Near Zero Power electrolyzer cooling with set temperature

[chemie]

So I like to design low power solutions.  Here is a zero power cooling system with temperature control.

Now, you can just use weeze but that will result in either slowly heating (too few) or slowly cooling (too many); It is essentially impossible to maintain a setpoint temperature.  I want 25C +/- 2 C.

So weeze cool a H2 room (around -40C right now).  I have two cooling loops.  One for the electrolyzer floor and one for fine temp control around the recirc pumps.The radiator in the H2 room brings H2 to steady state temp each recirc pass.  The radiator sections for cooling are different lengths since the H2 is cooler in the left vs right side so I need a bit more area on the right side.  Each side has a bypass (single valve) which bypassing that section when temp is at setpoint.  These 4 valves are the only power used in the entire cooling solution (ie 40W).  I use absyltte for pipe that is not gold radiator.  (originally whole thing was rad but it is way too effective in cooling so you do not get good temp distribution along the loop length)

The two pumps in the H2 room are just for system start up to charge the H2.  I fill the pipe to about 50% and use atmo switch to manually toggle quickly off once filled to where I want.  If you overflll, it stops flowing but with less than full, you can turn off the charge pumps and the H2 circulates forever without power.  I split each loop to a left side and right side each with temp control.  Side Note: It might be better to split the 2 loops left/right vs top/bottom so I will try that next base.

The top loop controls ambient room temp around electrolyzers and the bottom loop controls the air temp to the base.  Yes, the pipes are a bit messy as this was a retro fit from my normal design which used therm regs in the H2 room instead.  2 pumps take O2 to exo stations so I mostly ignore temp there.  4 pump O2 to the base with a distribution system. 

Currently I allow the top floors to fed by pressure through the floor gaps in the electro room.  I have one pipe run in the middle for air there and one line at the bottom.  Whole base stays at max pressure and 25C. I suspect I could turn off two of the floor distribution pumps; I have 4 to keep the pipes full but it is likely overkill (yes, they use power but this thread is about temp control of electros so I am not counting).  The pipes feeding the bottom are on pressure setting to a valve so it shuts off at 1500 which saves power on the 4 distribution pumps.

I am sure there are designs which use AETN and pump electro O2 and have a bypass system to get temp control too but this is nice and compact right at the base.  Also, you can start with "free range" electros with weeze early game (you can see the old planter boxes in the pics) and migrate the weeze to a H2 room once full water supply is established etc. and you scale up to full O2 system with distribution.

Side Note: I just noticed you can see the zero power fertilizer cooling by having a few passes of the belt from the fertilizer makers which then goes into the base so I do not have 40C fertilizer in the base).

flow is left to right for both loops

 

 

 

 

[clickrush]

Very cool (!) idea to control heat in a large open space with the new radiators and shutoffs. This principle can also be used with a more classic module design by either cooling or not cooling the output oxygen from your electrolyzer setup. But I like this kind of open layout idea as it is not something I see often.

[chemie]

3 minutes ago, clickrush said:

Very cool (!) idea to control heat in a large open space with the new radiators and shutoffs. This principle can also be used with a more classic module design by either cooling or not cooling the output oxygen from your electrolyzer setup. But I like this kind of open layout idea as it is not something I see often.

Funny. I have always used free range electro above the base.  I like that it will provide O2 even when no power and works well early game. You just need two weeze and can leave them for a long time with passive O2 flow to the base without heat worries. But now you have me thinking that since I am pumping the O2 anyway, a nice cooling/bypass loop on that might work.  The key would be to have a way to merge packets for constant temp otherwise you would get 40C, then 70C packets alternating.  I think you would need to limit the flow so there were not full packets.  The nice thing with above design is that packet merging is not required for control with the new pipe temp sensors.

[clickrush]

1 minute ago, chemie said:

Funny. I have always used free range electro above the base.  I like that it will provide O2 even when no power and works well early game. You just need two weeze and can leave them for a long time with passive O2 flow to the base without heat worries. But now you have me thinking that since I am pumping the O2 anyway, a nice cooling/bypass loop on that might work.  The key would be to have a way to merge packets for constant temp otherwise you would get 40C, then 70C packets alternating.  I think you would need to limit the flow so there were not full packets.  The nice thing with above design is that packet merging is not required for control with the new pipe temp sensors.

You could use the vacuum door technique and a pipe sensor to avoid cooling down non-.flow pipes or you can guaruantee the flow with an overpressurized gas storage. But the open concept is definitely more direct and thus probably also more precise, because you cool the room instead of just the input.

[Lilalaunekuh]

31 minutes ago, chemie said:

The key would be to have a way to merge packets for constant temp otherwise you would get 40C, then 70C packets alternating.

It´s possible to maintain a temperature range and split/merge packets to achiev this (temp sensor/normal valve and a couple different routes to merge packets) ...

But why not just use a gold tempshift plate at your vent to normalize the outut temperature ?

[chemie]

33 minutes ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

It´s possible to maintain a temperature range and split/merge packets to achiev this (temp sensor/normal valve and a couple different routes to merge packets) ...

But why not just use a gold tempshift plate at your vent to normalize the outut temperature ?

I am not convinced the un-merged packets would equal out to the setpoint.  The control valve would turn on and off but not necessarily control.  Anyway, above design uses same power for the circulating pumps and gives very precise control for 40W of valves.  I am not sure @clickrush proposal saves any power.

[0xFADE]

I think i've got my main base down to around 23c running a very long granite pipe loop through everywhere and 2 nullifiers.  Petroleum is the coolant.

Those plastic makers look nice and cold.  I bet the steam turns right in to ice.

It has been many cycles.  Many many cycles.

The pipework

One of the nullifiers.  The second one I connected was at over -40c before sending the liquid through and almost froze the pipes.  Pretty close.

[chemie]

19 hours ago, 0xFADE said:

I think i've got my main base down to around 23c running a very long granite pipe loop through everywhere and 2 nullifiers.  Petroleum is the coolant.

 

The thing about AETN are they are often very far from the base leading to long runs for power, H2, and coolant loops.

[0xFADE]

Yeah long pipe lengths. No power except that I read the hydrogen usage of them equates to 80 watts or something.