GregTech has a very elaborate and systematic ore processing system. It's based off of IC2's with the crushed/purified ores and dusts. I made this flowchart to cleanly visualize all ways to get from ore to product. At each step of the process, it is possible to acquire byproducts of that ore, which appear in NEI under "Ore Byproduct List" or on the official FTB wiki page on GregTech Mining and Processing. So let's make a system that does all this. It's going to be expensive (I list the total number of require machines at the end) so I hope you have a good supply of stainless steel and some diamonds and/or tungsten.
Start by placing down your 7 input chests and 7 macerators (at least HV (universal) in order to get byproducts! All other machines can be LV unless you really want a speedy system), for the 7 lanes - Primary, Secondary, Mercury/Sodium Persulfate chemical bath byproducts, Tertiary, and Electromagnetic Separator and finally a Sifting machine. For every machine, make sure the front faces the same way I have it (GT machines cannot input/output at all from the front face).
Make sure all your macerators have the output side set to the left using a wrench, and that the second box in the bottom left is pressed. This enables automatic item output from the machine.
Next, for each lane, place down an item pipe (any will do, the item throughput isn't that high) followed by a Type Filter and a chest, which acts as a buffer.
The type filters are crucial to this setup. They ensure that only the correct type of item goes onto the next stage of processing, and that the byproducts are not. We'll deal with where byproducts go a bit later. In this type filter, click the box that is cycling between different "ore" items three times, until it says crushed. Don't click too quickly or it will skip some items. Right click to go back. Set this in every filter you just placed.
The Primary Byproduct Lane. Now add a universal macerator, (with the output side set to the type and auto-output enabled, as for all machines), followed by another pipe, filter, chest, and then a centrifuge. I color-coded my machines just to make it more clear what's what when we're done.
Click the new item filter 18 times, until it says dustImpure. The exact number may differ between modpacks since the list is automatically generated from ore dictionary prefixes.
The Secondary Byproduct and Chemical Bath lanes In the secondary byproduct lane you want to place an ore washing plant, and in the next two, place chemical bath machines. Don't worry about hooking up the fluid input just yet.
Now funnel their outputs together into one type filter feeding into a macerator. The next type filter, feeding into that same centrifuge from before, should be set to dustPure (19 clicks).
The one that takes in the output from the ore washing plant and the chemical baths should be set to crushedPurified (2 clicks).
The Electromagnetic Separator lane. Same as the ore washing lane, except the pure dust at the end should go into an electromagnetic separator instead of a centrifuge (I made it curve back so the whole system fits in a rectangular box). Don't worry that the E-M separator outputs into the same pipes as the purified ore, since it won't be able to enter the type filter there and its outputs will all be treated as byproducts.
The final two lanes - Tertiary Byproduct and Sifting Machine. Pretty simple lanes. The middle machine in the green (tertiary) row is a thermal centrifuge. The item filter it outputs to should be set to centrifuged dust (1 click). After that is another macerator. In the yellow (sifting lane), there's an ore washing plant, followed by a curshedPurified type filter feeding into a sifting machine.
These two output into the same pipe.
Bird's Eye View from the "right"
Bird's Eye View from the "bottom"
If you want, you can add a centrifuge to the secondary lane if you value symmetry over machine cost
Don't forget conveyors! You'll need 21, one for each chest you have. Place the conveyor item on the machine side that faces the chest. Then, right click on it once with a screwdriver to set its mode to Import items from the chest into the machine. Do not accidentally click on the machine, because that could let items go in through the output side!
Now... do this. Everywhere there's an output, place another pipe above the existing one. And on every pipe that is meant for byproducts (i.e. every pipe connected to a type filter), place a shutter module.
Right click with a screwdriver twice to set the mode to "output only". Since items in GT pipes pick the shortest route, this prevents them from going into the wrong place. Do this for each shutter module.
Might want to make this pipe a restrictive pipe, but I don't think it's necessary unless you have a chest directly above that pipe. Which you don't.
Might want to make this pipe a restrictive pipe, but I don't think it's necessary unless you have a chest directly above that pipe. Which you don't.
And somewhere along the line place your output. A chest with an ME import bus works great.
Before we add cables, hook up some fluid pipes. The ore washing plants obviously need water, and the chemical baths need mercury and sodium persulfate (one per bath). Hook those pipes up to wherever you want to produce those two substances, and hook up the water pipe to some infinite water source.
Hook up your HV macerators This is one example layout, the cable is highlighted in orange for easier visibility (don't actually paint your cables since blocks of different colors don't connect). Whatever you do, DO NOT connect this HV line to any LV machine! Since you have 11 macerators consuming 256 EU/t each, you should have a supply of 6 amps of 512 (HV) electricity going to them.
On the bottom, hook up the low voltage cable. Again, see what layout works for you. You have eight 1-amp LV machines and one 2-amp LV machine (the thermal centrifuge). The type filters don't consume much power. 6 or 7 amps of power should be enough to power all the machines at once and make up for losses in the cable, though much like the macerators you're unlikely to have them all running at once.
Total machine cost: 11 HV Universal Macerators, 3 Basic Ore Washing Plants, 2 Basic Chemical Baths, a basic thermal centrifuge, a basic sifting machine, a basic centrifuge (non-thermal), a basic sifting machine, and 14 type filters. Hope you liked this guide and please leave me any feedback! Thanks!||
