Power-free full tank detector

[Harrygiel]

Hello ONI Community.

As I was looking for some automation idea I though about a footprint friendly (space and energy) wait to detect when my gas tank are full. The use case was simple: My electrolyser couldn't produce anymore oxygen because my batteries were full and my hydrogen generators were idling. I needed a way to use the excess hydrogen, even if the output was lost.

My solution use the gas sensor and the bridge physics to detect excess gas, and vent it in my generators.

PRO:

Don't use energy 

Don't cost a lot of material

Use as less space as possible

Automatic buffer as the "detector pipe" will empty at 50% of the consumption until no gas is found in the gas detector.

CON

-Can't work with multiple gases

-Still some space footprint for pipe

It will stop for some tick and restart later when the "detector pipe" will empty itself it mean that the system will have approximatively 5% downtime even with a continuous flow

 

I wanted to know if anybody had a better solution, or some idea to perfect this blueprint. 

I also wanted to share this blueprint because I couldn't find one doing this with so few footprint. The community is great and as a new player (On the official version at least) I want to help too.

Thx all for reading this, have a good game !

[Sheo]

Not at pc right now, but can descripe my piping easily: Input tank goes to sensor goes to input bridge, output tank goes to output bridge goes to consumer, so if your tank is full the overflow of gas goes to the bridge and stays there (sensor activ) until tank is empty. Connect the sensor to electrolyzer with not gate, so it stops when tank is full.

 

if you use more than one tank: input 1. tank goes to sensor goes to input bridge, 1. tank output to 2. tank input, 2. tank output goes to bridge output.

So first tank input always goes to sensor to bridge input and output last tank always goes to bridge output then to consumer. 

[Saturnus]

I've posted it before but this is my preferred solution.

Top pipe is input. That goes to gas tank first but if it is full it overflows the gas tank input and goes into the gas trap with the sensor.

Since the gas doesn't move in the gas trap the sensor functions normally.

However,

14 hours ago, Harrygiel said:

The use case was simple: My electrolyser couldn't produce anymore oxygen because my batteries were full and my hydrogen generators were idling. I needed a way to use the excess hydrogen, even if the output was lost.

there's a simpler solution that avoids using a gas tank at all. Just burn off all the hydrogen by disabling automation control on the hydrogen generators. That just means less coal or whatever else you're using for power generation will be spent.

Requires a centralized power set up obviosly.

 

[Sheo]

5 hours ago, Saturnus said:

I see a big problem with this setup. If there‘s no incoming gas, but still emptying, it toggles between on / off everytime, even when the tank is full at 99%. 

In generel i have two tanks, one for oxygen to shut electrolyzer off, and one for hydrogen to activate a second hydrogen generator and deactivate coal generators when tank is full.

[Saturnus]

2 minutes ago, Sheo said:

I see a big problem with this setup. If there‘s no incoming gas, but still emptying, it toggles between on / off everytime, even when the tank is full at 99%. 

Not sure what you're on about here. This fulfil your own requirement as stated here

19 hours ago, Harrygiel said:

As I was looking for some automation idea I though about a footprint friendly (space and energy) wait to detect when my gas tank are full.

My simple set up detects if the tank is full as requested. That's all it does.

Add a flow-rate sensor set to for example 200g/s on the output and a memory toggle to get a complete full/empty tank toggle.

Like this:

Full tank sensor as before. Once tank is full memory toggle gets a set signal turning the output (after the NOT gate) red. Once output flow rate falls below what you've set as minimum (usually the maximum continuous consumption) the memory toggle gets a reset signal turning the output (after the NOT gate) green again. Note, the system works as built. No priming needed.

[Gus Smedstad]

@Saturnus‘s input detector solves a problem that’s vexed me a few times in the past. I don’t recall the specific problems I was trying to solve anymore, but I do remember wishing the tanks output a signal when full, like smart storage bins. In each case I wanted the signal to turn off immediately if the buffering container was even 1% less than full, which this does.

I don’t recall ever caring about “buffer tank empty.” But I wonder how you solve that problem (if you care) if the downstream consumption is the full capacity of the pipe. I.e. downstream consumption is 10 kg/s or more.

As for the particular problem of extra hydrogen from an electrolyzer - I’ve always simply run a pipe past the tank input to the hydrogen generators. Once the tank was full extra hydrogen would continue on to be burned.

[avc15]

Here's another one. Just uses a two-bridge demand sensor. (first half of a packet stacker) - but this one only works for single element storage.

(I didn't come up with this) - the red output here says "tank is full" and shuts off the gas pump.

See saturnus' explanation for how to build this.

[Saturnus]

In cases where the buffer tank is used for something that requires dupe labour there is an advantage in the full/empty set up. For example with oil refineries since dupes don't have to run to the oil refinery to fill up a 10kg/s segment of pipe but can work when the petrol tank is empty, and do something else when it's full.

However, for systems that doesn't involves dupe interaction such as in the example in the OP there is no advantage to it as machines in ONI are happy to start and stop constantly.