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[acetech09]

I'm thinking about building a megaproject - a fully automatic obsidian caster - I just want to build a machine that I can pull a lever, wait an hour or two, and have a 80-z tall obsidian tower. I've thought through how to do it, and will do it, but don't want to this if it has already been done... Will probably update this post with my work later.

First, has anybody every attempted something like this?

Second, any suggestions on what to do with it when it's done?

[Mapleguy555]

Mine a 10 x 10 hole down to the Sea. Construct 8 x 8 Sky-diving tower.

[Urist Da Vinci]

I'm thinking about building a megaproject - a fully automatic obsidian caster - I just want to build a machine that I can pull a lever, wait an hour or two, and have a 80-z tall obsidian tower. I've thought through how to do it, and will do it, but don't want to this if it has already been done... Will probably update this post with my work later.

First, has anybody every attempted something like this?

Second, any suggestions on what to do with it when it's done?

Build a pair of 81-z pump stacks outside, one for water and one for lava. Have the nozzles for both towers extend over the construction site. Connect the discharge door/hatch/floodgate or pumpstack power gears to repeaters such that each stack takes a turn pumping, but that they don't pump at the same time. The delay between one stack shutting down and the other stack opening should be at least 12 steps, as fluids fall one tile every 6 steps or so.

This results in blobs of water and lava landing on top of eachother in a fully automatic fashion. Eventually a tower of some sort will form. When the tower is 80z tall, obsidian will form in the nozzles and stop the flow.

Disclaimer: the resulting tower will be ugly, and may contain trapped pockets of air, water, or lava. Cave-ins and magma mist may also occur on an unpredictable basis.

[acetech09]

I'm thinking about building a megaproject - a fully automatic obsidian caster - I just want to build a machine that I can pull a lever, wait an hour or two, and have a 80-z tall obsidian tower. I've thought through how to do it, and will do it, but don't want to this if it has already been done... Will probably update this post with my work later.

First, has anybody every attempted something like this?

Second, any suggestions on what to do with it when it's done?

Build a pair of 81-z pump stacks outside, one for water and one for lava. Have the nozzles for both towers extend over the construction site. Connect the discharge door/hatch/floodgate or pumpstack power gears to repeaters such that each stack takes a turn pumping, but that they don't pump at the same time. The delay between one stack shutting down and the other stack opening should be at least 12 steps, as fluids fall one tile every 6 steps or so.

This results in blobs of water and lava landing on top of eachother in a fully automatic fashion. Eventually a tower of some sort will form. When the tower is 80z tall, obsidian will form in the nozzles and stop the flow.

Disclaimer: the resulting tower will be ugly, and may contain trapped pockets of air, water, or lava. Cave-ins and magma mist may also occur on an unpredictable basis.

I was thinking of having 2 reservoirs, floored with bridges, above the site. Both with pumps feeding them.

Pull a lever. That opens a floodgate starting the lava reservoir to fill. When a pressure plate in the reservoir detects enough magma, the floor gives way, dropping the magma. The pressure plate then fires an off signal, letting the magma refill in the reservoir. The pressure plate also sends a signal through a delayer circuit to the water reservoir, which is also filling. The water reservoir opens, dumping the water onto the magma. The water's pressure plate sends a signal through a delayer to open the magma floor, and so on... granted there'll have to be a few floodgates along the way that'll be linked to the starting lever to ease in the looping process, as well as a pressure plate on the top to stop the ordeal.

Then I just deconstruct the walls and have a nice day enjoying a automatically casted obsidian tower.

[Nan]

Wouldn't it be possible to stack the two reservoirs on top of each other and drop the magma and water simultaneously, so they combine into obsidian at the bottom?

So the idea is, when the pressure plate is activated:
The retracting-bridge-floors open dropping the water and magma.
The raising-bridge-inlets close preventing any "dribbles".
When the pressure plate deactivates, the bridges return to original position, and the reservoirs refill.

The logic could be as simple as a pressure plate triggered by a dog looping around.

If it doesn't work simultaneously, then, according to the wiki article on pressure plates, by fiddling with the build order of the bridges and triggering pressure plate, the bottom reservoir could be made to open 1 tick earlier, which might work better.

[TurkeyXIII]

Could do it with one reservoir.  If it's bridges, all the fluid will fall when it's dropped so there's no obsidian in the reservoir.  Would need some sort of logic to figure which mode (water or lava) it's in, so the pumps aren't both active at the same time.

[Triaxx2]

Quickest way is to stack your reservoir two z-high. Top is magma, bottom is water. When the last tile of water is filled 7/7, a pressure plate opens a flood gate, and fires up a pump tp pump out the water.  One level up, a Magma reservoir is doing the same.

By off setting the chutes, you'll prevent any accidental combination of the two prior to reaching the bottom of the tower casting.

Also, in large casting projects, I've found it helpful to make a mold, using constructed walls to emplace rooms and access ways, to avoid time consuming mining later. Helpful if all miners are busy because anyone can do the deconstruction.

[SuicideJunkie]

I've wanted to make a Dwarven 3D printer, in which you flip some levers to indicate which tiles should be obsidianized at each step, and then flip a final lever to Apply Changes.

Possibly a scheme in which a bowl is filled with water one layer at a time, and then magma is trickled over it through either an array of hatches or a terraced set of floodgate print heads in the sky.

I'm not sure if it would be possible to build print heads densely enough to get a 1-tile resolution, though, and spillage would have to be tightly controlled.

[Wurgel]

couldnt you just make the tower out of risen Briges, while just eine edges are constructed walls:

WBW  W=Wall
B . B   B=Bridge
WBW   . = open space

then flood the whole thing with Magma (or water). then drop the other liquid on top of the other. this should create a lot of cave-ins because the bridges cant support the walls and the walls in the edges cant support diagonal. This should create a prety solid tower, unless you overflow an area creating an obsidian spike.

to prevent that, you can flood it with Bridges on a repeter (a slow one). 2 Bridges over each other linked to the same repeater. 1 open, 1 closed. the 2nd liquid above the bridges, 1 open, 1 closed. That way you can drop a single z-level of liquid A on B.

[acetech09]

I've already (thankGodForMacros) erected scaffolding for the entire thing and am about to construct the walls - then the water reactor and pumpstack.

[MehMuffin]

I'm thinking about building a megaproject - a fully automatic obsidian caster - I just want to build a machine that I can pull a lever, wait an hour or two, and have a 80-z tall obsidian tower. I've thought through how to do it, and will do it, but don't want to this if it has already been done... Will probably update this post with my work later.

First, has anybody every attempted something like this?

Second, any suggestions on what to do with it when it's done?

Build a pair of 81-z pump stacks outside, one for water and one for lava. Have the nozzles for both towers extend over the construction site. Connect the discharge door/hatch/floodgate or pumpstack power gears to repeaters such that each stack takes a turn pumping, but that they don't pump at the same time. The delay between one stack shutting down and the other stack opening should be at least 12 steps, as fluids fall one tile every 6 steps or so.

This results in blobs of water and lava landing on top of eachother in a fully automatic fashion. Eventually a tower of some sort will form. When the tower is 80z tall, obsidian will form in the nozzles and stop the flow.

Disclaimer: the resulting tower will be ugly, and may contain trapped pockets of air, water, or lava. Cave-ins and magma mist may also occur on an unpredictable basis.

What if the two towers were next to each other and open on one side all of the way up, so that the water and magma wouldn't fall? That way wouldn't the tower form all the way up, clogging each of the 81 nozzles?
Like so:
#=Pump Intake
*=Pump Outlet
_=Floor
%=Wall
.=Empty Space
(=Magma Intake
)=Water Intake
_____________
%_*#....#*_%
%.#*_.._*#.%
%_*#....#*_%
%.#*_.._*#.%
%_*#....#*_%
%.#*_.._*#.%
%(___..___)%
and so on...

[Lord Dullard]

Pretty sure something like this has already been done (not to rain on your parade). IIRC it worked pretty much as you describe - water/magma were held by a bridge which was then retracted, and the liquids then fell down to the bottom layer and formed obsidian. I think. I know it had bridges at the top to control the liquid-dropping process, anyway.