How to make a gas crusher

[CaRat]

I needed to make a gas crusher with the doors and automation but I has no idea can someone send a pic of how they did it

[Glassyfo]

26 minutes ago, Webber is bes said:

I needed to make a gas crusher with the doors and automation but I has no idea can someone send a pic of how they did it

Just automate a bunch of doors with buffer gates in sequence and time it so that the first door doesn't open unless the last one is closed.

[CaRat]

Thanks but where did you get the green signal and is there a way to make it to close and open by itself

[abud]

5 minutes ago, Webber is bes said:

Thanks but where ...

Probably better check this old post first.

 

[DemainaNyx]

When you say crusher, do you mean like something that destroys gas or something that just compresses it into a small area?

Both are essentially the same automation, but with a gas destroyer you just build the last door up against a wall whereas with a compressor you leave an area for the gas to collect after the last door.

Here is my automation design that I use for gas compression, but it would work as a destroyer as well by simply building it up against a wall like in the image below.  The left is how you would build it in your base but the right is exploded so it's easier to see where each wire is going.

Everything is default times (2 seconds) except the bottom two.  The filter is set to 8 seconds and the buffer is set to 15 seconds.  Since this is mainly used as a compressor in my base, those times allow for more gas to flow in between the doors before pushing it to the other side.  You can adjust them if you'd like but I know these times work perfectly.

This is an always on system that cycles on it's own.  So if you are destroying gas with it, you will probably want to add something to turn it off at some point so you don't vacuum out your base by accident.  It would take a while, but it's entirely possible.  I would add the switch at the top between the not and the filter gate.  Place an AND gate there with the output heading out left and add a switch or atmosensor or gas element sensor so that it shuts off occasionally.

When building this, it is best to leave a gap in the automation wire between the top filter and the not gate.  So long as one piece of automation wire is in the top input of the not gate, it will open all the doors and leave them open, which is perfect when you are building and don't want to accidentally trap someone.  I normally build the box, then the automation, then the doors.

As a compressor, 4 doors is required.  I designed it so that one door is always closed so no gas/liquid could blow back.

As a gas destroyer though, you only need the 3 doors on the right, so you can make this slightly smaller and save on some materials.

 

Don't be scared by automation.  It takes a bit to learn but if you understand what you need it to do, you can make anything.  Just open a new base with sandbox enabled and experiment.

[L0gicalParad0x]

On 8/4/2019 at 11:25 AM, DemainaNyx said:

When you say crusher, do you mean like something that destroys gas or something that just compresses it into a small area?

Both are essentially the same automation, but with a gas destroyer you just build the last door up against a wall whereas with a compressor you leave an area for the gas to collect after the last door.

Here is my automation design that I use for gas compression, but it would work as a destroyer as well by simply building it up against a wall like in the image below.  The left is how you would build it in your base but the right is exploded so it's easier to see where each wire is going.

Everything is default times (2 seconds) except the bottom two.  The filter is set to 8 seconds and the buffer is set to 15 seconds.  Since this is mainly used as a compressor in my base, those times allow for more gas to flow in between the doors before pushing it to the other side.  You can adjust them if you'd like but I know these times work perfectly.

This is an always on system that cycles on it's own.  So if you are destroying gas with it, you will probably want to add something to turn it off at some point so you don't vacuum out your base by accident.  It would take a while, but it's entirely possible.  I would add the switch at the top between the not and the filter gate.  Place an AND gate there with the output heading out left and add a switch or atmosensor or gas element sensor so that it shuts off occasionally.

When building this, it is best to leave a gap in the automation wire between the top filter and the not gate.  So long as one piece of automation wire is in the top input of the not gate, it will open all the doors and leave them open, which is perfect when you are building and don't want to accidentally trap someone.  I normally build the box, then the automation, then the doors.

As a compressor, 4 doors is required.  I designed it so that one door is always closed so no gas/liquid could blow back.

As a gas destroyer though, you only need the 3 doors on the right, so you can make this slightly smaller and save on some materials.

 

Don't be scared by automation.  It takes a bit to learn but if you understand what you need it to do, you can make anything.  Just open a new base with sandbox enabled and experiment.

This is neat, first off. Couple possibly noob questions though. This appears to be an open air gas compressor. To make it a closed system (to pump gases in or out of), would it be as simple as adding a vent and a gas pump?

[DemainaNyx]

On 9/4/2019 at 5:07 PM, L0gicalParad0x said:

This is neat, first off. Couple possibly noob questions though. This appears to be an open air gas compressor. To make it a closed system (to pump gases in or out of), would it be as simple as adding a vent and a gas pump?

It can work however you want.  Normally if you want a gas crusher though, it's because you have too much gas in an area and pumping it to crush just takes too long.  Door pumps can take an infinite amount of gas in and crush it instantly, while a gas pump can only take in 500g/s.  So if you are dealing with 20kg of Sour gas per tile, an open system can crush 80kg at once.  So, for the OP, I went with the open air design specifically to solve their needs.

 

But yes, if you want it to be a storage tank, all you need to do is add a pump near the not gate, add a vent to the other side, and enclose it.  I use this in my bases as an infinite gas storage system

Spoiler

The pipes are a bit spaghetti but it works.  I run a main pipe line throughout my asteroid and all gases are pumped into it.  Those gases are routed to the filtering pipe, which feeds into this system.  I'm using Mechanically Filters (gas valves in a loop set to 0.1) to sort my gasses for me.  Once sorted they travel down a pipe into that specific gases tank where they hit a vent and get stored where two pumps can be used to extract it later. 

The pipe bridge in the center of the design is not needed but used to to more quickly fill the output pipe and save on power.  Instead of using a pump to bring gas here, emptying into the tank, pumping it up again, and then sending it off I use that bridge in the middle to ensure that the output pipe is filled first before sending extra gas to infinite storage so I can save power. 

Notice that packet of polluted oxygen in the third tank from the top (dark green), since that pipe isn't full, the next packet of polluted oxygen that enters will fill in beside it, unlike the oxygen pipe below it which is completely full that will send new oxygen into the tank.

The compression process isn't fast since these are unpowered doors, but it will eventually work.  If you do power them, you'd have to adjust the automation timing.  Here you can see how the hydrogen and chlorine from the vent haven't been completely compressed yet but the nat gas and oxygen has.  This is part of the reason for that pipe bridge.  If we need a specific gas, we probably need it quickly, so waiting isn't an option.  Thus making sure to fill the output pipe first before dumping into this tank is important because the compression process could take a full cycle to move that one packet, while one pipe bridge moves it instantly.

Two pumps per tank is overkill.  Generally you won't need that much but I wanted to try it this time.  I technically need two power transformers to run this many pumps safely, but I have just been using this so far.  Notice the gap between some of the wire and the vertical wire.  While unconnected right now, I can simply grab some conductive wire and connect these pumps to the wire without a dupe needing to build anything.  If you have two wires (or pipes or automation wire, etc) in neighboring tiles but not connected to each other, you can easily connect them afterwards without a dupe so setting up something that you will need power in later can be simple by doing this.

My original automation design fits nicely in a 4 tile area, but it can also be expanded to run multiple tanks.  Above I knew exactly how many storage tanks I wanted, so I simply used my original design with it's enclosed automation.  In the image below though I wasn't sure how many tank I would run, so I put the filter and buffer above so the door controlling wires could run down indefinitely.  As you can see, the same automation works for both gases and liquids as well, you just need to surround your liquids in airflow tiles or doors otherwise the pressure buildup will break the tiles.

 

I use a little geyser box to gather the gasses from geysers and then redirect that to this storage tank so that my geysers keep producing when they aren't dormant.  I find it easier to move all my gases to one location for use rather than running pipes from a geyser for a specific purpose but do whatever works for you.

Spoiler

After setting up the box, I use the pump to vacuum it out so that only the gas produced by the geyser is left.

I use an inline packet stacker to send groups of full packets out of this system once in a while.  That way my main pipe is only has full packets so it doesn't get backed up as much.  It uses two bridges with a pipe connect the two inputs and the two outputs with a gap between them.  When packets enter this, they will entire the first pipe bridge and immediately jump to the end.  Once the pipe fills enough, the first bridge will be blocked and the gas will enter the second bridge which triggers the system.  

Notice the 3 pipe segments at the bottom, they are important.  You need at least 1 segment between this bridge configuration and the gas shutoff for this to work properly.

We use a Gas Pipe Element Sensor on the input of the second Gas Bridge and set it to whatever gas we are collecting, which is chlorine in this example.  We connect this to a Gas Shutoff so the shutoff only turns on when gas backs up enough.  What this does is ensure that the first few packets in the pipe are full packets.  Once they leave, a half empty packet comes through and empties the second bridge, turning off the system and letting it recharge.  Those 3 segments of pipe at the bottom ensure that no small packets escape.  You need at least 1 segment to work but can have as many as you'd like.

The atmosensor inside is set to ABOVE 600g.  This is just so the pump isn't wasting a ton of energy pumping milligram packets of gas.

Power is simple.  I go with this configuration so that the power outlets are as close as possible.  Doesn't make a big difference but early on running a ton of conductive wire can be costly so I keep them small.  Only the 4 pieces of wire (3 in the box and one leading out) are made of conductive wire initially so that I can close off this room.  The wire leading from my base is just a standard wire to save on materials.  It only gets upgraded if I start running a lot of machines off this line.

The inline packet stacker and mechanical filter take a bit to understand, but they are really nice to use for setups once you get them.  Saturnas has a post showing the inline packet stacker.  And Lifegrow has a nice video explaining what a mechanical filter is and how to get it working.

 

[Loscil2]

Just use the diagonal, liquid bypass. Very cool!

[Ketmol]

Space ..the ultimate gas crusher

Automation needed: zero