How to move items in a furnace only when there is space?

Question

I have a electric furnace (and a steam dynamo and a puverizer) in my pipe system, to automatically transform or use items.

At the beginning I lost many items because the furnace was full and they drop out of the pipe. Now I have this setup:

But I don't like it.. I look for a way so that the items stay in the chest until there is space for more items in the furnace because with over 1000 items in a pipe.. it sometimes explodes.

Answer 1

You can investigate BuildCraft Logic Gates, which interact with BuildCraft pipes to govern when items are pulled out of inventories; you can set up a system so when the furnace inventory is empty it sends a signal down a pipe to pull an item out of a chest.

I'd check out Direwolf20's many spotlight videos on BuildCraft to get a better explanation, but you'll have to find the video corresponding to the BuildCraft version you're using.

Answer 2

I recommend Logistics Pipes/Logic Gates, or using Applied Energistics. Applied Energistics might be a bit hard to get into, though.

Applied Energistics has a Basic Import Bus, which will automatically extract items from a chest if there is room in the network.