Mining large patches and train unloading

[goqizugu]

BIG patch of copper/ore. Currently have mining research level 5. If I place a Red Belt in the row of miners, keeping to <40miners/belt, due to bonuses, right? I make 4 red belts output on the right, and another 4 going left. then to 4-4 balances, to a 2-sided train station. So far I'm okay.

When it gets to my base station, I'm running 8 red belts of each ore to smelter-land. But the last car of every train takes much longer to unload. In fact, the buffer chests at the front of the train empty before the last car, and I end up getting gaps in my lines.

Can someone point me to some pictures of loading/unloading stations so I can learn? I don't want blueprints. I would rather learn the concepts and then build my own.

I do want to stick with Red Belts for this, as I'm trying to create my own little blueprint book for early-mid-game prints for a later playthrough.

[Koub]

If you look for Balancers in the "show your creations", especially in Mechanical Throughput Magic (circuit-free)
For example : viewtopic.php?f=202&t=48258
Beware, balancers can behave differently depending on when they back up (more input than output needed) or when they are input starved (more output throughput than input), even for same number of lines on both sides.

You're loking for balancers that do their job when the supply is even, but the draw at the output uneven.

[Koub] Also I'll be moving this to Gameplay Help.

[Khagan]

Can someone point me to some pictures of loading/unloading stations so I can learn? I don't want blueprints. I would rather learn the concepts and then build my own.

I do want to stick with Red Belts for this, as I'm trying to create my own little blueprint book for early-mid-game prints for a later playthrough.

Here's my standard 4-wagon to 8-belt unloader:

Unloader_8belt.png (2.31 MiB) Viewed 1516 times

It's lane- and belt-balanced, but doesn't quite fill the belts; the maximum rate is 27.7/s per belt instead of 30/s. But I usually only use 25/s anyway, since the ore gets fed to furnaces with 20% productivity to produce a full belt of smelted metal. Assuming systematic use of productivity modules, one of these is enough iron ore for 200 spm. Not shown here is the mechanism to refill the fuel chest (either belt or logistic network).

[Koub]

Also, these threads/posts may help :
viewtopic.php?f=194&t=48012&start=20
viewtopic.php?p=250982#p250982

[Edit] The stupid me forgot to add the most obvious source :
https://wiki.factorio.com/Balancer_mechanics