was made for people already familiar with how the components work, and I had no business even attempting it. As soon as I return to my base I will take a look at the hopper contents as you describe.
Thank you for this good suggestion!
I don't think I tried, but would those stack? I.e. if two dirt blocks are renamed 'filler' will they stack? If they do, renaming 21 filler for each sorting bin is gonna use up a helluva lot of xp and anvils. And if they dont stack, one could use any cheap non-stackable, i.e. wooden shovels. But that changes entire design. The trigger signal becomes 12-13, not 1-2, and you need to tie up 18 sortable items in the filter hopper.
General reference: https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Tutorials/Hopper#Item_sorter & https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Redstone_Comparator#Measure_block_state
I prefer the version that uses 41 item_to_be_sorted [NB this must be in the leftmost slot of the hopper] & 4 'filler_items' (one in each of the right four slots) [This item must stack to 64].
RE scorrp10's question:
Only the four items filling the right most slots of the hopper are named. These do not need to be named, but the very low chance of accidentally putting an instance of the same item with the same name through the system represents a safety feature.
[Items must be of the same type ie feathers, beet seeds, polished diorite and have identical names in order to stack.]
When renaming items that stack, up to a full stack (enough to act as 'filler' for 16 hoppers) can be renamed with one anvil operation.
I generally use feathers, renaming them "Useful_Feathers".
All "Useful_Feathers" will stack with each other, but with nothing else, including unrenamed feathers and "Useful-Feathers".
@OP
If you are using a version with 18 item_to_be_sorted [NB this must be in the leftmost slot of the hopper] & 4 'filler_items' (one in each of the right four slots) [This item must stack to 64] (or the 22 item_to_be_sorted version scorrp10 described)…
… one of the ways this model can 'break' is if enough material of a specific sort is put through the system. That material 'backs-up' from the output chest,eventually raising the count in its filter hopper (the hopper intended to contain 22 items max) high enough that the associated comparator output "bleeds" to adjoining modules. [This is the main reason I prefer the 41+4 model over the 18+4 version.]
[As a general note, I try to avoid tutorials that don't explain why/how a build works (unless I already understand the underlying mechaics) simply because of the difficulty of trouble shooting if/when Ye Olde Glitche Monster chooses to pay a visit… ]
Hmmm… I looked at the back of my sorting system and into the hoppers and discovered the following:
The Redstone connected to the first 5 or six hoppers was not glowing and the hopper slots were empty. Further down the line there were hoppers with activated Redstone and they contained 18 of the item to be sorted in the first slot and 1 of the item to be sorted in each of the other 4 slots. For example, I have a chest that is supposed to contain beetroot. The hopper in back of the chest contains 18 beetroot in the first slot and 1 beetroot in each of the other 4 slots. I can remember that the video told me to fill the hoppers in this way using the items that belonged in each chest.
The instructions to use a "filler" item are better in my opinion because I can use something that is very commonplace like gravel and don't have to waste rare items like diamonds just to fill the hopper. I will switch out the hopper content using a filler and keep my fingers crossed that it will work.
EDIT: Repaired using the filler! I used gravel as the filler and it works like a charm now. Thanks for all your help!