Polymer Press Cooling

[cupcakex]

How can I cool the Polymer Press in the Oil Biome?  I'm making Plastic in the Oil Biome, but darn thing keeps overheating. How can I keep it below 125 C?

[V Ean]

Use glossy drekos

I never used polymer press

[Neotuck]

never build the polymer press in the oil biome, pump the oil/petroleum out so you can build it in a temperature controlled room were you can drip water directly on it to keep it cool

also building a polymer press in an ice biome is a temp solution, just be sure you keep a pump below it to drip the melted ice back on the machine

[Emeal]

Hello Cupcake. Since you have plastic, you should be able to make a Steam Turbine / Aqua Tuner Loop.
You can run a liquid set to about dupe friendly (green) temperature around them, use radiant pipes and perhaps a temp shift plate to get the heat into your loop and then run it back to Aqua Tuner. This is a good efficient method.
  

[Neotuck]

10 minutes ago, Emeal said:

nice cooling loop, but remember the polymer press does leak steam which will turn into water on the floor, be sure to be prepared for that

[Gurgel]

The easiest approach is to a) place it somewhere where it is relatively cool and b) put it into 10kg/tile of water or so! The press has really bad thermal contact to the ground it stands on and the water fixes that. At the same time, it does not actually create a lot of heat. You can also cool it with the petroleum used to feed it, simply place it on some metal tiles and pipe the petroleum through them using radiant pipes. Do not forget the water for thermal contact on top. Requires petroleum at 90C or below to work well.

 

[SamLogan]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Oxygennotincluded/comments/iwv8m9/no_mess_polymer_press/

[SharraShimada]

You could also move your press to a colder biome. Its not needed to be near the oil. Thats what pipes are for.

[TheMule]

You can build it with steel: 

 

[Argelle]

Hi, I'm Argelle, and I'm an ONI addict.

I managed to get sober for a year but....

:sob:

Anyhow, the game is still great, even nicer, polished, etc... but.

It looks like there is no alternative to the steam/AT system

Watching recent videos* (69 minutes long) to get the take home message:

* early game : get some ice

* mid game... err... build away from base into a cold biome ?

* end game : the good old steam engine/AT/cooling loop.

It feels inbalanced, 2 cooling ways, and tons of power solutions, a zoo of animals, so many great machineries...

 

* don't get me wrong, I recomend this well put video !

 

[Yunru]

You can always throw away your hot stuff to space. 

With all the vents, geysers and volcanoes, you shouldn't have to worry about running out of stuff to vent. 

[Saturnus]

On 10/4/2020 at 4:01 PM, Neotuck said:

never build the polymer press in the oil biome, pump the oil/petroleum out so you can build it in a temperature controlled room were you can drip water directly on it to keep it cool

also building a polymer press in an ice biome is a temp solution, just be sure you keep a pump below it to drip the melted ice back on the machine

There are other ways

Such as the self-cooled (if input petroleum is below 102C), steam deleting, and plastic teleporting set up for example.

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 10/11/2020 at 2:12 AM, Argelle said:

It looks like there is no alternative to the steam/AT system

There are lots of alternatives.  For example, you can run an AT in a pool of PW to cool your generators, then filter the PW and turn it into oxygen and hydrogen.  Or you can use space materials to build an AT and run it in a pool of lead and use the hot lead to refine crude into Petrol.

Or you can skip the AT route and use up some massive real estate building a counter-current heat exchanger.  Maybe throw some escher falls in there to keep stuff moving.

Optimize your base so that a few wheezewarts and an anti-entropy machine will handle your cooling needs.

 

Yes, the aquatuner and the steam turbine pair really well.  Yes, you can build and use them effectively before you've gone to space.  No, they aren't your only alternative for controlling heat.  Be creative!

On 10/11/2020 at 3:03 AM, Saturnus said:

There are other ways

Such as the self-cooled (if input petroleum is below 102C), steam deleting, and plastic teleporting set up for example.

Now that's creative! I like it.

On 10/11/2020 at 2:12 AM, Argelle said:

Watching recent videos* (69 minutes long) to get the take home message:

* early game : get some ice

* mid game... err... build away from base into a cold biome ?

* end game : the good old steam engine/AT/cooling loop.

It feels inbalanced, 2 cooling ways, and tons of power solutions, a zoo of animals, so many great machineries...

Early game: Build your hot buildings to the sides or top of your biome.  The rest of your starting biome will stay a nice good temperature for hundreds of cycles that way.

Mid game: Cold biomes are useful, but they're not the only solution.  Typically I use ice biomes for growing stuff that really likes to be cold -- like sleet wheat.  Less work to get the temps into the right range.  For controlling thermal stuff mid-game, I generally continue my trend of building hot stuff to the sides or above whatever I want to stay cool.  Generally using an aquatuner cooling loop in a pool of water, then running my oxygen through the pool before cycling into my base will keep things a nice temperature without any other work.  If you don't want to pair the AT with a turbine, then put the AT in a large pool of polluted water in the slime biome.  Have the output PW from your generators dump into the pool, and pull out of the pool near the AT to run your electrolyzers.  You can get another couple hundred cycles of cooling this way -- as long as you're not trying to cool stuff that doesn't need to be cooled.

End Game: Steam turbines and ATs are nice, but they're "Easy" mode.  End game you can get really creative.  You've got access to space materials by this point, so put them to use and use the AT move heat into, say, molten aluminum.  You can do some really fun stuff that way.  The reason "everyone" uses Steam Turbines and ATs in the videos is because its a quick, easy solution to a problem almost everyone has: too much heat in your base.  I say "almost" because there are maps out there with the opposite problem.. Try a frozen-core rhyme with glaciers, for example, and you'll be begging for some extra heat.

[TheMule]

8 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

Steam turbines and ATs are nice, but they're "Easy" mode.

A little more than that. They are the only way to turn heat into something useful, power. There are a lot of cool ways to delete heat, but it's kind of a waste. Of course at endgame you probably have more power than you can make use of, so I guess that doesn't matter. 
 

[KittenIsAGeek]

3 hours ago, TheMule said:

They are the only way to turn heat into something useful, power.

I disagree.  You can turn heat into power in a number of different methods.  For example, boiling crude into petrol turns heat into fuel for a generator.  You can build one using counter-current heat exchangers and zero ATs or Steam Turbines.

Will ATs and Steam Turbines make it easier? Most definitely.  But they aren't a requirement in the process.

[Urist McPilot]

On 10/11/2020 at 10:12 AM, Argelle said:

It looks like there is no alternative to the steam/AT system

The more I think about why this is not true, the more I like the challenge of building a base without AT and/or ST (or at least ruling out their combination). My current asteroid looks like the ideal place to try it, as it doesn't seem to provide any help to make plastic  

[ExEvolution]

Industrial Sauna

Build an insulated room with a double liquid lock

Place steel versions of any heat generating buildings inside

Place steam turbines on top

Thermo Sensor for the steam turbines, enable if temperature is above the melting point of plastic minus 5 degrees

[TheMule]

5 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

For example, boiling crude into petrol turns heat into fuel for a generator.

A bit stretched... what's giving you power is the oil you extract. It doesn't scale much with heat. I mean, if you build a 10 kg/s boiler that uses 100 kDTU/s it's not like that if you suddenly have 300 kDTU/s you can triple the energy output of the boiler...

Maybe a better example would be a regolith melter, but it's way too situational to be considered a generic heat to power converter, mostly because it's quite convoluted to use  "generic" heat (the one moved by an AT) in a regolith melter. And anyway, once you have a contraption that processes all your regolith, you can't just add more heat from an AT to get more power. 

The ST is the only device that converts heat into power. The others are just ways to use some heat in a power related build.

[KittenIsAGeek]

I'm not saying to "power the boiler with the crude you extract."  I'm saying that you can shuffle heat around your base until you have it in a useful form.  For example, your smelter produces a LOT of heat.  You _could_ pipe the output through an aquatuner cooled by a steam turbine.. or you could use the heat to boil crude into petrol.

I'm also not saying that you can build a 10kg/s crude to NG boiler using entirely passive means -- though that would be awesome.  I'm just saying that you don't have to dump your heat into a steam turbine, and you don't have to use an aquatuner.  They are the simple answer, and they do pair well, but I've had entire colonies that never used either one at any point.

2 hours ago, TheMule said:

The ST is the only device that converts heat into power.

Slight amendment: The Steam Turbine is the only device that turns heat directly into power.  You can turn heat into power in a number of different ways, you just need a couple more steps. 

[ExEvolution]

Yeah, there are even several ways to multiply the energy in something for very little energy, essentially creating a lot of energy out of very little

For example, regolith with a heat capacity of 0.2 melts into magma at 1409 degrees which then has a heat capacity of 1, meaning that you have multiplied the heat energy by 5 by melting it, then when it cools down, instead of cooling back into regolith, it cools into igneous rock which still has a heat capacity of 1.

 

You can then extract the heat from the magma/igneous rock via a steam turbine

[TheMule]

8 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

I'm not saying to "power the boiler with the crude you extract."  I'm saying that you can shuffle heat around your base until you have it in a useful form.  For example, your smelter produces a LOT of heat.  You _could_ pipe the output through an aquatuner cooled by a steam turbine.. or you could use the heat to boil crude into petrol.

First, I'd never do that. Piping a refinery output through an AT is a big no-no. You just replace the AT with radiant pipes, to the same effect.

8 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

I'm also not saying that you can build a 10kg/s crude to NG boiler using entirely passive means -- though that would be awesome.  I'm just saying that you don't have to dump your heat into a steam turbine, and you don't have to use an aquatuner.  They are the simple answer, and they do pair well, but I've had entire colonies that never used either one at any point.

Slight amendment: The Steam Turbine is the only device that turns heat directly into power.  You can turn heat into power in a number of different ways, you just need a couple more steps. 

Still, no. There are many ways to use heat. I'm not denying that.

What I'm saying is that if you have a working boiler, adding heat doesn't change the amount of power you get. The boiler doesn't turn heat into power, directly or indirectly. It just uses some amount of heat. The only thing you can do is to lower the efficiency of the heat exchanger, to make the boiler use (waste) more heat in the process. The amount of petroleum you get is exactly the same, tho, once you have enough to boil all the oil. So you're not turning the extra heat into extra power.

Actually, the boiler doesn't even use the heat at all. The heat is still there, in the petroleum that comes out of it. Efficient boilers just output petroleum at a temperature closer to that of the input.

If you replace oil with petroleum as the input what you get is a device that moves heat from the source to the petroleum. As far as heat is concerned, it's the same thing as a radiant pipe (well, if we forget for a second the slight difference in SHC between oil and petroleum).

I've made petroleum boilers w/o any external source of heat. Counterflow exchanger and the last phase is a thermium AT w supercoolant that cools down the petroleum before it leaves the boiler. That heat is used to cook more oil. Zero heat sources (well, excluding one pump).

So, some boilers may use heat as an external heat source, but even if they do, they just move heat around, and they don't turn it into power.

Another example? You can use heat to cook raw eggs. That doesn't mean you're turning heat into food. It means you're using heat to cook food. Once you have enough heat to do the job, adding more doesn't produce more food, hence you're not turning heat into food. 

I stand by what I've said before: there are ways to use heat in power-related processes. It's not the same as turning heat into power.

There are ways to destroy heat, ways to use it for something else (w/o destroying it), but only one way to convert heat into power.
 

 

 

[Yunru]

12 minutes ago, TheMule said:

First, I'd never do that. Piping a refinery output through an AT is a big no-no. You just replace the AT with radiant pipes, to the same effect.

Still, no. There are many ways to use heat. I'm not denying that.

What I'm saying is that if you have a working boiler, adding heat doesn't change the amount of power you get. The boiler doesn't turn heat into power, directly or indirectly. It just uses some amount of heat. The only thing you can do is to lower the efficiency of the heat exchanger, to make the boiler use (waste) more heat in the process. The amount of petroleum you get is exactly the same, tho, once you have enough to boil all the oil. So you're not turning the extra heat into extra power.

Actually, the boiler doesn't even use the heat at all. The heat is still there, in the petroleum that comes out of it. Efficient boilers just output petroleum at a temperature closer to that of the input.

If you replace oil with petroleum as the input what you get is a device that moves heat from the source to the petroleum. As far as heat is concerned, it's the same thing as a radiant pipe (well, if we forget for a second the slight difference in SHC between oil and petroleum).

I've made petroleum boilers w/o any external source of heat. Counterflow exchanger and the last phase is a thermium AT w supercoolant that cools down the petroleum before it leaves the boiler. That heat is used to cook more oil. Zero heat sources (well, excluding one pump).

So, some boilers may use heat as an external heat source, but even if they do, they just move heat around, and they don't turn it into power.

Another example? You can use heat to cook raw eggs. That doesn't mean you're turning heat into food. It means you're using heat to cook food. Once you have enough heat to do the job, adding more doesn't produce more food, hence you're not turning heat into food. 

I stand by what I've said before: there are ways to use heat in power-related processes. It's not the same as turning heat into power.

There are ways to destroy heat, ways to use it for something else (w/o destroying it), but only one way to convert heat into power.
 

 

 

All of that ignores that to get heat you (typically) use power. So lowering the amount of heat that needs to be added (by adding it from other sources) is a net power positive.

[TheMule]

1 minute ago, Yunru said:

All of that ignores that to get heat you (typically) use power. So lowering the amount of heat that needs to be added (by adding it from other sources) is a net power positive.

I think you're mixing heat with temperature. The AT doesn't create heat. It collects and concentrates it. What you get is higher temperature. And of course, if you have already concentrated heat, good for you. Still you're not turning heat into power, just using temperature to cause a "phase" change of sort. After the process, the heat is still there. It just moved to the petroleum.

For the process what you need is high temperature. Actually, the less heat you use, the better. @mathmanicantheorized a boiler that uses flacking. The amount of heat involved is minimal. 

Let's see if I can explain it differently. Whether you have 1000t of 400C rock or 100000t of it, you can't "convert" the heat into power via a boiler. It's temperature you need, not heat.
And if you have 1000t of 1500C rock ot 100000t of it, (now the temperature is right) still it doesn't matter because the amount of petroleum you can produce is limited by the oil you have. You're not producing power from the heat, power comes from the fuel, and fuel is limited. 1000t of igneous rock at 1500C (well magna) can boil a lot of oil in a properly made boiler. And you can't just use more heat to get more power.

Needless to say, using turbines you get 100x the energy in both cases. 100x the heat, 100x the energy.

Frankly I'm having trouble understanding what's the matter here. It's very clear to me what it means to convert heat into electrical energy: the amount of heat determines the amount of energy. Just using heat in other processes (like to produce fuel) is not the same. It's not a matter of of steps. Burning fuel for energy is a completely different thing. The energy comes from the fuel. The fact you may have used high temperature to produce the fuel is not relevant. The fact that you can minimize the heat required to maintain said temperature is a proof that it's not heat you're using to get the power.

[Yunru]

1 minute ago, TheMule said:

Frankly I'm having trouble understanding what's the matter here. It's very clear to me what it means to convert heat into electrical energy

That definition is the matter.

If using the heat saves on electricity, that's a net power gain.

Therefore, that's converting heat into energy for any practical purposes.

[TheMule]

3 hours ago, Yunru said:

That definition is the matter.

If using the heat saves on electricity, that's a net power gain.

Therefore, that's converting heat into energy for any practical purposes.

Once again, temperature is not heat. The two are somehow related, but not the same thing.

Like I wrote, you can have a huge amount of heat in the form of 10000t of 300C rock, but it won't save you from running an AT to concentrate it and get the right temperature in a boiler. Add another 10000t of 300C rock, double the heat, nothing changes.

Likewise, you can have a (relatively) small amount of heat in the form of 1t of 1000C rock, and you won't need any power to run the boiler (well its core, ignoring the pumps), for a long time.

It's not heat that saves power. It's whether you have the right temperature already available or not.

Temperature is not heat. It's related to heat flow, yes. Not the same thing either.

Another proof? A petroleum boiler does not consume heat. It just moves it. Actually if we consider the difference in SHC, it produces heat. How can a device that's supposed to convert something into something else not consume it? If you consider the boiler/generator combo, it's crude oil that's consumed. The generators themselves may be heat negative, heat neutral or heat positive, and that doesn't affect their power production at all.

Please don't mix the concepts of temperature, heat flow, and heat itself. A steam turbine takes heat and converts it into power. First there's a certain amount of heat, then there's less heat and there's electrical energy. The amount of heat changes. A boiler doesn't change the amount of heat. It just use its natural flow (caused by temperature) for its purposes. Temperature (which we need a certain level of) and heat flow (that we're trying to minimize, because it's actually a bad thing in boiler, generically speaking) is what matters in a boiler. SHC differences nonwithstanding, the amount of heat stays the same.