So far my searches for a 12 lane balancer have been unsuccessful.
If anyone has one ready please feel free to share, otherwise I'll be working on my own when I get a chance and will post when completed.
Request: 12 Belt Balancer
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Circuit-free solutions of basic factory-design to achieve optimal item-throughput
Request: 12 Belt Balancer
Last edited by Slayn25 on Thu Jan 05, 2017 9:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Request: 12 Lane Balancer
I only know of count perfect balancers with 2^n in/outputs so you'd have to use a 16 belt balancer and feed back 4 belts from output to input.
For me it behaved best when feeding back 1 belt of each group of 4.
For me it behaved best when feeding back 1 belt of each group of 4.
blueprint
Edit: Sry didn't see the "must be 12 wide". I'll just leave this here in case you can make more room.My Mods: mods.factorio.com
Re: Request: 12 Lane Balancer
Thanks for the blueprint. I took out the 12 wide part as I realize that's an impossible request lol.
Re: Request: 12 Lane Balancer
I suggest to divide by sections by 4. i.e. 3x4 lanes.
Here is the difference between 4 lane and 8 lane balancer. You can imagine how quickly it's getting messy.
Here is the difference between 4 lane and 8 lane balancer. You can imagine how quickly it's getting messy.
Re: Request: 12 Lane Balancer
Here is another way to balance 12 lane
Blueprint string
Last edited by huliosh on Thu Jan 05, 2017 5:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Request: 12 Lane Balancer
Your balancer seems to be count perfect, but it's using a lot more space (24x38) compared to Zuri's 16 belt balancer with 4 feedbacks (36x16).huliosh wrote:Here is another way to balance 12 lane
Blueprint:Code: Select all
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It's also using more splitters, which if you use a lot of these balancers in a megabase will reduce UPS.
Last edited by Optera on Thu Jan 05, 2017 8:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
My Mods: mods.factorio.com
Re: Request: 12 Lane Balancer
You are right, but it's more like vertical version. Also you can compress it a bit more, there are some gaps that you can cut. 34 vs 36 splitter isn't that much for that big balancer. But i would go with separated balanced lanes 4x3. That would eliminate all the maccarone.
Re: Request: 12 Lane Balancer
Normally 4 belt balancers should work fine.
When you need to unload insane amounts of ore balanced to furnaces though, 16 belt balancers become very useful.
PS: These are called belt balancers, lane balancers would balance left-right lanes of belts.
When you need to unload insane amounts of ore balanced to furnaces though, 16 belt balancers become very useful.
- 2017-01-01-17-48-38-8544255.jpg (695.19 KiB) Viewed 34465 times
My Mods: mods.factorio.com
Re: Request: 12 Lane Balancer
Thanks. Updated.Optera wrote:PS: These are called belt balancers, lane balancers would balance left-right lanes of belts.
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golfmiketango
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Re: Request: 12 Belt Balancer
I use a lot of 12-belt balancers due to reasons which I plan to eventually make a post about. So far this implementation is the most elegant I'm aware of:
I didn't built it myself, and haven't done any careful science to verify its correctness, but, I'm pretty sure, based in-game experience and casual dry-run analysis, that it's a count-perfect output-side balancer supporting 12 fully compressed belts of throughput.
I didn't built it myself, and haven't done any careful science to verify its correctness, but, I'm pretty sure, based in-game experience and casual dry-run analysis, that it's a count-perfect output-side balancer supporting 12 fully compressed belts of throughput.
Blueprint String
I stole it from this reddit post.Re: Request: 12 Belt Balancer
This is awesome. Going to try it later. Thank you much!golfmiketango wrote:I use a lot of 12-belt balancers due to reasons which I plan to eventually make a post about. So far this implementation is the most elegant I'm aware of:
I didn't built it myself, and haven't done any careful science to verify its correctness, but, I'm pretty sure, based in-game experience and casual dry-run analysis, that it's a count-perfect output-side balancer supporting 12 fully compressed belts of throughput.
Re: Request: 12 Lane Balancer
I don't really get this at all. At the mines I balance the buffer chests using a combinator to keep them at the same (+-10, allowing some variance prevents stop-and-go hickups) fill. Trains arrive and wait till fully loaded.Optera wrote:Normally 4 belt balancers should work fine.
When you need to unload insane amounts of ore balanced to furnaces though, 16 belt balancers become very useful.
PS: These are called belt balancers, lane balancers would balance left-right lanes of belts.
That means at my smelter each car has the same amount of ore. You are unloading each car onto 2 belts. Even that should be balanced except when the train gets empty some inserters get the last load and get a bit more. Your 12 belt balancer should already be unecessary because the input is already 99% balanced.
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golfmiketango
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Re: Request: 12 Lane Balancer
I've been meaning to share this but keep delaying it pending further optimization/tweaking.... I don't use any buffer chests for my train loading or unloading, but instead rely on the train-cars themselves to serve as buffers. I am able to easily get just under three fully compressed blue belts of output from each rail car like so:mrvn wrote:I don't really get this at all. At the mines I balance the buffer chests using a combinator to keep them at the same (+-10, allowing some variance prevents stop-and-go hickups) fill. Trains arrive and wait till fully loaded.Optera wrote:Normally 4 belt balancers should work fine.
When you need to unload insane amounts of ore balanced to furnaces though, 16 belt balancers become very useful.
PS: These are called belt balancers, lane balancers would balance left-right lanes of belts.
That means at my smelter each car has the same amount of ore. You are unloading each car onto 2 belts. Even that should be balanced except when the train gets empty some inserters get the last load and get a bit more. Your 12 belt balancer should already be unecessary because the input is already 99% balanced.
- TrainUnload.png (3.84 MiB) Viewed 31792 times
Here's a blueprint that unloads four wagons from two train-tracks this way:
blueprint
The train tracks are omitted from the blueprint so that you can align it as you please along the track (otherwise, we wind up needing two blueprints, and it's a PITA to figure out which one you need in any given situation).So the number 12 comes from a four-car configuration. But it is true that if your system is supply-side constrained, four 3->3 balancers would serve equally well, because the three belts coming from each car are basically already in intrinsic balance to each other.
However, in my experience, using four 3->3 balancers almost always resulted in a situation where due to demand-side constraints, some but not all of those output belts would jam, reducing throughput to wherever it was actually needed.
I have also noticed that demand-side lane preferences can negatively impact supply-side throughput which really bothers me because I am quite suspicious of the game-engine performance impact of the standard split->isolate->join lane-balancer designs when repeatedly deployed at scale. I suppose I could output six belts instead of three and it might work better in-game but I would be worried about the UPS implications of all those uncompressed belts.
Managing these issues and, if we care, preventing the trains at the ends of the station-array from output-starving the ones in the middle, are arguably "costs" of not unloading into chests and sharing the output lines between the trains. My reasoning is tldw, here, but I suspect, in practice, that unload designs with chests still suffer from these same throughput problems, but sort of mask them, especially in laboratory and bootstrap conditions, leading to several subtle, hidden throughput problems in standard wagon->box->belt based train unload designs.
In my current campaign I have 2-6-2 trains which results in 3 x 6 = 18 output belts which is a nightmare to balance. As an initial hack, I've done this to go from 18->16:
- Balancer Nightmare.png (6.72 MiB) Viewed 31792 times
Re: Request: 12 Belt Balancer
I'd probably suggest 8 wagon trains, taking 2 belts off each. With the shorter balancer space, you'd definitely have room for it at this end of your operation.
Just for clarification, what exactly are the bots able to do that can't be done manually in the photo?
Just for clarification, what exactly are the bots able to do that can't be done manually in the photo?
Re: Request: 12 Belt Balancer
I think it's placing only output underground belts, without having to plonk the input part first.
I actually think you can do it by hand, I just tried in a sandbox game, and it was easy :
I actually think you can do it by hand, I just tried in a sandbox game, and it was easy :
- Factorio - contiguous side loading underground belts.JPG (36.52 KiB) Viewed 31753 times
Koub - Please consider English is not my native language.
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golfmiketango
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Re: Request: 12 Belt Balancer
Wow, nice... so, how did you do it, exactly? Still not sure I get it.Koub wrote:I think it's placing only output underground belts, without having to plonk the input part first.
I actually think you can do it by hand, I just tried in a sandbox game, and it was easy :
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golfmiketango
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Re: Request: 12 Belt Balancer
Yeah that sounds pretty sweet. Actually I was thinking I'd migrate to 2-7-2 (or maybe 3-7-3 if they're too slow) trains since I plan to deploy a smelting array that inputs 7 belts of ore and outputs 8 belts of plate... I have a mockup working perfectly but need to make sure it holds up in a real virtual deployment, so to speak.Mehve wrote:I'd probably suggest 8 wagon trains, taking 2 belts off each. With the shorter balancer space, you'd definitely have room for it at this end of your operation.
Just for clarification, what exactly are the bots able to do that can't be done manually in the photo?
But ... since my unload doesn't quite fill a blue belt, maybe I'll want 8 cars, after all, and want to look into 8->7 balancing ideas. A spare belt of iron ore is handy for sulphuric acid, so, come to think of it, for bus-facing deployments, that just leaves copper needing 8->7 in such a system... but I seem to be moving past the bus "phase" in my campaign, anyhow.
I don't love the idea of going from 3->2 directly because even if the ratios are about right, in the combinator-free implementation above, the trains very often unload unevenly due to the huge amount of belt buffer on the left; so I'd rather that the belts I have working get whatever throughput they're capable of. Plus it's all expected to get much, much bigger of course
Re: Request: 12 Belt Balancer
golfmiketango wrote:Wow, nice... so, how did you do it, exactly? Still not sure I get it.Koub wrote:I think it's placing only output underground belts, without having to plonk the input part first.
I actually think you can do it by hand, I just tried in a sandbox game, and it was easy :
- Factorio - contiguous side loading underground belts - howto.JPG (85.51 KiB) Viewed 31704 times
Then plonk exit I labelled 1
Then rotate twice, plonk exit I labelled 2
Rince and repeat until number 5
Then delete the entrance, and build one a little on the left
Add the 6th (not on this capture).
Remove the "entrance".
Koub - Please consider English is not my native language.
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golfmiketango
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Re: Request: 12 Belt Balancer
Ah, of course... I was thinking far too linearly about this problemKoub wrote:First, plonk the underground belt "entrance" on the left.golfmiketango wrote:Wow, nice... so, how did you do it, exactly? Still not sure I get it.Koub wrote:I think it's placing only output underground belts, without having to plonk the input part first.
I actually think you can do it by hand, I just tried in a sandbox game, and it was easy :
Then plonk exit I labelled 1
Then rotate twice, plonk exit I labelled 2
Rince and repeat until number 5
Then delete the entrance, and build one a little on the left
Add the 6th (not on this capture).
Remove the "entrance".
Re: Request: 12 Belt Balancer
You don't actually need to do that either though. You can simply place each UG in the required orientation, and then use the rotate function to reverse their direction of movement as needed, no trickery required.Koub wrote: First, plonk the underground belt "entrance" on the left.
Then plonk exit I labelled 1
Then rotate twice, plonk exit I labelled 2
Rince and repeat until number 5
Then delete the entrance, and build one a little on the left
Add the 6th (not on this capture).
Remove the "entrance".
The only real restriction (and I'm not aware of any way around it) is that complementary UG's in range of each other automatically link together and any attempt at reversing one end's direction will be mirrored at the other end as well. But since the shown rail unloading mechanism doesn't involve any possibility of linking UG's, that's not as issue at all.