Need advice for electrolyzer setup

[Noris]

Hello, everyone.

I had been thinking about electrolyzer setup for a while, and I have made it.

Machines are cooled with water, and output oxygen is cooled with weezewort. ( not in images though )

It is compact enough for me, self power, and electrolyzer uptime is almost 100%.

Please give me your advice to make progress.

 

 

 

[Megouski]

Hard to give advice when you're not asking anything. All you've done is show off your setup and patted yourself on the back. 

 

Did you have a question? 

[Alex_D]

IMHO the best way to cool the electrolyzer is feed it with cold water in the first place.

To get cold water:

Essentially: Polluted water is used to pre-cool most of the "industrial" part of the base. Then that hot POW is fed into the water sieve. The 40oC clean water is cooled by two aquatuners in series, bringing it down to around 12oC. Pipe this water around the heat sensitive areas of the base (farm, living quarters, bathrooms, etc). What is left, say 19oC, is then piped into the Electrolyzer room:

Spoiler

Since the CU now gasses behave a bit more "realistically" (no more hydrogen left corners), hence two pumps by the top of the room would pipe the O2 and H2 from the electrolyzer into a set of mechanical gas filters separating the O2 (which goes back into the base), and the H2, which at the moment is stored. Note that the cold water is snake fed into the electrolyzer using radiant pipes, cooling the top air in the process. The temperature of the water reaching the electrolyzer is near 30 oC. The result is decently temperate O2.

 

So to directly answer the OP's question: Maybe put the pumps high, the radiant pipes cool the area behind these pumps, before feeding the electrolyzer. Hydrogen dots still "dance" around before ascending.

[Noris]

2 hours ago, Megouski said:

Hard to give advice when you're not asking anything. All you've done is show off your setup and patted yourself on the back. 

 

Did you have a question? 

Sorry about questions.

Q1. Is there any better way to cooling system itself ?

Q2. Surplus electric application. There are some, but wasted.

Thank you.

[Priitm]

you dont need to cool down hydrogen and you can put your generator into your general power grid to not waste power... if you wanna min/max a little.

[SackMaggie]

54 minutes ago, Noris said:

Q2. Surplus electric application. There are some, but wasted.

Add some automation circuit like

If main power grid need to be generate and your oxygen production power is enough to keep running

then swap power grid to charge up main grid

and that's it you will have useful of excess hydrogen (even if you send it to AETN you still have hydrogen left to generate more power)

or If you don't know what to do about automation. well, just create new hydrogen generate and some pipe valve but it not precise.

[WanderingKid]

4 hours ago, Noris said:

Hello, everyone.

I had been thinking about electrolyzer setup for a while, and I have made it. [snip]

Please give me your advice to make progress.

Electrolizers are most easily set up if you push the Hydrogen one way, and the O2 another.  This is typically done with the O2 on the lower half and the Hydrogen up top, like so:

So, you typically have a few options for an Electrolizer.  Cooling an electrolizer is actually the hardest thing to do if you don't know how to cool your base, and simple if you do as you've already done the hard part.

You don't cool the output of the Electrolizer, you let other things heat it before you let it loose.  The reason is Electrolizers produce 70C outputs, no matter their input.  So if you shove 95C water in there, you get a free 25C of cooling.

The most compact you make an electrolizer is two electrolizers, a single atmo pump, and a couple of bricks to keep things out of the way.  That's about 30 cubes (roughly).  If you use a trick with water, you can make sure they output continuously, but it's a glitch that might eventually be fixed (maybe, dunno). 

[BlueLance]

I use the same build as what you posted Wandering Kid!

[martosss]

5 hours ago, Noris said:

It is compact enough for me, self power, and electrolyzer uptime is almost 100%.

Please give me your advice to make progress.

So it generates ~500kg of Oxygen / cycle?

If you look at the ventilation layout(F7), do the pumps always pump 500g of gas? If not, then you're not energy efficient.

 

Here's a few points to think about:

• You can try using automation to stop the pumps if the pressure isn't high enough. I've tried 400g of H2 pressure and 350g of O2 pressure in my setup - the SPOM TANK However, those numbers might be different for your setup, so you should test it. BTW feel free to look at the discussion there and use ideas.
• Also cooling the input water is useless, as mentioned above.
• I'd argue that cooling the machines might also be useless, as long as they don't overheat, again because of the high temp. of  output gases. For that purpose, just build everything from gold and let it heat. then the H2 and O2 might cool the pumps and the electrolyzer if they heat more than 75° - you have a big gap between 75°(output temp. of gases) and 125°(overheat temp. of machines if built with gold)
• The basic variables in the setup are
  1. Electrolyzer up-time
  2. Power efficiency
  3. Space required
  • IMHO (1) should be at around 90%, so 500kg of O2/cycle
  • for (2), pumps should be automated to draw as few packets as possible, keeping packet size at 500.
  • You already optimized (3) quite a bit.
• You can also add smart batteries to waste less energy from battery storage (2% instead of 5% with normal batteries).
  • You can use automation on Smart batteries <-> H2 generators to prevent H2 generators from working if batteries are at 100% charge. However, you need to deal with the H2 in that case, otherwise the H2 pressure will stop the electrolyzer.
• I can't clearly see your wires, but I think you're mixing normal wires with Heavi-Watt. You should read about how electricity worksin ONI, because it's not like in the real world - overloading on circuits depends only on the consumers and the weakest connected wire in that circuit.
  • So if consumers draw more than 1kW and you have at least 1 normal Wire somewhere in that circuit(regardless where and regardless if logically electricity should flow through it or not) the circuit will start to overload and take damage(in a random location, so I think even the heavy wire might take damage, even though you're running 1.5kW, just because you have a normal wire connected, even if it doesn't link to anything).

[Noris]

13 hours ago, martosss said:

So it generates ~500kg of Oxygen / cycle?

If you look at the ventilation layout(F7), do the pumps always pump 500g of gas? If not, then you're not energy efficient.

Thank you for the details.

It generates about 800 g/sec oxygen ( maximum is 888 g/sec ? ), so I put 2 air pumps for oxygen. otherwise electrolyzer stops with high pressure.

Since uptime is almost 100%, hydrogen generation is about 100 g/sec, it is balanced with pressure sensors. If it becomes above 100 g/sec hydrogen pump will be blocked in the future, and hydrogen will be leaked into base with oxygen pumps.

16 hours ago, SackMaggie said:

Add some automation circuit like

If main power grid need to be generate and your oxygen production power is enough to keep running

then swap power grid to charge up main grid

and that's it you will have useful of excess hydrogen (even if you send it to AETN you still have hydrogen left to generate more power)

or If you don't know what to do about automation. well, just create new hydrogen generate and some pipe valve but it not precise.

Thank you for your advice.

I have made automation circuit with smart battery and not circuit. It works very well.

Thank you again.

[heckubis]

hmmm runs on its own power(coal backup just in case of water shortage) puts out 20c-25c o2 . yah there is a few extra parts that arnt needed(playing with automated water supply)  but purrs like a kitten. i tend to recommend not running things at max output creates more heat and breakages

[QuantumPion]

Here's how I cool my oxygen from my 100% uptime hydrolyzer modules.

[martosss]

4 hours ago, QuantumPion said:

Here's how I cool my oxygen from my 100% uptime hydrolyzer modules.

100% using water hacks. That electrolyzer should either be flooded or show a pressure overload message ... care to show us the pressure around the electrolyzer to make sure it's not above 2kg?

4 hours ago, heckubis said:

hmmm runs on its own power(coal backup just in case of water shortage) puts out 20c-25c o2 . yah there is a few extra parts that arnt needed(playing with automated water supply)  but purrs like a kitten. i tend to recommend not running things at max output creates more heat and breakages

• You only need 1 pump for Hydrogen, since it can pump 500g\sec and the 4 electrolyzers produce max 448/sec
• Your Electrolyzers are overpressuring since you only have 4 O2 pumps(you need min 7, possibly 8 pumps for 4 electrolyzers, since they produce max 3552g O2/sec)
• Heat will depend on the amount of O2 generated. In your case you're just heating 4 electrolyzers instead of 2, which will take more time, but will happen eventually.
• Breakage won't occur if you use the right building materials(e.g. gold for +50° overheat temperature); Electrolyzers's overheat limit is 75, 125 with gold, and they generate O2 at 70-75°, so they won't heal much above 80°, since the O2 will actually cool them in that case.

To put it in another way, your setup will work if you remove 2 electrolyzers and 1 of the H2 pumps.

Those're just my thoughts, of course, you're free to use 8 electrolyzers if you like their appearance so much.

[SackMaggie]

Do we really have to care about temperature of oxygen ?

What if we put all oxygen in exosuit and put exosuit dock in vacuum ?

and each dupe 2 suit to use 1 for go out and 1 for sleep (for charging of cause)

[heckubis]

nope electrolyzers and pumps are never ever over pressure..

• 1    true i only need 1 hydrogen pump but as they only pump every so often they grab fuller packets, they cost nothing extra other building materials.
• 2 Nothing in that build is ever over pressure ever. i dont recommend running at max on any equipment in the game other then power generation and that is still controllable to prevent waist
• 3  im only cooling the o2 with the granite feeder pipes water comes in at about 20c and since it only lets through a minimum amount to feed the electrolyzers(the valves) it takes most of the cool off the pipes before the water hits them.
• 4 yes gold would prevent breakages if your running things hotter then they need to be but i dont wana have to fight the heat so i dont make it

I am in fact running it at  far less then it could if it was running at max and even at that moment one of the o2 pumps is blocked at its output from high pressure. but part of the power loss on the hydrogen power builds is your number of pumps and the non full packets they gather thats where your power loss is coming from that and having to spend more power on cooling i will gladly spend the space and materials to keep the heat down.

here is a hint for thermal regulators to have them not ever over heat without any cooling set up attached to them.........

Ready for it? if the feed line going to the regulator is attached it will take in any amount and cool it in exchange for radiant heat(running any less then 1k packets is waist-full costs the same energy . to controle this put a valve directly after the regulator to less then 1k(i recommend 2/3 to 1/2 the input volume ) say 1/2. it will only pump every other second cutting the heat output and energy cost in half. add a second regulator before the same valve will net you twice the cool still half the radiant heat and power. if you want to keep volume high add another set doing the same set the same then recombine them after the valve

oh the reason for 4 electrolyzers is saturation pure and simple just saturation just to help the rest of them out without making any one of them do to much. more pumps in an area like that would cut into cooling time and pressure control and the automation stuff is set to about the same as the equipment was just for the liquid valve automation

[Angpaur]

9 minutes ago, heckubis said:

Nothing in that build is ever over pressure ever. i dont recommend running at max on any equipment in the game other then power generation and that is still controllable to prevent waist

So very untrue

Look again at your screenshot - 2 middle electrolyzers are overpressurized and currently not generating any gases.

[martosss]

41 minutes ago, heckubis said:

• 1    true i only need 1 hydrogen pump but as they only pump every so often they grab fuller packets, they cost nothing extra other building materials.
  • However, you need a burst of power to run both when there's a free pipe, so that puts more pressure on your power grid
• 2 Nothing in that build is ever over pressure ever. i dont recommend running at max on any equipment in the game other then power generation and that is still controllable to prevent waist
  • Your electrolyzer isn't working, either because of overpressure, or because you don't supply it with water/electricity.
  • Blocked pipe is the same as over pressure - you're not using that oxygen. If you had more dupes, you would use it up, pumps will continue to work but the room will overpressure because the number of O2 pumps is insufficient to keep up with the O2 production.
• 3  im only cooling the o2 with the granite feeder pipes water comes in at about 20c and since it only lets through a minimum amount to feed the electrolyzers(the valves) it takes most of the cool off the pipes before the water hits them.
  • The Electrolyzer has, sadly, a fixed gas output temperature of 70-75°, so you feeding it 20° water is by itself a loss. Try feeding it hotter water. that way you can use the 20° water to cool down other things. You're effectively losing 50° of water temperature.

(2) means the whole system isn't (space) efficient - you can run a smaller system with the same end effect.

[heckubis]

• 1) the burst of power is the same as 1 pump for 2 seconds in stead of 2 pumps for 1 second . having them run longer makes them make more heat in one area (fighting heat)
• 2) the automation pressure sensor next to it shuts it off if the pressure is too high in the area just below the max pressure mark but those are momentary flickers the out put being blocked means the area its feeding is full. trying to use that for another area will take from the area its feeding id rather my base actually have air thanks
• 3) feeding it 20c from the low point it cools the hot air as it goes up to the electrolyzers by the time the water is at the electrolyzers its a fair bit hotter and the air is cooler
• and i would gladly pay space to not have to pay for cooling and a smaller system would generate the same heat in a smaller area meaning more heat by volume not what i want at all

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 7/10/2018 at 9:37 PM, Noris said:

 

Use a smart battery instead of a heavy battery.  Then you can turn your gennie off when the battery is full.  You'll have surplus power that way.

[heckubis]

nope its off becasue of the atmo switch next to it keeping everything in that area at just about maxed. air flow involves knowing how to get it to move evenly without over burdening an area makes the hot gasses raise faster and the cool gasses drop faster maxed pressure would slow the motion of the heat making me have to spend more on cooling...

1k at 50c takes half as much energy to cool as 2kc at 50

smaller amounts transfer heat quicker even the water lines are limited to under 1k/s so as much of the heat can be absorbed before it get converted to o2 and hydrogen

[azmod2000]

5 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

Use a smart battery instead of a heavy battery.  Then you can turn your gennie off when the battery is full.  You'll have surplus power that way.

The problem with that idea is that with the hydrogen generator off, the hydrogen will back up in the pipes and when full will stop the gas pump removing the hydrogen from the Electroylyzer. The electrolyzer will then quickly over pressure and stop.  You need a bypass that will send the hydrogen on when the generator is off. 

My setup uses a second hydrogen generator that is connected to the main grid of my base and takes in the excess hydrogen.

[KittenIsAGeek]

7 hours ago, azmod2000 said:

The problem with that idea is that with the hydrogen generator off, the hydrogen will back up in the pipes and when full will stop the gas pump removing the hydrogen from the Electroylyzer. The electrolyzer will then quickly over pressure and stop.  You need a bypass that will send the hydrogen on when the generator is off. 

My setup uses a second hydrogen generator that is connected to the main grid of my base and takes in the excess hydrogen.

I always build a buffer room for excess hydrogen. It has a multitude of uses other than simply powering the generator.  When the line to the generator is full, the extra goes into the buffer room for later use.  If my buffer room is getting too full, then I change the settings on my smart battery to run my hydrogen generator more frequently.

[Promethien]

This thread covered a lot of esoteric electrolyzer mechanics:

NanoD posted a picture of an amazingly effective electrolyzer set up.

[BlueLance]

11 hours ago, azmod2000 said:

The problem with that idea is that with the hydrogen generator off, the hydrogen will back up in the pipes

Store it in a room then??