My super compact auto-vacuum airlock design

[Storm Engineer]

I thought I share the design I'm using across my colony when I want thermally insulated airlocks. (It also decreases gas mixing a bit, but for that you still want a water lock)

Same design oriented left and right:

You want the pressure plate on the outside of the thermally insulated area so that the other airlock is surrounded by insulated tiles on top and bottom, and vacuum on the side.

 

Automation settings:

Weight plate: Activate if Below 100 kg
Buffer gate: 11 s
Filter gate: 10 s

 

How it works:

The weight of the airlock is above 100 kg, however, when it opens (for duplicants to pass) its weight becomes 0, activating the plate. Because the Buffer gate bridges the XOR gate, it's still inactive.

When the duplicant has passed and door closes, the plate switches off, the Buffer gate's timer starts and now the XOR gate's condition is met, and that starts the timer on the Filter gate. The Buffer gate keeps the XOR gate on for now.

Since the Buffer gate has a timer 1 second longer than the Filter, the Filter will be active for a second before deactivating, causing the middle mechanized airlock to close and destroy any gas in thee, creating vacuum. I tried using less than one second but sometimes due to lag that didn't close the door. 1 second seems to be stable.

As the 1 second passes the circuit resets and the mechanized airlock opens up again. (Actually the mechanized airlock takes more than 1 seconds to close when it's un-powered, but as soon as it's closed it opens right back.)

 

Sooo what's so special about this vacuum airlock?

Thanks to the XOR gate, if another duplicant passes through while the countdown is on, it will reset the countdown, so it won't close until nobody passes through for 10 seconds. It won't slow your dupes during high traffic. Also, this prevents the circuit from locking up if a dupe stops right on top of the weight plate, since the actual trigger is the weight of the closed airlock above the plate. Even if they were to drop something on the plate that weights more than 100 kg, that will simply trigger the cycle once. In theory this would prevent it from firing off again until the debris is cleared, however as the airlock above the plate closes it pushes the debris aside.

Let me know what you think.

[Yoma_Nosme]

The problem with this kind if system is that when the door locks up for a second it can/ will cancel dupe's chore...it's never a problem for the first dupe that passes. Since its unlocked....but then it closes up and another dupe that was planning to go there as well gets confused and sticks a finger up his nose...

[Storm Engineer]

Hmmm true. But I never really noticed, because mostly use these for places where there are huge heat differences, so that means cooler and geyser rooms, where they very rarely go once they are built.

My main base exists use waterlocks with insulated tiles around the water which is far from perfect in insulation but is a perfect gas seal and doesn't obstruct movement.

[psusi]

Why not close the middle door first to push the gas out instead of destroying it?

[Storm Engineer]

5 hours ago, psusi said:

Why not close the middle door first to push the gas out instead of destroying it?

That would make the automation significantly more complicated: first close the middle door, then open up the side door, then close it again, and only then open the middle back up.

I would need to use at least two mechanized airlocks instead of one, the automation footprint would be double at least, maybe more, and the whole process would take longer as well.

So the question is, is it worth the hassle only to save a little bit of gas?