How to load 4 blue belts per wagon?

[Bauer]

Is there a solution? Can't find anything here...
(there is a tread on how to unload on 4 or even more belts -- I am looking for the other way around!)

[5thHorseman]

Here's one of my older, less cringe-worthy designs that can easily do 1-4 lines of input, have perfect balance between the buffer boxes, and fit fairly snugly in a line of stations.


I made a more compact version that used all 6 available spots, but can't find a picture and have since abandoned that design for a simpler one kind of like this pic that's not mine:


I still use buffer chests, though, so my new way looks like that 2nd one but with buffer chests like in the first one.

EDIT: Here's the enhanced version of my earlier station. It could take up to 6 belts, did perfect balancing, and allowed stations to be 14 tiles apart. Using a 4-6 balancer, or two 2-3 balancers, would (and in my factory frequently did ) make it work perfectly with 4 incoming belts.



(sorry the images show more than just the station. They're old and were for other things, but just happen to show the stations as well)

[zOldBulldog]

For the fastest load/unload of 4 blue belts I used many designs.

But in the end I got tired and started using 4 MiniLoaders (MiniLoaders mod).

It is very compact and loads/unloads at the speed that the belt moves.

[Bauer]

Here's one of my older, less cringe-worthy designs that can easily do 1-4 lines of input, have perfect balance between the buffer boxes, and fit fairly snugly in a line of stations.

Thanks for your answer, but I have to say that you got me wrong.
I want to consume 4 blue belts per wagon. In case of 2 wagons, it means that you load with an average of 360 items/s.

In yet other words: How do you insert 180 items/s smoothly into 12 chests?

Can it be done?

[DaveMcW]

Yes it can be done.

4-blue-belts.jpg (240.1 KiB) Viewed 15370 times

[leadraven]

I like belt designs, but dealing with bigger stations I came to the conclusion that it's better to separate wagon<->chests and chests<->belts stages using bots.
Rails become too scattered if they are mixed with belts bus. The main problem I currently have is fluid [un]loader - it takes at least 5 cells deep. If someone knows compact fluid station setup - please let me know =)

[Bauer]

There was a thread already:

viewtopic.php?f=194&t=58728&p=382902#p382584

[disentius]

does that still work with the new beltspeed?
nice!

[disentius]

Without tank:)

2 blue belts -> 90i/s.
4 stack inserters (with stack bonus 7) can move 110,76 i/s from chest to chest https://deniszholob.github.io/factorio- ... throughput
Also, 2 stack inserters can pick up half a blue belt.

8 inserters to 4 chests. Something like this:

4bb train load.png (1.27 MiB) Viewed 15303 times

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Copy blueprint


This should work. Oddly, it has little hiccups. Looks like inserters have timing issues. Any suggestions?

[Bauer]

Nice design, disentius. Only 4 inserters into the train, though.

It helps to split left lane/right lane for 2 inserters each. However, this doesn't fully remove the hiccups.
I also tried to reduce the stack size of the second inserter of a pair. Doesn't improve, too.

[Bauer]

Or I just leave it as it is, because almost 32 blue belts of plastics probably is good enough.

[Zool]

From my experience, having 2 belt per wagon and a buffer chest ist perfectly fine, but for important stations, I use a different setup meanwhile:
- all bufferchests for a single wagon are combined with a decider circuit that asks, if there is exactly enough of the item to fill a complete wagon. If so, it outputs a „1“
- If all wagonslots have enough material, the trainstation gets enabled.

This way, you can guarantee that the train gets loaded at max speed, and can perfectly combine multiple rails in a way, where the train always selects the perfect one for loading.

For unloading, you do it the other way round, and all wagonslots, who have enough space for another wagon send the „1“.

[Bauer]

4 blue belts do 180 items/s
It takes about 22 s to deliver 4000 items this way.

It takes about 12 s to shovel 4000 items from 12 boxes into the wagon. That leaves about 10 s for the train to leave and the next one to come, which is more than enough.

If you use less than 4 belts per wagon, you need two times as many stations (or you are dealing with low stack size items).
This, I consider muda.

BTW, if you limit the size of the boxes you don't need to toggle the stations on/off. A chain signal at the exit of your train stacker will do the job as well. If a train has to wait you are not fulfilling the demand. Toggleing off the station doesn't change this fact. With a limited box size, e.g. 10 stacks, you can avoid a very uneven distribution. If you toggle the train stations AND have an underproduction, you also need a measure to avoid that all stations of that type are switched off (to avoid that your trains get a "Sinnkrise").

[djpimpstick]

I find it always best to dead head a 4-to-6 balanced belt directly into a row of chests

[mrvn]

4 blue belts do 180 items/s
It takes about 22 s to deliver 4000 items this way.

It takes about 12 s to shovel 4000 items from 12 boxes into the wagon. That leaves about 10 s for the train to leave and the next one to come, which is more than enough.

If you use less than 4 belts per wagon, you need two times as many stations (or you are dealing with low stack size items).
This, I consider muda.

BTW, if you limit the size of the boxes you don't need to toggle the stations on/off. A chain signal at the exit of your train stacker will do the job as well. If a train has to wait you are not fulfilling the demand. Toggleing off the station doesn't change this fact. With a limited box size, e.g. 10 stacks, you can avoid a very uneven distribution. If you toggle the train stations AND have an underproduction, you also need a measure to avoid that all stations of that type are switched off (to avoid that your trains get a "Sinnkrise").

It takes say 110s for the train to get from the ore mine to the smelter. Same the other way. That means I need to have 10 trains constantly moving flawlessly to sustain 22s per train. Some extra for congestion or for when the nearer ore mine is dry. Lets call it 16 trains, a nice round number. And when things back up all those 16 trains will end up at the smelter. So I need a 16 train stacker too. Compared to that putting down 2 (or 4) stations in parallel is not such a burden.

Example setup:

Code: Select all

     /+++++++-\
    ////////   \
   ////////    |
--+++++++/     /
              /
---S--:--:---+
\--S--:--:--/
 \-S--:--:-/
  \S--:--:/

4 Trains can be at the station unloading (or stuck with full buffer chests) and 4 more trains can wait behind that. Then 8 more trains can be in the stacker. Enough space for 16 trains and unloading one belt per wagon to get the same throughput you requested.

I rather use less than 4 belts per wagon. And no, I don't need two times as many stations. I can use two times as many stations (or four times as in the example above) but I can also use two times as many wagons. Because more stations still means the network has to manage one train every 22s. Double the train size and you only need a train every 44s. Make two station and each takes 12s to unload and has 76s for the next train to arrive.

Note: With twice as many stations you can also use half the number of inserters per wagon. So same number in total. So all it costs you is the extra rails, signals, train stop and little space.

[djpimpstick]

If its helpful at all...

I like to smelt at /near the mine. Wagons hold more units of plates than ore thus reducing required number of trains going into the base. Trains that stack up at the mine/smelter are out of the way. Trains that stack up at the delivery point are full of finished plates. Once my base got up over 150 trains, traffic and game performance was just a nightmare. I had to switch to the "Smelt at the Mine" setup. I was able to transition everything and got down to 100 trains, making fewer trips and still maintain, even increase, overall BASE outputs.

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[Vegemeister]

This works (the left curve in front of inserter #3 is non-optional):

loader-1-belt-w3.png (259.76 KiB) Viewed 13985 times

However, just because you can doesn't mean you should. @mrvn is right. Just make the train twice as long.

[disentius]

3 stack inserters can empty a blue belt, provided the items are on the outside lane. (just found out that inserters are faster when picking up items from the outside lane, they clock at about 15.2 i/s. Urgh.)
Not found a way to balance chests properly yet.

4 belt trainloading.png (803.95 KiB) Viewed 13949 times

[mrvn]

Balancing chests is usually done by halting inserters where the chest is above average. Which means you throttle throughput. When the inserters are faster than the belt that doesn't matter. 3 * 15.2 = 45.6 > 45. So the inserters have to be throttled back by 0.6 items/s to stay balanced.

Wire up each inserter to it's chest in red. Wire all chests together in green and connect it to the input of an arithmetic combinator "each / -6 = each". wire up all inserters in green and connect it to the output of the arithmetic combinator. Set the inserters to "everthing < 10". Now the chests will remain balanced with a slight margin of error.

But I'm thinking there might be an alternative way. You can also program the inserters to "set stack size". Maybe one could make inserters take only 11 items when their chest is fuller than the rest?

[eradicator]

(just found out that inserters are faster when picking up items from the outside lane, they clock at about 15.2 i/s. Urgh.)

Inserters perform two motions: rotate and retract/expand. Taking from the outer lane probably reduces the time they spend on retracting towards the inner lane. A very interesting find.

For *loading* a blue belt it's possible to use stack override to reduce the total throughput of a group of inserters to be just enough to fill the belt. Maybe there's an equal equilibrium point for unloading belts.