Non-throughput-limited 8+ belt balancers?

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.
Please provide blueprints!
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Circuit-free solutions of basic factory-design to achieve optimal item-throughput
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impetus maximus
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Re: Non-throughput-limited 8+ belt balancers?

Post by impetus maximus »

using different item types is clearly not a good test for balancers.

TheRaph
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Re: Non-throughput-limited 8+ belt balancers?

Post by TheRaph »

mrvn wrote:Which differs from how the devs have explained how the splitter works in the past.

Past explanation was that for every item type the splitter keeps track where the last item went so the next item goes to a different output. That would mean no matter what else happens red cards would alternate between the top and bottom output.
But on the other hand my sushi-belt-generator works - I've used it multiple Times (also with some resources not available for some time). It never stops to do it's god job. So its actually not a problem if u use a splitter with 2 inputs and only 1 output. The problem occurs only when having 2 inputs and 2 outputs - but this setup is mostly used to balance two belts with the same item type (to mix two different typed belts doesn't make much sense).
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mrvn
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Re: Non-throughput-limited 8+ belt balancers?

Post by mrvn »

For a moment I was: Why are there stones on the belt? Then I came to the conclusion that they are there to avoid having twice the number of space science on the belt, right?

A very colorful design.

I would change one thing though. Use simple filter inserters to fill the chests. Most science should be used up by the labs so there should be very little to do for them. Unless...

Where do you put the train station to add new science packs or directly add the output from a science factory? If that simply adds to the loop at the end then stack filter inserter make sense. I would probably add some circuit logic to stop the belt going into the loop when a train is present. So unloading can utilize the whole belt.

You can also add a wire to the belt going past the stack filter inserters connecting the belt under each inserter to just after each inserter and set them to "read belt content + hold" and "enable when stone = 0" respectively (for the stone filter inserter). Then you don't need the loop back as no stone will get past the point where it gets taken off.

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Re: Non-throughput-limited 8+ belt balancers?

Post by golfmiketango »

TheRaph wrote:Image
mrvn wrote:Which differs from how the devs have explained how the splitter works in the past.

Past explanation was that for every item type the splitter keeps track where the last item went so the next item goes to a different output. That would mean no matter what else happens red cards would alternate between the top and bottom output.
In 0.16 the result of this experiment is different but still deviates from the official splitter "documentation," as I understand it.

To me, this kinda looks like a bug. Anyone have a good non-bug explanation as to why the items are not balanced between output belts in this configuration? To be clear, the first two splitters are balancing the outputs between belts. But the third splitter, the bottom one in my picture, seems to be misbehaving by only belt-balancing some of the inputs when it could just as easily have belt-balanced all of them.
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TheRaph
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Re: Non-throughput-limited 8+ belt balancers?

Post by TheRaph »

mrvn wrote:For a moment I was: Why are there stones on the belt? Then I came to the conclusion that they are there to avoid having twice the number of space science on the belt, right?

A very colorful design.

I would change one thing though. Use simple filter inserters to fill the chests. Most science should be used up by the labs so there should be very little to do for them. Unless...

Where do you put the train station to add new science packs or directly add the output from a science factory? If that simply adds to the loop at the end then stack filter inserter make sense. I would probably add some circuit logic to stop the belt going into the loop when a train is present. So unloading can utilize the whole belt.

You can also add a wire to the belt going past the stack filter inserters connecting the belt under each inserter to just after each inserter and set them to "read belt content + hold" and "enable when stone = 0" respectively (for the stone filter inserter). Then you don't need the loop back as no stone will get past the point where it gets taken off.
Yes and no :)
Originally I used a design with only 6 chests in my base (cause at this time I had not yet "beat the game"). Regarding to this 6-belt-design the output was: red-green, blue-grey, red-green, purple-yellow. So there was twice as many red and green on the belt as other colors. Because of the fact my first base was a little bit messy I did the whole thin again in god-mode to obtain a clear picture. So I extend this design for rocket science and got the idea to use stones for equalize things out.

I think your idea to use the loop-belt for input sounds the best way to do it. In my originally base I had no train for that purpose. The science pack factories was attached closely by belts. I used a input system like the sorting chests and put it in by a balancer. (see picture below)
The chest output was limited by content of sorting-chests. To fill new items on the belt the sorting chest must contain less than 200 of that item type. Due to the fact, that my yellow-pack-factories was to slow at this time and I had to research some low techs, the input was not the same for every item and usage too. So sometimes the whole belt was filled with red green and blue science packs and backed up because the inserters cant handle as much red, green and blue. The solution was to use stack-inserters.
But in late game the infinite researches uses up always the same amount of each item type ... so a stop and run method controlled by circuit network may work.
picture

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Re: Non-throughput-limited 8+ belt balancers?

Post by mrvn »

But does it actually matter if the belt is all filled with red/green and backed up by slow sorting inserters?

This happens when you don't produce enough blue/yellow/purple/grey science packs. But when one of those comes along (or the train arrives with a whole load of them), they get put on the belt. Then slowly the sorting inserters put the extra red/green science packs back into the buffer chests. Once the blue/yellow/purple/grey science packs hit the first science lab they get taken off, the next packs will move up. From then on the first science lab has all the science packs. Then slowly the mixed packs advance to hit the second lab so that start up again too. And so on. So the effect is only that labs are slower to start up again when missing science packs are delivered.

Where it might make a difference is those few technologies that are unbalanced, e.g. require 2 red science packs and one green science packs. Lots of green science packs will be left on the belt that need to be recycled to get more red packs delivered. But even then I think it wouldn't be the end of the world.

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