[DESIGN]Mid Game Oil Boiler (use Magma, fully automated)

[manganeko]

This module can be accomplished as soon as you get some steel. It turns about 4T crude oil into petroleum every cycle (It's a bit slow the first time though), fully automated, very low power consumption (Only two pumps and a shutoff valve needed).

Basically, there're 3 chambers. Upper one for heating, middle one for cooling, and the bottom one is just a steel pump there. Each chamber is isolated with vacuum, so they won't exchange any heat at all. All I have to do is, don't pour too much petroleum in there, or else it'll touch the door.

The input crude oil should be cooler than about 110℃, then it could cool the petroleum enough down to 270℃. If it's too hot, middle chamber won't open any more and the whole system is failed. You can still modify the Metal Chamber a little bit if you like, to make it taller or shorter, it'll change the temp of input oil. Or you could even use some doors to control it dynamically.

OK, how do you like it, any better idea, just let me know

{Sorry, a mistake, the Hydro Sensor in the middle chamber should be less than 1kg}

[Neotuck]

What is the production rate?

An oil refinery produces petroleum at 5kg per second. 

Is yours faster?

[Guest]

eventually this cools the magma and stops working? if yes, how long would this run?

[manganeko]

56 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

What is the production rate?

An oil refinery produces petroleum at 5kg per second. 

Is yours faster?

I didn't count very carefully, but I guess yes, it's a little faster than an oil refinery.

26 minutes ago, nonoxyl said:

eventually this cools the magma and stops working? if yes, how long would this run?

Yes it will eventually, so I think it would be better if I put the diamond brick a bit lower, near the bottom of a magma pool, to prevent the disconnection.

Or maybe I could use a steel airlock to push some magma out. Anyway it's a good point, I'll think it over, and choose the biggest magma pool next time.

[Neotuck]

2 hours ago, manganeko said:

Yes it will eventually, so I think it would be better if I put the diamond brick a bit lower, near the bottom of a magma pool, to prevent the disconnection.

Or maybe I could use a steel airlock to push some magma out. Anyway it's a good point, I'll think it over, and choose the biggest magma pool next time.

no mater how big the magma pool is, it's still limited

better to use a magma volcano

[0xFADE]

How long will the limited magma last?  Long enough that you won’t use it up before you don’t need it anymore. 

[Neotuck]

9 minutes ago, 0xFADE said:

How long will the limited magma last?  Long enough that you won’t use it up before you don’t need it anymore. 

depends on play style

some players rely on petroleum to fuel generators all the way to endgame, and not always for power but as a source of PW and CO2 

[Gus Smedstad]

I think "not needing it anymore" may refer to using a heat source other than magma.

In my game, I was doing exactly what you said: burning petrol for polluted water and CO2. But I never used magma to power a boiler, my boiler is heated by an aquatuner. One aquatuner running a polluted water cooling loop provided all the heat I needed.

I was looking into a sour gas converter - also heated by an aquatuner, not magma.

In any case, for my next colony, if I want an early boiler powered by magma, I'll be using John Francis's latest design. It's a little bulkier, but it does things like auto-digs cooled magma, and should run forever if you have a volcano.

[JohnFrancis]

You can always use a pitcher pump and atmo suits to move magma (very carefully) about the place if you need to stretch the supply. Only 50:50 odds of rolling a magma volcano and I don't want to wait for space metal to start my boiler.

[Neotuck]

30 minutes ago, JohnFrancis said:

You can always use a pitcher pump and atmo suits to move magma (very carefully) about the place if you need to stretch the supply. Only 50:50 odds of rolling a magma volcano and I don't want to wait for space metal to start my boiler.

oil refineries are still a good stepping stone if you need to wait for space materials for a boiler

sure the 50% conversion rate may turn many players away but they also produce natural gas as well to make up for it

[Gus Smedstad]

I agree. Oil refineries aren't really that bad. I used one for many hundreds of cycles before I built a proper boiler. That's also why I didn't need magma as a heat source, since I had thermium by the time I built a boiler.

The 50% conversion rate isn't that important in the mid game. I wasn't burning that much petroleum initially, and there's a lot of oil in reserve. The 100% efficiency of a boiler is more important when you're looking at depending primarily on renewable sources like oil wells and fissures.

The other drawback of an oil refinery is that requires a Dupe to operate it, and if you've only got one refinery, there are going to be long periods when no Dupe is doing that.

[Neotuck]

45 minutes ago, Gus Smedstad said:

The other drawback of an oil refinery is that requires a Dupe to operate it, and if you've only got one refinery, there are going to be long periods when no Dupe is doing that.

this is why I always assign a dupe to operate only with an exo suit so I'll always have them running most of the cycle

also I like having 2 refineries so I can get a full 10kg/s flow

[0xFADE]

1 hour ago, Gus Smedstad said:

I think "not needing it anymore" may refer to using a heat source other than magma.

Yes exactly.  Exotic materials or simply heating petroleum with a metal refinery. 

[JohnFrancis]

2 hours ago, Gus Smedstad said:

I agree. Oil refineries aren't really that bad. I used one for many hundreds of cycles before I built a proper boiler. That's also why I didn't need magma as a heat source, since I had thermium by the time I built a boiler.

I'm agree, I use Oil refineries early mid game as well. Power and heat deletion all in one package is to good to not use it. With a little automation the dupe time costs are fine considering all you get out of them. Plus all that heat I dump into the crude before I convert it effectively gets me the refined metal to make my boiler. I get the love of natural gas it averages about 1800 watt/s (*Per geyser) for almost no effort. It just does not lend itself into late game metal refinement.

[manganeko]

7 hours ago, Neotuck said:

no mater how big the magma pool is, it's still limited

better to use a magma volcano

yea you're right, I tested again and it uses up magma pretty fast, it won't last long no matter how big the pool is.

 

7 hours ago, 0xFADE said:

How long will the limited magma last?  Long enough that you won’t use it up before you don’t need it anymore. 

It turns up a cube of magma into Igneous rock every working period (< 1 cycle) in my test, that's kinda fast. So maybe I should consider using up the heat of those Igneous rocks to make it last longer. And yes, taking this as a temporary building is an idea too, till we got some space material. If it could last as long as all the natural crude oil out there in the biome converted into petroleum, that would be convenient enough.

[0xFADE]

There are some other boilers you can look at.  The ones with the very -very- long heat exchanger is going to be much more efficient.  You will get a lot more conversion.  This design needing a steel pump is a clue that it isn't getting much heat back out of the petrol efficiently.

[manganeko]

7 hours ago, Gus Smedstad said:

I think "not needing it anymore" may refer to using a heat source other than magma.

In my game, I was doing exactly what you said: burning petrol for polluted water and CO2. But I never used magma to power a boiler, my boiler is heated by an aquatuner. One aquatuner running a polluted water cooling loop provided all the heat I needed.

I was looking into a sour gas converter - also heated by an aquatuner, not magma.

In any case, for my next colony, if I want an early boiler powered by magma, I'll be using John Francis's latest design. It's a little bulkier, but it does things like auto-digs cooled magma, and should run forever if you have a volcano.

yea, natural gas is a better source of PW and CO2 than petroleum, it gives back more PW. If we cool Natural Gas Generator enough, it gives back Polluted Ice and Solid CO2, then we could use these cold stuff to condense more sour gas again. Using an aquatuner with supercoolant can achieve this.

6 minutes ago, 0xFADE said:

There are some other boilers you can look at.  The ones with the very -very- long heat exchanger is going to be much more efficient.  You will get a lot more conversion.  This design needing a steel pump is a clue that it isn't getting much heat back out of the petrol efficiently.

Ah it inspires me, I need a Liquid Reservoir for crude oil, then I could make that metal chamber really tall, to take all the heat back from petroleum. THX!

[JohnFrancis]

10 hours ago, manganeko said:

Ah it inspires me, I need a Liquid Reservoir for crude oil, then I could make that metal chamber really tall, to take all the heat back from petroleum. THX!

Check out this post on counter flow heat exchange it has some very extensive testing.

 

[manganeko]

30 minutes ago, JohnFrancis said:

Check out this post on counter flow heat exchange it has some very extensive testing.

 

thank you, it's exactly what I need! very helpful.

[Oozinator]

19 hours ago, JohnFrancis said:

You can always use a pitcher pump and atmo suits to move magma

 

[manganeko]

16 hours ago, Oozinator said:

 

lol, that's really funny, I love it. I'm going to try a 5T big bottle of liquid tungsten for melting Insulation.

[Craigjw]

I really like this design, it's compact and simple.

[Dyrewulfe]

I've cooked over 1000 tons of petrol so far using this rig:

The magma tap point under the diamond tempshift is just finally nearing the freezing point after 250-300 cycles of run time, but it's a pretty decent sized vein.

The radiant pipes are just copper I had laying around from ruins. Insulated tiles were originally igneous rock(barring the ones in direct contact with magma, those are ceramic), ceramic is a bit better choice though. This uses counterflow exchange, like detailed in the post linked above. The crude hits the burner at 401-402C, so it draws very little heat from the magma to complete the phase shift.

[Bloxxed]

@Dyrewulfe Can you post a save file for your boiler? Curious because it looks interesting