Since I couldn’t find it, here’s a bare minimum guide to starting using the Pipeworks mod.

This recipe builds a trivial item sorter.

Mods you need:

  • Pipeworks
  • Mesecon
  • I3 Inventory (optional, strongly recommend)

Resources you need (if building this in survival):

  • 24 wood planks for 4 chests
  • a lot of leaves (for plastic for tubes and for the injector)
  • a lot of mese Crystals (for the injector and the sorting tube segment and the blinky plant)
  • 3 saplings (for the blinky plant)
  • 2 iron for the injector

To build the parts - look up the part recipes in I3 Inventory, or the MineTest wiki.

The Build:

In this order, place, on flat ground, in a straight line:

  • A chest
  • A stack wise filter injector
  • A pneumatic tube segment
  • A sorting pneumatic tube segment
  • A final chest

Now place the last two chests on the ground on either side of the ‘sorting pneumatic tube segment’.

Now place a ‘blinky plant’ beside the ‘stackwise filter injector’, to get it running. Yes, it must be a blinky plant.

Now throw some crap in the first chest and watch it get moved randomly to the other 3 chests.

Now, grab an item you want sorted, say ‘dirt block’. Left click on the ‘sorting pneumatic tube segment’. Put the dirt block next to one of the colors. Put more dirt blocks into the first chest.

Watch the dirt blocks follow the color you chose.

Repeat with more item types.

Now your inventory is sorted, kind of.

Finally, add additional chests and sorting tube segments, as needed, to suit your personal play style.

Edit: Of course now I found a decent wiki page that has more detail, so I put that in the URL.