Is this the best simple Kovarex design ever? Can this possibly be improved?

[JoshuaJosephson]

I believe I have discovered the perfect 12 beacon Kovarex setup . It is very simple. All outputs are stack inserted into a main chest, and a filtered inserter takes U-235 out of it until there are only 40 left (i.e. a single U235), and places it into the bottom chest.

I have another inserter emptying the middle chest back into the reactor when this bottom chest has at least 1 U 235, and when the main chest is empty, I send the 1 excess U235 onto a belt which connects the line of reactors.

It is absolutely blazing, and provides more than enough Uranium for all my needs. But I am chasing perfection. When putting Prod modules into the reactor, it has a small chance of producing 42 U235, making it 2 extra, but there is no way to make this logic in such a small space, anywhere near this simply. Is there an obvious solution that I am missing? Is there a way to make this better with combinators?

Is there any way to make this work with prod modules as well?

Code: Select all

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[Loewchen]

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Copy blueprint Works with productivity modules as well.

[JoshuaJosephson]

Works with productivity modules as well.

WOW. I did not know this was possible. I'm trying to understand exactly what is going on here, and can't quite figure it out.

The stack and filter inserters for 235 input are only active when U235=39, but where is it looking for this U235 value? The wire cannot connect to the centrifuge, so its not that, and the decider combinator seems to output the count of U235 when U238 = 0, but where is it looking for this U238 value?

is there a youtube video where someone explains the circuit logic behind this blueprint?

[Tertius]

You can analyze the behavior yourself by running this in map editor mode, so you're able to single step through every single tick and investigate how the counter works and how the limiting works by looking into the entities after each tick.

The input inserters for U235 and the output inserter for U238 are connected with green wire and they are all set to read hand content in pulse mode. The decider combinator has a loopback with the green wire, so it's working as a counter. It counts while there is no U238 pulse and resets on any U238 pulse.
The way how it is wired, the counter counts items picked up from the belt by the inserter hands. Not input into the centrifuge, input happens later.

The top center stack filter inserter has U235 < 39 as activation condition, so it will grab items as long as the counter is below 39. The counting happens while the inserter hand is picking up items from the belt. It will pick up 12 items and swing. Counter=12. Again 12 items and swing. Counter=24. Again 12 items and swing. Counter=36. Then it will pick up 3 items, then be deactivated according to the condition. This will stop picking up, but the inserter will swing and insert its 3 items, so it's now 39 items in the centrifuge. Interrupting pickup this way is not 100% exact. It may be it's picking up 1 more, depending on belt position and tick phase. So this inserter will usually insert 39 items, sometimes 40. In case it inserted 39, the additional filter inserter will transfer one more. In case 40 were already transferred, it will do nothing. [The additional inserter may also be a safeguard against some single U235 not being picked up by the previous inserter - I didn't investigate this build long enough to see if that could happen or not. I guess the timing matches and this doesn't happen, since the output inserter just outputs U235 and not also U238 as with non filtered inserters.]
So this is the mechanism to insert exactly 40 U235 into the centrifuge.

U238 is not limited. It's just inserted.

If the centrifuge finished its work, the output filter inserter for U238 extracts U238 from the centrifuge, so it pulses U238 on the wire. This will reset the counter and the U235 inserting will start again.

It's quite nice. A downside is the downtime between production cycles, because the centrifuge is inactive while U235 is being inserted. You can avoid this by adding 80 U235 instead of 40: 40 for the current processing, 40 for the next processing.
Another downside is the excessive number of inserters (5). The minimum amount for the kovarex process is 2 inserters, a practical number is 3. The additional inserter just for the 40th item as edge case is ugly and lowers my rating from "beautiful" to "nice". (having said that, I have yet to find a beautiful kovarex design. They're all just nice. Even the thing I created for my own use isn't nice enough to satisfy me)

You also have to keep an eye on the U238 supply. You have to ensure by clever belt arrangement the output inserter for U238 has always space on the belt and is able to extract U238 from the centrifuge. If the U238 output of the centrifuge is clogged, it stops processing.

[Loewchen]

To add to that, the 235 amount currently in the centrifuge is stored in the combinator memory (you can find youtube videos on that), it simply adds all pulsed signals from the 235 pickup inserters and resets when its condition is no longer true.

You can omit the non-stack filter inserters if you run yellow belt, but that increases the downtime of the centrifuge quite a bit.
My original goal for the bp was to keep it in a 7x3 footprint so I can get the maximum out of the beacons I run on top and below the setup.

[JoshuaJosephson]

(having said that, I have yet to find a beautiful kovarex design. They're all just nice. Even the thing I created for my own use isn't nice enough to satisfy me)

I guess there is no perfect design huh... Everything has its upside and its downside. But actually, this isn't too bad, I feel like I can add a second decider combinator to count the U238, and only allow it to pickup 238 if it doesn't have enough.

[DaveMcW]

Here is my simple and beautiful design.

The combinator version uses exactly 40 U-235. It recycles the U-235 very fast, so it has good uptime as well.

You can remove the combinators to get a version that fits in a 3x7 grid. It has 100% uptime after the buffer is full.

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