Codex Processing Foundry

Foundry

The Foundry melts metal into one shared molten bath, mixes alloys in it and casts the melt into ingots, plates, rods, gears, blocks or nuggets. It is a box of Refractory Bricks: Induction Coils in its walls heat the bath, Casting Basins hold the molds.

How it works

1. Metal comes in through the Item Input Port or by hand. Every piece melts into the bath once the bath is hot enough for it.
2. All metals share the bath. When the metals of an alloy are there in the right ratio and the bath is hot enough, they turn into the alloy by themselves.
3. Each Casting Basin casts one piece at a time with the mold in its mold slot.
4. The pieces wait in the output slots, from where pipes take them through the Item Output Port.

Nothing is lost on the way: what melts in is exactly what can be cast out.

Building

Shown size: 5 wide, 5 high, 5 deep (adjustable: Height 4–8).

One example of many: within the rules on this page, size and arrangement are up to you; the Build Projector shows the plan in every allowed size.

	Key	Block	Count
	A	Refractory Bricks	78
	B	Industrial Sight Glass	8
	E	Induction Coil	4
	H	Casting Basin	3
	F	Energy Input Hatch (Tier 3)	1
	G	Gas Input Port	1
	C	Item Input Port	1
	D	Item Output Port	1
	0	Foundry Controller	1

Step by step

Each picture adds one layer, from the bottom up; the newest layer is bright. The controller wall faces you on the left.

Step 1: Layer 1

Parts in this step: Refractory Bricks (A) ×25

Step 2: Layer 2

Parts in this step: Refractory Bricks (A) ×5, Casting Basin (H) ×3, Induction Coil (E) ×2, Industrial Sight Glass (B) ×2, Foundry Controller (0) ×1, Gas Input Port (G) ×1, Item Input Port (C) ×1, Item Output Port (D) ×1

Step 3: Layer 3

Parts in this step: Refractory Bricks (A) ×11, Industrial Sight Glass (B) ×3, Induction Coil (E) ×2

Step 4: Layer 4

Parts in this step: Refractory Bricks (A) ×13, Industrial Sight Glass (B) ×3

Step 5: Layer 5

Parts in this step: Refractory Bricks (A) ×24, Energy Input Hatch (Tier 3) (F) ×1

Rules

• Size: 5 wide, 4 to 8 high, 5 deep. The Foundry finds its size by itself, starting from the block behind the controller.
• Edges and corners: only Refractory Bricks.
• Walls, floor and roof: Refractory Bricks, Industrial Sight Glass, Induction Coils, Casting Basins, ports and the controller.
• Inside: air only; the bath fills it.
• Needed: at least one Induction Coil and one Casting Basin.
• Casting Basins: up to 4, or one per coil if there are more coils.
• Energy Input Hatches: up to 4.
• Controller: in a wall face (not on an edge), front facing out, with the inside directly behind it.
• Ports: Item Input Port (metal and molds in), Item Output Port (cast pieces out), Gas Input Port (argon), Heat Port (process heat) and Energy Input Hatches. Every port works only on its outer face.

Tip

Data packs A data pack can add blocks to the tags qnet:multiblock/refractory and qnet:multiblock/industrial_sight_glass; they then count as bricks or glass.

Melting

Every metal that the game knows through the c: tags melts, in any form except gems: ore, raw metal, dust, ingot, nugget, plate, rod, gear, wire and blocks. Each piece adds its material units (MU) to the bath:

Form	MU
Nugget	10
Rod, wire	45
Ingot, dust, plate, raw metal	90
Ore	180
Gear	360
Block, raw metal block	810

An ore therefore melts into as much metal as two ingots. A piece melts as soon as the bath has reached its melting point and has room for it; otherwise it waits in the input slot. Every coil melts one piece per melting step (every half second).

Metal	Melts at
Tin	232 °C
Lead	327 °C
Zinc	420 °C
Brass	930 °C
Bronze	950 °C
Silver	962 °C
Electrum	1000 °C
Gold	1064 °C
Copper	1085 °C
Conductive Alloy	1100 °C
Constantan	1221 °C
Precision Alloy	1250 °C
Invar	1427 °C
Steel	1450 °C
Nickel	1455 °C
Iron	1538 °C
Netherite	2100 °C

A metal without a melting point in the data melts at 1,200 °C.

Warning

Renamed or enchanted items Items with extra data, such as a name or an enchantment, are refused.

The bath holds 810 MU (one block of metal) per block of the inside: the example with height 5 holds 27 blocks of metal.

Heat

• Every coil raises the highest temperature by 300 °C: 800 °C plus 300 °C per coil. The example has four coils and reaches 2,000 °C, enough for every metal up to iron, steel and nickel. Six coils reach 2,600 °C, which netherite needs.
• The Foundry only heats as far as it needs: to 50 °C above the highest melting point of what is in the inputs and in the bath, and above the lowest temperature of an alloy that can form.
• The bath heats by up to 5 °C per tick. Without enough energy it cools by 2 °C per tick.
• Holding the temperature costs energy every tick, for every coil: 2,000 E/t per coil up to 1,000 °C, and twice as much for every 300 °C above.
• A Heat Port takes process heat from a neighbouring plant: 1 HU replaces 1 E.

Important

Energy grows with the coils The tier 3 hatch of the example lets 64,000 E/t in, enough for its four coils with iron and steel. A smaller hatch cannot hold the bath warm. Every coil you add needs its own share: for six coils and the highest temperatures use tier 4 (512,000 E/t), or several hatches.

Alloys

When the bath holds every metal of an alloy in the right ratio and is hot enough, whole sets turn into the alloy, up to 10 sets per tick and coil. The ratio counts in MU, so 3 ingots of copper and 1 ingot of tin make 4 ingots of bronze.

Alloy	Parts (ratio)	From	Argon
Brass	3 Copper + 1 Zinc	930 °C	no
Bronze	3 Copper + 1 Tin	950 °C	no
Constantan	1 Copper + 1 Nickel	1250 °C	no
Electrum	1 Gold + 1 Silver	1000 °C	no
Invar	2 Iron + 1 Nickel	1450 °C	no
Precision Alloy	2 Conductive Alloy + 1 Gold	1200 °C	yes

• An alloy only forms when your pack has an ingot of it. If it does not, the status line says "No … ingot in this pack – the metals stay apart".
• The Precision Alloy needs argon through the Gas Input Port: 1 mB per set (one ingot is 30 sets). Argon comes from the Air Separator.
• Steel is not made here: the Induction Furnace alloys it.

Casting

Put one mold into each mold slot of the screen; basin 1 uses mold slot 1 and so on. Molds are never used up.

• Ingot Mold, Plate Mold, Rod Mold, Gear Mold, Block Mold, Nugget Mold

Each basin casts one piece every 40 ticks. The C button chooses the metal: "what there is most of", or one metal of the bath (press again to go through them). A chosen metal that runs out casts nothing until you change the choice. When the output slots are full, the basins wait.

The screen

• Bars for energy, temperature, the bath (in MU) and argon.
• The three metals with the most units in the bath.
• What the basins cast, and the status line: formed, a structure error or a missing alloy ingot.
• 4 input slots, 4 mold slots and 6 output slots.

Automation

• Pipes put metal and molds in through the Item Input Port; only meltable items and molds are accepted.
• Items can only be taken out of the output slots, through either item port.
• A Grid Monitor can pause the Foundry; while paused it neither heats nor casts.

Error messages

Message	What to do
The controller must sit in a wall, front facing out	Put the controller into a wall face, front outwards, with the inside behind it.
Structure too small	Build 5 wide, at least 4 high and 5 deep.
Structure too large or not closed near …	Close the wall at the position shown, or make it smaller.
Wrong block at … (expected: Refractory Bricks)	Only Refractory Bricks on edges and corners.
Wrong block at … (expected: Casting Basin, Induction Coil, Industrial Sight Glass, Refractory Bricks)	Only these parts and the ports in the walls.
Wrong block at … (expected: Air)	Clear the inside.
Missing parts: coil ×1 / basin ×1	Add at least one Induction Coil and one Casting Basin.
Too many ports of one kind	At most 4 Energy Input Hatches; Casting Basins as in the rules.
Port not allowed here	Only item ports, the Gas Input Port, Heat Ports and Energy Input Hatches work.
Second controller at …	Remove the other controller.

Breaking the controller

The bath is kept: you get a Solidified Melt that holds every metal. Put it into a Foundry again and it melts back as a whole, once that bath is hot enough for all of its metals and has room for it.

Tip

Throughput Melting grows with the coils, casting with the basins: three basins cast about one and a half pieces per second. For more output, build more basins (one per coil beyond four); add coils when you need a higher temperature or faster melting.