Sleet Wheat Farming with Warm Water

[Neotuck]

Most players have a difficult time cooling water to that small temp gap between 0C and 5C for sleet wheat farming.

In my build the water is 30C average yet I maintain -10C temps in the farms

Temperature is controlled by wheezeworts in a hydrogen room with mech doors set to close when temps get warmer than -10C

The area between the oil locks is a vacuum to maintain insulation 

Conveyor rails and sweepers deliver phosphorite and dirt to the farm tiles, and pick up grains to deliver to my dupe's kitchen 

[KittenIsAGeek]

That's a nice looking farm.

[BT_20]

1 How hot can the water be before the farm overheats?

2 Dose the material of the farm tile matter for temp transfer to the plant?

3 Could you use 90c+ water in the farm tile if you had temp shift plates and bridge spam to conduct the cooling ultra fast?

[Satyrical364]

29 minutes ago, BT_20 said:

3 Could you use 90c+ water in the farm tile if you had temp shift plates and bridge spam to conduct the cooling ultra fast?

How does using bridges speed up conduction?

[Neotuck]

3 hours ago, BT_20 said:

1 How hot can the water be before the farm overheats?

I haven't explored how hot it can get but best results are 30C to 40C average.  For warmer temps you'll need more wheezeworts

3 hours ago, BT_20 said:

2 Dose the material of the farm tile matter for temp transfer to the plant?

Given that it's heat of the water vs cooling of the wheezewort, the transfer rate doesn't matter 

3 hours ago, BT_20 said:

3 Could you use 90c+ water in the farm tile if you had temp shift plates and bridge spam to conduct the cooling ultra fast?

No, eventually the hot water will win out in the long run.  You'll need to add extra wheezeworts or use aquatuners to pre-cool the water

3 hours ago, Satyrical364 said:

How does using bridges speed up conduction?

Most likely @BT_20 is referring to conductive wire bridges and they can function like temp shift plates transferring heat between walls, even insulated ones

[BT_20]

@Neotuck My question isn’t about if I there is enough cooling I was wondering if it would be possible to farm sleet wheat with 90c water even if you had a way stronger cooling setup to cool the farm such as a super coolant loop.

sorry if I wasn’t clear at first.

[KittenIsAGeek]

5 minutes ago, BT_20 said:

@Neotuck My question isn’t about if I there is enough cooling I was wondering if it would be possible to farm sleet wheat with 90c water even if you had a way stronger cooling setup to cool the farm such as a super coolant loop.

sorry if I wasn’t clear at first.

Certainly.  You might find it easier just to cool the water first, however.

[BT_20]

Just now, KittenIsAGeek said:

Certainly.  You might find it easier just to cool the water first, however.

I am hoping to just run a large super coolant loop into a mega farm and just not have to bother with direct water cooling.

[KittenIsAGeek]

3 minutes ago, BT_20 said:

I am hoping to just run a large super coolant loop into a mega farm and just not have to bother with direct water cooling.

You can also run your input water parallel to the coolant loop after it leaves your farm but before it reaches your tuners.  Even 4 or 5 segments of counter-current heat exchange can make a difference.

 

[Neotuck]

21 minutes ago, BT_20 said:

@Neotuck My question isn’t about if I there is enough cooling I was wondering if it would be possible to farm sleet wheat with 90c water even if you had a way stronger cooling setup to cool the farm such as a super coolant loop.

sorry if I wasn’t clear at first.

I would say yes then.

after your last question I switched to 95C water piped directly from cool steam vents to test out.

The warming up was slow and it took a few cycles to go from -10C to over 5C but there was a rate of slowing down near the end.

With more wheezeworts (or less sleet wheat farm plots) it's possible 

In my current map (Took the screenshot just a minute ago) I had just finished excavating a large ice biome with a well placed AETN.  I plan to build a massive sleet wheat farm here using both the AETN and wheezeworts.

I'll post more pics when I'm done

 

 

[Zarquan]

You might be able to achieve higher water temperatures at stable farm temperatures if you put valves on the inputs to the hydroponic tiles set to around 33.3 g/s water.  I found that if you limit how much water there is in a hydroponic tile, the more heat gets deleted by the plant and the longer it takes to overheat.  You can have one valve service multiple plants.  For example, if you have 3 plants, you can split it three ways and set the valve to 100 g/s.  With the number of wheezeworts you have, you could probably feed in 90 C water.  With the 3 tiles clearance above, you should be able to add valves without losing any space.

[Neotuck]

51 minutes ago, Zarquan said:

You might be able to achieve higher water temperatures at stable farm temperatures if you put valves on the inputs to the hydroponic tiles set to around 33.3 g/s water.  I found that if you limit how much water there is in a hydroponic tile, the more heat gets deleted by the plant and the longer it takes to overheat.  You can have one valve service multiple plants.  For example, if you have 3 plants, you can split it three ways and set the valve to 100 g/s.  With the number of wheezeworts you have, you could probably feed in 90 C water.  With the 3 tiles clearance above, you should be able to add valves without losing any space.

I had tried this before and tested it

In my test I set up 9 hydroponic farm tiles with growing sleet wheat.  All water was 95C

In the first 3 I had 3 valves set to 33.3g/s.  It barely showed any water in the tank as it was absorbed quickly but didn't give the water much chance to cool down so the hydroponic tile tank had an average of less than 10g at 90C water

In the second 3 I had one valve set to 100g/s  Like the first one it barely showed any water in the tank as it was absorbed quickly HOWEVER there was more water in the tank allowing it to be a buffer.  The water in it's tank had an average of 50g at 70C water

And the last 3 was control getting the full 10kg/s.  While it's true control showed signs of heat as soon as the first packets entered the hydroponic tile, it quickly cooled down.  And with the sleet wheat only absorbing at a rate of 33.3g/s the semi-full tank in the tile became a thermal buffer absorbing the incoming heat. at average the water inside was around 4500g at 40C

In the end all 9 sleet wheats wilted due to heat at the same time

IN CONCLUSION

adding valves makes no difference in rate of cooling by wheezeworts

[Zarquan]

18 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

I had tried this before and tested it

In my test I set up 9 hydroponic farm tiles with growing sleet wheat.  All water was 95C

In the first 3 I had 3 valves set to 33.3g/s.  It barely showed any water in the tank as it was absorbed quickly but didn't give the water much chance to cool down so the hydroponic tile tank had an average of less than 10g at 90C water

In the second 3 I had one valve set to 100g/s  Like the first one it barely showed any water in the tank as it was absorbed quickly HOWEVER there was more water in the tank allowing it to be a buffer.  The water in it's tank had an average of 50g at 70C water

And the last 3 was control getting the full 10kg/s.  While it's true control showed signs of heat as soon as the first packets entered the hydroponic tile, it quickly cooled down.  And with the sleet wheat only absorbing at a rate of 33.3g/s the semi-full tank in the tile became a thermal buffer absorbing the incoming heat. at average the water inside was around 4500g at 40C

In the end all 9 sleet wheats wilted due to heat at the same time

IN CONCLUSION

adding valves makes no difference in rate of cooling by wheezeworts

 

That's weird.  They must have changed something because when I did this test a few months ago, the valve systems lasted much longer than the non-valve system.  I'll have to rerun my tests.

Out of curiosity, what did you make your hydroponic tiles out of?  I make mine out of gold amalgam because if its lower thermal conductivity and specific heat.

[Neotuck]

7 minutes ago, Zarquan said:

Out of curiosity, what did you make your hydroponic tiles out of?  I make mine out of gold amalgam because if its low thermal conductivity and thermal mass.

Steel, but remember this is hot water vs wheezeworts.  I want the heat to transfer out of the hydroponic tiles quickly to be absorbed by the wheezeworts.  I'm not trying to slowdown thermal transfer, I'm trying to speed it up

[Zarquan]

6 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

Steel

But the thermal conductivity and thermal mass isn't the issue, remember this is hot water vs wheezeworts.  I want the heat to transfer out of the hydroponic tiles quickly to be absorbed by the wheezeworts.  I'm not trying to slowdown thermal transfer, I'm trying to speed it up

I think you want to slow down the heat transfer as much as possible.  If the sleetwheat eats 85 C water, then the wheezeworts don't have to cool that water from 85 C to a reasonable temperature.  Instead, all that heat, therefore work for the wheezeworts, would be deleted, so fewer wheezeworts would be required.  This is why my old tests worked (at least, in theory).  Of course, they may have changed something in the physics of liquid consumption to make this not work.

[Neotuck]

Just now, Zarquan said:

I think you want to slow it down.  If the sleetwheat eats 85 C water, then the wheezeworts don't have to cool that water from 85 C to a reasonable temperature.  Instead, all that heat, therefore work for the wheezeworts, would be deleted, so fewer wheezeworts would be required.  Unless, of course, they changed something in the physics.

I'll run some tests trying out the 2 different materials

[Zarquan]

3 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

I'll run some tests trying out the 2 different materials

While you are doing that, could you put insulated pipes on the hydroponic tiles (made out of mafic or igneous rock)?  I'm not sure whether that has an effect, as the liquid doesn't stay in the pipe for very long, but it is one less variable.

[Neotuck]

Just now, Zarquan said:

While you are doing that, could you put insulated pipes on the hydroponic tiles?

I always use ceramic insulated pipes

I didn't take screenshots during my last test so I quickly made one for a visual.  I forgot I to make the pipes insulated for the pic

[psusi]

On 2/4/2020 at 3:34 PM, Neotuck said:

Given that it's heat of the water vs cooling of the wheezewort, the transfer rate doesn't matter 

It does matter because you don't have to take all of the heat out of the water before the plant deletes it.  The slower the transfer rate, the higher the temperature the water sitting in the hydroponic tile will be before it is deleted, and that means less cooling you need from the wheeze warts or other source.  That's exactly why the valve trick damn well should work ( and has been posted on the forums forever ).  Sure, you have a buffer of water in the tile without the valve that will cool the fresh hot water, but it will reach equilibrium somewhere below 95 C and above 5 C ( or whatever the gas in the area is at ), and the higher than point is, the more heat is being spread to the environment that your wheeze warts have to suck up.  With the 33g/s valve the water in the tile will always be at 95 C and be deleted before it can spread that heat.

I used the same trick with my petrol gen running on ethanol.  By using a valve to choke the flow of ethanol so that it is never sitting inside the generator but gets immediately deleted instead, it has less of a chance to spread the heat.

[Neotuck]

15 minutes ago, psusi said:

It does matter because you don't have to take all of the heat out of the water before the plant deletes it.  The slower the transfer rate, the higher the temperature the water sitting in the hydroponic tile will be before it is deleted, and that means less cooling you need from the wheeze warts or other source.  That's exactly why the valve trick damn well should work ( and has been posted on the forums forever ).  Sure, you have a buffer of water in the tile without the valve that will cool the fresh hot water, but it will reach equilibrium somewhere below 95 C and above 5 C ( or whatever the gas in the area is at ), and the higher than point is, the more heat is being spread to the environment that your wheeze warts have to suck up.  With the 33g/s valve the water in the tile will always be at 95 C and be deleted before it can spread that heat.

I used the same trick with my petrol gen running on ethanol.  By using a valve to choke the flow of ethanol so that it is never sitting inside the generator but gets immediately deleted instead, it has less of a chance to spread the heat.

I just said I tested the valve trick.  It made no difference

[Zarquan]

46 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

I just said I tested the valve trick.  It made no difference

Would you mind describing your experiment?  Or posting a save?

One of the important factors in this method is that the hydroponic tiles don't have lots of water in them.  If the hydroponic tiles are full, it is as though the valves aren't there.

[psusi]

1 hour ago, Neotuck said:

I just said I tested the valve trick.  It made no difference

I think you must have made a mistake somewhere unless Klei really fscked something up recently.

 

[Angpaur]

6 hours ago, Neotuck said:

I just said I tested the valve trick.  It made no difference

Then you need to repeat your test.

I just tested if this still works and it is and makes a huge difference. It is a very good idea to limit flow to 33g/s beacuse it slows down heating by 2x. During my test a full tile heated up 2kg oxygen atmosphere around tile and plant by 70C and the plant stopped growing, while same time a limited flow heated it by only 33C and plant was still cold enough to grow for some more time.

I used this method more than year ago for my sleet wheat farm and it required very little cooling. Most of the heat was coming from hot polluted dirt, not water.

[Neotuck]

17 hours ago, Zarquan said:

Would you mind describing your experiment?

 

17 hours ago, psusi said:

I think you must have made a mistake somewhere

 

12 hours ago, Angpaur said:

Then you need to repeat your test.

I'll repeat the test and post it on a new topic with results and pictures

But first thing I have noticed is that using valves is a very DELEGATE balance, if the sleet wheat wilt for any reason (warm temp, lack of dirt, or atmosphere) water will get backed up and the hydroponic tiles will get full rendering the valves pointless

I'm sure there are ways around this like shutting off water allowing the hydroponics to drain or use a plumber.

I'll be back on tonight, thanks every one for their feedback on my farm

[Zarquan]

1 minute ago, Neotuck said:

But first thing I have noticed is that using valves is a very DELEGATE balance, if the sleet wheat wilt for any reason (warm temp, lack of dirt, or atmosphere) water will get backed up and the hydroponic tiles will get full rendering the valves pointless

It is delicate.  I usually provide slightly less than the water they need (33.2 g/s or something like that).  Then, if they ever stifle and build up water, they will eventually run out of water and will return to equilibrium.  Then I overbuild the cooling and use automation to turn it off when needed.  I also have my farmers wear exosuits and use CO2 in the farms to prevent pressure problems.

I also have dedicated farmer dupes who do nothing but tend to their farm, so they will always have dirt. 

I will run an experiment too sometime tonight.