I've tried searching for the answer on forums without any success.
For the 'Drill-O-Matic Junior' Mining Excavator the Practical Details section on the wiki says as follows:
To have the drill run "in the background" (so you don't need to watch it produce ore), you need to leave it alone for more than 6 hours. If you switch focus back to the craft with the drill before 6 hours have passed, the drill will retroactively stop.
Does anyone know of a way to change or remove that value by editing some config file somewhere? I'm running 1.2.2 if that makes any difference. I just don't understand why there's a delay in the first place!
Not sure if this should've been posted in the Gameplay Questions or over here...