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Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 6:56 pm
by canidae
rasby came up with a superior solution to the problem, check out viewtopic.php?f=202&t=32817
Previously I've used the design in the image below to prioritize belt flow after a splitter:
- prioritized_track.jpg (160.07 KiB) Viewed 21420 times
Unfortunately this will not work perfectly once you need full throughput on your prioritized belt. As shown in the image above some iron ore still pass through the deprioritized belt even though the prioritized belt isn't fully saturated.
Fixing this is fairly simple, so as I still see many use the design above, I thought I'd throw out my solution to the problem:
- prioritized_track_2.jpg (303.04 KiB) Viewed 21420 times
By splitting the prioritized track again then the two new tracks hold 50% of the items that will later be merged, meaning that while the prioritized track is fully saturated the sum of items on the two belts between the two new splitters will never exceed 8 as long as all the items on the prioritized belt are consumed. If all the items on the prioritized belt aren't consumed then the two belts between the splitters will start filling up and the lock on the deprioritized belt will be released.
Note: It's not necessary to send the top output of the rightmost splitter down to the prioritized track, I just dislike loose ends.
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 6:56 pm
by canidae
I simplified this design to just two belts, this post is probably easier to grasp.
Now that you got your prioritized track working, you might wish to force items to the right (or left, or up, or down) on a multiband line (i.e. a "bus").
As I'm writing this I realize that going vertical was a bad idea as most people have more width than height to their monitor, sorry about that :\
This setup will merge items towards the right belt to make sure the right belt is always* saturated. One unfortunate drawback is that this design requires a fair amount of space, as in that you can't really split out a track to the side before you've shifted all belts one step to the right.
* There may be some some hickups causing the right belt to temporarily not be fully saturated. Increasing value (value should be from ">8" to ">15") for condition on locked belt may resolve issue, but setting it too high may also reduce total throughput for the 4 belts.
- mutliband_merge_right.jpg (171.85 KiB) Viewed 21415 times
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2016 1:47 pm
by rasby
I recently came up with something similar:
viewtopic.php?f=202&t=32817
- priority_splitter_2.png (44.77 KiB) Viewed 21394 times
Preferentially outputs on the bottom lane, any overflow going to the top. The circuit conditions are read/hold on the first two, enable/anything > 12 on the low-priotity out.
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2016 10:11 am
by canidae
Your solution for merging to one side on a multiband greatly improves my design. I'm somewhat surprised that in all my testing I didn't come across this solution on my own, it's so simple!
Great work
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2016 1:13 pm
by rasby
Thanks
Edit: Here's a blueprint of my design. The other topic is locked, so I guess I'll put it here.
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:18 am
by doxsroxs
Really nice solution. This looks way better than a splitter cascade!
Thanks!
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 7:32 pm
by brunzenstein
canidae wrote:
If you save the blueprint in this format, the blueprint manager won't accept it.
the one from by rasby » Sun Sep 18, 2016 1:13 pm works
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 9:12 pm
by canidae
brunzenstein wrote:canidae wrote:
If you save the blueprint in this format, the blueprint manager won't accept it.
the one from by rasby » Sun Sep 18, 2016 1:13 pm works
Thanks for the heads up. I've been using Killkrog's Blueprint Manager (although recently replaced it with Foreman), could've be some issues there.
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 9:33 am
by canidae
rasby wrote:I recently came up with something similar:
viewtopic.php?f=202&t=32817
- priority_splitter_2.png (44.77 KiB) Viewed 20693 times
Preferentially outputs on the bottom lane, any overflow going to the top. The circuit conditions are read/hold on the first two, enable/anything > 12 on the low-priotity out.
Quite late to bring this up, but I just noticed something in rasby's design that may not be apparent for all readers:
If you have two inputs to the first splitter and want the prioritized belt to be fully saturated, then rasby's design will not work properly once both inputs are
nearly saturated. When that happens the top right circuited belt (with Enable/Disable condition) will be enabled and both outputs will be equally
nearly saturated.
If there's only one input to the first splitter then all input will go to the prioritized belt and only overflow to the other belt once the prioritized belt is getting backed up (which was the problem I wanted to solve in this thread).
If you have two input belts and two output belts where you want one to be fully saturated before the other receive any overflow (and you don't want the input belts to be slowed) then read about
Overflow splitting.
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 3:15 am
by ssilk
I created a mechnical version of prio-splitting:
viewtopic.php?f=202&t=33695
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 4:50 pm
by CaptainKonzept
Hey, I made a video comparing the different priority splitter designs I could find (and come up with myself). Check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta6PnPC7MOI
Kudos to your geat design!
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 11:06 am
by canidae
Saw your post on reddit, great video. I have a ton of comments for you, I'll see if I can give you a proper response there
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 3:46 pm
by tamanous
Thank you, CK.
I really liked the idea of the contrastive look at the different desings - though I'd preferred written with images over video.
I rebuilt some of the shown layouts to see how zwaans layout would benchmark when build thoroughly. Quite well, indeed. When I got to the point of comparing the throughputs of the different bus lanes, I ran into the problem of a reliable measurement - just to see that you're
already working on that, too. So I guess I'll wait and see and head to other problems
Anyways, I'd like to ask you to share the (a) blueprint of your setup to save the time of the ppl working on the same thing.
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2018 3:17 pm
by CaptainKonzept
It's been a while, but I always wanted to do an update video where I fixed your splitter according to your feedback, tried to improve on my concepts and have a better testing setup. Now with the new output priority mechanic it was a good motivation to not only do that video, but also compare the new mechanic to the old designs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkR3pDTNUv8
Re: Split and prioritize output belt (and merge multiband right)
Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 11:46 am
by McDuff
CaptainKonzept wrote:It's been a while, but I always wanted to do an update video where I fixed your splitter according to your feedback, tried to improve on my concepts and have a better testing setup. Now with the new output priority mechanic it was a good motivation to not only do that video, but also compare the new mechanic to the old designs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkR3pDTNUv8
Here's a question about that - I always put the lane balancers
after the lanes that have been split off, so that it's drawing roughly evenly from both lanes from the perspective of the belt even if it's unbalanced at the factory end. That seems like it should even up the throughput with the new mechanics without having to do all that lane balancing on the bus itself.