The separator is used to separate a flowitem into multiple parts. This can either be done by unpacking a flowitem that has been packed by a combiner or by making multiple copies of the original flowitem. The splitting/unpacking is done after the process time has completed. The separator can be set to require operators during its setup, processing and repair times.
Details
The separator is a sub-class of the Processor, which is in turn a sub-class of the FixedResource. It receives one flowitem, then executes the setup and process times for that flowitem. If the separator is in unpack mode, then once the setup and process times are finished, the separator moves the unpack quantity out of the flowitem and into itself.Then it releases all flowitems that it unpacked. Once all unpacked flowitems have left the separator, it releases the container flowitem. If the separator is in split mode, once the setup and process times are finished, the separator duplicates the flowitem so that the resulting total number of flowitems is the split quantity. Then it releases all of the flowitems. For both unpack and split modes, once all flowitems have left the separator, the separator immediately receives the next flowitem.
Note on the split/unpack quantity: This quantity value has subtle differences for unpack mode versus split mode. When in unpack mode, the separator unpacks the exact number of flowitems specified by this quantity. This means the total number of flowitems that result is one more than the unpack quantity (the unpack quantity + the container flowitem). When in split mode, however, the separator duplicates the flowitem split quantity - 1 number of times. This means the total number of flowitems that result is the exact same as the split quantity.
Note on unpacking order: When the separator is in unpack mode, it unpacks the container flowitem from back-to-front, meaning it pulls the last item in the container out first, then the second to last, and so on. If you want flowitems to be unpacked out in a certain order, then set their rank in the entry trigger.
States
Idle: The object is empty.
Setup: The object is in its modeller-defined setup time.
Processing: The object is in its modeller-defined process time
Blocked: The object has released its flowitems, but downstream objects are not ready to receive them yet.
Waiting for Operator: The object is waiting for an operator to arrive, either to repair a breakdown, or to operate on a batch.
Waiting for Transport: The object has released a flow item, and a downstream object is ready to receive it, but a transport object has not picked it up yet.
Down: The object is broken down.
Properties pages
ProcessTimes
Breakdowns
separator
Flow
Triggers
Labels
General
