How to manifold fertilizer PW pipes?

[chemie]

I have CO2 scrubber flow and a single PW pump flow.  I have the CO2 going to one group and PW to a second (which I would prefer not to do; PW pump is bottom three rows) but even then, the PW starts and stops on each tick for each T-intersection.

I tried multiple inputs to inlet of bridge and same of outlets to no avail. (You can see a few bridges on the CO2 feed line that really did not help)

 

What is best way to configure a manifold for continuous liquid feed to a large set of consumption machines?

 

http://imgur.com/3zwljea

[brummbar7]

36 minutes ago, chemie said:

What is best way to configure a manifold for continuous liquid feed to a large set of consumption machines?

For the bottom 3 rows, I think if you instead branched out 3 ways from the first intersection, that might do it evenly.  Right now I think your first line gets 50% of the water, and the second and third lines 25% each?

[chemie]

35 minutes ago, brummbar7 said:

For the bottom 3 rows, I think if you instead branched out 3 ways from the first intersection, that might do it evenly.  Right now I think your first line gets 50% of the water, and the second and third lines 25% each?

Not sure what you mean by branching three ways; I kind am am already.  Can you show an example?

[Whispershade]

Basically, at each T intersection it trades off going in one or the other direction.  You would need to create a fourway T in the middle to give each of the 3 paths equal priority. Another option is to apply valves to restrict flow to only what the line could consume.

If you have enough polluted water, you can just saturate the line and it'll back up once the Fert Makers top off at about 450kg of PW storage, eventually all the lines and makers will be full and operational.

[brummbar7]

7 minutes ago, chemie said:

Not sure what you mean by branching three ways; I kind am am already.  Can you show an example?

The intersection I circled in red is the one you want to make 3-way (well, 4-way including the supply leg).   Delete the section with red scribbles, add a pipe in the green line location.  I think then it should properly alternate each of the 3 supply lines equally.  Is this section really supplied by the pump though?  I think a pump should supply more than enough water to fill up the entirety of all 3 sections regardless of the intersection order. 17x150g = 2,250 g/s second, a pump should supply 10,000 g/s.  It would make more sense if these sections were being supplied by your scrubber.

[chemie]

3 minutes ago, brummbar7 said:

The intersection I circled in red is the one you want to make 3-way (well, 4-way including the supply leg).   Delete the section with red scribbles, add a pipe in the green line location.  I think then it should properly alternate each of the 3 supply lines equally.  Is this section really supplied by the pump though?  I think a pump should supply more than enough water to fill up the entirety of all 3 sections regardless of the intersection order. 17x150g = 2,250 g/s second, a pump should supply 10,000 g/s.  It would make more sense if these sections were being supplied by your scrubber.

I don;t know why, but the pump flow keeps stopping and starting as the liquid hits each intersection.  It also likes to go backwards.  I originally tried to have all the flow go in single loop but that backed up even more (even though the math says flow is fine).

 

So if I put all flow down a single line, (at very top of picture), how do I branch off all the flows to each floor?

[brummbar7]

No idea on packet waffling.  Have you tried restarting the game?  That seems to fix many weird otherwise inexplicable bugs.

[Whispershade]

It sounds like there might be output confusion somewhere on the line. Can you post a view of the whole path?

You can just drag images to the bottom of the post and click on them to post them. No need to use another site.

[chemie]

So I repiped the original way to show the issue I was trying to fix.  The CO2 scrubbers back up and the flow does not go all the way down even though the demand is there.

and if I move the pump further down to prevent the scrubers from backing up, I get reverse flow right where the pump flow joins in.

[brummbar7]

Oh, well if that's your original layout, part of the problem will be that you're trying to pump 14kg of liquid (10kg pump +4x1kg scrubbers) into pipes that will only hold 10kg.  But that doesn't really explain the waffling I think.  Your second layout was definitely more problematic as you had consumers in each direction from the pump, which is bad and will cause waffling.  It looks to me like the first layout should have worked, albeit with packet combining inefficiencies perhaps, and yes it would back up your scrubbers.

[chemie]

2 minutes ago, brummbar7 said:

Oh, well if that's your original layout, part of the problem will be that you're trying to pump 14kg of liquid (10kg pump +4x1kg scrubbers) into pipes that will only hold 10kg.  But that doesn't really explain the waffling I think.  Your second layout was definitely more problematic as you had consumers in each direction from the pump, which is bad and will cause waffling.  It looks to me like the first layout should have worked, albeit with packet combining inefficiencies perhaps, and yes it would back up your scrubbers.

So is there way way to combine without running scrubbers and pump separate?

Or do I put the right number of fertilizers on the CO2 scrubbers and the rest on the pump and try your suggested junction.  I am not sure how to junction if I run more than 3 rows though.

In hind sight, I guess I should go more horizontal and less vertical?

[Kasuha]

There's no need to feed your makers evenly. In my opinion it's actually better to give them clear priority, which one is first, which is second, etc. Then the number of running makers will be proporitional to the feed and there will be at most one switching on and off with the feed fluctuations. And if there will be more water available than what they can process, the feeding pipe will fill up.

I would merge the two pipes into one using one or two pipe bridges, then I'd run single pipe around all makers with bridges making a priority branch to each of them, something like this:

Notice, polluted water from scrubbers has priority, pump only adds up if the pipe is not full. If the scrubbers provide too much, there's some buffer that will keep filling while the pump is blocked, and when that fills up, the excess goes to the vent. The pump will only start pumping again when the buffer gets empty.

 

[chemie]

2 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

There's no need to feed your makers evenly. In my opinion it's actually better to give them clear priority, which one is first, which is second, etc. Then the number of running makers will be proporitional to the feed and there will be at most one switching on and off with the feed fluctuations. And if there will be more water available than what they can process, the feeding pipe will fill up.

I would merge the two pipes into one using one or two pipe bridges, then I'd run single pipe around all makers with bridges making a priority branch to each of them, something like this:

Notice, polluted water from scrubbers has priority, pump only adds up if the pipe is not full. If the scrubbers provide too much, there's some buffer that will keep filling while the pump is blocked, and when that fills up, the excess goes to the vent. The pump will only start pumping again when the buffer gets empty.

 

What is purpose of the bridge above the scrubbers?

[Risu]

3 minutes ago, chemie said:

What is purpose of the bridge above the scrubbers?

Removes T intersections. Everything is added directly to the pipe.
 

[brummbar7]

5 minutes ago, chemie said:

So is there way way to combine without running scrubbers and pump separate?

Yes, liquid bridges will combine packets at the output (green arrow). So to use your screenshot:

The green arcs are pipe bridges.  The rightmost scurbber is the first supplier, so it does not need a bridge.  Bridges will combine the packets at the output, with the water packets already in the trunk line.  Rather than forcing the trunk line to wait while a side packet moves in, and neither of them is a full 10kg.  The idea is after all your suppliers input their water, every pipe section is carrying as much water as it can, based on size (10kg) and supply. So without bridges that section of trunk by your scrubbers will be full of non-optimal 1kg packets.  With bridges, after the fourth scrubber it will be full of 4kg packets, and after the pump, full 10kg packets (and the pump will idle some).  

Now in practice you'll want to split your scrubbers onto a separate line because you can't fit 14kg of pw into water pipes - they only hold 10kg.  So put your most consistent supply (PW pump, or scrubbers) on the fertilizer makers closest to your gas pumps.  That way you have the best chance of always having gas near them.  whichever supply is more intermittent, put it to the fertilizer makers farthest from your pumps.

[Whispershade]

7 minutes ago, brummbar7 said:

Yes, liquid bridges will combine packets at the output (green arrow). So to use your screenshot:

 

Actually, I noticed in the update that merging happens even with a standard T intersection, but of course a bridge allows for better control. Notice the dots coming from the scrubbers are getting bigger from right to left. Moving the bridge on the lower portion would probably solve most of chemie's issues, though. Giving the scrubbers complete priority and topping off the pipe from the pump feed line.  He'd save pumping power as it would probably operate only half the time. (But would probably lose some efficiency on liquid moves per joule.)

[brummbar7]

4 minutes ago, Whispershade said:

Actually, I noticed in the update that merging happens even with a standard T intersection

Ah, had not paid attention to that.  That would have been worthy of an update bullet point.   It's true, if he's not using all that natgas, he could have all supplies on the same line.   But, separating them now would future-proof it.  Maybe throttle the pump line with a valve so he could use as much as desired.

[chemie]

 

deleted

 

[chemie]

33 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

There's no need to feed your makers evenly. In my opinion it's actually better to give them clear priority, which one is first, which is second, etc. Then the number of running makers will be proporitional to the feed and there will be at most one switching on and off with the feed fluctuations. And if there will be more water available than what they can process, the feeding pipe will fill up.

I would merge the two pipes into one using one or two pipe bridges, then I'd run single pipe around all makers with bridges making a priority branch to each of them, something like this:

Notice, polluted water from scrubbers has priority, pump only adds up if the pipe is not full. If the scrubbers provide too much, there's some buffer that will keep filling while the pump is blocked, and when that fills up, the excess goes to the vent. The pump will only start pumping again when the buffer gets empty.

 

This is outstanding.  I learned two things.

I did not know you could have an "overflow" config like on the bridge from the scrubbers and I did not know you could put an "inflow" to the outlet of the second pump bridge.  This was the tip I needed to combine flows.

 

here is my retro fit and it works well.

[Whispershade]

2 minutes ago, brummbar7 said:

Ah, had not paid attention to that.  That would have been worthy of an update bullet point.   It's true, if he's not using all that natgas, he could have all supplies on the same line.   But, separating them now would future-proof it.  Maybe throttle the pump line with a valve so he could use as much as desired.

It was a bullet point in one of the updates, but it was very obscure. And a single 10kg pump can handle 66 fertilizer makers at once (take abit to fill them all, though), I think that's beyond what most bases can support now.

[Risu]

4 minutes ago, brummbar7 said:

That would have been worthy of an update bullet point.

Quote

Pipes should better handle T-junctions where one branch of the T is not requesting anything to be pumped
 

 

[Whispershade]

Looks really good chemie. I'm prone to snake pipes like that too. The only thing I would add is that you are fine snaking the pipe straight through the input. It serves as effectively as using the bridges to hook up the line.

[Kasuha]

1 minute ago, Risu said:

Pipes should better handle T-junctions where one branch of the T is not requesting anything to be pumped

I interpreted that as that there will not be packets interleaved with nothing when two pipes from pumps are merged but one is not pumping.

[chemie]

1 minute ago, Whispershade said:

Looks really good chemie. I'm prone to snake pipes like that too. The only thing I would add is that you are fine snaking the pipe straight through the input. It serves as effectively as using the bridges to hook up the line.

straight through the input of the fertilizer?

I try to avoid that as in the past it seemed to mess things up

[Whispershade]

3 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

I interpreted that as that there will not be packets interleaved with nothing when two pipes from pumps are merged but one is not pumping.

That is how I interpreted it as well. But I actually think I've had interleave issues after that.  And I by chance noticed a standard T junction merge packets and just assumed that's what the note meant.