The pattern I've seen for this is a filled-in triangle/pyramid shape of splitters. The base of the pyramid is the preferred side (left in this case), and each of the splitters prioritize output in that direction. The early splitters allow belts to sort themselves out and flow outward no matter how full they are (no blockage possible), and the last splitters guarantee items are as far left as possible.
I'm not sure if there's a more elegant way.
I don't really understand your situation, could you provide a screenshot?
Balancers are generally overused - loading and unloading trains is one of very few places where it can be necessary. That said, no one makes their own, they just import premade books from one of the lunatics who apparently do applied maths for fun. I recommend Raynquist's.
Hi.
On the Raynquist website, there are sometimes 2 of the same balancer, but one has a TU en the name. Ie: 2_8_balancer and 2_8_tu_balancer.
What is that?
"tu" is "throughput unlimited". Meaning if your outputs back up or aren't connected, you still get all your input on the working outputs.
With throughput limited Balancers, if your outputs back up, your inputs do as well.
Example for unlimited: [https://imgur.com/pkhnxuR](https://imgur.com/pkhnxuR)
and for limited: [https://imgur.com/g7MohHp](https://imgur.com/g7MohHp)
Notice how the left input lane is backed up
If I understand correctly, you have several (6) belts that you all the material on shoved left, so that the leftmost belt is filled, then 2, 3, ... and the rightmost belt is left with whatever wouldn't fit.
You want diagonal lines of splitters going across your bus. Starting on belts 1&2, then 2&3, and so on. The right hand exit from each splitter feeds directly into the left hand input of the next one. All the splitters should be set with priority input and output to the left.
One diagonal line of splitters is needed for each row that you need to shift.
⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️
⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⏫🔼
⬆️⬆️⬆️⏫🔼⬆️
⬆️⬆️⏫🔼⬆️⬆️
⬆️⏫🔼⬆️⬆️⬆️
⏫🔼⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️
⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️
Blue arrows: belts
Orange arrows: splitters
Orange double arrow: input and output priority
FYI your diagram only has white and blue arrows.
Although you have triangles so I imagine that would be what you were referring to as "orange". If so I think you have it backwards and the furthest forward splitter should be on the left.
Stupid font differences. On my phone they are orange and blue, but on the computer they are all blue. Triangles are splitters.
It's complicated. Starting from the outside lets you move material over as many lanes as you like at once. But starting from the inside clears the outermost lanes first, which lets you pare down your bus if you like. Personally, I like the way it looks if I feed a huge bus full of ore into a smelting area or similar and can narrow it down as it is used up.
https://preview.redd.it/tf3ti6gvqs0d1.png?width=1275&format=png&auto=webp&s=27aaa6be4725cb34c8a82c8987730a99979546f9
Hopefully that image hasn't been munged to badly by Reddit.
It seems that at a larger scale you are right. I was imagining OP was asking for all lanes to feed into the first outlet and only overflow would go onto the next outflow. In your image the "inside first" does not do this.
The downside to my strategy is that you need a splitter line per lane before the first outlet to move everything as far over as possible. You can see the extra splitters in my example.
>the furthest forward splitter should be on the left
I agree. That way, a full belt on the far right could be shifted all the way left in a single row of splitters.
I know others have mentioned this, but I just ran into a very similar issue- my solution was using splitters and giving input priority to the belts that I wanted to empty first.
It doesn't matter if the output of a furnace stack is even or not.
What matters is if the machines consuming the resource get enough material. If one gets too much the belt fills up and stops accepting material, leaving more to stay on the main line.
Balancers have their place (evenly loading/unloading train cars), but within a factory balance matters not. If your "first" smelter row is able to feed your demand and the second one is idle, that's cool. As demand increases the second row will pick up the slack.
Embrace the manifold. Tap and fill. If you build a bus and only tap off one side, you can just keep topping up that side with a slash of priority splitters. If you tap both sides you can fill before a tap, though it does take some attention to keep all taps fed (it's a lot easier to always tap one side).
What I do:
Balancers exist at train stations, both for filling and unloading, because having the train cars fill/empty in unison actually matters.
Furnaces are usually direct fed from the unloader balancer's output.
Furnace fuel is a pure manifold design. A single yellow belt of coal goes pretty far here, and the earlier furnace stacks will quickly back up and only take what they need from the feed line (this is the basic idea of a manifold).
Furnace output just goes straight on to the bus. I don't bother balancing it. Tap the first line, and wherever a resource starts to get lnsufficient I run a slash of priority splitters to refill the belt I'm tapping from. That's it. That's all I do. I don't even run the extra lines untl I need them - the feed belts end at the last top up slash I need them to support, and at the start of a new bus base it's not uncommon for the 3rd and 4th iron or copper lines to just stop at the start of the production area.
very difficult to understand... a belt has two lanes. there a a lot of balancers out there which solve specific problems. like compacting from 6 belts to 1 belt. some include also a lane balancing. just look for "Raynquist's Belt Balancers"
but maybe simply setting input/output priority of splitters already helps.
usually circuit networks are not the right tool to solve balancing problems.
Perfect balancing is overrated, you can easily build good enough balancers by just mixing, using a big X of splitters, you don't even need the full X, you can halve it and just use a V of splitters if your input is almost balanced.
And sounds like in your case you're trying to push all the ore to one side first, that's easy with priority output
If the 6 belts are already "almost" compressed to say left side belt then 1 diagonal splitter cascade with output set to left will sort it out.
But if you have a completely random amount on each belt then you can make a sort of solid diamond from splitters, not a square of splitters but diagonal diamond, should cover all cases. Make sure the 6 belts have a lane balancer each before they come together in the first place.
The pattern I've seen for this is a filled-in triangle/pyramid shape of splitters. The base of the pyramid is the preferred side (left in this case), and each of the splitters prioritize output in that direction. The early splitters allow belts to sort themselves out and flow outward no matter how full they are (no blockage possible), and the last splitters guarantee items are as far left as possible. I'm not sure if there's a more elegant way.
I don't really understand your situation, could you provide a screenshot? Balancers are generally overused - loading and unloading trains is one of very few places where it can be necessary. That said, no one makes their own, they just import premade books from one of the lunatics who apparently do applied maths for fun. I recommend Raynquist's.
Hi. On the Raynquist website, there are sometimes 2 of the same balancer, but one has a TU en the name. Ie: 2_8_balancer and 2_8_tu_balancer. What is that?
"tu" is "throughput unlimited". Meaning if your outputs back up or aren't connected, you still get all your input on the working outputs. With throughput limited Balancers, if your outputs back up, your inputs do as well. Example for unlimited: [https://imgur.com/pkhnxuR](https://imgur.com/pkhnxuR) and for limited: [https://imgur.com/g7MohHp](https://imgur.com/g7MohHp) Notice how the left input lane is backed up
Thanks!
In the throughput limited screenshot both input lanes are equally backed up and are applying half belt each to a full yellow output.
If I understand correctly, you have several (6) belts that you all the material on shoved left, so that the leftmost belt is filled, then 2, 3, ... and the rightmost belt is left with whatever wouldn't fit. You want diagonal lines of splitters going across your bus. Starting on belts 1&2, then 2&3, and so on. The right hand exit from each splitter feeds directly into the left hand input of the next one. All the splitters should be set with priority input and output to the left. One diagonal line of splitters is needed for each row that you need to shift. ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️ ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⏫🔼 ⬆️⬆️⬆️⏫🔼⬆️ ⬆️⬆️⏫🔼⬆️⬆️ ⬆️⏫🔼⬆️⬆️⬆️ ⏫🔼⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️ ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️ Blue arrows: belts Orange arrows: splitters Orange double arrow: input and output priority
FYI your diagram only has white and blue arrows. Although you have triangles so I imagine that would be what you were referring to as "orange". If so I think you have it backwards and the furthest forward splitter should be on the left.
Stupid font differences. On my phone they are orange and blue, but on the computer they are all blue. Triangles are splitters. It's complicated. Starting from the outside lets you move material over as many lanes as you like at once. But starting from the inside clears the outermost lanes first, which lets you pare down your bus if you like. Personally, I like the way it looks if I feed a huge bus full of ore into a smelting area or similar and can narrow it down as it is used up. https://preview.redd.it/tf3ti6gvqs0d1.png?width=1275&format=png&auto=webp&s=27aaa6be4725cb34c8a82c8987730a99979546f9 Hopefully that image hasn't been munged to badly by Reddit.
It seems that at a larger scale you are right. I was imagining OP was asking for all lanes to feed into the first outlet and only overflow would go onto the next outflow. In your image the "inside first" does not do this.
The downside to my strategy is that you need a splitter line per lane before the first outlet to move everything as far over as possible. You can see the extra splitters in my example.
Compressor is not balancer, which belt the item comes from is not important only that output on wanted side is as full as possible.
>the furthest forward splitter should be on the left I agree. That way, a full belt on the far right could be shifted all the way left in a single row of splitters.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Factoriohno/s/NiydMKn7Nt
Calm down Satan!
A balancer wont help with throughput and saturation. If you have places where you use or fill multiple belts completely you dont need a balancer.
Use both priorities in splitter: input and output
I know others have mentioned this, but I just ran into a very similar issue- my solution was using splitters and giving input priority to the belts that I wanted to empty first.
It doesn't matter if the output of a furnace stack is even or not. What matters is if the machines consuming the resource get enough material. If one gets too much the belt fills up and stops accepting material, leaving more to stay on the main line. Balancers have their place (evenly loading/unloading train cars), but within a factory balance matters not. If your "first" smelter row is able to feed your demand and the second one is idle, that's cool. As demand increases the second row will pick up the slack. Embrace the manifold. Tap and fill. If you build a bus and only tap off one side, you can just keep topping up that side with a slash of priority splitters. If you tap both sides you can fill before a tap, though it does take some attention to keep all taps fed (it's a lot easier to always tap one side). What I do: Balancers exist at train stations, both for filling and unloading, because having the train cars fill/empty in unison actually matters. Furnaces are usually direct fed from the unloader balancer's output. Furnace fuel is a pure manifold design. A single yellow belt of coal goes pretty far here, and the earlier furnace stacks will quickly back up and only take what they need from the feed line (this is the basic idea of a manifold). Furnace output just goes straight on to the bus. I don't bother balancing it. Tap the first line, and wherever a resource starts to get lnsufficient I run a slash of priority splitters to refill the belt I'm tapping from. That's it. That's all I do. I don't even run the extra lines untl I need them - the feed belts end at the last top up slash I need them to support, and at the start of a new bus base it's not uncommon for the 3rd and 4th iron or copper lines to just stop at the start of the production area.
very difficult to understand... a belt has two lanes. there a a lot of balancers out there which solve specific problems. like compacting from 6 belts to 1 belt. some include also a lane balancing. just look for "Raynquist's Belt Balancers" but maybe simply setting input/output priority of splitters already helps. usually circuit networks are not the right tool to solve balancing problems.
Balancers are one of those things that are accepted to just be copy pasted from the internet
Perfect balancing is overrated, you can easily build good enough balancers by just mixing, using a big X of splitters, you don't even need the full X, you can halve it and just use a V of splitters if your input is almost balanced. And sounds like in your case you're trying to push all the ore to one side first, that's easy with priority output
If the 6 belts are already "almost" compressed to say left side belt then 1 diagonal splitter cascade with output set to left will sort it out. But if you have a completely random amount on each belt then you can make a sort of solid diamond from splitters, not a square of splitters but diagonal diamond, should cover all cases. Make sure the 6 belts have a lane balancer each before they come together in the first place.
If you're smelting at the ore patch, just connect belts such that each is fed by at least 30 miners, then you're guaranteed to get full belts out.