don't understand how lane balancer work

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_Ax_
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don't understand how lane balancer work

Post by _Ax_ »

Hi, I'm building a super smelter and I have to build a bus of 6 lanes to feed the furnaces but looking online for lane balancer I see a lot of types and different shapes, but I still don't understand how it works, any help? :?
Loewchen
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Re: don't understand how lane balancer work

Post by Loewchen »

A splitter can take 2 input belts and puts out 2 output belts, if the 2 input belts are not equally saturated the output belts will be equalized, if the output belts have not equal demand the input belts input will be equalized.
Belt balancers scale this behavior to create equal input and output on any amount of belts.
Trebor
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Re: don't understand how lane balancer work

Post by Trebor »

The idea behind lane balancers is to keep both lanes on a belt balanced. Almost any lane balancer will do this.

Sometimes you may want both lanes to have the same items on both lanes. Different balancers do better then others with this.

And sometimes you want the belt upstream from the balancer to remain lane balanced even if you are only removing items from one lane downstream from the balancer. Very few do this correctly.

Here is a thread comparing lane balancers:
viewtopic.php?f=202&t=74911
Serenity
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Re: don't understand how lane balancer work

Post by Serenity »

There is a difference between lane and belt balancers. Each belt has two lanes. Lane balancers are for making sure that both input and/or output lanes are evenly used. For example an input balanced lane balancer will draw evenly from both lanes no matter which lane is preferred for consumption (since inserters will prefer to pick from one lane when possible). An output balanced lane balancer will distribute items on both lanes, but not pull evenly from both. And then there are ones that do both.

Belt balancers on the other hand balance whole belts. You don't really have to understand how they work. Few people do. These seem to work:
https://gist.github.com/Bilka2/aeec4ff7 ... 0cf1046a06

It seems like you really want belt balancers. Not lane balancers
Trebor
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Re: don't understand how lane balancer work

Post by Trebor »

Serenity wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2019 3:13 pm It seems like you really want belt balancers. Not lane balancers
_Ax_ wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2019 1:44 pm ... bus of 6 lanes ...
My bad, keyed on lanes ignored the 6. Yes you want (3?, 6?) belt balancers.
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