Factorio Forums

I've read thru the other posts including "Combinators 101 (Link)" as well as youtube videos, wikis, and other posts that mention combinators but I'm just missing something.

I want a chest to output its content to a decider combinator, which if the value is under a certain value, will output 'A' with value 1 which then gets wired to an inserter which only enables on 'A' = 1. (Yes I know I can wire inserter directly to chest without the decider, but I'm trying to make this simple, and make a centralized base logic control board - this is a simplified case)

So I wire a red wire from the chest to the decider combinator.
The decider combinator checks if a specific item (ex: red belts) is < 500
The decider combinator outputs 'A' as 1 if true.
I wire a red wire from decider combinator to the inserter that feeds the chest.
The inserter is set where enabled if 'A' = 1.
However if the chest contains < 500 items (should cause the condition to true / enable), the inserter is disabled and shows 'Disabled by control behavior'. Interestingly if I change the condition to (specific item is > 500) the inserter is still disabled.
I've double checked that the storage box, decider combinator, and inserter are all on same network.

No matter what I do the decider combinator is not enabling the inserter. Can someone please help me in where I am going wrong?

Thanks in advance.

If done as you said this would work. You made a mistake either in wiring or logic.

this works for me; its the circuit you described
Copy blueprint

Remove and replace the inserter, connect it with red wire and set the condition again.

CrazyCyberMonkey wrote: Fri Nov 06, 2020 4:58 pm I've double checked that the storage box, decider combinator, and inserter are all on same network.

Same network? Sounds strange. Is the inserter wired to the combinators output side?
Also: if you add a power pole between inserter and decider you can read what is sent on that network by hovering the mouse over the pole.
Helps debugging things

I think Nosferatu is right. To expand a bit, Decider Combinators along with Arithmatic Combinators have an input side and an output side that can each connect to a network independently, but can also be wired together. You likely have both the chest and the inserter only wired to the input side of the combinator with the output (providing the 1 A value) on the independent output network with no wires attached. Try taking a red wire and clicking the back side and then the front side of the decider combinator in order to put both the input and output of the combinator on the same network then try it again.