Since no one bothered to reach out, I just went ahead and did it. Here is the updated wiki entry https://wiki.factorio.com/Inserters#Power_usage

While preparing to collate these findings and add them to the wiki, I noticed something very exciting. After digesting my last comment about inserter unloading, I took another look at the belt loading power curve, and found that while it is confusingly and inexplicably erratic, after looking at ...

Today a video popped up on my feed that was recently uploaded on this topic. That person attempted belt tests more vigorously than me, and while he ultimately didn't find much new information, I did catch an oversight on my end. Apparently when unloading onto a belt, the power behavior is identical ...

Hello. I recently did some graphs and calculations here: https://forums.factorio.com/124635 (ignore the post title, I ultimately calculated a different conclusion after collecting empirical data). I'd like to add the graphs, equations, and the general application of these findings in a summarized ...

I started doing belt tests and realized its a bit of a moot point. Firstly even if you could do it, the power graph is too messy to really quantify accurately with the games limited power tools. But then I realized that since every item gets a tick of item spike, that completely nullifies any ...

I've realized a glaring problem the moment I finished hitting submit on all those graphs. All of the calculation are based on a cost per spin formula that accounts for 2 ticks of item spike. However if we increase the stack size on a belt, we should have an item spike for each item, meaning there ...

I realized that for my final finding to make sense I would need to share some more relevant data. Firstly I have confirmed Evans finding that blue and green inserters have a spin time of 24 ticks. This doesn't really make sense as red inserters are 50 ticks, and these inserters are exactly twice as ...

Having sat with the numbers for a bit, I still for the life of me cannot figure out why there is a ~400W discrepancy between my value and the games hardcoded value. That's not an insignificant difference either, thats like 8% more. Yet despite calculating an 8% higher value than what was hardcoded ...

The pulsing might be related to the "fixed energy per cycle" thing I mentioned way back at the beginning of the thread. The config file shows fixed energy per rotation and energy per "movement." And they're the same amount. So if these different phases last very different amounts of time, the ...

I realize you are trying to experimentally deduce/confirm the energy usage, but I thought it might be useful to look at inserters definitions to see what variables they use, possibly even experiment with them (like making them 100 times greater to clearly see their effect):

{
name = "burner ...

So I've gone ahead and adapted my test from before to measure burner inserters. Here is the adjusted blueprint

0eNrNWEtu2zAQvQvXUmDqZ8lAu+4mq2RnBII ...

PS. I see your formulas went to great lengths to remove the drain. It is energy used while the inserter works, so I see no reason to remove it when comparing their efficiency.


The reason for removing it is because it is also used when the inserter doesn't work.

It's also why your cost per ...

I had to rewrite this because the forum failed to save the draft properly. Stupid forum. Anyway I'm gonna be a bit sloppy about the formatting because as you can imagine typing this all out again sucks.

Our test gave us a a rotational speed of 70 ticks for the yellow inserter spin speed, and it ran ...

Note that when power runs out on a circuit network the individual combinators will continue to run for a short time because they have internal accumulators. So I made to sure to not rely on that to deactivate the counter.


I just checked after you said this by slowing down the game speed, and I ...

Half way through doing the accumulator test I figured it would be good to have up to date inserter box to box speeds. Here's the methodology.

12-18-2024, 12-52-17.png

The counter starts at zero and when activated, keeps adding 1 until deactivated. Everything is deactivated when the source box ...

I've devised a practical test. Once I sat down to do it it was actually shockingly easy, Probably more so than the math itself, which makes me feel a bit silly for doing all those calculations yesterday.

First we ran a test with a stack size of 1 for each Inserter, moving chest to chest as full ...

Well met fellow inserter energy efficiency nut.

The "max consumption" reported for inserters is an upper bound for power usage rather than a steady draw. Actually the 15.1kW seems to be a short spike when picking up or dropping an item in a box. During the swing, which is most of the time during ...

I like the math here; this is really neat to see it worked-out properly.

However, If the Energy Efficiency of Inserters is a serious concern for your factory, maybe it is time to invest in a slightly larger power plant? :-D I don’t think I have ever seen Inserters occupy even a Percentage of my ...

Recently while doing some math I came across the fact that Red Inserters are slightly better than all other inserters in the game in terms of energy efficiency.

Here is the calculation for reference:

Energy Cost per Inserter Rotation:
(Max Power Consumption - Drain) / (Rotation Speed / Full ...

Not sure if this is with 2.0 in general, or specifically with Space Age, but ever since the update the startup times on this game have been abysmal. I used to play on an HDD and then I reinstalled the game on an SSD. Currently on the SSD from the time the loading screen pops up to the time I ...