Tighter petrol boiler

[dreamy zinc]

hi folks, the petrol boiler shown in tags (#tags message) (henceforth: "tag-boiler") is great, but I was wondering if it could be made simpler. By unifying it with part of the "Heart of a Petroleum Boiler" from "The Gamers Handbook" I think the answer is 'yes'. WDYT? A screen grab is attached, it lets you use 1 door instead of 2 and fewer diamond tiles.

The part where magma comes in is identical to tag-boiler. The counter-flow to the left is standard, too - nothing special there.

The "should we add oil" logic is from Gamer's handbook - a single hydro sensor that opens/closes the pipe vent depending on whether, essentially, it sees petroleum in the bottom tile. If it does, add more crude oil.

The optimization/contribution is to note that if you use the Gamer's handbook logic, you don't need the second door from "tag-boiler", or the 'connective tissue of extra diamond tiles. . The diamond tile that's heated by the magma only need to connect to 1 other diamond tile, and you're done. Waste not, want not 🙂

comments welcomed/appreciated.

[gritty void]

How does the magma not solidify into a solid tile?

[oak narwhal]

It looks like it already has

[sacred geyser]

It actually looks like it's bricked the mesh tile in that image. Yes.

You can use the precision magma injector but I think that only works left to right?

Which would work but you'd need the magma source above the setup.

(I mention it because it reminds me of that build)

[oak narwhal]

Making it left to right honestly seems like it might help the goal of compactness

[sacred geyser]

(There are obviously other magma management options)

[oak narwhal]

Because you don’t have a weird thing protruding from the boiler

[tired musk]

Without the two stage heat management I'd be concerned about the risk of spiking the temperature and boiling the petroleum to sour gas.

[dreamy zinc]

the magma doesn't solidify into a solid tile using the magic mojo from 'tags-boiler', that's not mine. As the magma cools, it forms into igneous tiles, which are then ejected from the mesh tile(s) into the little square with the temp sensor

[dreamy zinc]

I can see that, but the heat management on the 'input' side seems fine - I haven't seen any problems. I hear you though

BTW, there's got to be a canonical way to refer to the boiler design in #tags - what's the correct term for it?

[tired musk]

I'd definitely expect the temperature control to be much less precise so you are likely having more heat escape the boiling chamber.

I don't think it has a specific name, it's just a volcano powered petroleum boiler.

[dreamy zinc]

ty. It's the part with the 2 mesh tiles and the 'kick-out' into the little room that I hadn't seen before/often.

[oak narwhal]

Magma needs to be at debris masses to be ejected. When it solidifies into a tile it just forms an invisible igneous rock tile in the mesh tile and blocks new magma from flowing in

[dreamy zinc]

ty. how can one tell if the invisible igneous rock tile has formed?

[tired musk]

If you see magma in the top mesh tile an invisible solid tile has likely formed in the bottom one.

[dreamy zinc]

ty. I guess that's happened then. But that part of the design I haven't changed, perhaps I didn't start it up correctly?

I did use 900 Kg water instead of molten lead in the little room

[tired musk]

To confirm you can deconstruct the mesh tile and then do a save and reload.

[oak narwhal]

Maybe post a more zoomed out picture of the magma part of your tamer

[oak narwhal]

When you added the magma did you let it flow into the bottom part or did you use the fill tool on the whole thing

[dreamy zinc]

the former

[tired musk]

The lack of safety automation logic on the door is just one of several of my complaints about the tagged boiler design.

My guess is the switch from lead to steam made the sensor not quite responsive enough and it kept the door open too long.

[dreamy zinc]

that sounds right, ty. Which design do you prefer?

I couldn't think of a nice 'in-game' way to put in molten lead, whereas water is ubiquituous

[oak narwhal]

I think a lead metal tile would be the way to do it

[dreamy zinc]

But if it's a lead metal tile you can't put a temp sensor in there, nor will debris eject into it.

[tired musk]

a lead tempshift plate would be the way

Here's the design I use for boiling petroleum: #base-game-help message

this bit right here is the door safety logic

it makes sure the door can only stay open for at most half a second every ten seconds

[oak narwhal]

Is there any real consensus for how long a counterflow should be

[dreamy zinc]

very smart! ty. It always makes me smile that in ONI physics an S/R gate is the same size as a computer 🙂

[oak narwhal]

I feel like they vary wildly in length

[tired musk]

long enough to be efficient enough that you don't use more magma than you have

[dreamy zinc]

My rough rule of thumb is that every radiant steel pipe warms up the oil by 7 degrees, the petrol down by 6.25 degrees - so it depends on what temp the oil is coming in at and how close you want to cut it.

[tired musk]

how long that is depends on the metal your pipes are made of, how much of the heat you extract from your magma, and how much magma you have

my method for determining how long the exchanger should be is "haha, aluminum pipes go brrr"

[dreamy zinc]

"it makes sure the door can only stay open for at most half a second every ten seconds" - could you do this simpler with a timer sensor set to 0.5 green, 9.5 red, ANDed with the temp sensor output?

[tired musk]

adding a lip to the boiling chamber means you can make the heat exchanger pretty much as long as you want without risking the oil boiling in the pipes

[oak narwhal]

The safety mechanism doesn’t govern when the door activates, it only shuts it down after it’s been half a second since it activates

[tired musk]

a timer sensor and an AND gate could work, I just prefer this since it doesn't take up a tile

[dreamy zinc]

right, hence the AND - only if I "want door to open" AND "I'm in the green part of the timer" will the door open. It has the disadvantage tht it could take up to 9.5 seconds from the "please open the door" signal to when the door actually opens though

[tired musk]

Oh I should probably point out that the shipping module on my boiler is optional. Here's what it looks like without the shipping installed.

[dreamy zinc]

And as QuantumZari mentions, the timer sensor needs a tile, the S/R doesn't

is the airflow just in case sour gas forms? And what do you fill the "room with the temp sensor" with?

[tired musk]

I use steam in the tile above the pressure plate.

[dreamy zinc]

does the pressure plate do anything?

[tired musk]

And the airflow tiles are protection against accidental pressure damage.

The pressure plate is used by the version with shipping.

[dreamy zinc]

ahh, ty. And is that a liquid element sensor I see in above the temp sensor? Used to keep from having too much crude oil?

[tired musk]

It's there in the version without shipping because it's designed to be upgradable without needing to open up the boiler.

Oh, uh don't pay attention to that element sensor, it shouldn't be there.

[dreamy zinc]

ok, thanks so much everyone for your super-fast and knowledgeable input. One last question: was this the right place to post my design tweak?

[tired musk]

I never got around to updating this copy of the build with the proper automation from the other one.

I believe here was probably fine for posting your version of the boiler.

One other feature I'd highly recommend stealing from my design is the lip of the boiling chamber.

Having a lip that the petroleum flows off of to enter the heat exchanger almost completely eliminates oil boiling in the pipes and improves efficiency.

Note that pipes on the boiling chamber side of the lip are insulated.

I'm pretty sure I stole the lip part of the design from Saturnus...

[dreamy zinc]

i noticed that - nice.

[tired musk]

You can find some other rather interesting boiler designs if you do a search for stuff by Saturnus.

[dreamy zinc]

it also means that in an emergency your dupes can walk in to the top row.

[tired musk]

A word of warning about the lip though, when you install it the temperature of the crude oil in the pipes will go down which will make you think it reduced the efficiency of you heat exchanger.