Piston extender

[Rhombic]

Has anyone created a way to extend indefinitely a piston, like a wick?

[codeholic]

Do you mean this:

Code: Select all

x = 26, y = 5, rule = B3/S23
2o22b2o$obo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bobo$2bo2b4o2b4o2b4o2bo$obo2bo2bo2bo2bo
2bo2bo2bobo$2o22b2o!

or a piston wickstretcher?

[Rhombic]

Do you mean this:

Code: Select all

x = 26, y = 5, rule = B3/S23
2o22b2o$obo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bobo$2bo2b4o2b4o2b4o2bo$obo2bo2bo2bo2bo
2bo2bo2bobo$2o22b2o!

or a piston wickstretcher?

A piston wickstretcher.

[mniemiec]

A piston wickstretcher.

I've recently figured out ways to synthesize pistons of any arbitrary even length out of gliders - by building rows of block-on-table and/or boat-on-table, and then removing the blocks and boats just as houses are brought in from both ends. I haven't figured out a way to make odd-length ones yet, although I'm fairly sure it's possible.

I think the best bet, as far as making a wick-stretcher is concerned, would be to find a way to turn the front end house stabilizer into a phi (i.e. an elongated pond) while bringing in another house from behind - and then simply removing the sides from the phi at one's leisure. This would extend the piston by two units at a time.

Constructing an open-ended piston (where one end is capped, and the rotors are extruded directly) can't work, because the information transfer along the rotor would be at c, while the extruder can move at most at c/2.