Smeltery
The Tinker's Construct Smeltery is a variably sized multiblock structure necessary to progress in the Stone Age. It's primary use is casting basic metal parts before the MV Extruder, mass-processing dusts or ingots, recycling metal items and solidifying glass blocks.
How to Build
The Smeltery can be built with any interior footprint from 1x1 up to 11x11. The size of the interior determines how many items can be melted at once. To be a valid structure the interior must be a square; same length and width, with any height of one or more. The bottom layer can be any block tagged as 'smeltery structure block' in NEI. The Controller must face outwards, its back touching the Smeltery's interior. At least one lava holding block (Seared Tank, Seared Glass or Seared Window) must be on the same y level as the Controller. Drains, Tanks, and the Controller must all go on a hollow layer above the base. The large black square on Drains faces the interior, while the smaller round hole is the output side. The edges and corners are not necessary to have a valid Smeltery build.
Requires:
- Exactly one (1) Smeltery Controller (anywhere but bottom layer)
- 1+ Seared Tank, Seared Glass or Seared Window (same y level as Controller)
- Lava for fuel
- 1+ Smeltery Drain (anywhere but bottom layer, small round hole faces exterior)
- 1+ Smeltery Faucet (optional, can use other fluid piping, must attach to Smeltery Drain output hole)
- 0-1+ Casting Table (for using casts, one block below and one block forward from Drain)
- 0-1+ Casting Basin (for making blocks, one block below and one block forward from Drain)
- 2+ Smeltery Structure Blocks (remaining walls, can also use tank/glass/window)
- Seared Bricks, Seared Stone, Seared Cobblestone, Seared Paver
- Cracked Seared Bricks, Seared Road, Fancy Seared Bricks, Chiseled Seared Bricks
Usage
The speed of the Smeltery is constant based only on the type of material being melted. While processing, it consumes Lava at a rate of 30L/4s. Number of items being processed does not affect the Smeltery's fuel consumption, thus a larger Smeltery is more efficient as the number of simultaneous items is equal to one per interior block volume. A 3x3 footprint is suggested as the standard size.
Items to be melted can be manually placed into the Controller, or added via a Hopper, pipe or conduit. To change what fluid is output if there are multiple, open the Controller's GUI and right-click on the desired fluid in the tank. Hold shift to see quantities displayed in mb instead of ingots/nuggets. To output fluid, right-click on a Faucet with a valid cast or basin recipe for the bottom-most liquid in the Controller. Alternately, fluid pipes or fluid conduit can be used to move fluids from the Smeltery into Casting Basin(s) or Casting Table(s), or the Faucets can be pulsed with a Redstone Clock for continuous output. Hoppers or other item logistics can also pull items out of Casting Basins and Casting Tables, for full automation.
To use a Casting Table, Casts are required. These can only be made out of Aluminum Brass, which is an alloy of copper and aluminium. The Smeltery automatically alloys any molten fluids in its inventory. To make a cast, pour Molten Aluminum Brass over an appropriate item. The item will be lost in the process, but casts are infinitely reusable. Use Cobblestone in the Part Builder whenever possible for sacrificial cast making parts.
The Casting Basin makes blocks, but has very limited uses in GT:NH. The primary one is glass, followed by Brownstone for faster paths and Seared Stone for expanding the Smeltery. Metal blocks are restricted to the Compressor. Melting stone is slow and takes twenty blocks to yield one Seared Stone, but does have the advantage of being automatic vs. crafting more grout and bricks.