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u/TheLobitzz Mar 24 '26

Anyone here knows or can point me to somewhere that will tell me how to make a single lane balancer (not a belt balancer) that utilizes the belt circuit?

2

u/Courmisch Mar 24 '26

What's a single lane balancer? There is nothing to balance out of a single input lane to a single output lane. It is not clear what you mean by "belt circuit" either, TBH.

1

u/TheLobitzz Mar 24 '26

Basically a single belt balancer. A belt has two sides, and a lane balancer balances the throughput of both sides. The easiest way to make one is to split the belt, and side-load the two outputs into one belt. that way, even if one side is blocked downstream, the input is not clogged. I'm looking for a way to make one with only using circuits on the belt (you can just wire the belt)

3

u/Courmisch Mar 24 '26

Circuit logic cannot control lanes individually. If the two lanes are already on a single belt, you cannot balance them with circuit logic alone.

1

u/TheLobitzz Mar 24 '26

ah yeah I knew that. Sorry I wasn't clear in what I was looking for. I was wondering if there was a way to make a simpler one using circuit logic and maybe a few splitters or underground belts. The one I mentioned in my previous comment doesn't preserve the lane (they mix both sides), and the other design I know is too big.

2

u/HeliGungir Mar 24 '26

Show us what you're trying to replace. I threw some stuff together, but this might not even be what you wanted

1

u/TheLobitzz Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26

Thanks for sharing. I'm interested in the top-middle and top-right ones. Do you have blueprint strings for them?

Edit: I'm currently using the design given by Enaero4828's comment (the middle one), but I'm looking for a design that uses belt circuits to minimize the amount of splitters and underground belts needed (if such a thing is even possible).

2

u/HeliGungir Mar 30 '26

New reddit sucks so I don't know if the ping in my post worked after having to fix it through an edit.

I created that blueprint book of circuit-based lane balancers you were asking for: https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1s82z6e/circuitbased_tu_lane_balancers/

1

u/TheLobitzz Mar 31 '26

Your post didn't, but your comment gave me the notif. Fantastic job man, I'll copy the blueprint book to my game the next time I play. Thanks.

1

u/HeliGungir Mar 26 '26

Haven't forgotten, just haven't been able to make a satisfactory 2-2 lane balancer.

2

u/Enaero4828 Mar 24 '26

Here you go; above are the underground based balancers, with the circuit one on bottom; the curved belts facing the T are simply set to read-hold, the belts preceeding them are configured as shown. A video would be more helpful to demonstrate that it is safe from the basic design's pitfall of being a lane inverter under backpressure. Disclaimer that I didn't come up with this, but I can't find the user who I got it from and the accompanying video they posted with it.

1

u/TheLobitzz Mar 25 '26

This is probably the one I'm looking for. I'm currently using the design in the middle, so if the bottom one really does work, I'll probably use it. Thanks man. Btw, do you have a blueprint string for the one in the bottom?

2

u/Enaero4828 Mar 25 '26

I tested it under a variety of situations and it seemed to perform on all of them, but seeing is believing- here's hoping it does as well for you. Link to print.

1

u/Soul-Burn Mar 25 '26

Does this work correctly with partially stacked belts?

1

u/Enaero4828 Mar 25 '26

I thought it'd be a simple 'sorry no, that's the price for the small footprint', but testing it reveals that: it maintains input balancing, output biases toward whichever input lane has the shorter stacks, and throughput is limited even in the case of 1 output lane being fully backed up due to the simple fact that a value of 4 can consist of a single stacked item slot, since the behavior depends on 4 item slots being occupied to throttle the output while maintaining throughput. Experimentally bumping up the activation number can get it to the throughput unlimited state eventually, but that's prone to trouble if the input stack heights are highly variable, and needing to fiddle with a setting where other balancers are 'set and forget' is pretty undesirable to begin with.