Compact Chiller v2 for base cooling

[Gurgel]

As people keep asking about cooling, and as I found some nice information and designs here by others, I thought I would share my current chiller design, especially as the latest updates allowed me to get rid of the pesky problem of liquid freezing in pipes. I am sure this can still be optimized, but it is easy to build and use and works well as it is now.

Characteristics:

•  Aimed at constant temperature for base cooling
•  Cooling power: max 48kW using 4 Wheezeworts
•  Scalability to 6WW @ 5C water, 8WW @ 25C water (not fully tested)

Design:
WWs are in H2 under >10kg pressure. H2 is pumped out at one end of room with WWs, piped through water with radiant gas pipes and put in again at other end of room. Thermal sensor in water provides regulation.

Use for base cooling:
For things with small heat generation (e.g. batteries, transformers, hamster-wheels) just pump water past them with  2...4 Granite (!) pipes. For large heat sources (Electrolyzer, Generators) use radiant liquid pipes next to them.

Use for farming water:
For farm-water use, put in fresh water from the right and add a sensor to the output pump on the left that only pumps water out if not above the desired temperature. While I have not tried this, its should even be good to provide 2..3C water for Sleet Wheat farming. The regulation is pretty precise.

Build process:
First, build the whole thing according to plan, except for the gas circuit. Then connect the high-pressure vent to the right and evacuate the WW chamber. After that, fill with hydrogen through the vent on the left and fill bottom part with water. Add gas cooling circuit, disconnect evacuation vent and start it up.

Estimation of cooling used:
Just look at how much warmer the water coming in is. For every increase by 0.024C, you use about 1kW of cooling power. One WW provides 12kW of cooling in hydrogen of sufficient pressure. I verified this a while back (before critter update) for the first design (did not post that) and it works out pretty precisely. If the water in the bottom tank keeps getting warmer, you are overloading the thing.

Pictures:

 

[Coolthulhu]

You're wasting a lot of energy on re-pumping the hydrogen and water. Keep it in one loop, use valves and bridges to direct it.

[medicdude]

You could put the hydrogen room underneath the water tank and use tile-door-tile boundary with water thermo sensor to control door closing, then you can eliminate the hydrogen loop. You would still need a ventillator for initial H2 filling, but no more continuous pumping.

[Gurgel]

As a primary concern here is a _well_ regulated output temperature, that is not going to work.

[blash365]

I dont see why your design should be cooling better than any of the other two suggestions.

Using the vaccum door mechanic might be even easier to regulate, since the vacuum will be created instantly, while in your case there will still be an entire cooling loop moving out of the vents before the cooling stops.

To me the best solution would be adding a thermo regulator instead of the cooling pump, you can easily regulate the temperature of the cooling medium and the energy difference between the regulator and your pump should neglectable.

Given that you are already using high pressure vents, tech cant be an issue.

[Lifegrow]

It's funny how with the addition of super-shiny-new piping, all the old builds come back into circulation  

[Gurgel]

Well, if "old" designs are not welcome here, I will simply not post any in the future. Thanks.

 

[Kabrute]

please ignore the nay sayers as it were as the few do not represent all by any means.  When I first joined the forums I posted lox build and was mildly harrased for it because lox was so last update .  Since then newer members have said thanks for me continuing to update and post new lox builds now months after that "so last update" idea so, grain of salt them and keep us posted on your progress.

That being said, if your going to freak out because your post is "old" um..... go through the list these people are all offering advice, if you have specific reasons why you don't do this that or the other thats fine but your not engaging in discourse, your just throwing your hands up so its whatever, ::throws hands up and walks away::

[beowulf2010]

To extend on Kabrute a bit, just because you're updating an "old" idea doesn't mean you don't have valid input and possibly a new way of doing something combining an established method with something in a newer update. Plus, I don't think Lifegrow meant his comment the way you're taking it. With the elimination of drip cooling, there are reasons to play around with other cooling systems again. 

In this specific case, it has been determined that you do actually get finer control on temperatures via the meta tile/automated door/metal tile method since all cooling/heating stops the minute the doors are activated and they open to create vacuum so I would consider looking into that option instead of defaulting to radiators all the time. Neotuck and some others have made some neat cooling/heating systems using this method of temperature control. 

This being said, the effectiveness of radiators now with the new piping is impressive. 

Lastly, as Cooltbulhu mentioned, look into gas/water pipe bridge shenanigans to save yourself the cost of the gas pump by having one continuous radiator through both rooms. A pair of gas bridges in a closed loop will keep the gas moving forever without needing pumos, assuming Klei leaves it alone. 

[Gurgel]

Thanks. I may have mistaken the tone of some of the answers or at least the intent behind the tone,

As to an endless gas loop, I think that is a bug and I would like to avoid using that. Doors are probably a valid approach if they consume power only on opening or closing (I never looked at that), but you need to design closer for the cooling power and may need temp-shift plates in addition to ensure heat distribution.

If my numbers are correct, one door with metal tiles on both sides only transfers around 36kW at 80C difference, so the 48kW model needs two of them. But a door may be a good option to make a small precision chiller with one WW and a small water pump.  For Sleet Wheat irrigation at 2..3C, that may be ideal. 1kg/sec would be enough to provide 30 plants with their 20kg/cycle.

[Kabrute]

It is, perhaps, an exploit, it is, however, not a bug, as it works exactly as intended with the sole exception being liquid bridging have the occasional bug where it feeds from the bridge instead of across its outlet.  If you think Anything is a bug then file a bug report on it, please

[beowulf2010]

4 hours ago, Gurgel said:

As to an endless gas loop, I think that is a bug and I would like to avoid using that. Doors are probably a valid approach if they consume power only on opening or closing (I never looked at that), 

The gas loop is a minor exploit that I don't mind using because recirculating loops are something that actually exist and should be in the game. If they add a small 60W or less in pipe recirculation pump in place of the bridges (actually anything with a green output works) I'd be fine with it. 

As for the doors, they do not actually need to be powered to be run by automation. Definitely an issue that will be fixed, but I don't mind being lazy and not running power in this case. 

Yeah, they definitely need to be close but it's fairly easy to add a small room with a couple Wheezeworts and the door control almost anywhere. 

[JonnyMonroe]

Personally I wouldn't pump the gasses or use vacuum doors. I would pump the water behind the wheezes in a closed loop and use an in-pipe thermal sensor and liquid shutoff to bring the water out at the desired temp. Of course you need a fairly small loop for maximum precision but you could do a number of such loops in parallel to compensate and maximise throughput.

Just an idea though.

[beowulf2010]

I guess it's finally time for me to actually build all these options and see which couple function better than the rest. 

Wish I was home to actually do it right now... Stupid jobs. 

1) Pump hydrogen. 

2) Recirculate hydrogen. 

3 and 4) Metal tile/door/metal tile (1 and 2 door varieties though I usually use three due to the spacing I use on wheezewort rooms) 

5) Pump water. 

6) Recirculate water. 

I think that'll be enough for me as I don't want to have to deal with splitting the hydrogen input into more than 6 matching length input pipes. 

Unless someone beats me to it or has already done this, I'll try to post my findings in the next day or two. 

[Gurgel]

6 hours ago, JonnyMonroe said:

Personally I wouldn't pump the gasses or use vacuum doors. I would pump the water behind the wheezes in a closed loop and use an in-pipe thermal sensor and liquid shutoff to bring the water out at the desired temp. Of course you need a fairly small loop for maximum precision but you could do a number of such loops in parallel to compensate and maximise throughput.

Just an idea though.

I did that in v1. It has the problem that you neeg to cut of the beginning and end of the water flow when switching the pump, or you can get small water packets that freeze and damage the pipes. Same can happen when you load the game. A definite advantage is that water transports way more energy and the design with water scales to many more WWs. Also, using a lot of small loops though the cold would probably fix the "small package" problem as well as there is a minimal water package size a pump outputs. It may also be an option to have a chiller that needs a minimal thermal load and only regulates properly if that is met.

5 hours ago, beowulf2010 said:

I guess it's finally time for me to actually build all these options and see which couple function better than the rest. 

[...]

Unless someone beats me to it or has already done this, I'll try to post my findings in the next day or two. 

I would actually like to see the results of that. I am not planning to invest that effort, I am just happy my colony keeps surviving

[beowulf2010]

1 hour ago, Gurgel said:

I would actually like to see the results of that. I am not planning to invest that effort, I am just happy my colony keeps surviving

No worries. I like stuff like this. I just haven't gotten around to having a real reason to do this. And with the "new" radiant pipes, nows as good a time as any to throw something together in debug. 

[Asteru]

22 hours ago, Gurgel said:

Well, if "old" designs are not welcome here, I will simply not post any in the future. Thanks.

 

Ive been watching life the past 3 stream bases and he’s genuinely a good guy and I think finds it interesting watching the game evolve and come back around on itself at times too. Doubt he was taking a shot.