[Guide]How to build timer cascades with shut-off mechanisms

[DicemanX]

Here is the basic set-up:

How the timer cascade works:

When the lever is pulled, the skeleton will be hoiked across the track, activating the pressure plate that is to the right of a deactuated down hoik (4th pressure plate from the left in the picture). This turns on a pair of timers connected to the pressure plate. One second later, the right ON timer gains priority, sending a signal to the left timer, shutting it OFF, and a signal to the timer on the right, turning it ON. This cascade continues, with two timers being on at any one time. Various outputs can be hooked up to the timers, so the timer cascade can be used to activate those outputs at certain desired intervals.


How the shut-off mechanism works:

When a pair of timers are in the ON state, the pressure plate connected to the timers will be accessible by the skeleton since the pair of hoik teeth to the immediate left will consist of the down hoik in the deactuated state and the top hoik in the actuated state. When the right timer activates to shut of the timer to the left and turn on the timer to the right, it will also automatically toggle those hoik teeth to make the pressure plate inaccessible, while toggling the pair oh hoik teeth to the right to make the next pressure plate accessible. Note that there is green wire connecting each pressure plate to the pair of hoik teeth to the left of the pressure plate.

This way, whichever two timers are in the ON state, the pressure plate connected to both will be accessible. The entire mechanism can be extended to include many more timers if desired.

The are many great uses for timer cascades, such as having certain events occur at various times during play. I will be showcasing the use of the cascade in an upcoming massive arena build - stay tuned.

 

[inomanoms]

I think I know where this is going...

P.S. I had attempted this very same thing, with a different solution.

 

[DicemanX]

I think I know where this is going...

Yeah I figured I'd post this now so that I don't have to explain what's going on in an upcoming post .

I did post a shut-off mechanism previously, but it was not as good as this one, and it was buried in the middle of another thread. Plus, the wiring isn't too obvious since it requires doubling up on the feedback signals from the pressure plates to the hoik teeth, so I thought it deserved a separate thread.

 

[inomanoms]

I thought it deserved a separate thread.

It does. I wasn't satisfied with your previous solution. This one is much better.

 

[DicemanX]

It does. I wasn't satisfied with your previous solution. This one is much better.

Yeah what's interesting is that so many of the previous hoiktronics mechanisms used 90 degree branch points, and now most have been converted to a single track with pairs of hoik teeth that can be toggled. That work on reset mechanisms so long ago ended up being quite critical and has dramatically changed how to build many of the hoik-based contraptions.

 

[inomanoms]

now most have been converted to a single track with pairs of hoik teeth that can be toggled.

I've been trying to get linear vertical junction track working, but as of yet, to no avail. Vertical hoiks, too fiddly.
[DOUBLEPOST=1431452613,1431451386][/DOUBLEPOST]So, wait...what? You're objective here is to turn on all the timers for the alternating two activations per, and manually shut them off?

 

[DicemanX]

I've been trying to get linear vertical junction track working, but as of yet, to no avail. Vertical hoiks, too fiddly.
[DOUBLEPOST=1431452613,1431451386][/DOUBLEPOST]So, wait...what? You're objective here is to turn on all the timers for the alternating two activations per, and manually shut them off?

Pulling the start lever turns on two timers, and only two timers are ever on at any one time during the cascading. Pulling the start lever again shuts off the two timers that are on at the time the lever is pulled.

 

[Sulejman]

Man, I am curious as to how these would be used.

 

[inomanoms]

Man, I am curious as to how these would be used.

You won't have to wait long! (to find out)

 

[PapaBear]

This is amazing engineering work! I was wondering how I could do this with birds but this is so much cleaner and fast!

I did run into a little glitch when stopping the cascade however. There is a fraction of a second chance that the skeleton will have traveled past the first set of timers just as the cascade wraps around from the last to the first. When the glitch happens the cascade simply continues without stopping. The time here is large enough (35 tiles / 2 tiles/tick or 17 ticks ?) that I was able to time throwing the lever to hit the glitch close to 100% of the time.

The solution I came up with involves simply confining the skeleton to the second teleporter pad area while the last actuated tooth is in-active. This has the side-effect of making it so the cascade never stops at the wrap-around point but this might not be a big problem.

I'm new to this forum (this is my first post) so pardons if I didn't add these screen shots correctly.

 

[DicemanX]

This is amazing engineering work! I was wondering how I could do this with birds but this is so much cleaner and fast!

I did run into a little glitch when stopping the cascade however. There is a fraction of a second chance that the skeleton will have traveled past the first set of timers just as the cascade wraps around from the last to the first. When the glitch happens the cascade simply continues without stopping. The time here is large enough (35 tiles / 2 tiles/tick or 17 ticks ?) that I was able to time throwing the lever to hit the glitch close to 100% of the time.

The solution I came up with involves simply confining the skeleton to the second teleporter pad area while the last actuated tooth is in-active. This has the side-effect of making it so the cascade never stops at the wrap-around point but this might not be a big problem.

I'm new to this forum (this is my first post) so pardons if I didn't add these screen shots correctly.

That's an elegant solution to the wrap-around issue. My solution was to just hit the lever again if the shut-off failed, but this is certainly superior. Nicely done!

Welcome to the forums .

 

[inomanoms]

I'm new to this forum (this is my first post) so pardons if I didn't add these screen shots correctly.

Hello PapaBear! *waves* Welcome to the forums!

 

[PapaBear]

That's an elegant solution to the wrap-around issue. My solution was to just hit the lever again if the shut-off failed, but this is certainly superior. Nicely done!

Thanks!

This confining really only works well with 1-second times and not so well with 3- or 5-second timers since one might be apt to pull the level again and maybe again when nothing seemed to be happening. If the second pull is done when a skeleton is on pad 2, this would cause the that skeleton to be teleported back to the statue pad. A third pull, hopefully when the timers have finished the wrap-around would send off multiple skeletons down the track at once, maybe stopping or maybe not the cascade.

I had tried to add an extra pressure plate or two at the end but couldn't get that to work.

Welcome to the forums .

[DOUBLEPOST=1433124746,1431600871][/DOUBLEPOST]I found a glitch in my wrap-around glitch fixer.

The old fix was supposed to contain the skeleton during the critical period and then release it, up to a second later, when it was safe. Unfortunately, the containment would work too well if the last two timers in the delay were lit up when the skeleton started and the timers advanced to light up the first and last timers before the skeleton finished its run. In this case this would shutdown the cascade but would block the skeleton from then on so the cascade couldn't be started after that. Whoops! Please do NOT use the fix I recommended earlier!

Here is a new, bit more complicated fix that will take care of the wrap-around problem.

The way this fix works is this:

1) when the skeleton goes past timer #1, then the hoik teeth at #A will skip over the pressure plate if it's off, or hit the pressure plate if on, which has the effect of making sure that the hoik teeth at both #A and #B are off

2) if sometime before the skeleton gets to point #B, there is a wrap-around when the state moves from timer #10 back to timer #1, the green wire on timer #1 will toggle the hoik teeth at #A and #B, thus setting #B's hoik teeth

3) after passing beyond the last of the timers at #10, if the teeth at #B are set, meaning the wrap-around happened (see step 2), then the pressure plate beyond is activated, which will toggle the state of the hoik teeth at #1 and also toggle timer #1 and #2's state-- since this can only happen when shutting down, this will shut off those timers and make up for the fact that the skeleton skipped over this step earlier

The wires at the top above the timers show what output is possible from the timer cascade. The green wires will pulse once every 10 seconds in this 10-second timer cascade while the red and blue wires will pulse once in the 10-second cycle and then pulse again 1 second later.