Factorio Forums

I have a question about creating items on belts. If I create the same item on both sides of the same belt then setup a situation where that items is used in production it seems that the item is only being pulled from one side of the belt instead of both creating a lop-sided use of materials where the other half of the belt remains completely unused. Can someone explain to me how to create a situation where I can get even distribution of my created products when producing other products. It would be helpful if the reply would include a graphic if possible as I am more of a visual learner.

Thanks,
Michael

look for side balancer or lane balancer, and you'll have all you need

And one more little bit of information:
Those inserters who place stuff on a belt will always only put stuff on the opposite side of the belt, never on the closer side.

With inserters who grabstuff from the belt, its differently. They prefer to take stuff from the opposite side, but will start to take things from the closer side aswell, as soon as the other side does not contain the item they want to grab.

Zool wrote:With inserters who grabstuff from the belt, its differently. They prefer to take stuff from the opposite side, but will start to take things from the closer side aswell, as soon as the other side does not contain the item they want to grab.

Quite opposite. Inserters take stuff from closest lane first and will take from farthest if closest is empty.

It also helps to draw items from both sides of a belt by building factories on both sides. Balanced by design.