Encased Fan

The fan connects from the back to a shaft or a cogwheel. As soon as it spins, it creates an air current in front of it that moves dropped items, players and mobs. Its range depends on speed: 3 blocks at its slowest, up to 20 blocks at 256 RPM. A solid block in the way cuts the current, but grates, fences and other open blocks let air through.

It only uses 2 SU per RPM, one of the cheapest machines in the mod.

The direction of rotation decides whether the fan blows away from itself or pulls towards itself. To switch, reverse the rotation: a Gearshift controlled by a lever, a gearbox or one more cogwheel. In the original scene a parrot shows the current; our pictures only keep the fan, since our engine does not render mobs.

When the current passes through lava (or a lit Blaze Burner), the air turns scorching hot. Any item reached in the zone behind the lava is smelted as in a blast furnace or a furnace: crushed ores into ingots, sand into glass, clay into bricks…

Processing takes 7.5 seconds for a stack of 1 to 16 items, then 7.5 s more for every extra 16: a stack of 64 takes 30 s, with no fuel at all. Careful, food burns in the scorching air: raw beef thrown in front of the lava goes up in smoke.

For food, swap the lava for fire or a lit campfire: the current becomes a smoker that cooks meat and fish without destroying them. With soul fire or a soul campfire, the current does haunting instead: it turns cobblestone into blackstone, sweet berries into glow berries and ink sacs into glow ink sacs.

A current passing through water washes items. It is the key step for ores: a washed crushed ore gives 9 nuggets plus a by-product (75% redstone for iron, 50% quartz for gold, 50% clay for copper). Gravel gives flint and iron nuggets, wheat flour becomes dough, dyed wool turns white again and a magma block becomes obsidian.

Unlike other machines, a faster fan does not process faster: it still takes 7.5 s per batch of 16. Speed only lengthens the current's reach. So there is no point spending stress: set the speed so the current just reaches the processing zone. A fan at 32 RPM costs only 64 SU and already reaches several blocks past the catalyst.

Processing also works on items sitting on a Depot or carried by a Mechanical Belt running through the current. That is the backbone of any ore factory: Crushing Wheels, a belt, a fan blowing through water above the belt, then a second one through lava to melt the leftover nuggets.