"RS" Latches, can someone explain exactly how it works?

[Whispdragoon62]

Like does it specifically have anything to do with R and S signals specifically?

Why does one signal cancel out the other? Is there some kind of binary signal hierarchy?

Like I can follow the pictures and have a hang of it. I just don't understand why.

I'm trying to get it where I unload a single spent nuclear fuel and its such a hassle using steam as a signal. I'll probably have to devise some other method of controlling nuclear fuel burn rate with a large pool of steam power.

[PunCrathod]

RS latches are a lot of the time simply overkill for what you are trying to do.
If your purpose is to limit the amount of nuclear fuel in reactors the easy way is to just make counter. Add when you remove spent fuel and subtract when you insert fresh fuel. Then only add if steam is low and the counter is reading zero.

Or just don't bother with it at all. The savings you get from controlling a reactor is small. It is easier to just mine a little bit more ore.

[Hurkyl]

As an aside, "RS latch" is short for "reset-set latch", with the terms reset-set referring to the two basic operations you can do to a latch: setting it to one value or the other.

[knighttemplar1960]

As PunCrathod mentions you'll never run out of Uranium ore. You will run out of UPS first especially if you are researching mining productivity. Unless you are setting up an RS latch to learn how to use the circuit network you are better off using all the power your reactors produce and use solar as your back up for power demand spikes.

[Z0MBE]

You can use various types of rs latch - some are simpler and inutive compared to the rs latch - the reset latch works well for me - but the rs latch is that but it uses like inputs as the decision part of the reset latch - it really changes things to try to implement these systems and you should try it.

For example you could use a reset latch to control steam tanks so that when it goes over a max amount, it will wait for a threshold number like the tank loses an amount of steam and then the reset latch resets - and you could have it add the fuel after that point or something.

An rs latch I guess cause I haven't really used them that much - would look like, a decider reads a condition and then outputs signal into rs latch, and then another decider outputs another signal under a different circumstance and the rs resets

Reset latches , just a decider with inputs and outputs attached to inputs and outputs of a combinator - the decider reads a max and outputs 1 signal, the combinator multiplies that signal by what you want to be the threshold amount, than another decider reads whether the combinator is outputting or not and puts out the signal that controls things.

[puschit]

The official Factorio Wiki explains RS latches in detail, has pictures, usecases and I think even blueprints. It may be overkill in some cases but it's also a good excercise to understand how circuit networks function.

[Taehl]

A few general remarks:

- You can make RS latches and stuff in Minecraft because you can use Redstone to make basic binary circuits, where each line of Redstone acts like a single wire that either sends "on" or "off"

- Circuit networks in Factorio only use a "single wire" visually; under the hood they're actually a bus (ie., it's not one wire that sends binary, it's a bundle of many wires that send numbers (one wire for each signal))

- Thus while it's perfectly possible to make Redstone-like binary circuits, most of the time you can save yourself the trouble because Factorio circuit signals do so much more than binary.

On the other hand, if you're just trying to better understand binary circuits by making them in Factorio, that's cool too. Here's a page that tries to explain "why" the R and S signals work as they do: https://www.electrical4u.com/s-r-flip-flop-r-s-latch/

[Vyndicu]

Originally posted by Whispdragoon62:

Yea I finally figured it out after hours of trial and error.

*snipped*

It sucks the default behavior is to add 5 fuel cells but whatever.

I am glad you figure out a solution that is unique to your situation.


It sounds like you are unaware of the "override stack size" checkbox, which lets you change how many items the inserters pick up once they have an "extra stack size pickup" modifier.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3323859033

It works with all inserters, by the way. Not just 'stack' inserters.