My attempt at oxygen cooling

[CasualRaz]

Hello one and all, I'm CasualRaz a semi-longtime lurker on the oxygen Reddit/forums, always checking out builds/ideas to use in my base. Today I've been working on an easy way to cool down a self powering electrolyzer setup which is normally difficult due to its tiny nature of the build. Its close to impossible to drip water on the system so here's my take on cooling it down.

heres a link to the album https://imgur.com/a/1x9JW . 

Here is the main overview of the two setups, the top is the normal setup of a single electrolyzer although I did add a chamber for future cooling. the top chamber quicker hits its working temp from outputting gas at 70oC, flooding the top base with top oxygen. The lower test is dumping the heat into the oil chamber with shift plates and bridges to shift the heat into the medium. The mini pump is setup to return the fluid to its balancing chamber if it reaches 15oC (although you can change as you like).

The Oil is supplied from a pump that sends the oil to an aqua tuner (with a split and liquid cutoff depending on if the oil needs more cooling) the oil flows up even if the aqua tuner is off (standard bypass but using a cutoff) Oil flow is stopped using vent pressure plugging :). In a normal base the extra tiles that are located over the oil chamber are unneeded and just an oversight to keeping the two rooms thermally isolated. all insulated pipes/tiles are abyssalite

Here's the heat overlay for the two rooms, the setup is abit rushed and could use some cleaning but it still works like a charm even if it is abit late game for needing plastic for the mini pump to save space.

Automation Overlay, not much to say here. the doors on the right lead to void and open when pressure hits 1000g, mainly to simulate a dupe or two, it destroys some heat from the test but its the same for both rooms, (well the top room has better heat loss due to air flow in this case but still overheats)

A close up for your inspection

And a final revised (cleaned up abit ) (I had trouble getting the Oil to stay within the airflow tiles on the main experiment.)

 

I like this system as its very modular so all you have to do is connect into a oil cooling system and it doesn't require much extra space to do an amazing job without the need to pump gases to a cooling system then back out and yes I did have it set abit cold (15c in this case) when I first built it it was set at 5c and super cold O2 was rushing out. maybe someone can find a use for that considering oil can go to -40oC. let me know your ideas and such on this probably over engineered madness   CasualRaz away!

[UpsOrandajin]

Very nice! I myself tend to shove heat creators in the lowest right part of my base and build an insulated wheezewort room above it, with some metal tiles to transfer the cold. Not the most clever setup but it works for me, heh.

[mickaux]

My first thought: "why not just wheezeworts above the electrolizer?" But adjusting the temperature to your needs this way is actually really cool. Two questions: How long, more or less, does it take to cool down? And does it require constant cooling from the aquatuner? I'm using mine to kill germs in polluted water, but as I'm using mainly germless polluted water from natgas generators, it's not so efficient. Having something different, yet useful to cool down would be nice - and I'd finally find some use for liquid shutoffs and build some kind of intersystem automation. It'll be a good evening.

[Cilya]

I have just one question, why do you use Crude Oil and not another higher heat capacity liquid ?

[CasualRaz]

12 hours ago, mickaux said:

My first thought: "why not just wheezeworts above the electrolizer?" But adjusting the temperature to your needs this way is actually really cool. Two questions: How long, more or less, does it take to cool down? And does it require constant cooling from the aquatuner? I'm using mine to kill germs in polluted water, but as I'm using mainly germless polluted water from natgas generators, it's not so efficient. Having something different, yet useful to cool down would be nice - and I'd finally find some use for liquid shutoffs and build some kind of intersystem automation. It'll be a good evening.

I've been playing around with the setup some more tonight and even found a more power efficient way of returning the coolant to the balancing chamber, in the new setup the aqua tuner barely runs and I'm pretty sure the first system was the same ( but need to retest it to be sure ). it's true that wheezeworts with doors to control airflow/temp would be simpler but I do love engineering something, especially since they added oil

8 hours ago, Cilya said:

I have just one question, why do you use Crude Oil and not another higher heat capacity liquid ?

I've loved crude oil since they added it in the oil preview, it was insane with its lack of freezing point but even how with a -40oC freezing point its still insanely useful, I believe you could use water for this setup and I'm going to try it tomorrow but I'm unsure of how it will react within the chamber (it requires more energy to heat it up but has less conductivity compared to oil, it could be the thermal shift plates remove that hurdle but I've not tried it yet. As for polluted water... I've never liked it hanging around in odd places :). one of the amazing bonus to the cooling chamber is the 1000kg per tile of coolant, unlike a normal gas/liquid radiator I would use (1kg or 10kg per tile) meaning it takes forever for the machine your cooling to heat up the coolant regardless its oil water or something more awesome like LOX, You just have to be willing to allow a liquid its freedom.

[Cilya]

5 hours ago, CasualRaz said:

I've loved crude oil since they added it in the oil preview, it was insane with its lack of freezing point but even how with a -40oC freezing point its still insanely useful, I believe you could use water for this setup and I'm going to try it tomorrow but I'm unsure of how it will react within the chamber (it requires more energy to heat it up but has less conductivity compared to oil, it could be the thermal shift plates remove that hurdle but I've not tried it yet. As for polluted water... I've never liked it hanging around in odd places :).

I share your disgust for polluted water. That's probably why I don't like have it as a coolant either. Like I believe the aquatuner might clog if fed with polluted water. But since they reduced the heat capacity of oil, clean water seems to remain better. And you are cooling air in a temperature range at which both water and oil are liquid.

I think there are other possibilities though, which might be interesting for an engineering point of view. It might be interesting here to have a primary and secondary input system.

[CasualRaz]

Finally got the build/guide video sorted, with a shorter follow up video with final changes coming later
 

 

[CasualRaz]

And the Final(ish) Short version