Aluminium Scrap

[The Unwoken]

Why does it keep spontaneously stop producing when it has the resources to produce aluminium scrap?

[Tankfriend]

Have you checked that your outputs are not backing up?

[Mogges]

Yeah, that´s an issue with scrap. A lot of parts in a very short time. It is quite tricky to harmonize the upward machinery with the production of scrap. In most of the cases the outputs are backing up, what my pre-writer already mentioned.
To be honest: I gave up optimizing. Aluminum is always at the limit of production, never running smooth and organized. So I have dozens of containers and shredders in place to handle this issue. ;-)

[JebKerman]

Most likely the water has backed, up a machine won't produce if any of it's outputs are full, make sure it has some way to drain it.

Since we can't just dump waste water so (at least some of) your options are:
1. Cycle it back in to the creation of Alumina Solution.
2. 'Burn' it in Coal Generators (since creating scrap requires Coal or Coke, you already have the correct fuels at hand).
3. Package the Water and Sink it.

[nfgman]

Chances are you are producing more than the demand or, with multiple scrap refineries, the outputs are imbalanced or it's inadequately designed to account for byproduct water or silica. The latter can be tricky with pipes/pumps not always simple. There is no smart splltter for liquids. If you tee/mix byproduct with extracted supply, use valves before the mix and any pumps required after mix. My solution involved being carefully over/under-powered. Sloppy alumina is one less byproduct to deal with and, sometimes, the math works easier.

Essentially: Use it or lose (sink) it. Temporary lockups can severely reduce output affecting downstream production.

[Mogges]

Originally posted by JebKerman:

Most likely the water has backed, up a machine won't produce if any of it's outputs are full, make sure it has some way to drain it.

Since we can't just dump waste water so (at least some of) your options are:
1. Cycle it back in to the creation of Alumina Solution.
2. 'Burn' it in Coal Generators (since creating scrap requires Coal or Coke, you already have the correct fuels at hand).
3. Package the Water and Sink it.

Yes, that´s still an issue. I am very sure, the devs only invented it to torture the players ;-)
Otherwise I do not find any explanantion why it shouldn´t be possible to dump the water back to the lake where it had been pumped out. This would avoid so many problems.
When having a big Aluminum production and beside batteries, you have several machines producing and consuming water, on top of this a sometimes unstable scrap production and chaos if perfect. Working with a number of valves, packagers and shredders, Aluminum and battery production is an absolute mess ;-)
But what to expect from a game where something complex and high-end like a ladder needed 2 years to be invented.....maybe in update 7 we can research tier 11, which allows us to dump water in a lake.....

[Taco Cat]

I honestly cant see the problem. Just take the waste water and enter it into the production cycle. Then under clock the water extractor so you only pump the amount of water you still need. Did that with my battery production and it works without a problem. Make sure all your pipes are connected

[Mogges]

That´s what I did, of course. But it is still too much. Water is backing at the end of the scrap production. As I wrote; it is not only the aluminum production, it is also the batteries, water for hydroxide and sulphuric acid; that whole conglomerate together is a nightmare ;-)
It would be easy to dump the water and that´s it.
After hours of trial and error you get it done, but only with valves, fluid buffer(s) and underclocking pumps.
As I wrote: the most logical would be dumping the water back to the lake, but the devs are sadistic. ;-)

[The Unwoken]

ya I agree. It would at least be nice to be able to dump the water in the lake as an alternative.

[baerra]

Mine was set up perfectly and even when I used valves it STILL screwed up. I can't remember how many times I tried to fix it, or what exactly I did. I just know that I flushed the entire system and turned the water completely off, redid the pipes, then it ended up working.

It was all calculated correctly so I think it's just the game not being smart enough when it comes to registering the flow re-entering the system or some ♥♥♥♥. i'm talking fully deleting anything in the buildings themselves, too.

[GI Ged]

use the valve and set it to same rate than the output a little bit higher. it works for me just fine.

[Gnaden!x]

definately the water, backing up.

i got 8 ref. for scrap - so 840 Water / minute
that 840 Water runs back into to 6 Oxid refineries. Those need 1200 Water / Minute. So i only got 2 Waterextractors, let them push 200 Water each and i limit this input with an valve to 360. So in total exactly 1200 Water

The problem with that is, that you cant just start it - you must put the 840 Water into the system till scrap is starting to work, and then cut it. i managed it with an 2400L Watercontainer, who was filled and used as input till everything starts working. When the wateroutput is starting to flow, you can cut the watercontainer, delite it and connect the water output to the input aigane :)

this will run forever - or till the Scrap is backing up becouse not used. So i also pick the overflow with intelligent splitters and crush it, becouse the system will backup and collapse if your scrapoutput backs up

crzy but working,

[Tenzek]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2500985877

Two alumina refineries on the left and 1 scrap refinery on the right, all at 200% clock speed. This runs constantly at 100%, and it won't fail if scrap backs up or if the bauxite feed is intermittent. You can see that the scrap feeds water through a tank, then a valve, and back into the opposite end of the fresh water feed to the alumina. This results in 720m^3 of water through the Mk2 pipe, but it works because the back flow gets used up before meeting with the fresh feed water.

In other places in my factories, I have this set up doubled with the layout mirrored so that the scrap refineries share their outputs to that one tank. I just use a junction before and after the tank, with two valves after the second junction keeping the fresh water feeds separated.

Sorry for the brightness, but this was built in the shadow of another building. I put lights right on top of it to make everything clearly visible.

[Verios44]

This is the aluminum ingot setup I use.

Requirements:
- Pure aluminum ingot
- Electrode Aluminum Scrap
- Sloppy Alumnia

This setup is only for a single normal bauxite node, 600 a min ore. I upscale or downscale if pure/impure node respectively. The only shared resources between each “module” is my petroleum coke belts (600 a min per belt) and external water source.

1 Sloppy Alumnia
- 3 refineries
IN - 600 bauxite ore
IN - (from external source) 180m3 water
OUT - 720m3 Alumnia Solution
( I put two refineries on one pipe and the third on a second)

2. Electrode Aluminum Scrap
- 4 refineries
IN - 240 Petroleum Coke
IN - 720m3 Aluminia Solution
OUT - 1200 Aluminum Scrap (2 refineries per mk5 belt)
OUT - 420m3 water (looped back into the Sloppy Alumnia refineries.

3. Pure Aluminum Ingot
- 20 Smelters
IN - 1200 Aluminum Scrap
OUT- 600 Aluminum Ingots