Scalable SPOM unit

[Kelirt]

 

Spoiler

 

max electrolyzer performance

2 gas pump per electrolyzer

sensor based

https://imgur.com/a/ikvKNn6

1.Oxygen overfill sensor connected with power shutoff[3] (buffer delay 2s)

2.Hydrogen detection sensor

3.Power shutoff. Each SPOM unit (Electrolyzer+2gas pump) has independent oxygen overfill protection. 4.Oxygen/Hydrogen separation.

5.Oxygen termal sensor - aquatuner enable/disable control.

6.Hydrogen generator protection sensor.

7.Aquatuner radiator filling pipe: full radiator can't work - "pipe blocked" error. Disconnet from water income, deconstruct one radiator section and build it again.

System limited by hydrogen pipe capacity. Only 4 SPOM unit in one pipe, but you can avoid limit with second hydro pipe.

https://imgur.com/a/Eu8Lz2Z

At start you need some external power source. Carefully plan the power circuit.

[thejams]

A mechanical gas filter would also work without requiring any power and being 100% reliable as long as hydrogen doesn't back up.  The only negative is it needs to be primed.

[Kelirt]

Mechanical filter with 2 or 3 gas pump ?

[clickrush]

15 minutes ago, Kelirt said:

Mechanical filter with 2 or 3 gas pump ?

I personally don't build SPOMs. I feel like it is more beneficial to seperate concerns, so my electrolyzer setups are just producing oxygen and hydrogen, while cooling and power are handled elsewhere.

But here is my current build which uses a mechanical tile filter (as opposed to mechanical pipe filter):

After this is primed the gases will never mix. The maximum output of 4 electrolyzers is 448g/s hydrogen and 3552g/s oxygen. But since I'am using pressure automation I can use redudant pumping w/o power loss.

It is generally good practice to have more pumping than you need and steer them with pressure. This way they are able to handle higher demand spikes but will not waste power. Same goes for the electrolyzers. As a beginner I tried to cut down the electrolyzers to the smallest number I need, but over time I became a fan of redundancy here too. They will not overproduce if you don't actually use the gases, so it is again nice to be able to churn out more stuff when you need it to for example oxygenize a new area etc.

[psusi]

So you are using two pumps to extract all of the gas into a single pipe, then use a sensor/shutoff to sort them?  And you are cooling both the hydrogen and oxygen using water, which is then cooled by an aquatuner loop... but what is keeping the aquatuner cool?

 

[Kelirt]

Aquatuner max temp near 50C. After water in radiator room reach 15C, aquatuner run very rare. Cooling nly for oxygen.

[crypticorb]

One problem you'll run into using gas pipe element sensors and shutoff valves is if you have any backup in the pipes, oxygen or hydrogen, your filters fail immediately.

My SPOMs are typically limited by the oxygen pumps, and letting the electrolyzers over-pressurize. Once the oxygen pipes are full for either the base, exosuits, or a LOX production, your system will fall apart as the sensor/shutoff filter requires the gas to be moving constantly to move the packet correctly.

One other problem I can see is that you're limiting your production by the placement of the pumps. Two pumps (2 x 500g/s) is technically sufficient to move the amount of gas produced by an electrolyzer (112 hydrogen + 888 oxygen), but if you're using natural gravity you'll find that you need two pumps for oxygen and one for hydrogen that runs only occasionally.

[thejams]

1 hour ago, Kelirt said:

Mechanical filter with 2 or 3 gas pump ?

Mechanical filters don't work (well) with maximum size packets, so you would use it only on the top pump in place on the sensor filter now (or on both pumps separately before you join the pipes).  The advantage is that once primed, it will never let the wrong gas pass the filter, so a mechanical filter would not care about oxygen backup, unlike the sensor filter.  It would probably be a good idea to prioritize the pipe junction to empty the hydrogen line first.

10 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

One other problem I can see is that you're limiting your production by the placement of the pumps. Two pumps (2 x 500g/s) is technically sufficient to move the amount of gas produced by an electrolyzer (112 hydrogen + 888 oxygen), but if you're using natural gravity you'll find that you need two pumps for oxygen and one for hydrogen that runs only occasionally.

Weren't pump's changed to draw and buffer both gases so in a system like this you still get full 500g packets from each pump?

[Kelirt]

Thank you all for the advice. Pls run Improved versıon Doomed Abyss.sav

1 hour ago, crypticorb said:

 if you have any backup in the pipes, oxygen or hydrogen, your filters fail immediately

I did not understand. Explain by example, pls.

1 hour ago, crypticorb said:

but if you're using natural gravity you'll find that you need two pumps for oxygen and one for hydrogen that runs only occasionally.

I dont use gravity =). If separate hydrogen from oxygen before 2 oxygen pipes connect you wıll get maximal volume of oxygen and hydrogen.

[thejams]

38 minutes ago, thejams said:

Weren't pump's changed to draw and buffer both gases so in a system like this you still get full 500g packets from each pump?

 

Yes it does (just not always 500g, bit it will average) 

I setup 2 x 250g hydrogen tiles + 2 x 10kg oxygen tiles.  The pump obviously pulls more than 1 gas at the same time and buffers them, then emits them in sequence.  So the end result is bigger than 500g packets.

[crypticorb]

22 minutes ago, Kelirt said:

I did not understand. Explain by example, pls.

When using the gas pipe element sensor in combination with the gas shutoff automation, if a packet of hydrogen is flowing through the oxygen line, and the filter is set to remove all hydrogen packets, under normal circumstances the packet will flow from the sensor to the input of the shutoff just as the shutoff is activated.

This assumes that the gas in the pipe is moving. If the oxygen pipe is backed up, the hydrogen packet will be stuck over the sensor for a moment, while the input of the gas shutoff still has an oxygen packet in its section of pipe. What results is the oxygen packet will be sent down the hydrogen line along with the packet of hydrogen behind it.

In the picture below you can see exactly what I described happening.

 

Another failure condition is if you have a power loss of the line the shutoff is on. This results in the main unfiltered pipeline simply passing the shutoff by as if it were not present, allowing hydrogen packets into the oxygen line. This can be just as annoying, maybe more so, because it can damage exosuit docks receiving something not oxygen.

32 minutes ago, thejams said:

 

Yes it does (just not always 500g, bit it will average) 

I setup 2 x 250g hydrogen tiles + 2 x 10kg oxygen tiles.  The pump obviously pulls more than 1 gas at the same time and buffers them, then emits them in sequence.  So the end result is bigger than 500g packets.

This is very interesting, but I don't quite grasp what significance it has for an electrolyzer build?

[Kelirt]

Yes. Power loss is a problem, but overpressure not. Simple protection with element sensor and power shutoff.

 

[thejams]

11 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

This is very interesting, but I don't quite grasp what significance it has for an electrolyzer build?

For this system, you can pump with 2 pumps and maintain a total of 1.000g of gas pumped out.  The hydrogen pump will alternate between hydrogen and oxygen and some oxygen packets will be larger than 500g.

[crypticorb]

1 minute ago, thejams said:

For this system, you can pump with 2 pumps and maintain a total of 1.000g of gas pumped out.  The hydrogen pump will alternate between hydrogen and oxygen and some oxygen packets will be larger than 500g.

Ahhh, I see. 

So long as you can guarantee that the filter will never fail, I suppose you can rely on that setup.

Optimizing SPOMs is always annoying, because in order to keep the electrolyzer from overpressurizing, you have to move the pumps closer. This means that you can't always rely on gas separation, and need to rely on some type of filter. Normal filters will push it over the "self-powering" part of SPOM, and automation filters aren't 100% reliable.

[thejams]

Just now, crypticorb said:

Ahhh, I see. 

So long as you can guarantee that the filter will never fail, I suppose you can rely on that setup.

Well you could also prioritize the output of the top pump (at the junction of the 2 pumps), so even if the filter fails, the hydrogen will just flow out with the oxygen.

[crypticorb]

58 minutes ago, thejams said:

Well you could also prioritize the output of the top pump (at the junction of the 2 pumps), so even if the filter fails, the hydrogen will just flow out with the oxygen.

That can be just as bad, or worse. Hydrogen into exosuit docks damages them, costing refined metal and suit downtime, which is far worse than damaging a hydrogen generator, which only costs raw metal.

I suppose you could pump the hydrogen to a separation room where natural separation would guarantee gas purity. Though that could cost more power than a standard filter.

Has anyone tried using door pumps to move gas away from electrolyzers, to keep them from over-pressurizing?

I'll think about it more.

[thejams]

@crypticorb well the mechanical filters are 100% reliable as long as the hydrogen doesn't back up and you can always setup an oxygen mechanical filter wherever you need to make sure only oxygen gets trough .

[crypticorb]

1 hour ago, thejams said:

@crypticorb well the mechanical filters are 100% reliable as long as the hydrogen doesn't back up and you can always setup an oxygen mechanical filter wherever you need to make sure only oxygen gets trough .

Hmm, I suppose that's true. Two mechanical filters are cheaper power-wise than using a single standard filter.

BTW, when you say mechanical filter, do you refer to the automation sensor/shutoff filter, the natural separation tile filter, or the bridge/valve limiting filter that was someone came up with before the automation version?

[SackMaggie]

How about this two floor size?

It have some space left and I don't know what else to put in since It don't need filter and have transformer to draw extra power out. Maybe put pacu farm in there and handle hydrogen else where.

[thejams]

@crypticorb bridge/valve fliter... this:

[Cipupec2]

10 hours ago, Kelirt said:

 

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For an optimal Electrolyzer build you need to pay attention to:

1. Electrolyzer efficiency
2. Gas Pump efficiency
3. Heat and power efficiency 

1. Checked. (Personally I like to add a liquid reservoir as a buffer for gayser inactivity times and as visual on the spot indication of how much water I have.
2. You should add atmo sensor, to avoid pump working when they are at low pressure thus wasting power.
3. You don't need to cool hydrogen and the gas shutoff you are using should be wasting power (though they don't seem to) that why people often use either a mechanical filter(advanced) or one of the mechanical separation Electrolyzer setups (simple)

EDIT: 4. pay attention to edge cases e.g. If you system goes out of power as i common early game, your filter will fail, and oxygen will go into your hydro generators breaking them, which would be tricky for you to fix given that those rooms are in vacum and has no doors.

3 hours ago, thejams said:

@crypticorb well the mechanical filters are 100% reliable as long as the hydrogen doesn't back up and you can always setup an oxygen mechanical filter wherever you need to make sure only oxygen gets trough .

If you looking for completely fool proof separation and max electrolizer efficiency go no further:

 

Spoiler

its trimmed down version of what I am currently using without most of the whistles and bells I like (forgot to remove the memory toggle, simple atmo sensor would work fine)

 

[thejams]

@Cipupec2 I know that setup, I just find it way too abusive 

[KittenIsAGeek]

I've used a system like below for a very long time.  Its reliable, easy to set up and prime, and can produce a constant 1kg/s of oxygen.  The oxygen is piped through a temperature controlled water reservoir so that it enters the base at about 18c.  The hydrogen doesn't get cooled.

Spoiler

The atmo sensors above the electrolyzers are basically an on/off switch.  The atmo sensors for the fans are set to "above 600."  

For the past 100 or so cycles, Hydrogen has been my primary power source.   Only in the past couple of cycles have my coal generators started kicking in again.

Spoiler

And I still have a HUGE amount of hydrogen left over...

Spoiler

About 42kg in 34 squares is 1428kg of excess hydrogen... plus the full 150kg tank of hydrogen.

I could probably build another hydrogen generator, but I'm saving up for space.

[Cipupec2]

Btw for all those who use a setup which maintain a high temp electrolizer room, does double insulated walls suffice to deal with abyssalite nerf or should I be planing to surround the complex in tile of vacuum? 

 

20 minutes ago, thejams said:

@Cipupec2 I know that setup, I just find it way too abusive 

Some say the same about the mechanical filter, i just feel that they are natural progression for experience players.

 

[KittenIsAGeek]

Just now, Cipupec2 said:

Btw for all those who use a setup which maintain a high temp electrolizer room, does double insulated walls suffice to deal with abyssalite nerf or should I be planing to surround the complex in tile of vacuum? 

Why double?  Single works just fine.  Its only getting up to about 55c in there.

Spoiler

My base is a bit warm because my cooking stations are right below there, not because the insulation has turned red.  BTW, that's sandstone, nothing special.