Is there a way to make more sand?

[Chocobro]

Is there some material that can be converted or refined into sand?

[GD]

Dirt is wet Sand ... Polluted Dirt is Dirt with Pollution ... Polluted Water has Polluted Dirt in it ... I think you get some ideas from that.

[Butts McGee]

Unfortunately, not really. Dirt becomes sand around 1800C (magma temps).

There's essentially no way to construct a stable temperature pit to contain those temps. Any temp pit would bleed heat and roast your base or cool down rapidly.

[Reaniel]

Originally posted by A Gay Stoned Cat:

Unfortunately, not really. Dirt becomes sand around 1800C (magma temps).

There's essentially no way to construct a stable temperature pit to contain those temps. Any temp pit would bleed heat and roast your base or cool down rapidly.

Dirt becomes sand at 600K, or 326.85C.

At this time, the only way to do this (that doesn't involve magma) is to build a compost out of Abyssalite, and let its temperature build up slowly. Because of Abyssalite's property, it will keep heating up without burning up the whole room.

At around 125C, you will start getting (hot) dirt, as the fertilizer it was producing turns instantly into dirt.

At around 326.85C, you will start getting (REALLY hot) sand.

One problem with this is that the product would come out in tile blocks because of the way state change works. You'd have to dig it out constantly, and the stuff is going to be super hot, and gets hotter and hotter.

[Butts McGee]

Ah, so it's much lower. Still, impractical thanks to the constant mining required... Which means letting heat bleed out... And Scalding dupes.

[AquaX]

It's completely impractical for sand making.

Best I can say is do not waste sand on things that are not completely dangerous for you. For ex: use sand for water cleaning and deodoranizer within the base. But DO NOT USE it on just a slime biome you are digging through.

[GD]

Originally posted by A Gay Stoned Cat:

At around 326.85C, you will start getting (REALLY hot) sand.

One problem with this is that the product would come out in tile blocks because of the way state change works. You'd have to dig it out constantly, and the stuff is going to be super hot, and gets hotter and hotter.

I never thought about using the compost as a super-heat source. I knew it creates heat, but I somehow oversaw it is the only machine (= something that builds heat) build out of a Non-Metal material therefore intresting for temperatures beyond 125°C.

Thanks for the idea. I started a little experiment in a Vaccum-sealed, Chlorine-Aired room to not heat up the base with Obsidian as Floor/Heat Conductor. I'm intrested if it is possible to reach the smelting-temperature of Iron-Ore, Gold-Amalgan and Wolframite.

[Reaniel]

@GD
If that's what you're testing, then I suggest using an Abyssalite Refrigerator instead.

There are two types of heat that a machine produces, the heat it releases to its surroundings (air/liquid tiles occupying the same space as the machine), and the heat it releases onto itself.

For the most part, the distinction between the two doesn't make a difference.

However, for stuff that's made of Abyssalite, it basically means the part of heat it releases onto itself will not go back to the environment, so you'd have super hot Abyssalite compost or fridge with (sort of) normal air temperature around it. Couple with the property of Compost, where its output will be the same, if not hotter, than the machine itself, this lead to the sand production trick that I just mentioned.

Since what you're looking for is some kind of accumulation of the first type of heat without overheating the machine, you'd want to try using an Abyssalite fridge instead of compost. This is because outhouse would require a dupe coming in to put stuff into the compost as well as turning it, and this might lead to heat loss with dupes entering and exiting. With a refrigerator, you can just hook it up to electricity and lock it up, and the heat produced won't escape as easily.

Note that you'll need A LOT of refrigerators for the experiment, and a pretty long time in building the temperature up. I personally didn't play with this, but I believe there are a few people on the official forum that did, and actually have it run so long that the Abyssalite fridge overheated. they also melted the storage compactor that was in the same room along the way.

So I'm sure it's possible to melt copper ore and gold amalgam this way, but you can't have the mass being too high, and the process would probably take forever.

[Reaniel]

@GD
On second thought, compost might actually be faster since it'll be dumping so much hot mass that it'll be creating much more heat in the environment than using a fridge at higher machine temperature.

Hmm... Now this is making me want to try it out myself to see if it works like what I have in my head.

[GD]

That's why I decided to use Chlorine for air. The heat transfer is minimal in an environment where some air needs be there because dups come in now and then. Another possibility would be an Water-Airlock and a Vaccum in the room, but I think Polluted Oxygen is emitting and PO2 is a too good heat conductor.

And the fridge idea is not that bad. It produces only have the Heat Output, and needs electricity, but it is the only other Non-Metal Heat-Producer in game and don't need dup interaction and could be placed in a vaccum.

EDIT: If the room is sealed and good isolated it might be a good idea to use steam as atmosphere in the room full of refrigerators. Steam has better properties than Hydrogen, but can only be properly used above 100°C. But extreme heat is the goal, so may be worth a look to interconnect the heat properly and maybe avoid heat accumulations due to the amount and placement of devices. Crazy really. ... arg forget that ... it will never work. The wires will melt down long before. Because they are still made out of metal.