How do you handle the water ouput of the aluminium processing? [EXP]

[nottrox]

I have a decent aluminium processing site in my Experimental savegame. But i have problems to handle the water flow. Producing Batterys and Al scrap also generates a water output. When this stocks it obviously stocks the production of my hole site as it develops like a traffic jam.
So now i started to put shredders at ends of production lines so that the stocking can not start due to full containers. But i still have the problem that my wateroutput could stock. I am now even thinking about packing the water and shredder the bottles but while thatwould be effective it would be very unefficent and therefore unsatisfying and i do not play SATISFactory to feel unSATISFied.
So how do you handle that damn water?

[⎛⎝Duckers McQuack⎠⎞]

connect it to an already existing water pipe for factories that requires water. And everything else that is making more than required, have an awesome sink eat the rest through a smart splitter.

[nottrox]

I am already doing that but it somehow hard to balance it out.

[Tenebrais]

Everything that outputs water as a byproducts requires more of it earlier in the chain. Feed the water output from your scrap refineries into the input for your alumina ones; same for batteries and sulphuric acid. You can use valves to restrict the amount coming in from water pumps to make sure there's always room for the water output to flow in, or just underclock the pumps themselves.

[Verios44]

Get the alternates

- sloppy solution
- electrode aluminum scrap
- pure aluminum ingot
- alclad casing

This setup is a clean 1:2 ratio

1 solution refnery per two electrode scrap refineries.

[Kraft51]

Originally posted by Verios44:

Get the alternates

- sloppy solution
- electrode aluminum scrap
- pure aluminum ingot
- alclad casing

This setup is a clean 1:2 ratio

1 solution refnery per two electrode scrap refineries.

why start at aluminium? Pure Copper Ingots use water in the recipe, its a great way to use up the excess water before you have any viable aluminium production running.

[Shahadem]

It's kind of stupid that the building doesn't automatically recycle the water input itself.
It shouldn't produce water, it should simply use varying amounts of water. More when it starts than when it is in full production.

[Verios44]

Originally posted by Kraft51:

Originally posted by Verios44:

Get the alternates

- sloppy solution
- electrode aluminum scrap
- pure aluminum ingot
- alclad casing

This setup is a clean 1:2 ratio

1 solution refnery per two electrode scrap refineries.

why start at aluminium? Pure Copper Ingots use water in the recipe, its a great way to use up the excess water before you have any viable aluminium production running.

It is simpler to balance it so the byproduct water is used within the aluminum scrap production chain. Sending it to another process is ok, but the ratios do not evenly line up with your byproduct and pure copper. Plus, pure copper uses very little water compared with the other pure alternates. You will still have a water issue. Thus keeping it self contained is the simplest option.

[Kraft51]

Originally posted by Verios44:

Originally posted by Kraft51:

why start at aluminium? Pure Copper Ingots use water in the recipe, its a great way to use up the excess water before you have any viable aluminium production running.

It is simpler to balance it so the byproduct water is used within the aluminum scrap production chain. Sending it to another process is ok, but the ratios do not evenly line up with your byproduct and pure copper. Plus, pure copper uses very little water compared with the other pure alternates. You will still have a water issue. Thus keeping it self contained is the simplest option.

i'm just saying its not the only viable option ... no need to preach meta at me, got over 1600 hours between steam and epic.

[SamSaraguy]

Feed the water from the refinery that is making aluminum scrap and water back into the supply of the refineries that are processing the bauxite. THEN put a valve on the pipe that is coming from the extractors to reduce flow by the amount that is being supplied by the aluminum scrap refinery. So if you are providing 360 m3 of water from extractors and the scrap refinery is making 120 m3, you need to valve the supply from the extractors down to 240 m3 of water (or just remove 1 of the 3 extractors you installed because you thought you needed 360 m3 per min.)

[Kevlan]

I've tried all of these solutions - The problem comes up that when there is the slightest interruption in the input or output supply chain and the factories stop extra water comes in. Ideally, you wouldn't have this happen and it would be able to balance things perfectly, but in my mid-game factory, it doesn't always work that way. (It might in an end-game factory where outputs are more balanced, but I'm not there yet)

I finally gave up balancing and simply dumped the water output to some refineries where I make concrete. I send that to my main factory floor to use, with an overflow splitter to send the rest to a sink. That avoids any kind of overflow condition and my water never gets backed up. It's not elegant, but it serves its purpose.

[Mister Fabulous]

https://imgur.com/YH4RKRO
I do this for the current EA branch. I have it set up in a way that it never stops running.

Another way to do this, and I hope I describe it correctly, is to build a buffer elevated over 10m taking the scrap refinery water output pushed up to the buffer with a pump and feeding it back in to the solution refinery inputs. What happens is if the water fills up too much on the solution refinery inputs, the water extractors stop running and the water must drain from the pipe coming from the buffer before they start again. This will not clog and will guarantee the scrap refinery waste water is always used.

[Mickhael]

Originally posted by Mister Fabulous:

https://imgur.com/YH4RKRO
....

Another way to do this, and I hope I describe it correctly, is to build a buffer elevated over 10m taking the scrap refinery water output pushed up to the buffer with a pump and feeding it back in to the solution refinery inputs. What happens is if the water fills up too much on the solution refinery inputs, the water extractors stop running and the water must drain from the pipe coming from the buffer before they start again. This will not clog and will guarantee the scrap refinery waste water is always used.

@Mister Fabulous.... almost one week I try everything described here, and last when I read your post I understand the mechanic of that particular situation. It working like a charm :)
Thx a lot :)
PS I build the buffer on Aluminum building.... somewhere at 64m :))

[baerra]

I see a lot of people have trouble with this and people have explained it, so I'll explain it as well, in case it helps, because I had a lot of trouble. For the record this setup is mirrored 3 times in the screenshot, and runs at 100% efficiency all the time. You need Sloppy Alumina alternate/Pure Aluminum Ingot for this to work. It makes 360 ingots, requiring 400 Bauxite, 240 Coal. We'll get to the water.

1 WATER Extractor OC'd to 160. (All MK2 Pipes for this)
2 Refiners making Sloppy Alumina

Sloppy Alumina produce and Coal go into 2 more Refineries
Aluminum Scrap output placed into 12 Smelters, creating 360 Ingots.
(You can do what you want with these, but make a note that whatever you do, you MAYneed to create a Smart Splitter for overflow and sink it, depending on what you're using the Ingots to create and if it isn't 100% efficient Otherwise if you do not your factory may back up and this will require you to fully restart it.)

Now, these two Refineries make 240 Water, which you're going to merge together and pipe back around and all the way back into the Sloppy Alumina Refineries, merging with the 160 water to give you all you need. Side note: You need to place a Valve just before the water merges into the first two refineries to prevent backflow, or your pipes WILL backup.

https://i.ibb.co/5sBgs5s/20210531081149-1.png

All I will tell anyone who does this is to make sure you start this setup with ZERO inside of it, No water, no alumina, nothing in the pipes. Turn the water extractor on and go from there, because if you have MK4 belts it won't work, if anywhere in this it backs up, it won't work.

Anyway, hope it helps anyone in the future.
SF Calc - https://i.ibb.co/wc0ycVj/sf3.png
Full Aluminum+ Factory - https://i.ibb.co/zsvnLFg/20210526132217-1.png

[Mogges]

Originally posted by Verios44:

Get the alternates

- sloppy solution
- electrode aluminum scrap
- pure aluminum ingot
- alclad casing

This setup is a clean 1:2 ratio

1 solution refnery per two electrode scrap refineries.

That´s the solution. Spend the next 2 weeks searching the map for harddrives!
Really, that´s the advice?

It also took me a very long time to get the system on scrap and batteries stable. I think the secret was to have valves at all pipes connected to each other.
And the fact that I do not really need a 100% perfect production line for those items as I already finished tier 7 and 8 weeks ago.
I am content with 90% ;-)

[Mickhael]

I succeed to do it 100% efficient. I has the problem with water by product. Put some buffers above (I put them on top of the factory), and discharge them into main water pipes at the entrance in the factory. I don't use valves. For me works. Initially I put them, but after I remove. The factory will take the water from buffers and will complete with water from pump station