Heat deletion

[Frustrated]

I'm trying to build a heat deletion box.  I've got all the necessary mechanics except for the proper quantity of water in the aquatuner chamber.  How much do I need to fill it with and do I have to vacuum the chamber out?  I currently have about 440kg per tile.

 

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[Bzhydack]

57 minutes ago, Frustrated said:

I'm trying to build a heat deletion box.  I've got all the necessary mechanics except for the proper quantity of water in the aquatuner chamber.  How much do I need to fill it with and do I have to vacuum the chamber out?  I currently have about 440kg per tile.

 

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Yes, you need to vacuum the chamber. If you dont do this, Oxygen will block Turbine Input tiles and Turbine will not work. You have enough water, normaly you want around 100 kg of Steam per tile but exact amount basicly doesnt matter. Also, I would rather build Steam Chamber 2 tiles high, instead of 3 tiles - then you can use 2 types of Waters to fill it, and dont need to vacuum it. But dont use Polluted Water - it will offgas Polluted Oxygen.

[BaZERGer]

Should be able to do it with significantly less water, and if you need to add more after the fact, you can just pump it in through the pipe from the turbine. My rule is generally just to add enough, so that the output constantly outputs the max amount it can, i think i start with 100-200kg for the entire chamber, more water is mostly just relevant as a heat buffer, like to handle a volcano for it's entire eruption cycle, without melting buildings and tiles.

Might want to avoid walling in the turbine though, won't be able to tune it up that way. And since you're building a cooling device, you should have a source of cooling nearby, to keep the turbine temperature down anyway.

The joint plate to the boiling chamber will be an issue, if it's not connecting to a vacuum on the other side. Looks like a regular one, so i don't suppose it's some kind of insulated variant from a mod. And if the aquatuner is made out of gold amalgam, it'll likely overheat once the water turns to steam, though putting a second liquid in the chamber, like oil, can help avoid it.

I also add a couple of tempshift plates in the middle of the boiling chamber, can especially be relevant if you end up with a gold amalgam aquatuner, and you need to get the heat from the liquid at the bottom transferred to the steam, will force the minimum height of 3 in the chamber though.

[Frustrated]

I'm actively cooling the turbine with pH2O and using steel for the aquatuner.  I don't have any better coolants.  Basically, what I'm gathering is I just need to vacuum and that's it.  It should work correctly.

 

EDIT:  Also, I'm using pH2O as the coolant for the rest of the colony that I'm running through the aquatuner.  Again, I don't have anything better yet.  Crude oil is still some ways off for me.

Edited March 2 by Frustrated

[BaZERGer]

I don't vacuum the turbine, just the boiling chamber, i leave the turbine out in an open room, since it's getting cooled anyway. Sealing it in means you can't do the engine tune-ups on it.

You can leave it as you want, doesn't harm anything, like some of the other things might, just means you'll be running a larger power deficit on the cooling, once you get microchips, by not being able to have the turbine tuned.

Crude oil wasn't for coolant by the way, the purpose of it would be to have something in the boiling chamber that doesn't change from liquid, which is especially relevant if you have a gold amalgam aquatuner, since gold amalgam has a very low thermal conductivity, and gas has a slower exchange rate with buildings than liquids. Oil can be relatively easy to get, can usually just mob it up from the ground in the oil biomes, and if you can't get access to oil, it's probably easier to just make steel.

Also, if you're not using a steel aquatuner, a thermo sensor inside the chamber might be needed, so you don't let it overheat.

[Frustrated]

I was only planning on vacuuming the lower chamber anyway.  In terms of the turbine...there isn't a whole lot of space for a Power Control Station anyway, even though I have access to it.  The aquatuner is actually drawing its power from a pair of hydrogen generators (since I'm still running a massive surplus of H2 from my hydra) and I built it out of steel anyway and I'm using a pipe temp sensor.  Here's the plumbing overlay for the box:

 

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[BaZERGer]

I think they removed the power control station requirement for power plant, or perhaps it was never required, and they just fixed the description. It just says 2 or more power buildings now. Category of power building fortunately has some compact options, smallest seems to be the basic battery.

You might might have it in the plans already to deal with the joint plate to the chamber, i usually do that after the boiling chamber myself as well, gets a bit inconvenient when you forget that it's a heat leakage from the chamber.

[Frustrated]

I'm not terribly worried about heat leakage in this case.  The box is outside my colony in a caustic biome.  In terms of the PCS, I meant that I don't *physically* have room for it.  It's a big building and there's a room filled with water and pH2O right above it.

[Gurgel]

I usually just fill in 200kg for all, i.e. 20kg per tile (I do it 2 tiles high). It is pretty non-critical though. 

[Frustrated]

That actually does remind me.  I am starting to come to point where I will have far too *much* water and oxygen.  Between the cool slush geyser, the salt water geyser, the water geyser, the two natural gas vents I've found so far, I'm going to need to find places to put it all 😛

Edited March 4 by Frustrated

[Zarquan]

On 3/1/2026 at 3:26 PM, Frustrated said:

I'm trying to build a heat deletion box.  I've got all the necessary mechanics except for the proper quantity of water in the aquatuner chamber.  How much do I need to fill it with and do I have to vacuum the chamber out?  I currently have about 440kg per tile.

 

  Hide contents

 

You do need to vacuum out the room.  You have enough water, but I see other problems.

You also don't want that shift-plate there unless the room outside is a vacuum.  It will conduct the heat from the scalding hot room and in to the area you are trying to cool.  To resolve this, I would use conductive wire to power the aquatuner or introduce a double liquid lock made out of crude oil, petroleum, or naphtha.

[Frustrated]

The heat deletion box itself is far outside of my colony.  I'm still working my way down to the oil biome, but I should have some crude relatively soon.  I'm not rushing anything and I'm making sure to think ahead to the next potential crisis I might have.  For example, I've noticed that, for quite a few cycles now, I've been running so much of a food surplus that much of it is rotting, so I've built a dehydrator and I'm planning on dehydrating all of my gristle berries so I can shift my farm plots to arbor trees and thimble reeds (I produce more than enough sleet bread to feed everyone).

[Zarquan]

50 minutes ago, Frustrated said:

The heat deletion box itself is far outside of my colony.  I'm still working my way down to the oil biome, but I should have some crude relatively soon.  I'm not rushing anything and I'm making sure to think ahead to the next potential crisis I might have.  For example, I've noticed that, for quite a few cycles now, I've been running so much of a food surplus that much of it is rotting, so I've built a dehydrator and I'm planning on dehydrating all of my gristle berries so I can shift my farm plots to arbor trees and thimble reeds (I produce more than enough sleet bread to feed everyone).

You can get naphtha without going to the oil biome by melting plastic. 

But you could use a double joint with a vacuum in between.  Basically, you have a little room with 2 joint plates, one in to the steam room and one to the outside.  Then you have a vacuum in that room.  If you make it 3 tiles, then you can put a mini-gas pump in to create the vacuum.  Something like the link below.

To vacuum out the room, I recommend building a liquid lock in to the room out of water on the outside, then build a gas pump to clear the room of oxygen.  Then you can brick off the room when it is a vacuum and activate the aquatuner.  Assuming you have everything piped right, it should be fine. 

Edited March 5 by Zarquan

[Frustrated]

I'm having issues with too much volume backing up the active cooling pipes, but the real issue is that I'm trying to build an offshoot that will cool the area where I have my kiln.

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The problem is that when I connect the pipe, all of the water on either side of the connection backflows into the new pipe

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I do not understand why.

[myxal]

Don't branch cooling loops. Just cut the pipe going past the T-junction: 

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Then as the liquid packets leave, cut off the unused segment at the bridge too.

 

45 minutes ago, Frustrated said:

I do not understand why.

Liquid flows from green to white.