8-1-1-7 Refinary

[delamite]

First post ,
I play factorio for creativity and experimentation. That being said, here is my 8-1-1-7 refinary that drives all six (research) packs. It is a solution for the (lubricant) problem, but I need to learn combinators for it to function properly (pic below).

Only the (Purple) science pack requires (lubricant), so I need a combinator set-up that enables the Green oil chem plant when demand is there, and shuts off the dark-to-light, and vice-versa when no demand is there.

[Mr. Tact]

Green oil? You mean lubricant?

[Oktokolo]

It is a solution for the Green oil problem, but I need to learn combinators for it to function properly (pic below).

I never had a problem with lubricant. Just let the chem plant fill one tank with it.
Also, crack heavy oil to light oil when heavy oil tanks are filling up and turn light oil to solid fuel or crack it to petrol, if light oil tanks are filling up. If petrol fills up, you can turn it into solid fuel too (but normally, you need much more petrol than solid fuel, so it should only fill up if you are overproducing crude oil - in wich case everything is fine to fill up).

[Thegermanguy]

I also just let it full up one tank of lubricant, but I changed the conditions for cracking:
I do not want to crack heavy if I have too much of it, I want to crack it if I have not enough light oil.
I had it happen that my petrol fills up completly, i ran out of heavy and light, and my refinery stopped because of full petrol. Had to manually fix it.
So now i crack light to petrol if petrol is low and heavy to light if light is low. So my refinery stops if heavy is full, and I never "deadlock" my system (is deadlock correct here?).

Note: I had it making Solid fuel out of petrol when it was full, but even this solid fuel storage filled up eventually.

[delamite]

Edited Green oil to lubricant
Edited science packs to research packs

Will try harder in future for correct terminology and spelling, so correction posts are not added into threads.

Now, thx for all reply's. Each component of my factory are tiled to a specific ( Small ) size, and made to be quickly assembled in patterns together to produce any of the game play items needed. I also run everything on demand ( no storage tanks ), and have not had a refinery deadlock yet b/c production is set to use correct proportion.

Was only looking for encouragement to use combinators, in the way this refinery is laid out.

[evopwr]

When I start, I don't do any solid fuel production.

I have a couple of Heavy > Lubricant Chemical Plants, filling one tank. No circuit conditions. When the tank is full, this processing stops.
I have a ~5 heavy to light cracking, enabled when heavy oil > 20000. (only connected to one tank, even though I typically have 3 tanks).
I then have ~10 light to petrol cracking, when light oil > 20000.
The end result is no bottlenecks, until petrol is maxed. If any of the others max out, then you don't have enough cracking.

Then once I get to Rocket stage, i'll add in 2 more pieces:
Always convert Light Oil to Solid Fuel. No conditions.
And convert Petrol to Solid Fuel, when petrol > 20000.

The end result:
If petrol gets hammered with plastic/sulphur needs, it doesn't produce any Solid Fuel.
Typically Light Oil will be empty (producing Solid Fuel), but if Solid Fuel backs up, then it will start cracking to petrol once over 20000. (for plastic/sulphur demands)
Heavy oil will keep the Lubricant maxed, and any left over gets cracked to Light Oil, and used as per above.

Quite simple, but ensures no bottlenecks, and ensures all needs are met depending on whatever demands there are at the time.

One thing I do though, is often I leave about 1/3rd of my refineries doing Oil Processing, and the other 2/3rds doing Advanced Processing. I often find a shortage of lubricant, caused by a shortage of heavy oil, if doing everything as Advanced Processing. Usually as a result of laying down many thousands of blue belts, draining all the lubricant and heavy oil.
An alternative to this which is more advanced, is to have 2 different sets of refineries, one set on Normal Processing, and another set on Advanced Processing. Enable one set or the other, depending on volumes in your tanks.
And of course you can throw a 3rd set in with Coal Liquefaction, and have whatever set you want enabled, depending on whatever tank volumes you have.
But none of that is essential.

[Ren]

My setup is very similar to how evopwr described above.

The nice thing is that you don't really need combiners for this. Just use a pumps, and use a green wire.

For instance, for your heavy->light cracking, have a pump coming out of your heavy storage tank leading to your cracking. Connect a green wire between the storage tank with the heavy oil in it, and connect that wire to the pump coming out of it. Then, on your pump, Enable/Disable when Heavy > 20000 (or whatever amount you choose). This way, the cracking will begin before the storage tank gets full, and cut off when it drops below a certain point.

Do the same thing for all the process that evopwr described, and you're all set.

Edit - I just notice that you said that you don't run any storage tanks. That's going to be very hard to balance your production, as those storage tanks give you the parameters to set up your logic.