Airflow Help

[Constina]

Hello, I'm pretty new to the game and I'm trying to figure out my issue with my airflow. It keeps having bits of Hydrogen go in with the Oxygen in my system. How do I fix it? (See Picture). Thanks for the help <3

[Constina]

Bump

[Lacost]

Luckily there is a very easy fix for this:

Build a second hydrogen generator. You need at least 2 of them to get rid of all the hydrogen produced by the electrolysers. In your current build the hydrogen backs up which causes the hydrogen phase in the SPOM to accumulate and eventually to push into the oxygen zone. Once you reduce the pressure of the hydrogen phase, your problem should be solved.

[Gurgel]

You need to either add gas filters (the easy, reliable solution, but adds power needs) or make sure with gas-sensors that what gets pumped is what you expect. The gas sensor needs to be 1-2 tiles above/below for the pump for that to be reliable. 

[Constina]

1 hour ago, Lacost said:

Luckily there is a very easy fix for this:

Build a second hydrogen generator. You need at least 2 of them to get rid of all the hydrogen produced by the electrolysers. In your current build the hydrogen backs up which causes the hydrogen phase in the SPOM to accumulate and eventually to push into the oxygen zone. Once you reduce the pressure of the hydrogen phase, your problem should be solved.

Thank you! I'll give that a try.

[KittenIsAGeek]

There's a number of different ways to handle this.  The main drawback of most SPOM builds is that they neglect to handle the 'what if my pipes are full' problem.  In your particular case, the hydrogen is full, but the electrolyzers continue producing hydrogen anyway and it starts getting into your oxygen pumps.  @Gurgel and @Lacost give suitable methods to solve the problem. 

In my base, I generally build a room that can always take more hydrogen (you'll use it later when you start looking at space).  Any hydrogen that isn't used by my generator to power the electrolyzers ends up in this room for use in other ways.  For example, if I need to pressurize a room of wheezewarts with hydrogen for cooling, or I need to add some to a dreko farm so their scales grow back.

I should also point out a potential problem to watch for if you use @Gurgel's method.  Since you're producing more hydrogen than you're using, your SPOM would shut off either from backed up hydrogen in the filters, or because sensors are detecting hydrogen instead of oxygen at the lower pumps.  Either way, this may cause your oxygen production to suffer.

[Constina]

4 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

There's a number of different ways to handle this.  The main drawback of most SPOM builds is that they neglect to handle the 'what if my pipes are full' problem.  In your particular case, the hydrogen is full, but the electrolyzers continue producing hydrogen anyway and it starts getting into your oxygen pumps.  @Gurgel and @Lacost give suitable methods to solve the problem. 

In my base, I generally build a room that can always take more hydrogen (you'll use it later when you start looking at space).  Any hydrogen that isn't used by my generator to power the electrolyzers ends up in this room for use in other ways.  For example, if I need to pressurize a room of wheezewarts with hydrogen for cooling, or I need to add some to a dreko farm so their scales grow back.

I should also point out a potential problem to watch for if you use @Gurgel's method.  Since you're producing more hydrogen than you're using, your SPOM would shut off either from backed up hydrogen in the filters, or because sensors are detecting hydrogen instead of oxygen at the lower pumps.  Either way, this may cause your oxygen production to suffer.

Thanks for the response KittenIsAGeek - I tried the methods above and same thing (I even started a new base -_- )  Do you have a screenshot of the method you think I should try? Should I just dig a big area out and pipe the extra to that area somehow?

[Lacost]

9 minutes ago, Constina said:

Thanks for the response KittenIsAGeek - I tried the methods above and same thing (I even started a new base -_- )  Do you have a screenshot of the method you think I should try? Should I just dig a big area out and pipe the extra to that area somehow?

Thats odd. I pretty much use the same design and never, ever had any problems with hydrogen or oxygen being pushed into the wrong pumps. That includes a cummulative 1000 cycles of continous usage.

It's hard to tell by your screenshot but are your oxygen pumps also regulated by an atmo sensor? Try to use one atmo sensor for the hydrogen pump and a second independent one for the oxygen pumps. Set both atmo sensors to 1000g and let the SPOM run for a few cycles. Once the gas phases have established (you can see this easily with an overlay), you can reduce the values on the atmo sensors (currently I use 600g).

The only thing left to do is to make sure the hydrogen doesn't back up (oxygen on the ohter hand may back up).

[Soulwind]

Raise the electrolyzers one tile (so there is only 1 open row above them) and/or lower the oxygen pumps by one tile.

You're getting some h2 being sucked in to the pumps directly below the electrolyzers before it can float back to the top..

[Denisetwin]

You need to store that extra hydrogen, I usually use the infinite gas storage as in @Neotuck example in this thread, it's easier to build than the old one I used that had two vents below the one pump.  

 

[fredhp]

Another strategy is not build any SPOM.
What i do is to just keep electrolyzers in the open, and build the base ceiling as an inverted funnel ( the form os this character: ^ ), and the bottom as an v.

Hydrogen will naturally raise on oxygen, so a ceiling pump can collect it. The same happens to the heavier gases, so a bottom pump is required too.

This is a very practical aproach, by you will need to deal with heat later, so it will require an efficient cooling system. A loop of common water pipes, made of granite, pumping cool Polluted Water is efficient enough to deal with the heat.

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 5/13/2019 at 5:28 AM, Constina said:

Thanks for the response KittenIsAGeek - I tried the methods above and same thing (I even started a new base -_- )  Do you have a screenshot of the method you think I should try? Should I just dig a big area out and pipe the extra to that area somehow?

I've posted before about gas distribution methods.  

Here's a link to where I posted how to make a room for gas storage.  

Basically CO2 goes into the gas reservoir until it is full, then it goes past a liquid valve into the room.  The gas pump is connected through a bridge, so that if there is no gas flowing out of the reservoir, it pumps CO2.  Note that in this SS there is no power to the pump -- but if there were power, that's how it would act.

Spoiler

You can do this with the hydrogen from your electrolyzers.  

Spoiler

and your hydrogen will never back up into your O2 and cause a problem.

[hypoeffort]

Just take the automation off of the single hydro generator for now.   Always have that hydro generator charging your batteries even at full.  Itt'l waste the hydrogen but burn it off until ypur ready to use the excess.