piping Pipes blocked in cooling loop

[Shmobi]

So i've setup a cooling loop arround a hot water geyser to produce clean water at base friendly temperatures. But occasionally after a couple of cycles running just fine, the pipes suddenly block. Since i don't understand the games liquid plubing mechanics 100% yet, im not sure why sometimes the block occurs.

It's a basic self cooling steam turbine heat deletion setup with a aquatuner cooling loop. Clean water is provided by a liquid pump at 95°C, hooked onto the cooling cycle via a bridge. This might be what causes the issue. Tho from what i understand, the liquid bridge should have lesser priority than the aquatuner and therefore not be able to overfill the pipes if there is liquid looping. Here is my setup in the blocked state.

The thermo sensor in the steam room is set to turn the aquatuner off if the steam reaches 135°C to allow self cooling. The pipe thermo sensor is set to enable the liquid shutoff and let water through, if the water in the pipes reaches below 30°C.

 

[Saturnus]

From discord standard replies:

[Shmobi]

 @Saturnus I understand how bypassing works. However, that's not my question. Without any explanation on how the info you provided helps with my problem your post doesn't help me.I need to know why my loop fills up to the point where it becomes blocked.

[Saturnus]

7 minutes ago, Shmobi said:

 @Saturnus I understand how bypassing works. However, that's not my question. Without any explanation on how the info you provided helps with my problem your post doesn't help me.I need to know why my loop fills up to the point where it becomes blocked.

You don't have a bypass... or more specifically a double bridge bypass.

In your set up if at any point the AT is off even for a second, while the thermosensor doesn't detect a blob below 30C the loop will stop permanently.

Most people ditch the lqiuid shut off as it's not needed as the AT itself can act like a shut off. See for example my post here:
 

 

[Shmobi]

19 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

You don't have a bypass... or more specifically a double bridge bypass.

In your set up if at any point the AT is of even for a second, while the thermosensor doesn't detect a blob below 30C the loop will stop permanently.

Thanks, makes sense now. Tho i fiddled arround with it a bit and since i moved my bridge one tile further ahead in the loop i am not running into the blocking issue anymore either. Tho i doubt it fixes the problem, more likely decreases the chance of it occuring somehow, to the point where it might never happen.

[Saturnus]

7 minutes ago, Shmobi said:

Thanks, makes sense now. Tho i fiddled arround with it a bit and since i moved my bridge one tile further ahead in the loop i am not running into the blocking issue anymore either. Tho i doubt it fixes the problem, more likely decreases the chance of it occuring somehow, to the point where it might never happen.

It doesn't solve your issue as I explained because if the AT stops at any point, for any reason, then it'll be blocked again.

And since you have a self-cooling set up the AT needs to stop at least 60% of the time.

[Shmobi]

4 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

It doesn't solve your issue as I explained because if the AT stops at any point, for any reason, then it'll be blocked again.

 

I can disable the AT for a slong as i want and then enable it again. The loop continues to run with the bridge placement i posted above. Feel free to give it a try. I am supprised about this, since your explanation makes sense and seems correct.

EDIT: It solves the issue, because the placement of the bridge causes the first pipe segment to be empty if the AT is turned off and therefore the AT has an empty output slot whenever it reenables.

[Saturnus]

1 minute ago, Shmobi said:

I can disable the AT for a slong as i want and then enable it again. The loop continues to run with the bridge placement i posted above. Feel free to give it a try. I am supprised about this, since your explanation makes sense and seems correct.

As I explained above, and maybe should have repeated in the second post, it's if the AT turns off and the thermosensor doesn't detect a package below the threshold it stops.

[Shmobi]

See my edit to the previous post @Saturnus

[QuantumPion]

One bridge can be sufficient, as long as the loop is filled while the AT is off and the filling bridge is disconnected before turning it on. This will leave a 1 pipe gap in the loop while it is running. If you want to have no gaps whether the AT is running or not, you need two bridges.

[psusi]

How is that setup ever supposed to get blocked?  There are two segments of pipe between the AT output and the bridge.  The only way water can get in there is when the AT puts it there.  Every time the AT does output a packet of water, it takes one on the input side.  So the first time it is switched on, both pipe segments are empty, so the output can go into the first segment.  The input pulls a packet from the loop, making room for the bridge to add another ( since the second segment was empty ).  Then the output in the first segment moves to the second and makes room for another output.  Now that the second segment is full, it will have priority to move around the loop to the input and blocks the bridge from adding more.

The only way this can get blocked is if the AT somehow outputs a packet without taking any input.

[Gurgel]

Also, as a side-note: a double-bridge bypass is not needed. In fact, I never use one. A single bridge works, although with possibly a bit of lost efficiency and you may need to make sure your aquatuner does not run 100%. Otherwise fluid trapped in the bypass may heat up too much (not an issue with super-coolant, but one with water). I just stop the aquatuner for 5 seconds/cycle to prevent that and flush the bypass circuit once per cycle.

The important thing to remember is: Bridge into pipe - Pipe goes first, bridge out of pipe - bridge goes first.

A bridge is a sucker, but not a pusher

[Shmobi]

On 8/11/2021 at 8:59 PM, Saturnus said:

You don't have a bypass... or more specifically a double bridge bypass.

In your set up if at any point the AT is off even for a second, while the thermosensor doesn't detect a blob below 30C the loop will stop permanently.

Most people ditch the lqiuid shut off as it's not needed as the AT itself can act like a shut off. See for example my post here:
 

 

I require the Liquid shutoff because of the temp-sensor i use to turn off the AT to enable self-cooling for the steam turbine.

56 minutes ago, psusi said:

How is that setup ever supposed to get blocked?  There are two segments of pipe between the AT output and the bridge.  The only way water can get in there is when the AT puts it there.  Every time the AT does output a packet of water, it takes one on the input side.  So the first time it is switched on, both pipe segments are empty, so the output can go into the first segment.  The input pulls a packet from the loop, making room for the bridge to add another ( since the second segment was empty ).  Then the output in the first segment moves to the second and makes room for another output.  Now that the second segment is full, it will have priority to move around the loop to the input and blocks the bridge from adding more.

The only way this can get blocked is if the AT somehow outputs a packet without taking any input.

The setup i posted on the very top did get blocked as the others mentioned correctly, when the AT was off and the liquid thermo sensor didn't let liquid flow out. The second one i posted with the moved brigdge doesn't block anymore. Perhaps you looked at that one?

[psusi]

5 hours ago, Shmobi said:

The setup i posted on the very top did get blocked as the others mentioned correctly, when the AT was off and the liquid thermo sensor didn't let liquid flow out. The second one i posted with the moved brigdge doesn't block anymore. Perhaps you looked at that one?

Yes, I was talking about the second one.  The first one getting blocked makes sense to me, but not the second one, yet @Saturnus seems to think it will.  He's usually right, but if he is in this case, I'd like to understand why.

[icuurd12b42]

if there is any liquid at the output side of the bridge, the bridge will be "pipe blocked" and will not allow things to get through no matter how little the amount of liquid present there where a normal pipe would merge content... the bridge define the direction of the flow and is useful to uses to top up empty pipe "cells" in a cooling loop from an outside line into the loop without blocking the actual loop by accidently overflowing it... like a normal pipe would.

[Saturnus]

21 hours ago, Shmobi said:

I require the Liquid shutoff because of the temp-sensor i use to turn off the AT to enable self-cooling for the steam turbine.

Adding a single AND gate will sort that out, and save you the power and complications of the shut off valve.

[Sheo]

For a loop (continually flow) you need one tile of empty pipe, if your AT stops for a second the bridge filled this gap. By moving the bridge one tile further it isn‘t on this empty one so it cant fill it up, thats why the second one works. Easy ONI mechanics.