Factorio Forums

I have been playing around with belt scanner and haven't figured out anything usefully with it in pulse mode. In hold mode, I can make an input lane going into a splitter get priority but that is all I could think of currently

Any ideas on practical usage?

they are used for smart factories

Pulse mode is used with memory cells.

Connect an arithmetic combinator's output to its input, and set it to "Each + 0, return Each". This makes a basic memory cell. Wire it to the belt in pulse mode, and the combinator will count how many items have passed through the belt.

For each inserter removing items from the belt, multiply its pulse by -1 and add it to the memory cell. Now you have a counter for how many items are on the belt! You can use this to limit the amount of new items inserted on the belt.

DaveMcW wrote:Pulse mode is used with memory cells.

Connect an arithmetic combinator's output to its input, and set it to "Each + 0, return Each". This makes a basic memory cell. .

Gotta say, most of the time I prefer using deciders set to 'When Red==0, output everything(input count)'. Performs the same function, but gives me a manual reset signal

I use them for shared smelting of copper/iron in a dumb normal smelter setup, each ore has seperate input lanes, and are seperated again on the ouput side, there is a small buffer on the output side, if this starts filling, the input lanes for that material blocks, thus preventing jamming in the shared smelting area.

I have also used them for belt cleaning lets say you have mixed ore patch, and use filter inserters to move the wrong stuff to other lanes, I then place a belt scanner where the inserter grabs stuff, so I can stop the belt when items needs to be picked up, this ensures the inserters have time to grab required items, even on fast belts.