Building a better SPOM

[BlueLance]

19 minutes ago, Angpaur said:

But what is the point of doing such builds if one electrolyzer is enough?

Personal preference and Speed, more set ups will fill an area quicke, the more efficient they are the better, I only did that post because you posted that it would use 2 times the water and power, which is wrong.

52 minutes ago, Angpaur said:

It will also use 2 times more water and additional 120W of power.

Also, there is no such thing as a 100% Per Cycle build that I am aware of and this is primarily due to gasses being deleted IIRC I think some were closer but also used 4 pumps, so in the end it is all down to a power to oxygen ratio

[Angpaur]

5 minutes ago, Prince Mandor said:

 

Well, efficiency.

If I only have one pump pumping hydrogen from the ceiling of my base, I spend just 240 W in addition to four electrolyzers set in my base. If you add two more pumps you will spend additional 480 W, what's the purpose of this? Does it really matter for you, one, four or six electrolyzers produce exactly enough oxygen to fill base?

Sorry, I'm completly lost here...

Why would I want to add to my build any more pumps? In my real base implementation of this build I run it on one pump, which also is pumping water to various other places in my base.

And yes, it matters to me if I can create optimal solution with just one electrolyzer instead of build 2 or 3 to get same oxygen production per cycle. Construction materials are basically neglible, so it is not my concern, but I just like to strive for this kind of goals of optimizing things.

[Angpaur]

6 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

Personal preference and Speed, more set ups will fill an area quicke, the more efficient they are the better, I only did that post because you posted that it would use 2 times the water and power, which is wrong.

Also, there is no such thing as a 100% Per Cycle build that I am aware of and this is primarily due to gasses being deleted IIRC I think some were closer but also used 4 pumps, so in the end it is all down to a power to oxygen ratio

Yeah, I agree that power to oxygen ratio is a good way to measure SPOM efficiency.

Do you have any numbers of some other builds?

I will have to check out my other designs which were producing less oxygen, but were better in case of power consumption. Maybe one of them is better.

Good point. Thanks.

[BlueLance]

5 minutes ago, Angpaur said:

Yeah, I agree that power to oxygen ratio is a good way to measure SPOM efficiency.

Do you have any numbers of some other builds?

I will have to check out my other designs which were producing less oxygen, but were better in case of power consumption. Maybe one of them is better.

Good point. Thanks.

I do not, but IIRC the most efficient design I seen involved two pumps below and one pump above and it used atmo sensors, This way even though the entire build uses a 960W because of the atmo sensors it still generated a net gain in power. I never got the numbers for the sensors though so I never built it since i had a phobia of experimenting back then.

[Carnis]

1 hour ago, BlueLance said:

Also, there is no such thing as a 100% Per Cycle build that I am aware of and this is primarily due to gasses being deleted IIRC I think some were closer but also used 4 pumps, so in the end it is all down to a power to oxygen ratio

If you exploit liquidlocking, eg on The 4 electrolyzer squares 1.2kg of oil or water Each.

Then your electrolyzer cant sense pressure and Will run nonstop at 112/888, If you dont stop it with automation.

There are 6 such elyzers on The save I sent you regarding oil boiling =].

[gelat]

So every time I try and build these, I always have issues with the tempshift plates. I'm trying to build Angpaurs example in debug, but the metal tiles won't go over tempshift plates, and tempshift won't go under metal tiles. What am I doing wrong?

[Carnis]

34 minutes ago, gelat said:

So every time I try and build these, I always have issues with the tempshift plates. I'm trying to build Angpaurs example in debug, but the metal tiles won't go over tempshift plates, and tempshift won't go under metal tiles. What am I doing wrong?

is enough to build a tempshift tile next to the metal tile. A tempshift tile covers a 3x3 zone.

[SamLogan]

6 hours ago, Angpaur said:

wihout using any exploits.

Hum...

[Angpaur]

13 minutes ago, SamLogan said:

Hum...

I thought that it is obvious that to test performance of the build I need to store excess gases somewhere. It also helped me to count how much of excess hydrogen I can collect.

The build itself doesn't use any exploits.

[ZanthraSW]

3 hours ago, Carnis said:

If you exploit liquidlocking, eg on The 4 electrolyzer squares 1.2kg of oil or water Each.

Then your electrolyzer cant sense pressure and Will run nonstop at 112/888, If you dont stop it with automation.

There are 6 such elyzers on The save I sent you regarding oil boiling =].

It's a bit more complex than just submerging the electrolyzer. You need to maintain dedicated adjacent hydrogen and oxygen output tiles to prevent the electrolyzer from creating a bubble in the upper fluid and going overpressure.

[Prince Mandor]

4 hours ago, Angpaur said:

Sorry, I'm completly lost here...

Why would I want to add to my build any more pumps? In my real base implementation of this build I run it on one pump, which also is pumping water to various other places in my base.

And yes, it matters to me if I can create optimal solution with just one electrolyzer instead of build 2 or 3 to get same oxygen production per cycle. Construction materials are basically neglible, so it is not my concern, but I just like to strive for this kind of goals of optimizing things.

You already added three pumps, in your design, pumping oxygen. Why you need them? What happens if you just put electrolyzer in place, where you need this oxygen? You save yourself lot of energy 240×3 = 720W

And, of course, as personal achievement it is great thing. I'm not in any way try to deminish your success. English is not my native language, sorry if I offend you somehow

[Evaris]

So, as an update, bell tower design with three electrolyzers, ~480kg/cycle per electrolyzer average output, 1400-1460kg output depending on the cycle;
 

 

And a box setup, with 535kg/cycle per electrolyzer average, or 885g/s, only 3g/s less than the theoretical maximum oxygen production.  I also call it, "I finally have enough excess power to actually use regular gas filters and have a decent and reliable power surplus."  

However, seeing Angpaur's design, and having had no success getting mechanical filters to work before, I decided to pull up the challenge again, read up to figure out what I did wrong in the past (I had the intake on the side of the vent instead of having it be direct pressure to it with an offset path) , and then use that knowledge to get a tight, temperature regulated, module design based off of it put together, and make sure it was dupe accessible.  

Similarly to his design, it outputs 520-530kg/cycle.  



So yeah Angpaur, I have to say it's basically the best thing ever, lol.  The 2% greater efficiency in oxygen output / cycle probably isn't worth the power efficiency hit the four electrolyzer design above outputs. 

With that said, I figured I would go over power efficiency of all of these, and this single unit design has a 36% power surplus, whereas the 4 electrolyzer design only has a 5% power surplus averaged.  

The earlier designs have, respectively:
3 electrolyzer bell: 20% power surplus
2 electrolizer trap: 35% power surplus.
1 Electrolyzer bell: 50% power surplus
1 electrolyzer trap: 44% power surplus.  

It's somewhat interesting that the single electrolyzer designs are more power efficient, and I do find it interesting that the single bell design is as efficient as it is, outdoing the single corner trap design both in output per cycle and in power surplus per cycle.  

[Nullus Maximus]

14 hours ago, Evaris said:

it's output of only ~280kg of oxygen per day - a little shy of being able to support five normal dupes.

An Electrolyzer produces 888g/s of oxygen and 112g/s of hydrogen. A dupe uses 100g/s of oxygen meaning it produces enough for 8 dupes with a bit left over.

14 hours ago, Evaris said:

Knowing that one of the main limitations in a SPOM comes from overpressure on the electrolyzer

The original design has two gas pumps below and one pump above, each pump moves 500g/s theoretically meaning the Electrolyzer should never over pressurize.

14 hours ago, Evaris said:

wheezewarts create a low pressure zone at their base during their cooling effect

This is bound to get patched as it can be used to abuse gas storage over 20kgs similar to the water-over-the-vent glitch.

 

Maybe I misunderstood the point of this project but why fix what is not broken? The original design works how it's suppose to (besides actually cooling too much which is easily fixed) and takes way less room.

[Evaris]

28 minutes ago, Nullus Maximus said:

An Electrolyzer produces 888g/s of oxygen and 112g/s of hydrogen. A dupe uses 100g/s of oxygen meaning it produces enough for 8 dupes with a bit left over.

The original design has two gas pumps below and one pump above, each pump moves 500g/s theoretically meaning the Electrolyzer should never over pressurize.

This is bound to get patched as it can be used to abuse gas storage over 20kgs similar to the water-over-the-vent glitch.

 

Maybe I misunderstood the point of this project but why fix what is not broken? The original design works how it's suppose to (besides actually cooling too much which is easily fixed) and takes way less room.

Because, testing things to see if there is a better design, whether or not you come up with one, is something interesting to do.  Even from this, I managed to find a design with greater power output for the water used, albeit at some expense of oxygen per cycle, even with my concluding that the above/under design is probably better for most bases needs, but it's odd bits like that which make testing worthwhile.  

Essentially, you ask why fix what's not broken?  My standpoint is, "how much more can I add to or get out of this before I break it, and is it possible that there are better/different ways to get the same result?"  

[Megouski]

Did some simple math in response to this video. 

I believe you get max 888mg/s from it so thats what, 533Kg a day oxygen and the below?

So after figuring out the below, I also mathed out something else. If you toss another pump and pressure sensor in the space below the upper door, you will get a net gain in watts overall. You will also start producing the max 112mg/s hydrogen, so you will be forced (after a while) to build a second hydrogen generator for the 12mg/s extra netting even higher efficiency and remaining very compact. 2 pumps for air and 2 gens properly set up use an average of 600w but produce an average of 896w. While the classic 1 oxygen pump 1 generator setup produces 505w while using 338w. This is one reason I enjoy games like this. Final note I forgot is the watts used by the water pump. Using roughly 14w for 1 oxygen pump setup and 24w for the 2 pump setup for a net gain of 153w vs. 272w

 

[Evaris]

The problems with hydrogen corner trap designs like the one in the video are twofold, first of all you only have a single output gas pump, giving you a hard output limit of 500g/s of oxygen.  Secondly, because it is designed to keep hydrogen in the top of the system at all times to prevent oxygen reaching your hydrogen generators, you lose a bit more efficiency to overpressure.  

As a result, actual oxygen per cycle output by such a system is only around 280kg.  

[Angpaur]

I just realized that due to the fact that English is not my nativa language I might misslead you a bit by speaking of effectivness. What I'm truely seeking in my SPOM designs is performance. Effectivness and performace in my language are offten described by one same word, so sorry if I was not clear.

So to sum up again why I was testing various electrolyzer builds - I was looking for the best performant in oxygen production per cycle, one electrolyzer only build, while it still being the most effective, in terms of power consumption, as possible.

Test shows that electrolyzer setup designs may provide different results in oxygen production during a one cycle. At the end of each cycle you can check a report and it shows how much oxygen was produced and how much power was consumed. So if you build a design in a closed enviroment using sandobox/debug mode you can get some numbers and measure performance along with efficiency.

Yesterday I measured performance of design involving hydrogen trap and some automation to control gas pumps:

Spoiler

It produced 320,6kg of oxygen, while consuming 223,1kJ of energy.This gives 1,437 ratio (means by spending 1kJ you can produce 1437 grams of oxygen)

Then again I tested the presented here build, modyfing it a bit - I replaced gas shutoff based filter with a mechanical one. This is totaly viable as the design's principle is that pumps must work all the time, so the mechanical filter will not fail.

Spoiler

Results are: oxygen production: 529,2kg, power consumed: 372,1kJ. Ratio: 1,422.

So it is just worse about 15g of oxygen per kJ.

I was also storing excess of produced hydrogen, to check if there are any differences between this 2 builds. And there are:

Hydrogen trap build - 6kg of hydrogen stored.

My build - 17,6kg of hydrogen stored. That is almost 3 times more! I'm not sure why such a big difference appears.

More interesting things happen if you modifiy my build and add airflow tiles:

Spoiler

This allows to reach maximum possible performance per cycle of one electrolyzer - 532,8kg. Power consumed: 374,6kJ, ratio: 1,422

Stored oxygen is only 11,6kg. A bit too low considering how little of additional power was consumed. I'm not sure how to explain this. Maybe someone has some idea?

So to measure how good a SPOM design is you can use similar aproach - get ratio of oxygen production per power consumed and additionaly check how much excees hydrogen is produced. The hydrogen can be then used in AETNs or additional hydrogen generator.

Last thing  - some remarks and thoughts:

• There is absolutetly no reason to use more than one hydrogen generator if you want to isolate this SPOM build from rest of power network - produced power is same if there is one, two or even three generators.
• Oxygen pumped by top pump is hot. So the best usage of it is to send it to exosuit docks. They will not heat up and duplicants will not mind breathing hot gas.
• This build is easy to get early in game, as it doesn't require too much reaserch. You just need the very basic automation and smart batteries, and other reaserch needed to build hydrogen generator and pumps. Radiator pipes, tempshift plates can be skipped.
• The build produces huge amout of oxygen so before building it check if you will be able to use it all. If not then create a bypass and vent excess to space or store somewhere.

13 hours ago, Prince Mandor said:

You already added three pumps, in your design, pumping oxygen. Why you need them? What happens if you just put electrolyzer in place, where you need this oxygen? You save yourself lot of energy 240×3 = 720W

And, of course, as personal achievement it is great thing. I'm not in any way try to deminish your success. English is not my native language, sorry if I offend you somehow

No worries, man, I'm not a native speaker neither. And you can be sure that a constructive discussion will not offend me in any way. If I sound a bit harsh then it is not my intention, probably I'm a bit lost in translation, like with the efficiency/performance thing  

So thanks for the constructive remarks, I appreciate it.

Regarding the pumps - in my design the top pump is mandatory as hydrogen must be used to produce energy and oxygen in top part is hot, so it is better to pump it to exosuit docks. The bottom pump however might be skipped, but I'm not sure how you would solve problem of such a big oxygen production - the whole area below will quickly reach maximum pressure. Also I think that electrolyzer will not be able to work non-stop and it will overpressurise each few seconds, deacrising the performance of the build.

[Carnis]

Air insulated base top & sides.

Free breathing normal pressure electrolyzers.

0w mechanical filters for hydrogen / atmosuit O2.

Liquid Pipe radiator cooling (wheezeworts at The top of base hydrogen, cooling piped pW).

1 gaspump feeds all atmosuits, sits by one electrolyzer. Rest have no pumps.

1 top of base gaspump feeds all hydro plants to not drown in Hydrogen.

Infinite scalability. 1l water, 120w +24w per 888g O2.

About 800W free energy / electrolyzer.

[Prince Mandor]

3 hours ago, Angpaur said:

Regarding the pumps - in my design the top pump is mandatory as hydrogen must be used to produce energy and oxygen in top part is hot, so it is better to pump it to exosuit docks. The bottom pump however might be skipped, but I'm not sure how you would solve problem of such a big oxygen production - the whole area below will quickly reach maximum pressure. Also I think that electrolyzer will not be able to work non-stop and it will overpressurise each few seconds, deacrising the performance of the build.

Spoiler

 

Okay, if we talk about performance as yours target, than you are right. We can spend additional 720W to achieve this.

Talking about different amounts of hydrogen: game trying to optimize calculations, and sometimes just ignores relatively small amount of gas. This effect referred on forum as "gas deletion". If cells filled with 1600 oxygen, and hydrolyzer just produce 15g of hydrogen, than game just ignore it, instead of pushing around and recalculate all this oxygen filled cells. So, for most hydrogen production we need hydrogen cells near it, or pumping away oxygen, so produced amount of hydrogen was not so tiny in comparison.

Talking about overpressure:

I just allow my electrolyzers to constantly be overpressurizing. If my dupes do not need oxygen - then I do not need to produce it. Again, electrolyzers do not spend energy or water while overpressurized

 

[Angpaur]

28 minutes ago, Prince Mandor said:

I just allow my electrolyzers to constantly be overpressurizing. If my dupes do not need oxygen - then I do not need to produce it. Again, electrolyzers do not spend energy or water while overpressurized

But then no hydrogen for you and your power grid

29 minutes ago, Carnis said:

Air insulated base top & sides.

Free breathing normal pressure electrolyzers.

0w mechanical filters for hydrogen / atmosuit O2.

Liquid Pipe radiator cooling (wheezeworts at The top of base hydrogen, cooling piped pW).

1 gaspump feeds all atmosuits, sits by one electrolyzer. Rest have no pumps.

1 top of base gaspump feeds all hydro plants to not drown in Hydrogen.

Infinite scalability. 1l water, 120w +24w per 888g O2.

About 800W free energy / electrolyzer.

In theory looks great. Have you actually tried building it? If so what are your reports numbers at the end of the cycle?

[Prince Mandor]

20 minutes ago, Carnis said:

Air insulated base top & sides.

Free breathing normal pressure electrolyzers.

0w mechanical filters for hydrogen / atmosuit O2.

Liquid Pipe radiator cooling (wheezeworts at The top of base hydrogen, cooling piped pW).

1 gaspump feeds all atmosuits, sits by one electrolyzer. Rest have no pumps.

1 top of base gaspump feeds all hydro plants to not drown in Hydrogen.

Infinite scalability. 1l water, 120w +24w per 888g O2.

About 800W free energy / electrolyzer.

Exactly!

Only difference - I do not cool hydrogen on top of base - this hidrogen meant for usage, and it can perfectly burn in generator or AETN without cooling. I have special hydrogen-filled box for same purpose (p.water pipes cooling by Wheezewort)

[Carnis]

19 minutes ago, Angpaur said:

Bet then no hydrogen for you and your power grid

In theory looks great. Have you actually tried building it? If so what are your reports numbers at the end of the cycle?

Here's the last cycle. Trick is to look where it starts to go low O2, and setup a lyzer.

[Angpaur]

5 minutes ago, Carnis said:

Here's the last cycle. Trick is to look where it starts to go low O2, and setup a lyzer.

Spoiler

 

Well that is 436,45kg of O2 per cycle, considering there are 2 electrolyzers. Not the performance I was hoping for.

But I will try to experiment with this aproach trying to squeze some more from it.

Also in separate enviroment I will be able to count efficiency ratio.

Thanks for your input.

[Carnis]

Its THREE electrolysers, not 2. The O2 / electrolyzer Im not even trying to optimise. I did that previously with liquidlocking. They take a huge space, and give nothing.

Key there is, +176 KG O2, so we are getting more than we are using, so we are good.

[Megouski]

16 hours ago, Evaris said:

The problems with hydrogen corner trap designs like the one in the video are twofold, first of all you only have a single output gas pump, giving you a hard output limit of 500g/s of oxygen.  Secondly, because it is designed to keep hydrogen in the top of the system at all times to prevent oxygen reaching your hydrogen generators, you lose a bit more efficiency to overpressure.  

As a result, actual oxygen per cycle output by such a system is only around 280kg.  

Not sure why youre responding to the video rather than what I wrote. ? 

9 hours ago, Carnis said:

Air insulated base top & sides.

Free breathing normal pressure electrolyzers.

0w mechanical filters for hydrogen / atmosuit O2.

Liquid Pipe radiator cooling (wheezeworts at The top of base hydrogen, cooling piped pW).

1 gaspump feeds all atmosuits, sits by one electrolyzer. Rest have no pumps.

1 top of base gaspump feeds all hydro plants to not drown in Hydrogen.

Infinite scalability. 1l water, 120w +24w per 888g O2.

About 800W free energy / electrolyzer.

Id love to see this in action