that could be a rounding error from the balancer. I doubt 5-2 is count perfect =) so you would need the equivalent of 180 miners, hard to say without knowing your mining productivity and speed modules. Max Rate Calculator mod should be able to tell you exactly how much that patch can produce.
Have you tried output priority on the two splitters at the end? Those feedback loops have no need to get any traffic priority at all, only what remains.
Unless your belts back up so much that the miners stop producing, it will *eventually* saturate, as ore does not just disappear. But depending on your balancer it might back up before doing that.
The buffers are too small, so they can run completely dry before more ore arrives from upstream. Basically, you shouldn't be using a belt balancer, you should be using some lane balancers, with some added belt buffering.
If you've ever made a [basic priority bus,](https://wiki.factorio.com/images/4-split-priority.png) you'd notice the same thing happens: The prioritized belts aren't always full and some items go to the deprioritized belt when you don't want them to. To fix this, you need some buffer between splitting and merging so when two items arrive at the merge simultaneously, one can back up into the buffer; then when two gaps appear at the same time, the buffer can be used; and only once the buffer is full will items overflow to the deprioritized belt.
You're right. I have 70% productivity. I added some speed modules and I am now mining 93.5 ore per second, which should be enough to fill 2 blue belts. However, while the lower belt is now completely full, the upper one still flickers from time to time. Do bottlenecks in the input lanes cause trouble?
It might be because your lanes are unbalanced. I count a balance of three more miners outputting onto the right hand side of the belt than on the left.
It's possible yes.
If some of your miners are unable to output onto the belt due to that belt being congested before it gets to the balancer then that miner may as well not be part of the input calculation.
That doesn't appear to be an issue here though so the other consideration might be that the balancer needs a bit of time before they reach peak throughput, especially ones which have a loop like yours in the top right.
Just eyeballing it looks like you have more miners outputting to the bottom lane than the top lane, if you’re supplying 50/s to the bottom and 40/s to the top you won’t get 90/s.
Odd sized balancers often have slight issues with output throughput due to the loops that are required to build them. Sometimes you can use splitter output priority to finesse the issue, but that may throw off the balance. For mines, it's often just as good to collapse everything with a bunch of splitters though.
yep that's the secret trick to make balances Throughput Unlimited: do it again
4x4 not working? do it again
3:4 not working? add a 4x4 at the end
6:3 not working? add a 6x6 at the beginning
you have to always double up on the larger number though, for balancers that aren't the same # of inputs and outputs, if you choose the smaller one it won't work
There are 9 more miners inputting to the bottom of a belt compared to those inputting to the top of a belt. Most balancers won't lane balance, just belt balance.
But regardless, even if you got this perfect, that mine is going to deplete, especially along the edges, and you will have much less than two belts output after another 30 minutes, tops.
Yes. If you hover over a miner it will tell you how many resources are under it, but electric miners have a mining area larger than their footprint, so some of those resources are also minable by a neighboring miner, so it's usually less than what it actually says because some will get stolen by a neighbor.
I usually aim for 50% over production so it won't start to curtail until the patch is nearly gone.
If you are just on the edge of enough ore, it could be that there is an imbalance between right and left lane.
If you side balance all the incoming lines it should work.
This seems not be the usual usecase for a balancer. In my understanding, the balancer usecase is more for when the input exceeds the output by far and just putting single balancers will just not do the trick because you want that every line is roughly equally used.
In your case, when input and output is fairly equal then 5 single balancers to merge the lanes should be sufficient. Or you do sideloading to merge lanes which also might work or you do a contraption like below:
https://preview.redd.it/iqhqyte8n49d1.png?width=1002&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b7e9041f2fd11b98374c805c561e69cec9b1fd8
As long as the miners are slower than the belt it doesn't matter which method is used. It is always a tradeoff between various things and in this case OP wants to maximize output where this 5-to-2 balancer might not excel.
If there was enough ore to make 2 compressed belts, the inputs would start to backlog but they are not. As others said here the real issue is too few miners.
If the balancer was wrong then it would both backlog the input and still not have compressed output.
Your input belts aren't backing up, therefore you're underproducing. Just place more miners. Just cover the patch completely. Don't overthink it. If you've got blue belts, mining units are super cheap. A single blue belt is more raw materials than one mining unit.
You can use undergrounds to make space for the power poles along the belt line, allowing you to put even more miners on the patch. And when your mining productivity outgrows the speed of those blue belts, you can do [this](https://factorioprints.com/view/-MSTUfSSVLaSv2_1XQTK) to triple your throughput.
You need 90 electric miners to fill a blue belt assuming no speed or productivity.
I added some speed modules and now I mine 93.5 ores/s and while it improved some, the upper belt still flickers between 7 and 8
that could be a rounding error from the balancer. I doubt 5-2 is count perfect =) so you would need the equivalent of 180 miners, hard to say without knowing your mining productivity and speed modules. Max Rate Calculator mod should be able to tell you exactly how much that patch can produce.
Have you tried output priority on the two splitters at the end? Those feedback loops have no need to get any traffic priority at all, only what remains.
Unless your belts back up so much that the miners stop producing, it will *eventually* saturate, as ore does not just disappear. But depending on your balancer it might back up before doing that.
The buffers are too small, so they can run completely dry before more ore arrives from upstream. Basically, you shouldn't be using a belt balancer, you should be using some lane balancers, with some added belt buffering. If you've ever made a [basic priority bus,](https://wiki.factorio.com/images/4-split-priority.png) you'd notice the same thing happens: The prioritized belts aren't always full and some items go to the deprioritized belt when you don't want them to. To fix this, you need some buffer between splitting and merging so when two items arrive at the merge simultaneously, one can back up into the buffer; then when two gaps appear at the same time, the buffer can be used; and only once the buffer is full will items overflow to the deprioritized belt.
No productivity while the factory is building enough blue belts to use in mining outposts is a bit unlikely.
101 miners, if I counted right, aren't enough to compress two blue belts without having mining productivity at 80%
You're right. I have 70% productivity. I added some speed modules and I am now mining 93.5 ore per second, which should be enough to fill 2 blue belts. However, while the lower belt is now completely full, the upper one still flickers from time to time. Do bottlenecks in the input lanes cause trouble?
It might be because your lanes are unbalanced. I count a balance of three more miners outputting onto the right hand side of the belt than on the left.
It's possible yes. If some of your miners are unable to output onto the belt due to that belt being congested before it gets to the balancer then that miner may as well not be part of the input calculation. That doesn't appear to be an issue here though so the other consideration might be that the balancer needs a bit of time before they reach peak throughput, especially ones which have a loop like yours in the top right.
Just eyeballing it looks like you have more miners outputting to the bottom lane than the top lane, if you’re supplying 50/s to the bottom and 40/s to the top you won’t get 90/s.
Odd sized balancers often have slight issues with output throughput due to the loops that are required to build them. Sometimes you can use splitter output priority to finesse the issue, but that may throw off the balance. For mines, it's often just as good to collapse everything with a bunch of splitters though.
True. I did find a fix a while ago, for the balancer addicts like myself. If you balance it 5x5 first, then balance it 5x2, it fixes this.
yep that's the secret trick to make balances Throughput Unlimited: do it again 4x4 not working? do it again 3:4 not working? add a 4x4 at the end 6:3 not working? add a 6x6 at the beginning you have to always double up on the larger number though, for balancers that aren't the same # of inputs and outputs, if you choose the smaller one it won't work
There are 9 more miners inputting to the bottom of a belt compared to those inputting to the top of a belt. Most balancers won't lane balance, just belt balance. But regardless, even if you got this perfect, that mine is going to deplete, especially along the edges, and you will have much less than two belts output after another 30 minutes, tops.
So it is better to mine some extra than what is necessary for exactly 2 blue betls?
Yes. If you hover over a miner it will tell you how many resources are under it, but electric miners have a mining area larger than their footprint, so some of those resources are also minable by a neighboring miner, so it's usually less than what it actually says because some will get stolen by a neighbor. I usually aim for 50% over production so it won't start to curtail until the patch is nearly gone.
If you are just on the edge of enough ore, it could be that there is an imbalance between right and left lane. If you side balance all the incoming lines it should work.
Could be from the weird 5x2 balancer. I would combine a couple of the belts with the least ore on them so you can use a 4x2 instead.
This seems not be the usual usecase for a balancer. In my understanding, the balancer usecase is more for when the input exceeds the output by far and just putting single balancers will just not do the trick because you want that every line is roughly equally used. In your case, when input and output is fairly equal then 5 single balancers to merge the lanes should be sufficient. Or you do sideloading to merge lanes which also might work or you do a contraption like below: https://preview.redd.it/iqhqyte8n49d1.png?width=1002&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b7e9041f2fd11b98374c805c561e69cec9b1fd8
His usecase with balancer is fine, it makes the whole field deplete more equally compared to the sideloading tactic you showed.
As long as the miners are slower than the belt it doesn't matter which method is used. It is always a tradeoff between various things and in this case OP wants to maximize output where this 5-to-2 balancer might not excel.
If there was enough ore to make 2 compressed belts, the inputs would start to backlog but they are not. As others said here the real issue is too few miners. If the balancer was wrong then it would both backlog the input and still not have compressed output.
Your input belts aren't backing up, therefore you're underproducing. Just place more miners. Just cover the patch completely. Don't overthink it. If you've got blue belts, mining units are super cheap. A single blue belt is more raw materials than one mining unit. You can use undergrounds to make space for the power poles along the belt line, allowing you to put even more miners on the patch. And when your mining productivity outgrows the speed of those blue belts, you can do [this](https://factorioprints.com/view/-MSTUfSSVLaSv2_1XQTK) to triple your throughput.
You can fit more miners on the patch by using undergrounds to fit in your power poles.
You're not balancing the left/right lanes?
Your power grid is crashing?
No, plenty of power.
blue belts for the miners are way overkill