Belt overcrowdedm wire stuff automation

[valid cradle]

Sometimes randomly, belt gets overcrowded and all the inserters get stuck holding item.
My knowledge is very basic in wire stuff.

I thought that if 3 arms are holding an item, that means belt is stuck, so I am trying to activate the arm near recycler to clear the belt a little.

I cant seem to make it work, because no matter how many wires i connect to the combinator, it only reads the signal as 1

for some reason if i try to make it read 3 any items, it doesnt respond, even tho clearly inpout signal shows 3 items, but if i make it 1 it read fine

any help with the solution i am trying to do or a more elegant way to detect, if belts are stuck

Sorry if I am bad at explaining

Belt overcrowdedm wire stuff automation

[fleet shoal]

You can attach a wire to a belt, and set it to read the content of the entire belt loop, that’s one thing that might be helpful

[valid cradle]

Ok i understand the problem why it doesnt work

but idk how to fix it

mf picks the first input signal

[valid cradle]

it doesnt work because there are can be 3 different items on the belt

and there are a lot of combinations when the belt can be full

one itme there can be a lot of metallic chunks, other time ice chunks

[fleet shoal]

You could sum all the different items together

Using arithmetic combinators

To get the total number of items on the belt

Or alternatively turn them all into the same signal so that their values are added together as soon as they’re put on the same wire

[valid cradle]

if should be all the values 95

[valid cradle]

i dont think i know how to do that

nvm

i had to make 0

[fleet shoal]

Put a signal through an arithmetic combinator that multiplies by 1 or adds 0, and you can output any signal you want but with the value of the input signal

[valid cradle]

ok i think got it

[valid cradle]

whit what can i do that

[fleet shoal]

This^

[valid cradle]

whops wrong one

wait

ah nvm

i got it

thank you

is there reputation stuff? Do i need to close this post?

[fleet shoal]

No, you can just let it get buried

[icy wraith]

you can do this with your inserters like you originally wanted
and then activate your trashing inserter when recycle >= 3

[valid cradle]

thank you again

[fast badger]

Looks like backpressure messing up the belt.
True solution would be to double up on metal and carbon reprocessing (ice is twice as fast).

btw fast inserters are good enough, asteroid chunks have stack size one

[valid cradle]

wouldnt it get stuck anyway if, my base is full of some material and it backs up anyway?

[fast badger]

In that case I recommend that voiding strategy, but applied at the legendary level.

And instead of a recycler I'd use legendary reprocessing.

That has the advantage that you can draw as much metal as you want, the other types (carbon, ice) will get turned into metal, increasing metal output.