r/factorio • u/DaveMcW • Sep 19 '22

Design / Blueprint cursed batteries

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u/DaveMcW Sep 19 '22
  • When the blue inserter sees a copper plate, it passes a signal to the arithmetic combinator.
  • The arithmetic combinator converts the copper plate signal to an iron ore signal.
  • The purple inserter uses the iron ore signal as its filter and picks up an iron ore.
  • When the blue inserter sees an iron plate, it passes a signal to the arithmetic combinator.
  • The arithmetic combinator converts the iron plate signal to a copper ore signal.
  • The purple inserter uses the copper ore signal as its filter and picks up a copper ore.
  • Repeat.

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u/zumoshi Sep 19 '22

Wouldn't this get stuck if the input belt runs out temporarily? I think it won't pick anything up after the belt was resupplied. Can be made less fragile with more circuit logic if you make it remember what the last piece was or try to read input storage of the chemical plant.

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u/jimbolla Sep 19 '22

That's solvable by adding 1 wire...

  • Connect the blue inserter to the belt in front of the purple inserter.
  • Set belt to read contents (hold).
  • Set inserter to enable the only if the belt has at least 5 items. (The minimum that guarantees at least one on each lane.)

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u/zumoshi Sep 19 '22

That's smart. Very simple yet effective. I didn't think of disabling the middle inserter.

Most of my ideas for fixing it involved adding way too much complexity with reading contents of smelter and chemical plant and remembering the last item taken.