Automatised metal refinery ... without metal refinery.

[Gouflax]

Hello,

I share with you my new setup : an automatised refinery that use heat to change metal ore into refined metal.

 

Dimensions of the setup : 27 x 12

My goal was to make a setup that don't need a dupe to work.

Here is the heat values for each transformation :
IRON ORE ==> 1534.85°C ==> IRON

COPPER ORE ==> 1083.85°C ==> COPPER

GOLD AMALGAM OR ==> 1063.85°C ==> GOLD

 

 

Here is the approximatives production values :

GOLD : 3000 kg / cycle
COPPER : 2000 kg / cycle
IRON : 800 kg / cycle

As comparision, a dupe on a refinery produce between 1100 and 1200 kg of refined metal per cycle.
The setup is less productive for iron, but don't need a dupe to work.

The setup is not autonomous in electricity (only at 85%). Sometimes, it will need extra power from the main circuit. The smart battery activate the transformer when needed.



This setup has a main disadventage : you can't mix the metals in the melting room. If you do, the fastest melting metal will reactivated the restock button, then the slowest melting metal will accumulate inside the door, and will finally melt in a chaotic way.



Here is the save file :

Raffinerie 8.sav
 

[degr]

Is it possible to "switch" it from gold to iron or vice versa? Or melted metal will stuck near button?

From my opinion it is useless, because it is too expensive on early stages of game, and on late stages of game I have no enough ore

Spoiler

 

[Hokaeru]

It is a neat setup
Indeed does not seem very useful for survival, but still nice to tinker around those things. 

[Saturnus]

Very nice build. Ignore the haters.

I'd probably work on a more efficient stepped heat exchanger but that's about it.

[Gouflax]

@degr
You can switch from a metal to another, you just can't mix all of them at the same time.

Funny meme, btw

[Emeal]

Metal refinery is already 100 to 100 no? Klei has made a mistake here.
We SHOULD be encouraging refineries like these and make the building refinery work like 100 KG ore to 80 KG refined Metal.

Same with Raw Egg to Omelette, Why not encourage an Egg Cooker contraption too? Klei you missed an opportunity here.

[Saturnus]

Thinking about this a bit more. It seems obvious that given the SHC of the refined metals and ores are the same (almost), and the quantity is the same then there's really no reason that you couldn't make a counterflow heat exchanger that would basically do all the work for you.

We could take inspiration from regolith melters but instead of going for maximum throughput we could throttle the rails to make a very small but very efficient counter flow heat exchanger.

In that case I can easily see a case for building this, even relatively early in the game. Or at least long before you've cleared the map. Just have bins with a cache of ores and send the rest to be melted into refined ore automatically. Especially iron since that saves you a dupe labour step in mass steel production for space.

[Yunru]

1 hour ago, Emeal said:

Same with Raw Egg to Omelette, Why not encourage an Egg Cooker contraption too? Klei you missed an opportunity here.

They already do: an automated omeletter requires no dupe interaction. 

[Emeal]

46 minutes ago, Yunru said:

They already do: an automated omeletter requires no dupe interaction. 

No I mean, making it a desirable resource efficient, not just getting rid of dupe labour.
Its so easy to be swimming in free workforce, So I think it should be MORE valuable.

[ghkbrew]

5 hours ago, Saturnus said:

Thinking about this a bit more. It seems obvious that given the SHC of the refined metals and ores are the same (almost), and the quantity is the same then there's really no reason that you couldn't make a counterflow heat exchanger that would basically do all the work for you.

We could take inspiration from regolith melters but instead of going for maximum throughput we could throttle the rails to make a very small but very efficient counter flow heat exchanger.

In that case I can easily see a case for building this, even relatively early in the game. Or at least long before you've cleared the map. Just have bins with a cache of ores and send the rest to be melted into refined ore automatically. Especially iron since that saves you a dupe labour step in mass steel production for space.

I've been playing around with doing this for rust -> iron conversion.  That seems more worthwhile to me than regular ore -> metal conversions.  It's really hard to beat, power positive refining at 2.5kg/s in a 3x4 tile machine, even with the dupe labor cost.

The problem I've run into is that making the contraption efficient takes a massive heat exchanger, because of the low TC of rust (4) and huge delta T (~1500C). I've yet to come up with a design I'm happy with. 

[RageLeague]

The end goal here is automate everything and lay off all your dupes so they can live in postmodern space luxury neo-marxism. Setting up no dupe contraptions like this one helps you achieve that goal.

[DimaB77]

That's a great idea! Here's my version: