Metal Volcano Exploitation

[hacksaw12]

Back last summer, @Neotuck posted a mid game exploit of a metal volcano without using any space based materials. It was done in sandbox, but obviously had survival possibilities. I was moving toward late game, and gave it a try. It works mostly as predicted, and is buildable without too much trouble. However, a few points for anyone using this technique. And thanks, Neotuck.

1. One of Neo's goals and successes was using only one aquatuner to control the heat. This application was an iron volcano, Neo's was a gold volcano. Once set up and running, one aquatuner wasn't quite enough for this one, the temperature was slowly running away. 

2. When the second aquatuner was added, it overcooled the water, and broke pipes in the second in line aquatuner. The solution was to bump up Neo's initial temperature settings for the thermo sensor next to the volcano to 72F from 68F, and to use another thermo pipe sensor to route water around the second aquatuner if the temp dropped below 75F.

After the changes, it's been stable for 100 cycles or so. Materials are gold amalgam and gold/iron for metal plates, pumps, sweeper, loader, shipping rails, vent, automation, and wire inside the volcano enclosure. Igneous insulated tiles and diamond tempshift plates round out the build, so nothing special required. It is a power hog with the two aquatuners.

First thermal is during an eruption, second is shortly before an eruption.xfinity.com

[Craigjw]

I noticed on your SS that your loader is breaking, I this sometimes happens due to the water leaking away from the puddle that cools it when the volcano isn't active, then when the volcano starts up again, some steam may happen, it super heats the loader & arm and causes breakage. 

The solution to this, is to add a second valve that constantly drip feeds the water supply 10g/s of water to the system.  When water is released via the valve it must override the drip valve.  A tile can be removed below the loader to pool water, but this isn't necessary, but can help retain the water a little longer.

One other improvement I can suggest is to run the cold water supply through the base metal tiles and then to the valve and vent, this helps to cool the transported metal on the rails a little more, although not by much.  I was able to reduce the final metal temperature by about 10C doing this, although this is on a gold volcano.

This is my current volcano thing.  I'm using a cool slush to cool the rail, however, the principle is the same.  I have also 2 tiles for the water pool, but 1 tile is also fine.  On the right you can see the flow valve and stop valve.  It's currently cooling the volcano with a full 10kg/s, but when the valve closes, it release 10g/s.

[MorsDux]

Nice metal farm. You can further improve your temperature stability by adding tempshift plates under all the metal tiles. Alternatively you can use diamond window tiles instead of metal and diamond tempshift plates. 

I would use water instead of the metal tiles also as metal tile is only 100kg but water is 1000kg a tile. This with tempshift gives great stability and possibly setting exit temperature within a few degree margin. I would use this to switch to pwater and exit temp of 120 degree then sieve it to lose the heat. 

[Neotuck]

2 minutes ago, MorsDux said:

I would use water instead of the metal tiles also as metal tile is only 100kg but water is 1000kg a tile. This with tempshift gives great stability and possibly setting exit temperature within a few degree margin. I would use this to switch to pwater and exit temp of 120 degree then sieve it to lose the heat. 

The reason for using metal tiles is for the thermal conductivity, not capacity.  It allows the cooling of materials on a convener rail much faster than using gas or liquid tiles.

Pwater is a bad idea as you risk off-gasing and that will break the vacuum

Here's a more up to date version of the build the OP is referring to:

[Craigjw]

I had thought of using petrol for cooling due to it's better TC figures, but was always concerned with having to mess around removing any sour gas that might form.

The nice thing I noticed about the original design was that the arm reaches across the entire volcano, where as this does not, so any gold that seeps to the right most volcano tile will remain there forever.

That's a lot of tempshift plates, is this really necessary, surely the top 2 rows aren't needed?

[Neotuck]

7 minutes ago, Craigjw said:

I had thought of using petrol for cooling due to it's better TC figures, but was always concerned with having to mess around removing any sour gas that might form.

Less likely than steam forming, if the petroleum reaches boiling rate then something is wrong with the cooling

If you have access to space materials, super coolant is best

7 minutes ago, Craigjw said:

The nice thing I noticed about the original design was that the arm reaches across the entire volcano, where as this does not, so any gold that seeps to the right most volcano tile will remain there forever.

gold solidifies immediately so it never "seeps" any where

7 minutes ago, Craigjw said:

That's a lot of tempshift plates, is this really necessary, surely the top 2 rows aren't needed?

I agree it was overkill, I only did it cause I had lot's of gold to spare

[hacksaw12]

5 hours ago, Craigjw said:

I noticed on your SS that your loader is breaking, I this sometimes happens due to the water leaking away from the puddle that cools it when the volcano isn't active, then when the volcano starts up again, some steam may happen, it super heats the loader & arm and causes breakage. 

 

Actually both the heat damage to the loader and the vent occurred during my scramble time getting the second aquatuner on line in survival mode. Still, your suggestion would be good whether it was superheat or off for a time during an eruption. I will incorporate it next time.

[Flydo]

In my case, i use this kind of system  base of Kasuha's one :

As you could see, i made some modification: my primary coolant is petroleum, second one is polluted water (i use the cooling part to disinfect my polluted water before deleting heat with a water sieve), all this thing need some little improvement but working fine.

A point i really want to but in front of the stage, it's the big water tank in the top of the volcano, previously i see that volcano can't errupt when submerged by water, you could see it at an emergengy shut down, just in case something go wrong and i need to access in some the part to add modification.

 

[JohnFrancis]

I use this design Metal volcano Tamer it works on any metal volcano. Costs about 450 watts for an iron volcano and is power positive if you are willing to block all but one input port on the steam turbine. However unlike yours its using 2KW wire, Tungsten, steel and wolfermite.

[Darkpony]

lol my metal volcano tamer build door and insulated tile around it and let them get scalded lol.

[hacksaw12]

Little bit of a necropost here, but as I was finishing up this colony, I worked a way around using two aquatuners on an iron volcano. I should have thought of it the first time when it overloaded the single tuner. I can't remember who first suggested a recycling aquatuner, but it was probably a year ago, and I use it all the time for cool crop water. I combined it with a buffer reservoir both before and after the volcano, and it works like a champ. Keeps the heat controlled and saves the power and space cost of the second aquatuner.