Need help for 40/28 balancer design

[Feardis]

Yeah this one's a B***** and I have no clue where to start

I have 10 train station for unloading, each with 4 belt per station making a total of 40 incoming raw ore lane
Now I know my station aren't always occupied and train path to very busy unloading station can be a mess sometimes but I have my stations setup for relatively high train traffic. I can have on average 6 to 7 of the train station occupied at all time (sometimes 8 and even 9 on rare occasion).
Basically I don't want to do 20 smelting line (2 of the 40 lane per smelting line) but i'd rather do 14 to keep things efficient and running as everything will run with beacon (speed) and prod module on smelters

Having a 40/28 balancer would keep my smelting setup more compact and have them running more often than a 20 smelter line...

See attachement for ingame image

Thanks in advance

[Mehve]

I've had similar problems, with my incoming lanes a multiple of 8, but my consumption lanes a different number. In the end, I found the best approach was to NOT combine them all, but only worry about making each individual train unload evenly.

As long as each individual train's wagons get unloaded evenly, don't even worry whether one stop is unloaded more than another. Have 4 of your stations outputting 4 lanes, and the other 6 only outputting into 2 lanes. This will give you 28 lanes of output, and each trains will still empty evenly.

[impetus maximus]

welcome to the forums.

perhaps this thread may help you.

[Feardis]

I appreciate the help, although if I wanted a 4/8/16/32/64 balancer, forums are full of them and I've seen them
The main reason I came here is mostly because my lane amount (40 to 28) is, I think, very unusual to balance

I taught maybe some balancer master would show up and help out...lol

[impetus maximus]

i'm sure someone is smart/patient enough to design one for ya.
i would try but splitter math makes my brain hurt.

[vtx]

First, from the image your 4 lane balancer don't need the first or last 2 splitters

Code: Select all

A > AB --------- > ABCD > ABCD 
B > AB > ABCD ----------> ABCD
C > CD > ABCD ----------> ABCD
D > CD --------- > ABCD > ABCD

If your train allways arrive at depot station full I think the balancing of each 4 lane associated to each train depot are not needed.

Crazy idea for transforming 40 into 30 at least. Consider each lane # 1 to 40 and grouped as 4 lane. Mix the lane as each lane split with the lane of another station. Use a 4:3 balancer on each group "^^" then you can split those 3-3 together and now each lane have the output of 8 of 10 train stations.

Code: Select all

> 1-9 >   1-9-5-13 > 1-9-5-13-17-25-21-29
> 1-9 >   1-9-5-13 > 1-9-5-13-17-25-21-29
> 5-13 > 1-9-5-13 > 1-9-5-13-17-25-21-29
> 5-13 ^^

> 17-25 > 17-25-21-29 > 1-9-5-13-17-25-21-29
> 17-25 > 17-25-21-29 > 1-9-5-13-17-25-21-29
> 21-29 > 17-25-21-29 > 1-9-5-13-17-25-21-29
> 21-29 ^^
...