Factorio Forums

Tl;dr How can I program an inserter to only move 100 units at a time? As in wait until there are > or = 100 units available before moving them all?


New to this forum, first post. I did use the search function first, but found no relevant info that would answer my question.

I'm right around 200 hours, so I figured I should give the circuit network a try My first one was simple, I rigged my steam engines to only activate when my accumulators reach <5%

My second idea I think I may have bitten off more than I could chew. I have an inserter that pulls flamethrower fuel from the assembler into a steel chest to the right, then another inserter that pulls into a passive provider chest to the right of that. I want the second inserter to only enable once the steel chest contents have reached >100 and stay on until the steel chest's contents reach 0. Repeat.
Basically, I only want the 2nd inserter to move 100 units of flamethrower fuel at a time.

Any clue or help would be greatly appreciated!

What you need is an RS-latch.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Tutorial:Circ ... er_version

Yes, what you need is indeed an RS-Latch, but if you're a starting player then keep in mind that stuff like that is quite a step up from starter level. I've got thousands of hours into this game, and I've never been able to make an RS-Latch work for anything other than Power. I guess I'm just not wired that way.

Sometimes you gotta ask yourself (or the board) if there's a different solution for what you're trying to do. So, in case you can't figure it out with that damn latch, feel free to describe WHY you want to drop 100 units at once, and perhaps we can suggest a small change that removes the need to do that in the first place..

RS-latch

You need 2 combinators set to "A is not 0". Wire the output of each to the input of the other.
Add another 2 combinators to generate an "1" signal on A to set and reset the latch.
In your case connect the input of these two combinators to the box.
One combinator does output "A=1" if "stuff > 100" and the other one "A=1" if "stuff==0".
Connect the output of each to one of the first pair.

Now change the content of your box and watch the signal on the pair of crossing wires connected to the first pair of combinators.
You will be able to use this to control the inserter.
Well, when trying to understand this it might blow your head out if you're not used to this kind of stuff.