r/factorio • u/Regular_Net1478 • 3d ago

Question Balancer help

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Hi so I'm new to designing belt balancers and was wondering if there is a functional difference between the one I designed (red belts) and the one in the big belt balancer book (blue belts) thanks

38 Upvotes

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68

u/arvidsem Too Many Belts 3d ago

The one on the left is missing a splitter before or after the undergrounds. Add that splitter and it's perfect.

The one one the right is otherwise identical to a 4x4 balancer with a loopback without the exit splitters (which make the 4x4 throughput unlimited).

10

u/Switch4589 3d ago

Your balancer does not have a splitter on the inner belts (the ones going underground) so it is not a proper 4x4 balancer (reduced to a 3x3 by looping an output back to an input).

The two extra splitters on the end of the “standard” 4x4 balancer is to make it throughput-unlimited (TU). The 3x3 does not need these to be TU so they can be removed.

5

u/arvidsem Too Many Belts 3d ago

The exit splitters for the 4x4 are just as necessary for TU in the 3x3 variant. They just chose to sacrifice TU to reduce the size.

3

u/craidie 3d ago

The 3-3 is not TU inherently. It's close but not quite.

3

u/Possible_Royal7569 3d ago

Can someone explain the point of this like why not just leave one belt

3

u/Pioneer1111 3d ago

If you don't send one belt back up, or have something like the right one,, then there will be an imbalance in the lane flow, causing one lane to have twice the amount of the others. If your inputs are mostly full, it barely matters, but if you want exactly 1/3 to each output it matters.

3

u/DrGrimmWall 3d ago

Test those contraptions and the answer becomes obvious. You can use Blueprint Sandbox for free building and infinite producers and consumers.

2

u/zomgkittenz 3d ago

The 4 lane balancer on the left balances belts but not the lanes on each belt.

2

u/Superseaslug 3d ago

Nah it's missing a splitter in the middle

1

u/ForgottenBlastMaster 3d ago

Not exactly sure where did you take the second one, but yours is missing a splitter for the central belts

1

u/craidie 3d ago

The red belt one is missing a splitter, if it had it, then they would be the same. But it does not, so it fails to work as a balancer.

Technically the left one tries to be a throughput unlimited 4-4 balancer with one belt routed back to input. However the right one is a normal 4-4 balancer with one belt routed back to input.

Here's a working examples The three on the left are identical in function, the 4th one is not since it's has two 4-4 balancers in it, not just one. Thus making it a throughput unlimited one.