Can the Hydrogen Generator + A Water Geyser create excess energy? Advice wanted on feasibility and layout..

[Merauder]

I'm by no means super-experienced with Oxygen not Included, but I've just managed to dig my way into my first water Geyser and my base is just comfortable enough to be able to start major projects. I'm about to switch from Algea to the Electrolyser for my Oxygen needs. I'm looking for advice on how to make the best of these opportunities otherwise, because I'm sick of half my dupes running the threadmill and I'd love for my base to be completely Hydrogen powered.

I'm wondering though: is the Hydrogen Generator + Geyser a source of infinite, excess energy? Can a base reasonably sustain itself completely on Hydrogen and Water for its power needs? 

I'm looking for advice.

I mean, the output of the Hydrogen Generator, creates 800W. The electrolyser needs 120W, 2 Airpumps 2x240W, and an oxygen/hydrogen filter costs 120W. That's 720 Watt costs and 800 Watt generator, for a surplus of 80 Watt, right? (Unless of course, the drain on the associated battery is exactly 80 something Watt.)

I've been experimenting with it and it seems to work, if only to keep the system itself running when I cut if off from the rest of my power system:

 

 

Mind, I've turned off the second Electrolysis Machine and the second Airpump never appears to work.

Which is weird...

The Electrolyser creates some 888 grams of Oxygen and 112 grams of Hydrogen per second. The air pump... can handle 500 grams of gas per second. The room is sealed. What is happening, that this set up doesn't need 2 pumps? Why doesn't the second work? It's not their orientation either. I've had the gas pumps arranged vertically as well, one on the ground, one on the ceiling, in the middle, and STILL only one of them at a time worked. 

I have the feeling this system is only 50% effective and indeed, one electrolyser creating 112 grams of Hydrogen, should be more than enough for a Hydrogen Generator, since it can only handle 100 grams of Hydrogen per second. And yet, my Hydrogen Generator only works 50% of the time.

Any advice or explanations on what is happening?

Anyone else have the perfect set-up for making a base completely hydrogen powered?

 

 

[KittenIsAGeek]

The problem you'll run into is that while the numbers work out, in reality there are roadblocks.  First, the electrolyzer produces 1000g/s of gas, while a single pump only moves 500.   Even with two pumps running, you'll get hiccups where the electrolyzer will think its over pressure and not produce as much (or any) gas while still using the full power load.  The pumps will also have hiccups where they'll either think they're in a vacuum or the pipes will be too full.

<added> Also, the pumps can only move one type of gas at a time.  So a single pump can take 3 cycles to move one cycle of electrolyzer output (if you're going by pure numbers):  500g oxygen, 333g oxygen, 112g hydrogen.  And the system doesn't wait until it has a full 500g of a particular gas, so there's an inherent efficiency loss.

The result is that while the numbers work out, the mechanics don't.  I've found that with several batteries and three hamster wheels, the closed-loop system will run for a cycle or two before the duplicants will have to jump on the wheel.  At least, until your base is full of oxygen, at which point you'll starve your generator of hydrogen.

[Risu]

The steam geyser produces 4 kg/s of water and 0.2kg/s of steam, so 4 electrolyzers using just the water.

Oh but you might still be using a version where the geysers are emitting the amount it's suppose to be emitting every second, every sim tick instead. So multiply everything above by 4 if that bug still exists.
 

[Merauder]

8 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

The problem you'll run into is that while the numbers work out, in reality there are roadblocks.  First, the electrolyzer produces 1000g/s of gas, while a single pump only moves 500.   Even with two pumps running, you'll get hiccups where the electrolyzer will think its over pressure and not produce as much (or any) gas while still using the full power load.  The pumps will also have hiccups where they'll either think they're in a vacuum or the pipes will be too full.

<added> Also, the pumps can only move one type of gas at a time.  So a single pump can take 3 cycles to move one cycle of electrolyzer output (if you're going by pure numbers):  500g oxygen, 333g oxygen, 112g hydrogen.  And the system doesn't wait until it has a full 500g of a particular gas, so there's an inherent efficiency loss.

The result is that while the numbers work out, the mechanics don't.  I've found that with several batteries and three hamster wheels, the closed-loop system will run for a cycle or two before the duplicants will have to jump on the wheel.  At least, until your base is full of oxygen, at which point you'll starve your generator of hydrogen.

Cheers Kitten! Especially for that middle bit part where the pump can only do a single kind of gas at a time. Your reply explains a whole lot of what I'm seeing. You've saved me a LOT of work figuring it out myself.

Guess I'll just have to double down on dupes running the hamsterwheel and resign the Electrolyzers to just occasional Oxygen production.

 

[Xuhybrid]

Each Electrolyzer doesn't produce enough Hydrogen to cover the cost of running it afaik.

[Merauder]

1 minute ago, Xuhybrid said:

Each Electrolyzer doesn't produce enough Hydrogen to cover the cost of running it afaik.

Like Kitten said, theoretically it does. 112 g/s while the Hydrogen Gen absorbs 100 g/s of the stuff. Practically, there are the roadblocks he mentions that prevent it from working like that, like the air pumps only doing one type of gas per second.

Thanks for confirming it though!

Hamster wheels it is...

[Kasuha]

You can spend a lot of energy if you don't pump the oxygen, let it diffuse around the base and rely on duplicant to breathe it out, and only use the pump to collect the hydrogen. If you put the pump somewhere high where hydrogen can collect, and put a low set valve after the non-hydrogen filter output, it will block the pump and filter every time there's not enough hydrogen collected, saving power.

[PickPay]

While my room suffers from the issues described, the Hydrogen Gen. is not as bad for me. I do have a Wheel just to make sure the battery is always full.

By the way if you want unlimited power, Natural Gas Geyser is the answer.

EDIT : So the H.Gen. is enough to power the room (I might not even need the wheel). The problem I have is temperature, prior to AU the Carrots would cool the air to around 20°C now its closer to 40°C

[Determination]

I have a working eternal loop of oxygen and water producing. I used manual generators, batteries, transformers and some supervision to get it started but I've had it running for a while now, I think I got this in my first 50-70 cycles and am now in my 159th.

Its shaped like a bottle so the majority of the hydrogen accumulates in the neck and the oxygen pools at the bottom.

I use the atmo switches to ensure there is a buildup of hydrogen both so I dont need filters and so the pump takes big gulps when it runs. The switch is set to approximately activate at above 1400g in pressure. It'll run for a second or so and feed the hydrogen generator, each 'spurt' of activity will normally fill the generator to its maximum amount. This activity is sufficient to power the activity of everything in the screenshot. Its a closed system which I'm not tapping for excess power, I possibly could but this isn't a refined design so I might destroy whatever balance I've managed to create in it by letting its batteries drain elsewhere.

The oxygen pump on the bottom works a similar principle, in practice its on all the time, this means I have a constant pressure of at least 1000g of oxygen. This is plenty for my 4 dupes so I have no temptation to insert a second. The success of the design is probably down to this being the only part that is on all the time.

Both electrolysers switch on and off frequently because of max pressure.

The water pump is on alot, I get enough water to run my oxygen plant, feed showers, toilets and an air scrubber. Currently in the process of hooking up an ideal harvest bristle berry farm and I'll see if I can get the water to stretch that far, but I run the water supply in series so if its not enough I'll find out quickly enough to unhook it and just look for a second geyser to recreate this design.

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 5/27/2017 at 1:01 PM, Determination said:

I have a working eternal loop of oxygen and water producing. I used manual generators, batteries, transformers and some supervision to get it started but I've had it running for a while now, I think I got this in my first 50-70 cycles and am now in my 159th.

I like your layout, however I will point out that because only one pump is in the oxygen, the most you can pump out will be 500g/s.  This is, of course, plenty for your four dupes, which is why your pipes say you have a full 1000g. Since a single oxidizer can produce 888g/s of oxygen, you don't need that second oxidizer in there.  I may have to try this to see if losing a third of the oxygen to be a self-sufficient system is worth it.

 

[ShamPeiN]

its more area of effect now, try placing electrolyzers far from each other and let it filter naturally, hydrogen up, oxygen down, without pumps, they are such a waste of power. it needs 4 pumps and even then wont get all the oxygen out. i dont like letting hydrogen float so i came up with a few designs so far

but now with the natural gas, kinda makes even less sense to go for power from hydrogen

i may start playing again just to show some screenshots

[Determination]

7 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

I like your layout, however I will point out that because only one pump is in the oxygen, the most you can pump out will be 500g/s.  This is, of course, plenty for your four dupes, which is why your pipes say you have a full 1000g. Since a single oxidizer can produce 888g/s of oxygen, you don't need that second oxidizer in there.  I may have to try this to see if losing a third of the oxygen to be a self-sufficient system is worth it.

I'm not sure to be honest. They do both remain switched on, but they both switch off alot too. In practice I have two electrolysers running alot, but the average activity of them both is definitely going to be less than the full activity of two, how much less I dont know. I purposely had two because I knew I wouldnt get the full activity of one. The only metric I have is that I can have 1 pump running constantly extracting oxygen.

Really what we're missing is a mechanical fan of some description to force gas to disperse more rapidly. It would allow us to force an electrolyser to run constantly as long as we keep extracting gas.

[Lifegrow]

8 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

I like your layout, however I will point out that because only one pump is in the oxygen, the most you can pump out will be 500g/s.  This is, of course, plenty for your four dupes, which is why your pipes say you have a full 1000g. Since a single oxidizer can produce 888g/s of oxygen, you don't need that second oxidizer in there.  I may have to try this to see if losing a third of the oxygen to be a self-sufficient system is worth it.

 

I'd get rid of the bottom pump altogether - open up the room and just let the O2 flood out through the gas permeable tiles beneath the electrolyzers  Your hydrogen would still rise up, and your system would be even more efficient.

[Merauder]

12 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

I'd get rid of the bottom pump altogether - open up the room and just let the O2 flood out through the gas permeable tiles beneath the electrolyzers  Your hydrogen would still rise up, and your system would be even more efficient.

That's not a bad idea at all there! Goal of the system is to make spare electricity. Getting rid of a pump does just that. And there's so much oxygen produced anyway that I've seen no real reason to pump it all around. The hydrogen pump can do it on a spare and the permeable tiles could really help with the pressure.

[Lifegrow]

Just now, Merauder said:

That's not a bad idea at all there! Goal of the system is to make spare electricity. Getting rid of a pump does just that. And there's so much oxygen produced anyway that I've seen no real reason to pump it all around. The hydrogen pump can do it on a spare.

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