Help ! Belt lanes stuck

[ImadYIdrissi]

Dear community,

I'm pretty new to Factorio, but I love it. I'm trying to set up my first base and I seem to encounter a problem in my iron ore extraction/smelting.

The belts that feed ore to the smelters seem to be stuck in certain lanes, which creates problems for miners that need the space to put more ore. This creates a throughput problem for the ore extraction, which impacts my iron smelting production.

I've tried applying "lane balancers" but it does not seem to do the trick as the stuck lanes remain stuck. Here's an image of my set-up and the lanes that have the issue.

factorio_problem.jpg (268.27 KiB) Viewed 2356 times

[Impatient]

That got something to do with how you feed the iron ore on the iron-ore/coal belt.

As the mine overproduces, that belt is only fed by one of the lanes of your iron-ore belt. If you want to take evenly, you need to apply an output- and input- lane balancer, not just an output lane balancer.

As you overproduce iron-ore, you don't really have a problem there. Only the miners which output on the respective lane of the belts will run dry frist and then the others will start working.

edit: oh, as i now read loewchens's comment, I realize, I didn't read your text throughly. Yes, you have a throughput problem, as you only feed one lane of iron-ore, where you need 2. Only one moving lane on the iron-ore belt is caused, by what I described. But that now is irrelevant.

[Loewchen]

The throughput problem is caused by forcing coal and ore through a single belt and then splitting it again instead of splitting each and then merge them on two belts. What you marked as the issue is irrelevant.

[Serenity]

You're only feeding half a lane into your smelters. The issue is in the area where you merge the iron with the coal. Do this instead:



The splitter takes a full belt and divides into two half-belts. One goes up and one down. And then you supply coal from the inside

[ImadYIdrissi]

Many of you were right, I had 37 miners, turns out only 30 are needed to guarantee 100% fill of the belt.
Also, I will try the design you showed for the smeltery.

I'll implement the design later and tell you how it fares !

Many thanks !

[astroshak]

Having 37 miners trying to feed a belt that can “only support” 30 is not a bad thing. It means that you do not suffer any loss of input when one of the miners runs dry, only when you lose your 8th miner.

I’m glad others were able to point out your throughput issue though. The only way your design could work as initially shown would be if the combined belt was red and the rest of the belts yellow.

[astroshak]

Having 37 miners trying to feed a belt that can “only support” 30 is not a bad thing. It means that you do not suffer any loss of input when one of the miners runs dry, only when you lose your 8th miner.

I’m glad others were able to point out your throughput issue though. The only way your design could work as initially shown would be if the combined belt was red and the rest of the belts yellow.