Powered quern failure

[BigBadBeef]

I have a very simplified powered quern setup but its not working as intended:

The hopper is not collecting items from the crate and depositing them into the quern. If I try to load the hopper directly, it does shuffle items into the quern, but as soon as something grindable goes into the quern, this happens:

The quern is successfully powered and it is spinning, but I tried to put grain into it and its head vanished. It reappears if I try to spin it manually. What is strange is that I am able to do so in the first place despite of it being connected to the mill, and it only grinds if I spin it manually. Cutting the power and restoring it does start the spinning animation, but it does nothing else.

This is the setup I use to shuffle it back up into the quern level. Nothing fancy, just chutes being used. While they successfully move items into the archimedes screw, the screw itself is not pumping items up the shaft and into the crate. It has stalled at its input point. Note the message on top of it, stating that something is in it.

This has created a backlog into the chutes, at least it proves these may be set up correctly.

All I can say is that everything is successfully powered, everything is indeed spinning. The only thing worth telling of note is the fact that I've used a large gear to speed the grind and pump actions. And it doesn't stall while running. So I wonder:

1) Why isn't the hopper taking items from the chest and putting them into the quern?

2) Why isn't the quern grinding by itself when items fall into it, in spite of it being powered AND RUNNING... why does it only grind manually?

3) Why isn't the archimedes screw pumping items into the second chest in spite of it being powered?

4) In the past, I used only the quern without the hoppers and chutes and it worked fine, why won't it work now?

5) Why are big, angry bears attracted to the noise the Archimedes screw makes? Its like world war 8 with the bears everytime I got down from the ledges into the valley below!

Edited December 4, 2022 by BigBadBeef

[Streetwind]

25 minutes ago, BigBadBeef said:

1) Why isn't the hopper taking items from the chest and putting them into the quern?

I don't know about the rest, but I can answer this one:

Because this is Vintage Story, not Minecraft Hoppers in VS do not extract, from anything, and never have. They only collect what physically falls into them.

For the job you want performed, use a chute section in place of the hopper. That one does allow for items to fall out of chests into the system

[BigBadBeef]

59 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

For the job you want performed, use a chute section in place of the hopper. That one does allow for items to fall out of chests into the system

Ooooh, I must have overlooked this particular detail in the guide. Alright now, thanks for that, 1 down, 3 to go.

[Ivan Stamenov]

The Archimedes screws with port prefer to output at the top if they can. There is air above yours and the items will be ejected on top of the chute.  So, in order to fix this part, put a slab or a full block over the topmost chute.

Also, the Archimedes screws are far too slow for a properly powered quern. They are also quite power greedy. I used to use them for loading the quern's input chest, but ended up removing them entirely...

Are you sure you have enough power? You said you are using large gear to speed up the grind, but this means that you have to supply enough power.

Querns can launch the grinded items outside of hoppers' AOE, I'd put some walls there so items won't get lost occasionally.

I can't see clearly in the screenshots, but if you are using the T-shaped chutes, these can "clog" the system (meaning that items will stuck at this point and won't go further). Because of them I had to rework the chutes section. Here is my current setup. I have one input and one output chest, the hoppers are linked 2 by 2.

 

Edited December 4, 2022 by Ivan Stamenov

[BenLi]

As for headless quern - what speed multiplier you have? Mine is *5.5 and works fine. Didn't try it on *30 as it looks like overkill.

Archimedes screw - agree with @Ivan Stamenov, put a slab on top.

 

My setup looks like below - I do use T shaped chutes. This makes the milling machine to be 6 blocks high which is compact enough to access it from the floor both for grains chest and the wheat chest (at floor level), and thus not requiring any Archimedes screw.

[BigBadBeef]

Alright, I've been doing some tinkering, and restored the 1:1 gear ratio - same problem with the quern. The problem isn't power because it is not stalling when I run it. Also, the T-shape is working correctly, as the goods are indeed going into the screw below, they aren't just going up the screw. I will try your suggestion and see what happens.

P.S.: What'ya know, the damn thing works now. It seemed to have been bugged in a way that it stalled in spite of showing the spinning animation. What is unusual is that before there wasn't any problem with the T-shape as the stuff went into the screw, it just wasn't pulled out properly, but now there is a problem. I will rework the system to compensate and get back to you.

Edited December 11, 2022 by BigBadBeef

[BenLi]

Let's solve the quern problem first. I had once such a problem of bugged quern when placing it on vertical axles line. I.e three blocks high construction: axle from bottom, quern, axle on the top - which is probably illegal as you power only from one side. In your case it was the hopper on the top - also illegal block. Once it is replaced with vertical chute section - it is not illegal anymore.

Solution was to break the quern and make sure the bottom axle is rotating. Then place the quern again.

[BigBadBeef]

17 minutes ago, BenLi said:

Let's solve the quern problem first. I had once such a problem of bugged quern when placing it on vertical axles line. I.e three blocks high construction: axle from bottom, quern, axle on the top - which is probably illegal as you power only from one side. In your case it was the hopper on the top - also illegal block. Once it is replaced with vertical chute section - it is not illegal anymore.

Solution was to break the quern and make sure the bottom axle is rotating. Then place the quern again.

No, I just figured out that using the clutch on a quern is broken. Every time I use it I have to restart the game because it loses the connection to the axle. And here I was, thinking I could get away with just having one rotor on the mill.

P.S.: Same with the archimedes screw.

Edited December 11, 2022 by BigBadBeef

[BenLi]

It takes some time (IMHO up to ~5-10sec) for the power train to get re-calculated after having some change like adding an axle or enabling the clutch.

Especially on long chains like 70 axles of the rotors tower and the tens of axles from the bottom large wheel to the consumer.

Until then the whole chain is stuck.

[BigBadBeef]

1 hour ago, BenLi said:

It takes some time (IMHO up to ~5-10sec) for the power train to get re-calculated after having some change like adding an axle or enabling the clutch.

Especially on long chains like 70 axles of the rotors tower and the tens of axles from the bottom large wheel to the consumer.

Until then the whole chain is stuck.

You don't understand... its spinning but its acting like its not connected to anything, no milling, no resources being lifted by archimedes screw, nothing. As soon as I touch it it reverts to manual spinning unless I restart the game. If I do that, and the clutch is connected, then it works.

[Plato Platypus]

On 12/11/2022 at 10:56 AM, BigBadBeef said:

You don't understand... its spinning but its acting like its not connected to anything, no milling, no resources being lifted by archimedes screw, nothing. As soon as I touch it it reverts to manual spinning unless I restart the game. If I do that, and the clutch is connected, then it works.

Hate to necro this post but the solution for me that works is to put a "primary" clutch on the entire system upstream from the quern this recalculates the quern and gets it working again.

so from your main power line befor it gets to the quern or other items place a primary clutch. this recalculates everything downstream of it. and will get the quern working again.. .stupid i know but it works.

[BigBadBeef]

Oh I handled this ages ago. The Quern is really not a big drain on wind power, therefore I keep it connected at all times, and the only thing I have put on clutch now are helve hammers and crushers.