how do I split/merge 2 full lanes of a belt?

[Spears]

I can't figure out how to merge a full lane, only half lanes. On gleba this causes one side of a belt to spoil

[MechBFP]

Couple things.
1) things are going to spoil on the belts regardless in that case, because obviously production is higher than consumption if only one side of the belt is being used
2) Since you have to deal with spoilage anyway, who cares if it is on one side of the belt?
3) There is no simple fool proof way to balance both lanes, as that is highly dependent on the actual consumption on the belts.

[Khaylain]

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're actually asking about. A screenshot of what you have and what you want to happen more in depth would be helpful in helping you.

I can give you a bit of general info, though: A single belt has two lanes. Splitters can merge or split a belt, but they always work on each lane separately; meaning that anything that is on the right side of an input belt will also always be on the right side of an output belt.

There are several designs for "lane balancers" which work to make sure that the input draws equally from both input lanes of a belt independently of how the output is flowing (for example the right side being backed up and only the left side flowing, but both right and left side being pulled from on the input side of it)

[Spears]

Originally posted by Khaylain:

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're actually asking about. A screenshot of what you have and what you want to happen more in depth would be helpful in helping you.

I can give you a bit of general info, though: A single belt has two lanes. Splitters can merge or split a belt, but they always work on each lane separately; meaning that anything that is on the right side of an input belt will also always be on the right side of an output belt.

There are several designs for "lane balancers" which work to make sure that the input draws equally from both input lanes of a belt independently of how the output is flowing (for example the right side being backed up and only the left side flowing, but both right and left side being pulled from on the input side of it)

I want to merge the jelly and mash on gleba without half of each source's lane being backed up, and utilize the throughput of both lanes. plugging each into a single splitter won't sort which lane either goes onto, but does utilize both lanes. how can I have the mash and jelly in their own lanes, without sacrificing throughput?

[Spears]

Originally posted by Khaylain:

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're actually asking about. A screenshot of what you have and what you want to happen more in depth would be helpful in helping you.

I can give you a bit of general info, though: A single belt has two lanes. Splitters can merge or split a belt, but they always work on each lane separately; meaning that anything that is on the right side of an input belt will also always be on the right side of an output belt.

There are several designs for "lane balancers" which work to make sure that the input draws equally from both input lanes of a belt independently of how the output is flowing (for example the right side being backed up and only the left side flowing, but both right and left side being pulled from on the input side of it)

https://imgur.com/a/IQdDY97

[Vovarush]

Originally posted by Spears:

Originally posted by Khaylain:

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're actually asking about. A screenshot of what you have and what you want to happen more in depth would be helpful in helping you.

I can give you a bit of general info, though: A single belt has two lanes. Splitters can merge or split a belt, but they always work on each lane separately; meaning that anything that is on the right side of an input belt will also always be on the right side of an output belt.

There are several designs for "lane balancers" which work to make sure that the input draws equally from both input lanes of a belt independently of how the output is flowing (for example the right side being backed up and only the left side flowing, but both right and left side being pulled from on the input side of it)

https://imgur.com/a/IQdDY97

Turn around belts on the left of the merge and bring them into the splitter at bioflux as well

[Khaylain]

Really looks like you should make sure to have each of those outputs from the splitters that sideload onto one belt going onto two different belts instead. Because given the same belt speed you can't get it all onto one lane of one belt. Each input belt is two lanes, which you're trying to put onto one lane. That doesn't work, so make it so it goes onto two different lanes (but both on the same side relative to each other, so your further splitters continue having them on the correct sides of the belt).

[Liwet]

Sounds like you need a lane balancer. These typically use an underground belt which has sort of a hood coming out of the ground and covering half of the belt. If you run another belt _into the side_ of an underground belt, materials on the side of the belt running into the hood will stop while the remaining materials will enter the underground belt and emerge out the other side.

This method is used to separate each side of the belt into their own half belts. If you utilize the underground belts properly, you can first split each half of the belt into two half belts, swap the belt positions (left on right, right on left), and then merge the two belts using a splitter.

This will get you the same belt but all the materials on the right side of the belt will now be on the left and vice versa. Because of the splitter at the end of the lane balancer, any materials pulled from the output of the belt will pull equally from both sides of the input.

Now if you're in a situation where inserters are only pulling from one side of the belt while the other half of the belt is spoiling, it's because you're not consuming enough which isn't a lane balancing issue.

[malogoss]

Have a single lane of input sideloaded onto the "merged" belt.
And no need for splitters to do that, they don't improve anything when used like on that screenshot. Just 2 belts (1 lane each), sideloaded onto a new belt.

[Dreepa]

It's a T junction.

One belt goes straight, the others run directly into the belt from a 90 degree angle.

You can also place tunnels at 90 degree in front of a belt to block one half of it, the other half will go onto the tunnel.

[Spears]

can anyone post a blueprint? I still dont get it.

[Aestrea]

You may want to rethink how you are doing it instead. Making bioflux requires a lot of materials as well as a inbalanced amount of materials. Jelly will be made much faster than mash in quantity.

Seeing as a lot of them are already rotting on the belts, it's going to affect the rest of the production line causing them to have significantly less time before spoiling.

To save time, it's best to not use belts at all and input directly into the biochamber from another (the one that's making the mash and jelly) as quick as possible or from a intermediate storage and filter priority the fresh with another inserter to remove the spoilage.

Don't be afraid to put speed modules in them to adjust the rates. The amount of nutrients it consumes for the fuel shouldn't matter. Having one sped up biochamber that produces 4x the amount is better than trying to make 4 bioflux chambers that does the same.

[Serendipitous]

The problem is not with lanes balancing, the problem is that you produce faster than you consume. It will not go away with any kind of balancer.

Either expand your production to consume more ingredients or just burn the excess in the heating towers (there is a reason you get them on Gleba).

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Serendipitous:

The problem is not with lanes balancing, the problem is that you produce faster than you consume. It will not go away with any kind of balancer.

Either expand your production to consume more ingredients or just burn the excess in the heating towers (there is a reason you get them on Gleba).

This is the answer. Green belts move 60 items/sec. You are attempting to merge 120 items/sec into a belt that can only accommodate 60 items/sec. To fix the issue there are several things you can do. Split the 2 belts worth of material onto 2 belts (this will require adding a belt on the output side) or using red belts to feed the splitters. Red belts move 30 items/sec, merging 2 red belts results in an output of 60 items/sec which is waht the green belt will move. Using red belts will require you to reduce the number of supply machines by 50% to prevent spoilage up stream from them. Alternatively you could just reduce the number of supply machines by 50% and continue using green belts but that is expensive and non-perfect ratios can still result in spoilage.

[Ghevd]

1 red belt can supply 2 yellows. So a red belt coming in that splits into 2 yellows. One belt continues forward while the other feeds your production.

[Spears]

so uh it appears then that green belts are a noob trap here?