The detector was a block from the original mod to detect items and output redstone. This needs to be implemented to allow stopping belts and automating sorting.

For the most part this will work as a simple redstone object.
IF ITEM MATCHES FILTER
---EMMIT REDSTONE

However, it should also work as a pipe belt upgrade. In which it can be used to automate sorting and work to stop the belt.

How I see this work is that a user will need to craft a sorting upgrade and rejector upgrade with the detector. Then these upgrades can be installed in the belts to function. The model of the belt will show the detector above the center of the belt. This will help explain how the belt works for sorting or rejecting items. As well help reuse the detector beyond basic Redstone.

Side note: detector should have the option to render a red triangle scanner beam.... just for the cool factor

Would look like the image above, but point down & without the shadow object thing.

Another thought, we could have the detector have a drawback. In which it will slow down how quickly items move through the belt (aka needs to scan the item). This will create a design challenge and reason to make several detector chains. We could also use this as a reason to add tiers and detector fail chances.

Combined with settings to increase the speed of belts. This could be used to generate trade-off mechanics. Example: Could make the items move faster at a cost of 10% detection failure rate.
Example2: make the belt go slower for 10% improvement in detection rate.

Stale issue message