Can't cool water -- not sure I care

[Jumpp]

So I've struggled with my bases slowly cooking. I've fixed most of those technique issues, but one big one remains: I just can't produce cold water at scale. 

So instead I've turned to getting by with geyser-hot water...and it looks like it ought to be workable.

The short version is: I use abyssalite pipes for everything, so there's no heat transfer from the pipes or the scalding hot fluids inside them. Electrolyzers seem to produce gas at 30C no matter the temperature of their inputs. And purifiers seem to produce water at 40C no matter the temperature of their inputs.

So for now I'm done trying to build these elaborate water-cooling megaprojects. Anyone see any problems I'm overlooking?

[Kasuha]

Yeah it works that way for now. There's a bug with pipes that any gas or liquid packet in them won't change temperature if it moves. So you cannot cool water by sending it in a pipe through something cold, but you can cool it if you dump it into a pool and run pipes with cold water or gas through that pool. Takes a while but you may even use closed cycle with no pumps, a valve is all that's needed to keep the pipe contents in motion.

[Falcahtas]

Well if you use water to cool Coal Generators it might be a problem.

[Mast3r07]

You can't grow plants if air's temp is higher than 22.9°C and you can't keep hatches inside because they can't regulate their internal temp and they'll most likely die, resulting in 0 coal production.

Why don't you try to cool water from multiple geysers at the same time, in different tanks? I've had the same problem untill i finished "megaprojects" for 3 geysers. It was hard for me untill cycle 280, when i managed to do it. Now i'm planning to build two others. The only problem is that you must constantly watch them for the right moment to extract, but you'll get used to.

Gas pipes filled with cold hydrogen is the best way to go. You can also use Nativel's system(Spoiler), but it didn't work quite good for me, despite the fact that i set the valve at 1000g/s. It was quickly overwhelmed..

Spoiler

On 13.04.2017 at 0:36 PM, Nativel said:

 

 

[Risu]

17 minutes ago, Mast3r07 said:

You can't grow plants if air's temp is higher than 22.9°C

There is no reason for water to come in contact with your farms. Insulate the water.
 

[Mast3r07]

2 minutes ago, Risu said:

There is no reason for water to come in contact with your farms. Insulate the water.
 

It's not about the water, it's about the oxygen made by electrolyzers. As Jumpp states:

9 hours ago, Jumpp said:

Electrolyzers seem to produce gas at 30C no matter the temperature of their inputs.

I didn't test this yet.. For the moment I'll believe it.

[Risu]

5 minutes ago, Mast3r07 said:

It's not about the water, it's about the oxygen made by electrolyzers.

Input temperature is ignored, as is the case with every consumer except the shower and toilet.
 

[Mast3r07]

So, if i give the electrolyzers 90°C water, i'll get 20°C oxygen?

[Risu]

5 minutes ago, Mast3r07 said:

So, if i give the electrolyzers 90°C water, i'll get 20°C oxygen?

30 C Hydrogen and Oxygen.
 

[Mast3r07]

Oops, my bad, i just quoted the OP's statement and I wrote 20 instead of 30.

But in this case you need to grow bristle blossom outside your colony (requires temperature between -23 and +23 °C - from wiki). And dupes will use the doors endlessly to get in there (to deliver fertilizer/harvest), and this will destroy some oxygen from inside your colony.

[Risu]

Just now, Mast3r07 said:

Oops, my bad, i just quoted the OP's statement and I wrote 20 instead of 30.

But in this case you need to grow bristle blossom outside your base (requires temperature between -23 and +23 °C - from wiki). And dupes will often use the doors endlessly to get in there (to deliver fertilizer/harvest), and this will destroy some oxygen from inside your colony

Doors displace gases that are in the way by placing a Steel Door element tile behind it.
If there is somewhere to displace it to it won't be destroyed.
Can't say the same for liquids as it's much harder to displace 1000 kg of water than 1 kg of oxygen.
 

[Mast3r07]

What about the hatches? Aren't they affected by 30°C gas?

[Risu]

3 minutes ago, Mast3r07 said:

What about the hatches? Aren't they affected by 30°C gas?

They stay alive from -30.15 C to 69.85 C.
 

[Mast3r07]

So it's just fine to generate 30°C gas in your colony, isn't it?

[Risu]

3 minutes ago, Mast3r07 said:

So it's just fine to generate 30°C gas in your colony, isn't it?

It's quite safe. For now.
 

[Lifegrow]

Or you could always plonk down a thermal regulator and drop it to a pleasant 16?

[Lifegrow]

8 hours ago, Risu said:

They stay alive from -30.15 C to 69.85 C.
 

Is this based on extended exposure? I've had hatches that ate solid CO2 and seemed fine - but I haven't managed to sustain a permanent system to see if they will eventually supercool from the belly out  

[xtrasyn]

8 hours ago, Lifegrow said:

Or you could always plonk down a thermal regulator and drop it to a pleasant 16?

That's what I was thinking. Then also build a number of small cooling basins with a pump on a thermal switch so you won't pump out water unless it's 16 degrees, and store that in your in-base reservoir. Which in my case nowadays is a tiny one, as I kind of 'kicked off' on using expensive space in controlled environments for things as futile as storing water. If I don't need it, it's out. Same with batteries, polluted water, animals, basically everything. 

I've even gone as far as to define ultra-controlled zones (sleeping, plants, hamster wheels, furniture); 'shell' areas (essential machinery, some storage, lavatories/showers, oxy gen) and 'uncontrolled' (heat generation, dirty power, water storage, bulk res storage, gas conversion). Saves me a lot of hassles and keeps the environments easier to control at lower cost.

[Jackblac]

13 hours ago, Lifegrow said:

Is this based on extended exposure? I've had hatches that ate solid CO2 and seemed fine - but I haven't managed to sustain a permanent system to see if they will eventually supercool from the belly out  

I have just fed them solid polluted water. In the thermal upgrade all your polluted water can be made with showers and that is enough for fertilizer production. Thats why I havent found a use for polluted water that is found around the map

[Jumpp]

So this is going well. The scalding-hot water is behaving as I'd hoped.

The electrolyzers are mostly clustered at the bottom of the base. Pumps at the top pull hydrogen to the generator and oxygen into the ventilation system, where it gets run through two regulators and reintroduced near the bottom, just above the wheezeworts.

 

My big discovery this game is that polluted water is an excellent coolant.

 

I don't know what the freezing point is, but I know it's below -18C. I found a supply of very cold PH2O and set up a big loop to keep my plants cool. That gigantic refrigerator has grown. Now I keep all my batteries, generators, water purifiers, and thermal regulators in the fridge too.

Along the way, I guess I HAVE learned how to make cold fresh water at scale: Run everything off of geyser water, and then all your other water supplies will eventually get nice and cold on their own.

I expect I could cool the fresh water by just extending my -18C-polluted-water pipe through the freshwater tank, but that's not a problem I have anymore. My new problem is keeping my reserves of fresh water from freezing. That problem is easy. When the water temp in one tank gets down into single digits, I make a new tank, move the ice into the new tank, and redirect the excess freshwater to the new tank.