StTheo
Well-Known Member
So I've been needing a way to smelt a large amount of items, but I haven't been able to do so quickly enough. I've gone with various hopper-based solutions, but those were always too slow. So I started looking into running multiple furnaces in parallel, starting with about a couple dozen. Hoppers by themselves weren't fast enough and didn't distribute items to be smelted evenly, so I moved towards a hopper cart based approach. This worked, but even with 2 double chests feeding the hopper carts from above, it was still too slow for the amount of items I was feeding into it. Also, the collection system (at the time entirely hopper based) was very slow. After a lot of experimentation, I was able to land on the design for the a furnace array that would satisfy my requirements with 320 furnaces working in parallel. For each furnace, a hopper cart feeds a hopper with items to smelt on the top, another hopper cart feeds a hopper with fuel in the back, and a third hopper cart pulls smelted items from the bottom.
Thanks to a design by a YouTuber by the name of "xMistaBeastx", I was able to make loading hopper carts as fast as possible by dumping the contents of a chest directly onto the track. I also have a second one for fuel carts.
Because the furnace array encircles my tower, I can have multiple hopper carts distributing fuel/items at once. Because the array spans multiple chunks, the carts have a tendency to collide and start going the opposite direction when one chunk unloads. So while I'm not using the forge, I keep all of the carts in this contraption. When the lever is pulled, one cart is allowed to leave, then another a little later, then another. This helps to keep the carts a good distance from each other.
The hopper cart distributes one item to each furnace to be smelted in parallel. Because each hopper cart can carry 5 stacks, one cart can fill at most 320 furnaces. For any number of items less than 320, this tends to use one piece of fuel for one item, so coal/charcoal isn't the ideal fuel. Instead, I've been using wooden planks as it's a bit more wood-to-smelted-item efficient.
I don't have an iron farm, so I haven't been able to completely finish the design. About 25% of the furnaces are completely unused at the moment.
The hopper carts at the bottom of the array use this device (with hopper carts hidden inside) to rapidly empty their contents into the double chest below.
Thanks to a design by a YouTuber by the name of "xMistaBeastx", I was able to make loading hopper carts as fast as possible by dumping the contents of a chest directly onto the track. I also have a second one for fuel carts.
Because the furnace array encircles my tower, I can have multiple hopper carts distributing fuel/items at once. Because the array spans multiple chunks, the carts have a tendency to collide and start going the opposite direction when one chunk unloads. So while I'm not using the forge, I keep all of the carts in this contraption. When the lever is pulled, one cart is allowed to leave, then another a little later, then another. This helps to keep the carts a good distance from each other.
The hopper cart distributes one item to each furnace to be smelted in parallel. Because each hopper cart can carry 5 stacks, one cart can fill at most 320 furnaces. For any number of items less than 320, this tends to use one piece of fuel for one item, so coal/charcoal isn't the ideal fuel. Instead, I've been using wooden planks as it's a bit more wood-to-smelted-item efficient.
I don't have an iron farm, so I haven't been able to completely finish the design. About 25% of the furnaces are completely unused at the moment.
The hopper carts at the bottom of the array use this device (with hopper carts hidden inside) to rapidly empty their contents into the double chest below.