Does electrolyzer + Hydrogen Generator still work well in automation upgrade?

[QuQuasar]

This is the system I use. Looks to be based on a similar design to Urist McKerman's:

 

I haven't really optimized it: the structure could 1 or 2 tiles shorter, but I like the way it looks at this height and the extra buffer between the oxygen and my hydrogen pump gives me a warm feeling of superstitious safety.

 

Once it's started it's entirely self-sustaining, and provides a small power profit.

 

Probably the most important thing is the way you connect the oxygen pipes: don't just run a single pipe through them both, or only one of them will work (this applies to all liquid and gas producing buildings, by the way).

[Terzsian]

Hey, @QuQuasar!

My setup is basically the same, but as compact as possible.

You don't need any additional space or sensor.

The gases will never mix, the electrolyzer will never fall into the "Max Gas Pressure" negative state and H2 production is constant.

The system produces cca. 500 kg O2/cycle, and a 100 KJ power surplus/cycle.

Unfortunately, my previous test was flawed (an other electrolyzer was running amok form time to time during the test), meaning that it is not possible to produce more oxygen with an electrolyzer than cca. 500 kg/cycle on a constant rate, which is 833.33 g/s instead of 888 g/s as stated in the description of the electrolyzer.

I don't know if this is on purpose or not, but it is due to an unknown RNG (?) factor which causes the electrolyzer to use 666.7 g/s water instead of 1000 g/s from time to time without any apparent reason. I could not find anything in correlation with this random change and there is no indication on the electrolyzers info page (see picture).

This is the most efficient setup currently. Door pumps cannot be used to improve power efficiency, because their throughput of O2 is not great enough (i.e. cannot get enough O2 away from the electrolyzer to constantly mitigate the "Max Gas Pressure" state). In this regard my findings are that this negative trait can be excluded if no tile around the electrolyzer has more gas than cca. 900-1000 g. This is quite odd and cannot be measured exactly, but this approach leads to the most reliable setups, as far as gas pressure is concerned.

I hope I could help someone :D.

Cheers,

T

[The Flying Fox]

To be honest, trying to get the maximum efficiency out of the electrolyzer is... not as good as getting the maximum efficiency out of your pumps.  The electrolyzer consumes 120 watts of power, but the air pumps consume 240 watts each and, since the electrolyzer can only produce 800+ G/s of oxygen, that must mean that the two bottom pumps are pumping less then 500G/s each of oxygen while running full speed since they have no sensors attached to them.

 

You can further control the power usage of the electrolyzers by having pressure sensors on them as well.  Mine are set to below 1000 grams so they only run in lower pressures and thus tend to work more in the 666.6 G/s or 1000 G/s range then the 333.3 G/s range.  If I need more air, I just build more units.

 

In case anyone is curious still, here is the upgrade from my older electrolyzer setup.  Designed to be modular and to fit in-between the spacing I prefer to use for vertical ladders.