4 belts beaconed smelter row

Circuit-free solutions of basic factory-design to achieve optimal item-throughput.
Involving: Belts (balancers, crossings), Inserters, Chests, Furnaces, Assembling Devices ...
Optimized production chains. Compact design.
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Circuit-free solutions of basic factory-design to achieve optimal item-throughput
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Dimanper
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4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by Dimanper »

The other day i tried to find any 4 belts per row smelting design on the internet, din't find anything close to what i was looking for (which is odd), so i ended up building one myself.
4 belts per row smelter.png
4 belts per row smelter.png (667.04 KiB) Viewed 25091 times

4 output blue belts are completely compressed. It is possible to remove some beacons for maximum power efficiency (6 beacon effects on furnaces to be exact), but i just did't feel like it, so whatever.

Even though i now have the design i wanted, i'm still very interested to have a look at some similar ones to see how other people did it. So i'm asking you to give me some links/pics/blueprints/whatever here if you have some. Thanks.
P.S. Also i didn't know to which subforum submit my post, so i posted it just in the general one.
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Koub
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by Koub »

[Koub] Moved to Mechanical Throughput Magic subforum. I think this is where this kind of demonstration belongs.
Koub - Please consider English is not my native language.
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Bauer
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by Bauer »

Thanks. Exactly what I need right now.
Nice design. Will use.
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zOldBulldog
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by zOldBulldog »

The fact that this design is for 4 belts and is thin and long strikes me as ideal for a generic and ever expandable smelting outpost.

This is the image it immediately created in my mind:

- 4-wagon ore train comes in and parks at an unload station, stretching in the same direction as your smelter, and with spacing between tracks just as wide as your smelter. That stop is for a given ore.
- 4-wagon smelted product comes out the other end and loads onto a train with a similar setup.
- Repeat as many times as needed for the same or even different ores (since each line is for one ore, it is easy to add another line next to it (and train stops) for whichever ore is running out. Literally infinitely expandable.
- A stacker for each side (one for trains with full ores, one for empty trains waiting for smelted product). It does not matter that it will contain trains with different ores (of course one ore per train), since each train will be going to the right stop for the ore.

I so look forward to building this.

BTW, do you have a similar smelter line optimized for iron ore to steel? Of course, it will likely input 4 line of iron ore and output fewer lines of steel, or output 4 lines of steel but input more lines of ore.
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Bauer
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by Bauer »

I took this element and stacked 48 of such melter rows next to each other. On the front side I have 4 unloading stations for 6>12>6 trains on two parallel tracks. Each wagon unloads to 4 belts. The belts are not 100% full (because there are only 12 chest-to-belt inserters) but this is ok -- the 20% productivity bonus requires only 83,3% saturated belts.

If my calculation is right, this is enough for sweet 60 SPM -- I wanted to go small this time because the low-UPS of my previous base made me sick.
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DaveMcW
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by DaveMcW »

Here is a version with blue belts only.

It has 2 filter splitters you will need to edit if you are not smelting iron ore.

4 blue belt smelting.jpg
4 blue belt smelting.jpg (757.35 KiB) Viewed 24432 times

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zOldBulldog
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by zOldBulldog »

Bleargh, I started trying these (and thinking about how to make a steel version of them too)... and run out of power. Detoured to process uranium, kovarex and build a nuclear power plant :P
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That guy
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by That guy »

*belt saving intensifies*
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disentius
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by disentius »

Nice one, Dave.
[nitpick]
However, i noticed that you use one full belt to feed 12 furnaces.
Factorio calculator gives a use of 0.806 blue belts ore input for 12 beaconed furnaces. Did I miss something? Or are you referring to 4 full belts output?
[/nitpick]
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Bauer
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by Bauer »

4FE into 1steel.jpg
4FE into 1steel.jpg (115.72 KiB) Viewed 24251 times
This one is for 4 blue belts of iron plates into almost 1 blue belt of steel.

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DaveMcW
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by DaveMcW »

7 blue belts of iron ore into 2 blue belts of steel. Features 231 furnaces in a row (2 more than optimal due to inserter issues).

Our scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

7 blue belt ore to steel.jpg
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Bauer
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by Bauer »

Updated to version 0.17 (universal use without filter splitter)

4 blue belts output (179-180 items/s)
4 blue belt smelter v0.17.jpg
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Bauer
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by Bauer »

4-belt smelter.jpg
4-belt smelter.jpg (323.39 KiB) Viewed 22069 times
Forget my previous post... My thinking went in the wrong direction. This is much better.

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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by Bauer »

Bauer wrote: Mon Mar 18, 2019 10:14 pm 4-belt smelter.jpg

Forget my previous post... My thinking went in the wrong direction. This is much better.

BTW:
I somehow cannot manage the spitter magic on the output side. There are 4 blue and 1 red belt that provide 180 items/s. I just can't manage to "split" them onto 4 blue belts. This setup ends up with an average of 179 items/s. Please let me know if you have a better design (which doesn't need 1 Mio splitters).

The problem is that if the "holes" in the blue belts coincide, then this also generates a hole in the output. This leads to backpressure on one of the belts, blocking the output of one or several of the furnaces. Or if you look at the problem from a different corner: There is no buffer in the output to compensate for the coincidence of holes.
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by DaveMcW »

Yes, splitters with output priority cannot achieve full compression. You have to design them using input priority only.
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Bauer
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by Bauer »

DaveMcW wrote: Tue Mar 19, 2019 9:24 am Yes, splitters with output priority cannot achieve full compression. You have to design them using input priority only.
Thanks for the hint.
179.jpg
179.jpg (525.3 KiB) Viewed 22007 times
This makes it a little bit better, but still not 180/s. Theoretically, it's perfect, but practically not.
(not easy to spot, but there is a hole in the second output belt from the top)

Last edited by Bauer on Tue Mar 19, 2019 5:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by DaveMcW »

Try adding 1-belt buffer between each set of splitters.
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Bauer
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by Bauer »

like this?
179b.jpg
179b.jpg (299.06 KiB) Viewed 21989 times
still not fully packed.
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by theolderbeholder »

One more splitter to the left column, middle position.
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Bauer
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Re: 4 belts beaconed smelter row

Post by Bauer »

theolderbeholder wrote: Tue Mar 19, 2019 7:10 pm One more splitter to the left column, middle position.
Too easy! This one is theoretically not needed... However, I tried it nevertheless. It's not the solution.
I'm pretty sure now that you cannot reach perfect compression with splitters since 0.17.
At a different location, I have 6 perfectly compressed belts and reduce them with a standard 6-to-4 balancer to 4 belts. The result are 4 non-perfectly compressed belts.
6-to-4.jpg
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4-belts.jpg
4-belts.jpg (421.35 KiB) Viewed 21962 times
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