Balanced Side Load / Lane Balancer

[JasonC]

It took me a while to figure this out so I thought I'd share it. This takes both lanes of a belt and shifts them to one side, alternating between the two lanes. I use it in mines to keep mines on opposite sides of belts working evenly while loading trains; it works well when the belts are saturated:



It can also be used to evenly load a two-sided belt onto the side of one that already has items on it:



Faster belts can be used appropriately to maintain throughput. If anybody can improve this or already knows of another version, I'd really like to see it. I'm trying to find a more compact version. My real goal is to balance the two input lanes regardless of which output lane is backed up (when both lanes are saturated), but this is good enough in most of the situations I need it in.

[JasonC]

If you combine the outputs with side loading, you get a balancer that draws from both input lanes evenly regardless of any difference in output lane consumption:

[ratchetfreak]

If you combine the outputs with side loading, you get a balancer that draws from both input lanes evenly regardless of any difference in output lane consumption:

why side load twice on the left belt? That's not really needed

[JasonC]

If you combine the outputs with side loading, you get a balancer that draws from both input lanes evenly regardless of any difference in output lane consumption:

why side load twice on the left belt? That's not really needed

It is needed to keep the inputs balanced. When side-loading to a saturated belt the "upstream" lane has precedence. The top splitter takes advantage of this to ensure both input lanes are being drawn from (note item flow in OP picture).

The next side-load (left belt just before last splitter) puts it back in the left lane. This is what lets the final splitter alternate between the two input lanes. If this is the part you're referring to: I can't think of any way to make it not necessary; it's critical to load onto the right side of that belt out of the first splitter, so the appropriate input lane is upstream, but it's also critical that the inputs to the final splitter are on the same lane, which I've chosen as the left side. So there's got to be a move from the right lane to the left at some point. You might be able to avoid it with underground belts or something somewhere instead. I don't know; I'm totally looking forward to seeing other designs, I'm hoping to see some better / more compact ones.

The final side-load (just after last splitter) creates two lanes again, if you want to use it as a balancer. But these aren't directly from the initial input lanes, each item output alternates between one of the two initial input lanes via the final splitter, no matter what output lane its on.

In the picture you quoted, if you were to remove the side-load just before the final splitter, you would get two lanes of output, but they wouldn't be balanced any more. Demand on the right output lane would just translate directly to demand on the left input lane, and vice versa. Only by having both inputs to the final splitter be on the same lane do you get the balancing effect for uneven output demand. (Remember that a splitter cannot change the lanes of an item; so it can't do any lane balancing on its own).

[mooklepticon]

If you're specifically after the ore-greencircuit pattern, I'm not sure that'll hold once your input isn't compressed. If you want that specifically, I'd use the underground belt splitter trick.

BTW, this is very similar to the input balancer I've been using! I'll post that and we can compare notes!

[JasonC]

If you're specifically after the ore-greencircuit pattern, I'm not sure that'll hold once your input isn't compressed. If you want that specifically, I'd use the underground belt splitter trick.

Nah, that was just illustrative. What I'm really after is preventing one input lane from backing up if one output lane is moving slowly, or if a two-lane belt is used to side load another belt. Especially e.g. for evening depletion of mining drills on opposite sides of a belt.

BTW, this is very similar to the input balancer I've been using! I'll post that and we can compare notes!

Yeah! I saw a 3-wide one somewhere with underground belts, too, but I can't seem to find it. I'd really like a narrower one.

[mooklepticon]

Found it.

UrYIN30 - Imgur.gif (1.23 MiB) Viewed 15833 times

You can also replace each underground belt with normal belts and it's cheaper in yellow and red. In blue, this is cheaper.

The drawbacks with this is that it's kinda large for what it does and it only handles one lane of throughput. (All those balancers make it look like it can handle more, but it can't. You could balance 2 lanes, but you're only gonna get 1 lane of throughput because of the single-side splitting & balancing.)

[mooklepticon]

Here's a 3-lane version!

http://filmot.org/a/sgAsj

https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... balancers/