Smart Belts
Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 10:32 am
So I was trying to make a mixed belt kind of setup. The problem is of course that you run the risk of one item flooding the belt, leaving no room for other items, breaking down the entire system.
The only solution seems to be a system of filter inserter > smart chest > regular inserter. The filter inserter picks up a certain item put it in a box a regular inserter takes stuff from the box, if the slower regular inserter falls behind, it must be because too much stuff is left on the belt. So the smart box sends a signal to the inserters putting the item on the belt to stop.
This works fine, however it takes up a lot of space (since it seems you need one box for each item due to the order in which the inserters take stuff out of the box) which in my mind kind of defeats the point of the mixed belt. Ideally the amount of stuff on the belt would just be counted. If there's too much, production stops. So if you could just connect wires to the belt system, you could build super compact loops, that retain full flexibility.
The only solution seems to be a system of filter inserter > smart chest > regular inserter. The filter inserter picks up a certain item put it in a box a regular inserter takes stuff from the box, if the slower regular inserter falls behind, it must be because too much stuff is left on the belt. So the smart box sends a signal to the inserters putting the item on the belt to stop.
This works fine, however it takes up a lot of space (since it seems you need one box for each item due to the order in which the inserters take stuff out of the box) which in my mind kind of defeats the point of the mixed belt. Ideally the amount of stuff on the belt would just be counted. If there's too much, production stops. So if you could just connect wires to the belt system, you could build super compact loops, that retain full flexibility.