mixing fuel on belt

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Treb
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mixing fuel on belt

Post by Treb »

Is it possible to supply boilers/furnaces etc with a belt which transports a random mix of fuels?

i.e. i have a belt with coal from mining and solid fuel from somewhere else, then i merge those streams into a single belt
and transport that mix to the fuel consumers, will this trigger negative effects?

i am afraid that the inserters get confused or that the furnaces suffer some production penalty by constantly switching their fuel type ...

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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by sathill »

Its possible but burner stack fuel to 5 so unless all fuel get burned it will not load other kind.

In pratice it just works to mix fuels

mrvn
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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by mrvn »

What happens is that the inserter will insert some coal into a furnace. From then on it will only add coal as fuel as long as the furnace does still have coal in the fuel slot. So all coal will be removed from the mixed belt. At some point no coal is left on the belt and the furnace will use up all the coal in the fuel slot. Only then the inserter will pick up e.g. some solid fuel and put it in the furnace and everything repeated till solid fuel is depleted.

With multiple furnaces in a row the belt moves and the first furnaces will probably always find their fuel type. Only the last few furnaces will show the alternating use of fuels. It should more or less regulate itself so furnaces use fuel types in the ratio that is on the belt except for the last one switching every few minute or so.

Note: The fuel slot in the furnace become empty when the furnace starts using the last fuel item. It then still has a full fuel value worth of energy to consume. So there is usually plenty of time to load the next fuel type into the furnace.

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impetus maximus
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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by impetus maximus »

welcome to the forums Treb. :)

[edit] see this post for fixed version.
i do this to make sure extra wood gets used first.
fuel.priority.png
fuel.priority.png (165.93 KiB) Viewed 4954 times
further up belt, coal is side loaded onto the solid fuel line.
wood gets top priority, then solid fuel, then coal.
Last edited by impetus maximus on Tue Jan 30, 2018 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Baughn
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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by Baughn »

You can easily do this using a circuit and merging lanes, set to allow the low-priority fuel through only if there's nothing else on the belt.

As of 0.16, you can also do this with a splitter at to input prioritization mode.

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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by mrvn »

impetus maximus wrote:welcome to the forums Treb. :)

i do this to make sure extra wood gets used first.
Image

further up belt, coal is side loaded onto the solid fuel line.
wood gets top priority, then solid fuel, then coal.
Shouldn't the long inserter be connected to the wood belt?

As it the programming seems useless. As long as the boiler has wood only the wood inserter will work. But if the boiler has no wood then both inserters will grab something. And once it is working it will continue till it has dropped of the coal. Iirc the long inserter is even faster so it will drop of the coal first and the wood inserter will be stuck. Ok, now I see it. The coal inserter then won't work until the wood inserter has inserter its wood, at which time only wood can be inserter again. So if you are low on wood you will get a single coal thrown in every now and then and only when wood is really empty will you get a stead stream of wood.

Still, when you run out of wood the wood inserter will be empty, so the coal inserter will insert coal. And then as long as coal is at hand the wood inserter won't pick up wood and will not stop the coal inserter from inserting more coal.

That programming should not work reliable.

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impetus maximus
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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by impetus maximus »

you are right, once it starts using coal it will continue. :oops:

here is a fixed design.
fuel.priority.fixed.png
fuel.priority.fixed.png (108 KiB) Viewed 4956 times
wired belt is set to read/hold. enable/disable unchecked.
blueprint string
blueprint uses 'infintiy-chest'

Code: Select all

/c game.player.insert("infinity-chest")
and 3 'express-loader'

Code: Select all

/c game.player.insert("express-loader")

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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by Frightning »

No need to even use circuits. Just use side-loading to give mechanical priority to whichever resource you want consumed first. I usually edit my fuel line once I get Medium+Big power poles researched so I can burn away all my excess wood with my boilers (and furnaces....until I upgrade those to Electric furnaces...

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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by Impatient »

Having all the different fuel items on one belt is no problem. The fuel consumers will pick the type they already have and if it is not available on the belt will pick another. There are no negative side effects at all. Funneling excess wood onto the fuel belt is also a good way to get rid of it.

Just don't forget that it is a general fuel belt if you need only one type of it (eg only coal for production of nades, plastics, or only solid fuel for rocket fuel, etc ...).

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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by Engimage »

No need for sideloading either. Just use the new splitter input priority .

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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by Frightning »

PacifyerGrey wrote:No need for sideloading either. Just use the new splitter input priority .
If you're on the experimental 0.16 release. Sideloading works even in earlier versions (including the current stable release).

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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by bobucles »

There's no real need to overthink this. When a boiler uses the last of its fuel it will coast on the red bar until the inserter finds something new to cook. It might lose some efficiency if a burner inserter and boiler run out at the same time, but this is a very minor hiccup and if you have ANY surplus power at all it will not matter. Make all the fuel sushi belts you like.

The only real concern is that a belt's power supply depends on its fuel quality. A yellow belt of coal moves about 50MW of power, solid fuel is 3 times as good, and wood is 1/4 of coal. If your belt capacity is too close to its limit then wood might cause a brownout.

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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by cvkurt »

Impetus maximus's design above seems overly complex to me... I'd just feed the stack of burners with a single belt that feed by a input-priority splitter selecting what I want to burn first (e.g., wood). If you have more inputs, just feed that splitter with more input-priority splitters as needed. With 0.16 splitters, this is so simple.

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Re: mixing fuel on belt

Post by mrvn »

cvkurt wrote:Impetus maximus's design above seems overly complex to me... I'd just feed the stack of burners with a single belt that feed by a input-priority splitter selecting what I want to burn first (e.g., wood). If you have more inputs, just feed that splitter with more input-priority splitters as needed. With 0.16 splitters, this is so simple.
Exactly. In 0.16 use the splitter priority. Before that use side loading. If you don't need full belt throughput you can still use side loading in 0.16.

In vanilla I normally also have a requester chest for wood that fills the belt for the boilers and then side load the normal fuel onto that. Otherwise all the forests you deconstruct later in the game fill your storage chests and never get used up.

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