Refinery auto start/stop

[papachabre]

I'm trying to make a refinery that is turned on when ore/shards/asteroid blocks are available to it and off when it's refined them all. I've tried several different ways to make this work. The most recent, which I thought for sure would work, involved placing a storage near it with an OR block attached to it, and the OR block is connected to the refinery. The storage pulls resources from another storage, the OR block activates, the refinery uses the resources up aaaaaaand... nothing happens. The OR block remains active even though the storage is empty.

What am I doing wrong? Is it because the capsule refinery using the resources is not technically a storage filter counter, so when it empties the storage it doesn't activate the OR block? Is this intended behavior? I'm having a hard time trying to think of uses for the OR block empty check otherwise. Can anyone think of another way to accomplish this?

I was planning to use the same setup for factories, but I'm thinking it'll fail similarly.

 

[Knack]

You need two refineries, one of them has to run all the time. Then you have a pull chest, that pulls out of the refineries, place the OR beneath the chest.
Your normal sorting system has to pull out of this chest.

Now, if there are raw materials, the always-on-refinerie will pull and do it's work, the chest will pull out of the refinery and the or goes on. Let the OR Trigger a 5 second timer. As long as the timer is running, enable the second refinery.

That's the principle how my auto-refinery works.

EDIT:
The thing is, logic for storages only works if storages pull out from them. If a refinery or factory pulls, nothing happens.

 

[papachabre]

You need two refineries, one of them has to run all the time. Then you have a pull chest, that pulls out of the refineries, place the OR beneath the chest.
Your normal sorting system has to pull out of this chest.

Now, if there are raw materials, the always-on-refinerie will pull and do it's work, the chest will pull out of the refinery and the or goes on. Let the OR Trigger a 5 second timer. As long as the timer is running, enable the second refinery.

That's the principle how my auto-refinery works.

EDIT:
The thing is, logic for storages only works if storages pull out from them. If a refinery or factory pulls, nothing happens.

Ah ok I see how it works. Thanks for the tip. It seems a bit convoluted for such a simple task, but I guess that's what's necessary with the current system. I wish they'd make it so that if anything empties/fills the chest then the OR flips.
[DOUBLEPOST=1441366556,1441363674][/DOUBLEPOST]Actually Knack gave me an idea. This seems to work and it's a little simpler:

The box timers are all in sync, so the second box pulls from the refinery at the same moment that the last box pulls from it, ensuring that the OR block stays on continuously while the refinery is producing. The refinery shuts off when the second box is empty, so it may keep running for a little longer than it needs to but that's OK with me as long as it shuts off.

Anyone see any issues with that?