Cooling Loop Automation Issue...

[RiftZM]

So, I built a pair of Aquatuners around a Cool Steam Vent with 2 Steam Turbines above.  The first Aquatuner is working fine; it's circulating polluted water through my power generation area, keeping 6 Coal Generators, 4 Natural Gas Generators, and 2 Petroleum Generators at about 45°F (~7°C).  Perfect.  However, the second one I have running into my Metal Refiner.  The polluted water is returning to my Aquatuner at about 180°F (~82°C).  This is because the initial water I pumped into the Metal Refiner was ~80°F (~26°C) and I'm making Steel.

The issue I'm having is trying to keep circulating the polluted water until it cools down enough to head back to the metal refiner.  I have one Liquid Pipe Thermo Sensor right in front of the Aquatuner intake to prevent the polluted water from getting too cold and freezing, using the same loop as the first Aquatuner.  The problem is, I can't seem to get the water to keep looping back through the Aquatuner until it's a temperature I want.  I tried using another Liquid Pipe Thermo Sensor to send the polluted water back around if it's too hot.  However, I don't know how to properly send it back for it to loop, since I have no way to attach another automation wire to the Sensor.  I feel like if I attached the automation wire to the Aquatuner (which already has one equipped), it'll cause issues.  So, I tried using a Liquid Shutoff and attached an automation wire to it.  I was under the impression that if the water was too hot, the Liquid Shutoff would stop the water from flowing further, and the water would then loop back around; it does loop back around, but then it just sits there at the Aquatuner intake, and the whole thing is now just stuck sitting there.  A side note, I'm still pretty new to the game.  Sorry if the pipes are a mess.  I kept building and deconstructing over and over again before I finally just gave up.

[Knurek]

Hi. You probably should use insulated pipes inside the room with aquatuners, so the cooled polluted water doesn't get heated back up. If your pipes are clogging maybe try putting a liquid reservoir in the loop to hold excess water if there is any. 

Also you should not split the pipes at the thermo sensor before the shutoff and it looks like your shutoff's input and output are connected, which they should not be. Let the water run through the sensor, then into the shutoff's input and then let it go back to the left when the shutoff is closed. The same with the aquatuners, don't split the pipe at the thermo sensor.

Here are some basics: 

 

[sakura_sk]

5 hours ago, RiftZM said:

the second one I have running into my Metal Refiner. 

First mistake: you don't try to cool the coolant of the metal refinery using an aquatuner. If you need a couple of batches of steel, make it using colder water/polluted water until you can't pass it again without boiling it and then dump it in a pool for later use. Metal refinery heats liquid too much for an aquatuner to handle. The best solution is to use oil or petroleum on the metal refinery and pass these pipes from a steam room to cool the liquid using a steam turbine.

Then there is a problem with your loop because it's not a loop. The sensor is on a T junction that lets liquid go one right one up and not always through the aquatuner. Same for the sensor before the shutoff. The liquid will chose one direction in turn regardless of the sensor.

  

And lastly, the way you have built the piping, doesn't help. There should be only insulated pipes in the "heated area", otherwise you are heating the liquid you try to get cooler. "Cold area" is should probably somewhere else and not directly below the aquatuners but it would be colder than the steam box the aquatuners create and as I mentioned I wouldn't recommend cooling the liquid from metal refinery.

[goboking]

7 hours ago, sakura_sk said:

Metal refinery heats liquid too much for an aquatuner to handle.

Gold amalgam being an exception, IIRC.

[RiftZM]

16 hours ago, sakura_sk said:

If you need a couple of batches of steel, make it using colder water/polluted water until you can't pass it again without boiling it and then dump it in a pool for later use. Metal refinery heats liquid too much for an aquatuner to handle.

Thank you all for the replies!

I do have a Cool Slush Geyser that I've dug around and haven't made use of yet.  I'll use that for the Metal Refiner for a few batches, and offload it somewhere.

Also, not sure why I used regular Granite pipes inside the steam turbine area.  Initially I did use Igneous Rock Insulated Pipes, but I think with me just building and deconstructing over and over I wasn't paying attention while just trying to get it to work, lol.

I'm gonna read over that piping guide and probably just redo the whole thing.  Again, thank you!

[blakemw]

On 2/1/2024 at 8:15 AM, sakura_sk said:

If you need a couple of batches of steel, make it using colder water/polluted water until you can't pass it again without boiling it and then dump it in a pool for later use.

Even better than dumping it, use cool normal water, send it to a Liquid Reservoir, ideally near the Super Computer, then once the reservoir is full deconstruct it so the dupes will feed the bottled water into the Super Computer. If you were going to use that cool water for research anyway then it is a great solution.

[psusi]

4 hours ago, blakemw said:

Even better than dumping it, use cool normal water, send it to a Liquid Reservoir, ideally near the Super Computer, then once the reservoir is full deconstruct it so the dupes will feed the bottled water into the Super Computer. If you were going to use that cool water for research anyway then it is a great solution.

Unfortunately dupes be dupes and find the closest water to them when they get the job, so they often still bring cold water over instead of using the hot water right there.

[blakemw]

2 hours ago, psusi said:

Unfortunately dupes be dupes and find the closest water to them when they get the job, so they often still bring cold water over instead of using the hot water right there.

Yeah, they won't always grab the pre-bottled water, but provided it's not just really far away relative to the pitcher pump they'll often end up grabbing it. Over the course of the game the Super Computer will consume over a hundred tons of water so even if dupes only haphazardly grab from a few 5t bottles of hot water it'll still easily all get consumed.

[Knurek]

There's always an option of limiting the researcher's access so he can only grab hot water