Wheezewort-Powered SPOM

[Beowulfe]

Hey guys,

Wanted to post a SPOM design I've been working on lately, using the unique compression "technology" of Wheezeworts! It's a single pump, highly efficient design, generating near maximum oxygen and hydrogen amounts (no gas conversion from oxygen to hydrogen, though), with built in cooling.

Without using gas conversion, I believe this is the most efficient SPOM setup there is. I'll throw out some pictures first, then go over the design briefly:

 

Spoiler

So! Wheezeworts have a very interesting property - when used properly, they can compress and move gasses even faster than a regular pump can. If you block the two tiles directly left and right of the bottom tile of the plant (the plant, not the flower pot), and then pump a single type of gas through it, it will eventually build a vacuum at the base of the plant. Once that's there, the throughput and compression properties of the plant skyrocket (though cooling amount goes down - you don't want this vacuum for a cooling chamber).

Utilizing this, the design uses the wheezewort beside the electrolyzer to pull oxygen away from it, preventing overpressurization, and also allowing for a large amount of gas compression in the tiles above the wheezewort (while I would not recommend letting it back up if possible, I have tested it up to 500kg oxygen per tile and the vacuum and compression held).

The oxygen is then passed by the metal tiles below the wheezeworts in the cooling chamber, which cools it off to a balmy 12C/53F/285K, and then is passed out the mechanical door into the world beyond.

This means you'll need to position it to allow the oxygen escaping to flow outwards into your base, but the good news is that the outgoing pressure is always high enough that it will flow relatively quickly outwards (and the flow is controlled by the atmo sensor T4, which shuts the door when the exterior is getting overpressurized).

The single gas pump is there to pull in all hydrogen, and outputs any non-hydrogen gasses to the high pressure vent just above the primary wheezewort. This ensures as much hydrogen as possible is produced, and prevents any from flowing through the wheezewort track, which can potentially break the vacuum. The hydrogen is initially pumped into the cooling chamber to prime it, but afterwards is sent to hydrogen generators. Enough hydrogen is produced that you will need either a storage system or multiple hydrogen generators to use all of it.

Using only a single hydrogen generator, without an outflow for the excess, will cause the system to back up and fail.

Last but not least, in some extreme circumstances (when oxygen backs up too much, if another gas sneaks it's way down the wheezewort track, or some other unforseen disaster occurs), the vacuum on the wheezewort can break, significantly lowering throughput. If this happens, the automation near the electrolyzer and gas pump (T1 and T2) will temporarily shut the electrolyzer and gas pump off, allowing the wheezewort to push the remainder of the gas out of the chamber and rebuild it's vacuum. If this happens, don't worry, it will fix the issue and start up again on it's own relatively quickly, and there will be enough compressed oxygen in the chambers that oxygen flow won't falter. This shouldn't happen under normal circumstances, though I have seen it occur once or twice immediately after loading a save (after hundreds of cycles of testing).

 

Automation

The settings for automation are as follows:

T1: Below 150g, connected to S port of Memory Toggle

T2: Above 1600g, connected to R port of Memory Toggle

T3: Hydrogen

T4: Place this 6 - 8 tiles away from the outflow door, in an area the oxygen will be flowing to, and set it to "Below X", where X is slightly higher than the oxygen level you'd like to target (I'd recommend 1850g-ish, to avoid popped eardrums)

 

Other Notes

Note that the automated door is unpowered, it should not be plugged in at all.

I used Conductive Wiring, but this isn't necessary for the circuit, overall power use is very low.

Do not use airflow tiles in place of mesh tiles, as these displace gas on save/load and can break the vacuum on the wheezewort relatively easily!

You will need to initially power the system from elsewhere until the cooling chamber is primed (and the cooling chamber should have as many gasses removed as possible before filling it with hydrogen!), but this should take less than half a cycle and very little power (a single manual generator can handle it).

While a vacuum is not strictly necessary in the cooling chamber, the more hydrogen you can fit in there (and the fewer other gasses), the cooler your oxygen will be!

In order to get proper cooling, the hydrogen in the cooling chamber has to reach equilibrium with the external temperatures. To speed this up, once the cooling chamber is primed with hydrogen, disable the electrolyzer (you can do this by modifying the atmo sensors), and then wait until the hydrogen at the top of the chamber is down to around -10C/14F/263K. Once at this point, start the electrolyzer back up again, and it should be near equilibrium.

In the cooling chamber, three wheezeworts (once equilibrium is reached) will leave the oxygen at about 12C/53F/285K. If you'd like, or you have very few wheezeworts to play with, you can remove one of the three. This will leave the oxygen (again, once it reaches equilibrium) at approximately 30C/86F/303K. You can optionally even remove the entire cooling block off the top to save space/wheezeworts, but you will be getting very hot oxygen output!

I used a High Pressure Gas Vent to output the excess oxygen from the pump. This does mean the build requires plastics, but there may be alternatives. I still need to look into options for a regular vent (do not place one at the bottom of the system or it will overpressurize), but if you are eager to get this working before you get plastics, I would recommend using the output directly in places where temperature doesn't matter (such as exosuit docks!). Just remember that pulling this out of the system will impact the amount of oxygen coming out of the primary mechanical door exit!

Gasses in the primary chamber that are heavier than oxygen (such as C02 or natural gas) can wreak a bit of havoc with the atmo sensors, and will take a while to get sucked out of the system naturally. If possible, try to ensure you vacuum these out (optionally with the pump that's already in there, as long as it doesn't pump it back into the system) before turning the elecrolyzer on. If you can't do this, you can optionally try to move the atmo sensors into the space left of the electrolyzer and right of the wheezewort, though this may require altering the values on them slightly as well.

 

Statistics

• Oxygen per second: 866g
• Hydrogen per second: 105g
• Dupes Supported: 8
• Excess power (without Engie's Tuneup): 470 watts
• Excess power (with Engie's Tuneup): 885 watts
• Oxygen Output Temperature: 12C/53F/285K (once equilibrium is reached, see notes for ways to speed this up)

 

I think that's it for the initial post, any questions/comments/concerns/criticisms? 

[fishoutofwater]

I had the similar idea too, but my build was too risky, I was always worried my oxygen going to decompress, lul.

[Grimgaw]

This was done before automation was available.

https://oxygennotincluded.gamepedia.com/File:ElectroWheezeDefault.png

[ChickenMadness]

Just wanted to note.

2 patches ago wheezeworts were nerfed. Didn't read about it officially on the forums but I noticed the change in my game. Tbh the nerf came a couple days after I made a thread pointing out how WWs can infinitely compress gas when you build tiles around one to turn it into a pump. So I suspect they probably saw my post and changed it tbh lol.

You used to be able to get infinite gas compression. like 100kg of gas in a single tile, from making a little wheezewort pump. But now it tends to max out at 8kg (in a single WW pump) and then the increase in gas pressure in that direction slows down to a standstill.

I made a pump with 3 WW in a horizontal row that pumped gas into a room until it was 60kg gas pressure and then it stopped there though.

Haven't done any proper testing I just noticed all my WW pump builds stopped working like they used to and I couldn't get the stupid numbers like 100kg lol.

[Beowulfe]

7 hours ago, Grimgaw said:

This was done before automation was available.

https://oxygennotincluded.gamepedia.com/File:ElectroWheezeDefault.png

That's cool! I hadn't seen that, somehow, despite my searching. That being said, while that is certainly similar, it's not going to get the same output, and also has a chance to lose the vacuum on the wheezeworts, which can break the entire system. It won't be nearly as stable or reliable as my build.

 

 

7 hours ago, ChickenMadness said:

Just wanted to note.

2 patches ago wheezeworts were nerfed. Didn't read about it officially on the forums but I noticed the change in my game. Tbh the nerf came a couple days after I made a thread pointing out how WWs can infinitely compress gas when you build tiles around one to turn it into a pump. So I suspect they probably saw my post and changed it tbh lol.

You used to be able to get infinite gas compression. like 100kg of gas in a single tile, from making a little wheezewort pump. But now it tends to max out at 8kg (in a single WW pump) and then the increase in gas pressure in that direction slows down to a standstill.

I made a pump with 3 WW in a horizontal row that pumped gas into a room until it was 60kg gas pressure and then it stopped there though.

Haven't done any proper testing I just noticed all my WW pump builds stopped working like they used to and I couldn't get the stupid numbers like 100kg lol.

It still works! I've been testing it for the last two patches.

I've had higher than 500kg compression on the current patch, no issues. The main thing is you need to ensure you keep a vacuum at the tile at the base of the plant (not the flower pot), by building tiles on either side of it. As long as it's only one kind of gas moving through, the vacuum will hold and it'll compress infinitely.

If a second type of gas passes through the wheezewort, the gas displacement can cause the vacuum to break, which will cause the compression to fail. My system is designed to avoid and correct for that specifically.

 

[fifty_ducks]

I just wanted to say this is an excellent guide and I'm going to try this in my QOL MK2 base!

Can this build be mirrored horizontally?

EDIT: Added question.

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 12/24/2018 at 4:22 AM, Grimgaw said:

This was done before automation was available.

https://oxygennotincluded.gamepedia.com/File:ElectroWheezeDefault.png

I used to use that method for a long time.  @Beowulfe, you probably didn't find it because these forums suck to search for old stuff if there isn't a flag set.  I do like the variation you made, in that your one pump runs continually to pick up the hydrogen and oxygen while the wheezewart moves additional oxygen.  It makes it very efficient.  I tried a similar one back in the past, but it was before the pump mechanics were 'fixed' and pressure would sometimes buck hydrogen out into the other room with the wheezewart and cause all kinds of trouble.

[WanderingKid]

@Beowulfe I've tried doing this for Nat Gas Geyser Compressors using Wheezeworts.  The findings have been hit or miss in the last 3 updates.

As a side note, once your hydrogen chamber is feeding wheezes through at 1kg/cell (check the bottom) you don't need more.  That's the maximum cooling. Over pressurizing the system just adds stabilization mass at that point.

While mesh helps keep the seal from breaking, it's not guaranteed.  You also want to make sure the top of the wheeze leans to the right.  It gets cranky leaning left.  Additionally, not just save/reload can cause the issues.  Quantum fluxuations of the simulation can also lead to the vacuum seal breaking, even in a mono-gas environment (ie: Nat Gas Geyser output).  Also, beware any additional gases influencing the vacuum seal.  A thin layer of CO2 or Chlorine can completely destroy the vacuum seal.

Ways that improved it when I (and others) were testing.

Use two Wheezes, staggered above each other leaning right.  This allows the lower wheeze to break the vacuum seal but should keep the upper one stable.

For initial vacuum sealing, use a door and let the wheeze vacuum up all lower cells.  If any residual gases are above the wheeze, pump it to pure vacuum.  This reduces/removes the chance of other gases breaking the vacuum seal.

A straight column without left/right access compresses much slower for some reason than allowing the gas to come in sideways to the pot.

 

[KittenIsAGeek]

4 minutes ago, WanderingKid said:

You also want to make sure the top of the wheeze leans to the right.  It gets cranky leaning left. 

Hahahah. This is great.