Need some help or advice on 3 way spliters

[SlimGrady]

So in my factory whenever I try and 3 way split to my assemblers I always end up boxing in the middle one and am preventing the mechanics from being able to reach it.

Is there a simple fix without using the cross over conveyors or am I missing something?

[Pomme de Terroriste]

Pretty sure this is where you'd use platforms. You could run belts from two of the outputs near one another with a platform over them, then space out the third to make room for stairs so a repair tech can cross the belts and reach the equipment.

It's kind of awkward. I initially expected to be able to use the elevated belts to make overhead belt systems and allow access to the machines as well, but they clearly don't work for that purpose, which means you're going to waste space on stairs and platforms. The basic platform size isn't big enough to allow two belts under it (which is pretty well bound to be the most common use case), and the next size up is way larger than it needs to be to cross 2 belts, so they're gonna waste a lot of space.

[FunkenGruuven]

I use the all the time without catwalks. I don't know how or if we can post screenshots so I will try to describe:
1. Use a conveyor on the middle output and one end output as you would expect, where the conveyor is perpendicular to the 3-way splitter.
2. on the other output, turn the conveyor 90 degrees from the other two, so that it takes the material away from the other two outputs and creates some space.

you can then turn the 3rd output 90 degrees to get the flow going in the same direction again if you want, after having created enough space to work on the machines in the center output line.

If someone can let me know how to post screenshots, I will share several different ways I've used them successfully.

[goatnad]

I have found that the 3-way will still work even though it's at 0 and smoking. At least it appeared to before I manually repaired it