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I haven't had any luck getting this to work, so I think it's just not the way smart inserters behave. But I want to be sure before I make a suggestion for a new, better kind of inserter.

I want my smart inserter to move any item which is present on the circuit network input signal with a positive value.

The idea is to have a constant combinator next to a smart chest, specifying what should be in it. The contents of the smart chest are subtracted from the constant combinator's output, and this is sent to the smart inserter, which fills the chest with any items which are missing from the desired inventory.

sounds like you basically want the functionality of a requester chest, but without the bots? Hmm. No, pretty sure this is not possible directly in vanilla. The filter is what it is, it can't be changed on the fly, and unlike factories, an inserter doesn't care what's in a chest before it inserts, only if it's *possible* to insert (without going into barred slots). Someone more clever than me at exploiting vanilla mechanics might know of a way, but short of something pretty complicated involving multiple inserters and combinators - and even that not ideal - I'm not seeing any way without modding.

How about this function then? (https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... set_filter)

So unless that function's broken, I don't see why your idea couldn't work.


Edit: This will involve modding, not sure if that's something you're going for or not?

Kikkers wrote:How about this function then? (https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... set_filter)

So unless that function's broken, I don't see why your idea couldn't work.

A mod could use that function to do it, absolutely. He seemed to be asking how to do it in vanilla, without a custom kind of inserter. It's definitely possible for a mod.

There is no way to copy a signal from the circuit network to the smart inserter filter.

The only solution (without modding) is to set up a row of inserters with a single filter on each.

One way to do this would be to set up an intermediate smart chest. All items from the belt are pulled into the first chest.
Combinators perform a check to see if the item in the smart chest is needed in the requesting chest.
If so, it is moved to the requesting chest, if not it is returned to the belt.
The only problem here is speed, as the inserter speed will limit your throughput.