splitting conveyors (Answered)

[Bluessy]

so we all use the splitters, takes the imput of a conveyor and devides it equally (unless one side backs up).

my question is what is the best way to devide what is on one conveyor (like left and right of it) and put it into two seperate conveyors (such as when the two items on each side are different.

all i can come up with is smart inserters from one conveyor to another one but i was wondering if there was an easier way (or if there was going to be an easier way in a future update)

[zytukin]

Smart inserters are the only gaurenteed way.


I *think* if a belt is packed with no gaps between the items, then a splitter will split the two sides evenly between two belts, but stuff will end up on the wrong side as soon as a gap occures on either side of the single belt. Might be able to get around this by using a single tile of yellow belt right before the splitter if the rest of the belt is red or blue. Assuming there are enough items to keep that single tile of yellow belt full.

[Teck1015]

You can use fancy trick with underground belts; So you have a belt bringing items northward. Place a underground belt that's facing either left or right directly above the last belt going to the north. This will result in the items being "split" again, into seperate belts.

[Teh Freek]

Like so:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=653685510

[Bluessy]

thanks both tech and teh freek for your help... thanks zytukin for answering though i did not try your method

[menghao]

Originally posted by zytukin:

I *think* if a belt is packed with no gaps between the items, then a splitter will split the two sides evenly between two belts, but stuff will end up on the wrong side as soon as a gap occures on either side of the single belt.

Splitters don't care about gaps at all. They have an internal state for each item that passes through it: Wood alternates on left/right exits whenever it enters the splitter and that applies for every item individually. So you can have 1 wood enter the splitter and it comes out of the left exit, then you have 15 iron plates going in the same splitter and they come out on alternate sides, and finally when another piece of wood enters the splitter it checks when the last wood entered it and will now direct it to the other exit, which would be the right one. The belt side the item enters on is always preserved.

That means any time you have a belt with two different items on the right/left sides you can split it and it will create two belts with the same items on the sides without messing it up. It will only mess up if the belt feeding into the splitter isn't kept clean. Lets say you have a belt with iron ore and coal on different sides of it, splitting it will create two identical output belts. If the coal side gets clogged up on one of the exit belts it will feed all the coal into the coal side of the other belt. If both coal exits are full it won't feed any coal to either of the iron sides of the belts.

[zytukin]

Originally posted by sharkstack:

Originally posted by zytukin:

I *think* if a belt is packed with no gaps between the items, then a splitter will split the two sides evenly between two belts, but stuff will end up on the wrong side as soon as a gap occures on either side of the single belt.

Splitters don't care about gaps at all. They have an internal state for each item that passes through it: Wood alternates on left/right exits whenever it enters the splitter and that applies for every item individually. So you can have 1 wood enter the splitter and it comes out of the left exit, then you have 15 iron plates going in the same splitter and they come out on alternate sides, and finally when another piece of wood enters the splitter it checks when the last wood entered it and will now direct it to the other exit, which would be the right one. The belt side the item enters on is always preserved.

That means any time you have a belt with two different items on the right/left sides you can split it and it will create two belts with the same items on the sides without messing it up. It will only mess up if the belt feeding into the splitter isn't kept clean. Lets say you have a belt with iron ore and coal on different sides of it, splitting it will create two identical output belts. If the coal side gets clogged up on one of the exit belts it will feed all the coal into the coal side of the other belt. If both coal exits are full it won't feed any coal to either of the iron sides of the belts.

Ahh, ty for the explination. I've personally never tested or had to do it myself.
Did not know it monitored sides on a per item basis.

[Peter]

FYI:
Factorio: Sorting Using Only Splitters (Explanation / Demo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQGFhebyrSI

[Bluessy]

thanks peter but i was wondering the method for other reasons haha

[Pegasus]

Is it possible the dev team is going to produce a module like the splitter except a seperator of sorts?

One of the most useful things would be a module that splits left/right belt lanes. So items on the lft only go to the left belt and items on the right only to the right belt.

Another module would sort items. So on a combined iron/copper belt all iron is sorted left and all copper right.

Smart inserters can do this work up to a point but sometimes miss items or arn't fast enough, even with several of them.

[Teh Freek]

Originally posted by Pegasus:

Is it possible the dev team is going to produce a module like the splitter except a seperator of sorts?

Unlikely. Factorio is a puzzle game, and one of its elements is dealing with moving items around.

[AlexMBrennan]

Unlikely. Factorio is a puzzle game, and one of its elements is dealing with moving items around.

Isn't that EXACTLY what robots do? Instead of having to think about belt placement, you just have to increment the number of logistics bots

[Peter]

Originally posted by Pegasus:

One of the most useful things would be a module that splits left/right belt lanes. So items on the lft only go to the left belt and items on the right only to the right belt.

You can already do that with underground belts?
https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?title=Underground_belts/More_uses#Splitting_Belt-Lanes_with_Underground_Belt
(Or did I miss the point?)