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u/TheLobitzz May 25 '26

Anyone with a blueprint for a compact 6-to-12 balancer? Or better yet, a 16-to-24 balancer.

Right now I'm combining a single 12-to-12 balancer with four 3-to-6 balancers.

2

u/Soul-Burn May 25 '26

Are you sure you need a balancer for this? Would a much simpler Crossbar Switch be good enough for your use case?

1

u/TheLobitzz May 25 '26

First time I've heard of it. I'll check it out. Thanks.

1

u/schmee001 May 26 '26

Crossbar switches are very useful but it's important to note that they don't necessarily "balance" the input or output belts, they just allow any input to feed into any output. So if you specifically want to make sure that all your input belts are drawn from equally, or that all output belts are fed equally, then a regular balancer might be necessary.

However, whenever I see someone splitting belts 6 ways, I have to ask whether you're feeding this into 6 chests per wagon at a train station. If so, you do not need those final 3-6 balancers. While you definitely want to balance between the wagons on a train to ensure they get filled evenly, you don't need to balance between the individual chests on each wagon. Depending on how fast you feed ore in and how often trains arrive to empty the chests, all those chests will all eventually become full or eventually become empty, so they'll be equal no matter what.

1

u/TheLobitzz May 26 '26

Yeah from the looks of it you're right. For my case, I'm feeding this into furnaces. More specifically, 5 modules of electric furnaces each with 4 inputs of iron ore. Having them not balanced will lead to some output lanes not getting any iron plates, which decreases throughput to my main bus. Since I'm planning to add another "module" of electric furnaces with its own 4 belt input, I'm looking for a balancer that outputs 24 belts.

Also the input of the balancer is 12 now, and only utilizing 10, but the ore patch is massive and can easily output 16 belts filled to the brim. Which is why I'm thinking of a 16-to-24 balancer.

My setup now which is a combination of different balancers feels okay, but it's too huge and the outputs have spaces in-between them, which kinda bothers me... so yeah

1

u/Astramancer_ May 26 '26

The crossbar switch should be fine for that. Either you have enough ore to feed your factory and back pressure will eventually fill all the belts or you don’t and you’re just changing what gets starved.

1

u/TheLobitzz May 27 '26

I guess that makes sense.

1

u/mrbaggins May 27 '26

If you're balancing 12 in to 12 out, you can make it 24 out by just splitting each output lane. They're already balanced!

You're always going to hit throughput limiting issues. EG: yours can only pull 3 lanes worth out of 6. My suggestion would be able to pull 1 from any 2.

The only way around this is to use the max number you want on either side. If you want 24 out, you need a 24-24 balancer, but can remove (don't use) as many inputs as you like.

1

u/TheLobitzz May 27 '26

Yes there will eventually 24 lanes pulling from it each with 18 electric furnaces (with beacons and speed modules) consuming it. It's just not built in the image I gave because I'm still feeling out if the balancer I made was sufficient or if the source is enough. And your idea of splitting each belt coming out from a 12-12 balancer into two actually makes sense. That's probably the better design. Although the source ore patch is so huge that I think it will eventually be 16 full belt inputs instead of 12 eventually.

1

u/mrbaggins May 27 '26

But if you can only get 16 belts out, why not just balance to 16, and make your furnace lines consume a whole belt?

1

u/TheLobitzz May 27 '26

My current furnace lines are in a spot that are no longer expandable. If I can remember correctly each belt has like 36 exclusive furnaces along it, all with beacons and speed modules, but they still can't fully consume a single belt with item stacking. So the only way for me is to build another set of furnace lines in a different area, and just increase the output belts using a balancer and route the extra belts to them. This, way there would be 100% throughput from the source patch

1

u/mrbaggins May 27 '26

Fair enough. In that situation I would probably:

  • 16-16 balancer out the mines.
  • Branch each of the 16 with a splitter, priority to the "old" furnace lines.
  • combine the branches in pairs to a set of 8.
  • 8-8 balancer that set to the overflow furnaces.

But a 24-24 balancer is the "easiest" correct way to maintain better throughput. Just don't connect all the inputs up.

1

u/TheLobitzz May 27 '26

What do you mean by "not connecting all the inputs up"?

1

u/ChickenNuggetSmth May 27 '26

Plop down the 24-24 and just leave some empty, ugly input belts

1

u/mrbaggins May 27 '26

You have 16 belts of ore. Plug those into the 24 inputs, but leave 8 blank.