How do I stop a system from overfilling a chest?

Question

Ok I have a turtle mining, and filling Enderchest(a1) with it's payload. I have buildcraft pipes emptying Enderchest(a2) into Diamond chest(1).

I wanted to have a second set of pipes emptying Diamond chest(1) into Diamond chest(2) effectivly increasing my mining storage to the size of 2 Diamond Chests. This will work until we have enough items to fill Diamond chest(2) at which point the system continues to pull things out of Diamond chest(1) and spit them onto the ground. How can I circumvent this?

Answer 1

Two options:

First, use buildcraft Gates, that is what they where designed for!

Have one gate detecting if there is space in the destination inventory, have a 2nd aurtatic gate connected by a pipe signal pulling out of the first chest.

A 2nd option, put a turtle between the two chests, you already said you have computer craft, just put a turtle between the two chests and have this simple program run on startup. It sucks 16 stacks of items from the below chest and tries to place it in the above chest.

function suckItems()
  for slot = 1, 16 do
    turtle.select(slot)
    turtle.suckDown()
  end
end

function dropItems()
  for slot = 1, 16 do
    turtle.select(slot)
    turtle.dropUp()
  end
end

while(true) do
  suckItems()
  dropItems()
  os.Sleep(1) --This may be unnecessary
end

for fastest speed I am assuming your layout is

[X] = Chest 2
[T] = Turtle
[X] = Chest 1  (looking at from the front)

You could have it horizontal but you would need to make the turtle turn every time

Answer 2

Assuming you have the Applied Energistics, build a small ME network, and attach your chests to an ME Storage Bus and it'll only put items in to the chests if there is room. Also works on Barrels as well.

Answer 3

One option is the use of a stone golem from Thaumcraft 3

1. My quarry puts stuff into chest 1
2. The iron golem on top grabs the items from the chest and places them in enderchest 2
3. Another enderchest of the same type is then connected to a sorting system with routers(not pictured)
4. If the router gets clogged because a barrel is full or he gets an unknown item the enderchest obviously fills up completely
5. Once the enderchest is full the golem starts filling the other chests
   • For some reason he fills up the chest with number 3 on it first

The golem is a simple stone golem with no special core. Placing the chests close together means that the golem doesn't have to waste time moving.

In the end I have a buffer of 4 diamond chests, which can easily be expanded by placing more chests in the area (and mark them as a valid drop off point for the golem with a marker block)

Answer 4

Instead of piping items from Enderchest(1) to Enderchest(2), I can hook up Enderchest(2) to an obsidian pipe to suck up whatever pops out of Enderchest(1)