Alternative Electrolyzer Solution

[goatt]

I've seen quite a few tight room electrolyzer setup with 1 electrolyzer, and each has 2 or 3 gas pumps, and that makes perfect sense. But I'm really greedy for power and would like to squeeze out any power that I can use on other places. So I'm sharing my alternative setup.

How to Squeeze Out More Power

setup needs 4 things: it's also just the minimum you need for H2 generator

Electrolyzer => H2 gas pump with gaseous sensor => H2 generator

1. H2 gas pump for H2 generator [1 in screenshot]
2. 1 gaseous sensor (-25W) [2 in screenshot]
3. 1 electrolyzer [3]
4. 1 H2 generator (+800W)

• optional O2 gas pump for suit docks and transfer a little O2 around base
• some of them is working part-time.

(Edited) The idea is to let nature help with the work. As O2 naturally goes down and H2 goes up, the electrolyzer room has a big opening (at the bottom or on the side) for gas to float out, it saves the work for one gas pump. So usually this room is at the top of my base like in image1, and bad times it's left of my base like image2.

To get pure H2, usually gas filter is used, but I put gaseous sensor[2] there to make sure gas above it is only H2, so that gas pump will only take in H2. Gaseous sensor is power friendly.

With 8 or less dupes, electrolyzer overpressure is proper, since O2 floating out at a relatively constant rate, when it's overpressure, it's saying that there is already enough O2 around base and I'm having a break. The gas layout always suggested my base have sufficient O2 when this happens.

[optional] When I have suit docks, I put another pump below the electrolyzer[3] for suit docks, and that will also conveniently transfer some O2 around base, as well as helping electrolyzer low air pressure. Since I like my room spatial, I put the cooling woots in there too. Woots room is sealed. That will keep the temp always below 20C, even with two kilns working there, each one of which produces more heat than a space heater. Since H2 generator produce 800W, and this setup consumes only 625W,(240+240+120+25) I can output 175 W for lighting, gas stove, and so on, plus it has already supported suit docks. Last thing, I prefer to build the room near hot water sources[4](it has 90C water), cuz electrolyzer destroy heat. It's very sustainable temperature-wise.

Calculation for every 1kg water, I'm not good at Math.

• H2 generator + 800x(112g / 100g H2) = +896J
• water pump -240x(1kg/10kg water) = -24J
• H2 pump -240x(100g/500g H2) = -48J
• O2 pump assuming if pump 500g out of 888g O2 produced, -240J
• gaseous sensor 25Jx(112g/100g H2), roughly -30J
• over the course of 1kg water, you get roughly 554J, let's say all happens in 1 sec, then it's 554W.

The second example doesn't have an ideal cool steam vent location, I have to open its right side to my base on the right. But it still works.

 

Edit: after what I learnt from @KittenIsAGeek gas pump makes best use of its power in a high pressure gas, at least 500g/s. In this setup, [1] is immersed in H2 of roughly 1.4 kg, [5](below[3] out of picture) is near ectrolyzer high pressure zone, so I guess they did work to their max efficiency.

[BlueLance]

I have a compact design which is the same, although I do have 4 Electrolyzers running, 1 pump for each which I can change down to 1 pump per 2 elextrolyzers, and I have two pumps sending O2 to all my exosuit docks as well.

The system powers my base as well. 

Also you forgot to add a liquid pump to your power list. I know its not exactly an amazing amount but its still something

[psusi]

Doesn't your electrolyzer shut down a lot from overpressure while it waits for the oxygen to diffuse naturally?  Meaning it won't actually make enough for 8 dupes.  Better I think, to pump it away and keep the electrolyzer working.  Also what are the two transformers for?

 

[Saturnus]

7 hours ago, goatt said:

Since H2 generator produce 800W, and this setup consumes only 625W,(240+240+120+25) I can output 175 W for lighting, gas stove, and so on, plus it has already supported suit docks.

All these numbers are pure fantasy. electrolyzers only consume power when actively outputting gas, pumps only consume power when actively pumping, the battery consume power constantly etc etc.  Please make actual measurement over at least 10-20 cycles and then average out the actual power consumption.

[Argelle]

Or, just for the electrolyser, look at the last 7 daily report and something accurate you will have

[Cipupec2]

7 hours ago, goatt said:

I've seen quite a few tight room electrolyzer setup with 1 electrolyzer, and each has 2 or 3 gas pumps, and that makes perfect sense. But I'm really greedy for power and would like to squeeze out any power that I can use on other places. So I'm sharing my alternative setup.

That doesn't make sense to me.

1.With automation, gas pumps only work when they are needed, so more pumps don't take more energy just does twice faster (and shut down for twice longer, if necessary) 

2. Each electrolyzer produce 888g/s of oxygen, so your one pump setup will under preform (unless you don't have enough water,) and eventually will shut down due to over pressurization. 

[BlueLance]

2 hours ago, psusi said:

Doesn't your electrolyzer shut down a lot from overpressure while it waits for the oxygen to diffuse naturally?  Meaning it won't actually make enough for 8 dupes.  Better I think, to pump it away and keep the electrolyzer working.  Also what are the two transformers for?

 

It would still produce enough oxygen for 8, they will consume it etc and it will flow naturally. even if eventually the oxygen did't diffuse fast enough the dupes would just sit under it breathing it as it came out XD

Also you have two transformers in your build which are redundant and wasting electricity, if you want to squeeze out every bit of energy you could you should sent exces gas to your main power grid and have this grid seperate. That way it powers itself without wasting it except on a battery, and anything extra gets kept as extra enegry

[Cipupec2]

10 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

It would still produce enough oxygen for 8, they will consume it etc and it will flow naturally. even if eventually the oxygen did't diffuse fast enough the dupes would just sit under it breathing it as it came out XD

I think he was talking about the OP setup, which has one oxygen pump, in which case it won't be enough even if all your dupes has 'Diver's Lungs' perk they will still consume 600g/s oxygen, 100g/s more than one pump can handle

[KittenIsAGeek]

@goatt I've found that using two electrolyzers with 3 gas pumps can be very efficient. At 1000g/s of oxygen (two pumps running continually) it will produce enough hydrogen to run a generator continually and still have excess hydrogen.  Even without tuning up the generators, it will produce twice as much power as it uses.

[goatt]

@BlueLance Thx for pointing out the liquid pipe lol. Usually I used the water pump for bathroom too cuz o heard bathroom destroy heat which I found not true. Btw, I’m curious how many dupes do you have that require 4 electrolyzets?

You said dupes will sit below electrolyzer, I found it funny. And I did see that before. But I think electrolyzer produce 888 O2 instead of 800, which is a little extra. And sometimes dupes just hold their breath while working in unbreathable gas, so that lowers a little O2 consumption too.

About transformers, I simply didn’t have so much refined metal for conductive cable lol. I have one H2 “power station” and another centralized one, which provide 1/4 and 3/4 of my base power. I built them there cuz in my construction progression it made sense. I like the look of those rigid setup prototypes, But I usually just do what I see fit.

@psusi Will electrolyzer pverpressure a lot? Not really. When I have 8 dupes, there was second pump below electrolyzer[3] (blow the screenshot lower edge), that pump keeps regional pressure below 1000g. 

@Saturnus You are right my measure is not precise. You are welcome to test it out. But I might not do it cuz that’s not so interesting to me. The number is for when all the machine is using power (plus the water pump that I forgot to mention). But also remember, pumps’ power consumption is proportional to gas/liquid quantity pumped as well as the time the pumps have worked, some gas /liquid pumps  are not working full time. Also electrolyzer produces more H2 for H2 generator to run for same amount of time.

[Saturnus]

11 minutes ago, goatt said:

But also remember, pumps’ power consumption is proportional to gas/liquid quantity pumped as well as the time the pumps have worked.

Incorrect. Pumps and filters use exactly the same amount of power to pump or filter 1µg as 1kg.

[goatt]

The forum just merged all my replies into one reply. Is it possible to stop that?

22 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

Incorrect. Pumps and filters use exactly the same amount of power to pump or filter 1µg as 1kg.

What do you mean? I don’t understand. Pump is 240w, filter is 120W. I might have misunderstood. From what I found, pumps use 1 unit of energy when it pumps 1 unit of gas/liquid, everything is packaged in their own unit. 

[KittenIsAGeek]

6 minutes ago, goatt said:

The forum just merged all my replies into one reply. Is it possible to forbid that?

What do you mean? I don’t understand.

OK, each 'action' of the pump uses precisely the same amount of power, whether or not it gets a full packet of gas.  So, for example, if your pump pushes a 500g packet followed by a 1g packet into the pipe, both "cost" the same amount of power.  Which is one reason why mechanically separating the gasses (using their natural tendencies to rise/fall) before pumping them improves the efficiency so much.

[goatt]

@KittenIsAGeek I’m curious how many dupes are you housing with 2 electrolyzers? 

For what you just posted, now I understand. I observed liquid pump, they only packaged the max amount, I thought gas pumps work the same way. So they are different. Gas pumps consumes power proportional to time only. Good to k ow. Thx

[KittenIsAGeek]

Just now, goatt said:

@KittenIsAGeek I’m curious how many dupes are you housing with 2 electrolyzers?

1000g/s of oxygen can support support 10 dupes.  My method doesn't utilize the full potential of the electrolyzers.  Instead, I'm minimizing the power used to produce oxygen.

Spoiler

The two side pumps will run continually with 10 dupes in the base, sending out a solid 1000g/s combined rate of oxygen.

1000g/s oxygen means that I'm producing 126.126g/s hydrogen.  A hydrogen generator consumes 100g/s hydrogen and produces 800w of power.  When running continually, the system consumes an average of about 650w of power (I can't remember precisely, but I did measure it at one point).  That leaves an extra 150w of power from the first generator and an additional 208w from the excess hydrogen for about 360w of "surplus" power.

[goatt]

@KittenIsAGeek that works great, and looks nice too.

[psusi]

1 hour ago, goatt said:

Thx for pointing out the liquid pipe lol. Usually I used the water pump for bathroom too cuz o heard bathroom destroy heat which I found not true. Btw, I’m curious how many dupes do you have that require 4 electrolyzets?

It isn't the bathroom that destroys heat but the water sieve.  Hot polluted water ( > 100 F or so ) comes out of the sieve at 100 F and so can destroy heat.  If you dump heat into a polluted water pond, then when it is cleaned and sent to the bathroom, it comes back as cooler polluted water.

[Nxf7]

@goatt I'm not sure how you're handling hydrogen but one option I'll be exploring soon, and frankly I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work, is to use door compressors instead of pumps.

At first I was pumping hydrogen into another room with a water-covered vent so that it can overpressurise, and then another pump in there to push out hydrogen as needed. I realised this was a waste of power as the initial pump near the electrolyser isn't necessary if I use door compressors instead.

Same thing can be done with the oxygen as well if you wish to keep an "open" design but with the added advantage of the electrolyser not stalling from pressure.

[goatt]

@Nxf7 that’s a great idea, I’ve never thought of it before. Personally I’ve been avoiding using doors for anything else other than door and I will still do so. But this is creative.

[BlueLance]

15 hours ago, Cipupec2 said:

I think he was talking about the OP setup, which has one oxygen pump, in which case it won't be enough even if all your dupes has 'Diver's Lungs' perk they will still consume 600g/s oxygen, 100g/s more than one pump can handle

The oxygen is diffusing naturally through the bottom, the pump is not what is feeding the dupes, at least from what i can see.

 

13 hours ago, goatt said:

Btw, I’m curious how many dupes do you have that require 4 electrolyzets?

I build 4 as soon as I can because it is just how i like my system to be, at that point I usually only have 4 dupes so the rate of oxygen consumption isnt massive which means the power produced isnt either. but I use the same system for when I get to 16 dupes as well. I sit with Quantity over quality because even if I had 2 electrolyzers at 100% uptime the 4 do the same work in half the time.

4 hours ago, Nxf7 said:

@goatt I'm not sure how you're handling hydrogen but one option I'll be exploring soon, and frankly I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work, is to use door compressors instead of pumps.

At first I was pumping hydrogen into another room with a water-covered vent so that it can overpressurise, and then another pump in there to push out hydrogen as needed. I realised this was a waste of power as the initial pump near the electrolyser isn't necessary if I use door compressors instead.

Same thing can be done with the oxygen as well if you wish to keep an "open" design but with the added advantage of the electrolyser not stalling from pressure.

I will post my design tonight, it has a pipe that splits into two, with priority going to the generators and a nice long pipe to act as a buffer, this means that everytime a little bit of the buffer is used the original pump will fill it then any excess goes to my storage room.

Now if my buffer becomes dangerously low the pump in my hydrogen room begins to pump. So until that happens I do not waste any excess energy with the second pump.

[Cipupec2]

7 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

The oxygen is diffusing naturally through the bottom, the pump is not what is feeding the dupes, at least from what i can see.

You are right, its actually noted in the next paragraph, but after looking at soo many setups I eager to see the alternative part I auto skipped to the schematic .. My bad. 

Overall its just a variation of common design, for a very specific setup, where he switched the pump for few airflow tiles.

22 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

I build 4 [..] but I use the same system for when I get to 16 dupes as well. I sit with Quantity over quality because even if I had 2 electrolyzers at 100% uptime the 4 do the same work in half the time.

Same here, after several plaything I know what my goals are, so I prefer to build up or at least leave enough space for expansion. But generally, I prefer to have a little extra, some air always lost in imperfect airlocks, accidents, animals etc**?  But I suppose these can be compensated by other means.

**btw does atmo suits consume air at the correct ratio?  because it says that suits has 200kg, which should last for ~3days but I don't recall seeing dupe last so much.

[Bomato]

In all these builds I never see power stations for tune ups. If you want to maximize power output, how can you forgo a 50% gain?

[Cipupec2]

@goatt I am not a fan of your first design, there is too much things that can go wrong and thus shutdown your oxygen/power supply. 
But here is a possible improvement for your second design using some of the tricks that I learned in recent days:
 

Spoiler

1. Each pump should have a atmo sensor. You should set the Hydro pump to 500 and the oxygen to higher number so that it only start to work to prevent overpressurization, allowing you to make best use of your airflow tiles and air pressure physics.
2. I added a valve to help fill the wheezwort room with hydrogen, which it looks like you did.
3. I am not sure what are you using the gas filter for, but since you just pump it back in try this design instead, it will use 1/6 of the power.
4. you only need to cool the oxygen, if you have the metal to spare, then I'd replace the metal vertical wall with couple tempshift plates just below (cost extra 1200 metal)

Obviously you'd still need to adapt it, to your specific situation, but I hope it helps

[psusi]

3 hours ago, Bomato said:

In all these builds I never see power stations for tune ups. If you want to maximize power output, how can you forgo a 50% gain?

I've never seen the point of tune-ups.  With a NG geyser and generator, I have more power than I know what to do with.  At least half of the time, generators are idle, so if you did tune them up, half of it would be wasted.  Well, even more since with higher output, they would spend more time idle.  And each time you do, it costs precious metal.

[BlueLance]

4 hours ago, Bomato said:

In all these builds I never see power stations for tune ups. If you want to maximize power output, how can you forgo a 50% gain?

I was actually started to fiddle about with that! Because that is something i need to impliment, I have volcanoes etc I really do need to make use of the tune-ups!

3 hours ago, Cipupec2 said:

1. Each pump should have a atmo sensor. You should set the Hydro pump to 500 and the oxygen to higher number so that it only start to work to prevent overpressurization, allowing you to make best use of your airflow tiles and air pressure physics.

To save a little bit of extra energy I found setting it to 600 is better than 500, At 500 you usually have a smaller packet at the front and at the back of the pumped gas, IIRC at 600 you only get a small packet at the end. But i might be wrong I only looked at it for a short while. but I do agree it needs to be at least 500!