De-germed water in Reservoir has germs when pumped out

[Kyraleese]

So I've played around both in sandbox and not with making a germ cleaning system.  I pump water from the lavatories and sinks into a reservoir in a chlorine-filled room with a water lock.

I've got the reservoir automated such that just before the dupes use the restroom for the day, it dumps the treated water out.  It only empties for 5% of the time, and holds the polluted water at least 90% of a cycle.

As I watch the water in the tank, the germs drop quickly down to where the interface for the reservoir shows no germs, just polluted water.

And yet, when it pumps out (often at least half a cycle after it shows no germs) it is FULL of food poisoning germs.  


This seems like a bug.  Anyone else experience this?

[Yoma_Nosme]

There's probably some water left inside some piece of pipe that does not get disinfected...only water in storage does that..

Some screenshot would help

[Mutineer]

I know only 2 reservoirs automatic system that can completely disinfect water.

[Gus Smedstad]

It's almost certainly infected water in the pipes. That's why I don't currently attempt disinfection systems until I've got plastics for germ sensors, so I can catch and recycle the stuff caught in the pipes. If you're using shutoff valves, you've got a minimum 2-pipe segment between the output of the reservoir and the shutoff valve that will be full of germy water.

The main solution I know to this problem is to mount  your reservoirs over airlock doors. Opening the airlock door marks the reservoir as invalid. Oddly enough, while invalid it will still accept water, it just won't output any. It turns the reservoir into a shutoff valve.

I have a personal, aesthetic aversion to using this property of reservoirs, which is why I wait for germ sensors.

[Red Shark]

The Liquid Reservoir has an input pipe and an output pipe. If you want to prevent liquid from passing straight through the reservoir (unfortunately the reservoir itself isn't automatable), the most intuitive way to do this is with a shutoff.

HOWEVER, there are two pipe segments between the reservoir and the shutoff (as Gus mentioned, above) -- so if you are relying on a shutoff to prevent the liquid from leaving the reservoir, you need to loop the water so that it has a chance to cleanse itself in the reservoir.

I use this simple loop to cleanse my water of germs. (Mesh tiles are optional)

The left clock sensor is set for 30% starting at 0, the right clock sensor is set for 30% starting from 65%. Germs are cleaned after approximately 120 seconds, so this setup gives them an extra minute of cleaning to ensure, even with the loop, everything is clean.

[Gus Smedstad]

54 minutes ago, Red Shark said:

 If you want to prevent liquid from passing straight through the reservoir (unfortunate that this isn't automatable),

Actually, you can, through the mechanic I mentioned before. I think of Neotuck's design as being the archetype for this type of solution.

Door-under-reservoir setups look like this (not my image):

These work by "turning off' the reservoir. It continues to accept liquid, but won't output it, so nothing goes into the pipes.

I think your work-around using shutoffs is interesting, but it's worth noting that it will fail if the system has under 110kg of water in it, because all of the water will be circulating in the pipes. None of it ever stays in the reservoir, so it doesn't get disinfected.

 

[DemainaNyx]

You can clean germs out of water without using any automation at all.  You just need at least 3 reservoirs in a chain to ensure that they have enough time to clean.  I like to make it a few more just in case, but 3 has been the most I've needed.  I send this clean water to my pitcher pump, bathroom (it's part of the loop so I just send it back to them), and plants.

I can't remember who but someone made a post where they used a pipe bridge to loop the water from the last reservoir to the first one to create a loop so that water only left the system when new water was added so it requires no power or automation to run.  Really nice to set up early into your base and just let it sit there until you get the chlorine later.  I don't bother with the loop part but it works nicely if you want to control when water leaves the decontamination chamber.

Edit: Found it.

 

[Steve8]

You can see the infected pipes in the germ overlay. When I finally get plastics for germ sensors I deconstruct those and mop up the spillage