Cooling in space with liquid

[Sturm58]

Hi guys,

I have decided to take a different approach to space cooling.

I basically drop petroleum on my robo-miners to cool them.

The door below the miners stay open closed for a short time after the bunker door opens to give miners time to.. mine.

After a few seconds (160s) the doors will open and drop the regolith down.

When the doors are open closed, petroleum keeps dripping on the miners for cooling. It stops when they close open.

Space-scanners are not affected by open doors so they work ok.

Petroleum drips down to a chamber with a pump that pumps it back up. It if is hotter then a threshold temp. it is dropped to space.

 

 

*** UPDATED VERSION ***

[Tonyroid]

Putting doors under the miners is very clever. It seems obvious now, but I surely didn't think of it. Does regolith make them hot if it falls over them and through the doors or do the miners stay cool when that happens?

[Coolthulhu]

Why petroleum? Water has higher heat capacity and since you're using it to cool solar panels, you don't need it to stay liquid above 100C.

I don't remember miner range, but if yours are overlapping, you could add mesh tiles above your miners, then they would never be covered with regolith and so wouldn't need to be cooled as much.

If all your planets are scanned, you can move the telescope underground.

[Sasza22]

1 hour ago, Tonyroid said:

Does regolith make them hot if it falls over them and through the doors or do the miners stay cool when that happens?

Regolith won`t heat them up when falling through. But if there`s an automation hiccup and the doors are closed it will heat both them and the miners.

[Sturm58]

update on post - the doors beneath miners close with the bunker doors and open 160 seconds after the bunker door open.

This gives the miners time to mine, cool with dripping liquid and then drop the mined regolith down when door open.

 

5 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

Why petroleum? Water has higher heat capacity and since you're using it to cool solar panels, you don't need it to stay liquid above 100C.

I don't remember miner range, but if yours are overlapping, you could add mesh tiles above your miners, then they would never be covered with regolith and so wouldn't need to be cooled as much.

If all your planets are scanned, you can move the telescope underground.

I took it since it was "around". Water may be good too but may evaporate when the miners are covered in regolith.

As for miners - they will still need cooling as they heat when they mine.

 

Here is the setup with closed doors:

 

[tzionut]

The only objection is dupe required for collecting and disposal of regolith and the petroleum cooling part. And for cooling you can use many sort of liquids. From polluted water, to crude oil or more exotic ones like liquid phosphor or even the pesky sulfur in liquid form.  The important part is not to reach damage temperature. 

[Coolthulhu]

6 hours ago, Sturm58 said:

I took it since it was "around". Water may be good too but may evaporate when the miners are covered in regolith.

As for miners - they will still need cooling as they heat when they mine.

If the water evaporates, you don't need to pump it away. It makes it less likely that hot liquid drops on the panels below.

They do need cooling, but much less of it, since most heat comes not from mining but from direct contact with regolith. A hot stack of regolith can easily overheat a steel miner that it buries. Mesh tiles above miners guarantee they will never get buried and will only need dissipation of the "work heat", not regolith heat.

Though it does invert when you get thermium miners - those are cooled by regolith enough and regolith will cool them enough that they don't need separate cooling if allowed to be buried once in a while.

[Sturm58]

4 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

If the water evaporates, you don't need to pump it away. It makes it less likely that hot liquid drops on the panels below.

They do need cooling, but much less of it, since most heat comes not from mining but from direct contact with regolith. A hot stack of regolith can easily overheat a steel miner that it buries. Mesh tiles above miners guarantee they will never get buried and will only need dissipation of the "work heat", not regolith heat.

Though it does invert when you get thermium miners - those are cooled by regolith enough and regolith will cool them enough that they don't need separate cooling if allowed to be buried once in a while.

I will rebuild this to work with the mesh like you suggest.

I am also in fact having trouble with petroleum overheating the solar panels on the bottom.

I will test it and drop some notes and screenshots.

[Sturm58]

Updated top layer. Now miners are protected by mesh tiles.

I have also cooled petroleum by running it through ice biome so that solar panels never go over 75C.

Third scanner is for rockets. I may move it later.

[Sturm58]

8 hours ago, melquiades said:

Would dripping liquid on a robominer cool them if they are in space with drywall?

It does but only when the door beneath the miners are closed.

[Sturm58]

Just now, melquiades said:

I am truly sorry, i didn't mean robominers but auto-sweepers, the question would be very silly otherwise ._. It also extends to autoloaders.

If they are near the ground where the liquid is "standing" i think it should although i do not plan to use them here. Dripping itself does not cool anything.

[Radam]

Since mesh tiles leak to space, are you losing any petrolium?

[Sasza22]

9 hours ago, Radam said:

Since mesh tiles leak to space, are you losing any petrolium?

Mesh tiles don`t leak to space. Neither do airflow tiles. It was changed the same time doors got a background but art wasn`t updated.

[Sturm58]

This setup is working pretty well. It's been working for way over 100 cycles with no problems so far. Highly recommended

[Sturm58]

This setup has been working with no issues at all. I generate tons of power this way!

BTW I store excess power in my steam battery during the day ( check link here )