belt cleaning?

[Lothos]

I was curious how other folks deal with contaminated belts going into their smelting areas or coal consumption.

[MadTraXx]

dont press "R" it rotates the belt an easy contaminated belt.
just run after your stuff,or put filter inserters every where :P

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by lothos:

I've never tried combinators yet. they didn't exist the last time i played :/ Neither did the stack inserters for that matter.

I'd be pressed to leave them if they were smaller deposits really, but i chose the biggest/richest on mine so we're talking on just the copper/coal and the iron/stone deposit next to my initial spawn of well over a million ore in the mixed area.

My first playthru I went with normal everything and it really really sucked. I'd expend an ore deposit in an hour or less and the oil that did spawn was maybe 1 or 2 puddles at most at great distances.

If I choose to deal with filtering I can remain with my mining in one spot for a significant time.

I just unlocked filter stack inserters last night and was thinking of possibly using those to move the ores between belts directly that then fed into balancers for the individual ore feeds into my base. I honestly don't like my ore input approach thusfar in both games I have played. I keep resorting to a single belt that I then splitter off branch after branch into 10 smelter bank processing legs.

You reaaaally want to filter mixed ores into chests. Otherwise, if ONE thing backs up but not the other, you'll clog everything.

Also, 10 processing legs? Unless you're saturating the immediate output belts, there's no need for that many legs; it's easier to just make longer legs, ESPECIALLY not if you've reduced your ore input to a single belt (which means you can't possibly be saturating all the output belts).

Plus, there's these things called trains which are good for hauling stuff in from long distances.

[Lothos]

sorry, each leg has 10 smelters. currently that consists of 3 legs. 1 stone and 2 eletric smelters.

and yes, I know about trains. I assume you're reffering to simply go out further and bring in new ore rather than filter :)

[Warlord]

I try to never mix anything at all. Even if you use filters. Even if you use chests. No matter what, over a long time with mixed belts, one resource will be more plentiful and will eventually cause a blockage.

I once thought I'd simplify my smelting by havin one giant massive smeltery, and having all trains drop off there. I'd then use filters to load the right plates into trains. But then I realized I'd likely end up with - say - tons of iron plates and a copper shortage.

Either VERY finely tune your miners (annoying to set up) or make sure that whatever coal or stone you have mixed in is taken out and used ASAP to prevent blockage.

[Nocturnalx36]

Can you put up a screenshot of your setup? I have some ideas but but seeing the setup would help.

[Luzilyo]

maybe you can use seperate belts for each 2 ores from the beginning instead? for example, one belt only iron and copper and the other belt only stone and coal. might want to actually have a third belt for coal though, depending on how you usually build your bases. that way, it should be much easier to deal with. or, even more resource costing, but even less complicated, just use four seperate belts, one for each kind of ore, fom the very beginning. let them run right next to each other, if it's neccessary, but never mix them.
like i said, it would cost a lot, not only resources but also space, but then you won't have to worry about contamination and you won't need any filters or other sorting-mechanisms at all.
edit, for clarification:
of course, with mixed ore it won't be possible from the very beginnig. what i meant was something like, feed the extractor output directly into a chest and from there make seperate belts with filters.
for example, you have copper and iron ore mined simultaneously. right in front of the miner, there's a grabber who puts everything into a chest. on the left and right of the chest there are two filters, one grabs the iron ore and one grabs the copper ore and they put those onto two different belts that then lead into your base.

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by Warlord:

I try to never mix anything at all. Even if you use filters. Even if you use chests. No matter what, over a long time with mixed belts, one resource will be more plentiful and will eventually cause a blockage.

I once thought I'd simplify my smelting by havin one giant massive smeltery, and having all trains drop off there. I'd then use filters to load the right plates into trains. But then I realized I'd likely end up with - say - tons of iron plates and a copper shortage.

Either VERY finely tune your miners (annoying to set up) or make sure that whatever coal or stone you have mixed in is taken out and used ASAP to prevent blockage.

On the rare occasion I deal with overlapping ore fields, I simply throw enough chests at the problem to deplete the ore deposit.

[Lothos]

i've often wondered if maxing out miners at a deposit to deplete it faster and funnel it into chest at the source would be better overall for many things. Far off fields you train in you can have a single station at the deposit and use trains to only pickup the ore you want. the deposit fields right on top of your base though are a bit of a pain though to try and use trains for, but using enough chests to make sure your miners never stop would help clean the landscape faster for base building.

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by lothos:

i've often wondered if maxing out miners at a deposit to deplete it faster and funnel it into chest at the source would be better overall for many things. Far off fields you train in you can have a single station at the deposit and use trains to only pickup the ore you want. the deposit fields right on top of your base though are a bit of a pain though to try and use trains for, but using enough chests to make sure your miners never stop would help clean the landscape faster for base building.

I've done that, especially in bob's mods.