Air Conditioner Not Working Properly

[Grimm Spector]

I have an A/C set to -200 C, and I have a pipe full of 3 MP of X, at around -3 C. I have input gas at around 330 C, and the output gas is about 305 C...it's using tons of power to basically do nothing. I've got a pile of radiators on the coolant pipe, not sure what the issue is. Any ideas?

[Lim Dul]

The Pipe Length is the issue :)

Here are some youtube links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6639FX__c4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZubOwrZOKh0

In short, the Air Conditioner works as follows:
* The amount of gas, it transfers per tick is dependend on the input & output pipe length
* It removes 6000 Joules heat per tick (or less if it reaches the target temperature with less amount) - so if it transfers to much gas it can not cool it enough
* The amount of power it uses is dependend on the temperature difference between waste & input

[Grimm Spector]

Ok, so what if I put a valve between the tank and the AC close to the AC. This would shorten it's Output pipe length, would that help? Would the valve need to be closed? This is terribly frustrating, it should move gas based on it and not the pipe contents, it already does it super slow to begin with. It should apply it's heat transfer to a fixed volume.

[Ghevd]

Do you use a feedback loop?

It has been a while since I used the air conditioner but vaguely remember needing a feed back loop similar to filtration. So my output gas would circle around a few times to hit the desired temp.

[Zefnoly]

A system I have found to work very well

You build the AC

Build a wase loop (where heat will eventually gather)

Connect the waste loop to the waste port + input. But have a volume pump between input and waste. The pipe amount between the input and that volume pump should be around 1 pipe as in the examples above.

Connect the output of the AC to another single pipe between AC output and another volume pump. Set this vol pump at max pull. 100.

that output pump should then hook to the input of a heat exchanger. Have the heat exchanger output then connect to a one way valve. The output of this oneway valve returns to the waste loop we made earlier.

The waste loop may eventually build up heat (although my tests seem to appear it stabilizes on one temp and basically makes it seem like the system is deleting heat entirely) but should be radiated.

Keep pressure in the waste loop around 250 more or less. Should be regulated.

The input volume pump that moves air into the AC should be around 7-8
I recommend using an analyzer at the single pipe element by the pipe output. And slowly increase/decrease the input volume pump values until the output of the AC stays at -200 (also have the AC set on -200)

The heat exchanger will then slowly receive this if you built it right. I can go and make pictures of this setup on Venus. Should not require logic as all the elements will make it self regulate. (Can potentially skip the use of MIP on AC input vol pump)

This will make a closed loop where pressure remains the same thus AC should always receive the amount of mols most of the time that it wants.

Then you connect something like a big liquid water tank to the other output/input set on the heat exchanger. This basically lets you cool down huge amounts of liquid effeciently.

My AC did this with basically zero power draw. You spend most of the power on the pumps. This made me realize that the AC is incredibly broken. It just appeared to delete heat and cool down huge amounts with little to no power draw. It kept pulling 5 watts on and off. While the temp of a huge water tank at 20mpa kept dropping. Then you use heat exchangers and digital valves to let this water regulate other things. Where as this water is just a big heat buffer for the AC loop. One AC could potentially regulate a whole base this way. Multiple ones in a loop may speed up processes as well with little to no additional power draw.

[Grimm Spector]

Originally posted by Ghevd:

Do you use a feedback loop?

It has been a while since I used the air conditioner but vaguely remember needing a feed back loop similar to filtration. So my output gas would circle around a few times to hit the desired temp.

No I don't, was trying to make everything compact and automatic as possible.

I assume this would require the gas to circulated several times until a temperature was reached that it would then stop the AC and and push the gas to the filters. Is that right?

I find the long post above to be more complicated than I want my system to be lol

[Nightwolf]

i did that with my system. assuming you are playing on a non-hot planet. i am on europa. i have a passive system in place to circulate gas through one of 3 heat exchangers. one captures heat and stores it for use later on cooling the gas as well in the process if it is hot. the other 2 either circulate the gas to the surface through pipe radiators or run it through a heat exchanger with hot water, using the heat captured before hand or heated via pipe heaters, until the gas reaches 20-25. then it shuts off and vents the gas out to be filtered.

no ac's are used and its very effective albeit a little bulky

[Grimm Spector]

Originally posted by Nightwolf:

i did that with my system. assuming you are playing on a non-hot planet. i am on europa. i have a passive system in place to circulate gas through one of 3 heat exchangers. one captures heat and stores it for use later on cooling the gas as well in the process if it is hot. the other 2 either circulate the gas to the surface through pipe radiators or run it through a heat exchanger with hot water, using the heat captured before hand or heated via pipe heaters, until the gas reaches 20-25. then it shuts off and vents the gas out to be filtered.

no ac's are used and its very effective albeit a little bulky

I'm on Mars, and I'm finding passive cooling not working particularly to the degree I want.

[Nightwolf]

another option is to make a room and create a vaccum in it, that will then suck the heat from your radiators out. if the heat builds up too much you can automate a system to pump in outside atmos to soak up the heat and suck it out back into the atmosphere creating the vaccum again.

another thing is to store pre-cooled gas in a insulated tank. like several mpa worth and use pumps to pump in cold gas and suck out the heated stuff to be cooled, this allows fresh gas to soak up as much heat as possible per joule. i know temp magically fills a gas pipe instantly but i still find it works on a per joule basis as opposed to just letting it sit in a big pipe circle.

[Ghevd]

I would have my waste pipe lead back to the input of the air conditioner as well as lead out to a radiator setup.

My understanding of how it works is the ac takes so much heat from contents passing through. So the 330c will never instantly become 20c with one pass. By looping it you draw more heat from the same gas.

Shouldn't be hard to automate. I would have a back pressure regulator leading to a passive vent to atmo on the waste side set to what pressure I want my pipes. Failsafe in case too much gas gets added to the waste pipe. Everything else should lead to filtration which should also have the same back pressure failsafe.

I only have experience on cold planets so I'm not sure where you would radiate that heat on Vulcan or Venus. A vacuum room if you don't mine exploits I guess. I'll just stay on Mars, thank you.

[Grimm Spector]

Originally posted by Ghevd:

I would have my waste pipe lead back to the input of the air conditioner as well as lead out to a radiator setup.

My understanding of how it works is the ac takes so much heat from contents passing through. So the 330c will never instantly become 20c with one pass. By looping it you draw more heat from the same gas.

Shouldn't be hard to automate. I would have a back pressure regulator leading to a passive vent to atmo on the waste side set to what pressure I want my pipes. Failsafe in case too much gas gets added to the waste pipe. Everything else should lead to filtration which should also have the same back pressure failsafe.

I only have experience on cold planets so I'm not sure where you would radiate that heat on Vulcan or Venus. A vacuum room if you don't mine exploits I guess. I'll just stay on Mars, thank you.

Yeah, I've looped it with a volume pump, and it was working for awhile. but it's only gotten down to about 56 degrees on the output, and 230 on the input and for some reason the output is now slowly increasing again, despite being insulated pipes and the AC set to -200 degrees...I am so frustrated.

[Nightwolf]

run the heated pipe through cold water via a passive heat exchanger. water holds more heat per mol than any gas. i think as much as 2x or 3x the amount. the water will eventually heat up but it will do so much more slowly enough. essentially for ever mol of water you can absorb 2 to 3 moles of gas heat. air conditioners are absolute garbage. more of a last resort than anything else :P

another trick is ice....volatiles, oxite, and water all of which are ice cold temps. you can use some of the waste heat to actually heat up the gas as opposed to electricty.

the question now is how hot is the surface temps and how hot is the gas you need to remove the heat from?



if you are on mars it best to wait till night to dump your heat for results.

a thing i have not tested is the temps coming in and out of the electrolyzer and combustor.

say you send in 1000 degree water to the electrolyzer, does the h2/o2 mix come out at a lower temp or 1000 degrees? if its a lower temp it might be a thing you can exploit. send the 1000 degree water into the electrolyzer, comes out at say 20 degrees, then send it back in to a combustor to turn it into water again at 20 degrees.

[Grimm Spector]

I'll try the water, but cooling it may be a challenge, as it's only coming out at about -2 C, which is funny because that means it should be ice and not able to run through the pipes.

[Zefnoly]

Originally posted by Grimm Spector:

I'll try the water, but cooling it may be a challenge, as it's only coming out at about -2 C, which is funny because that means it should be ice and not able to run through the pipes.

Try a setup like this. I eventually got to -200 degrees on venus
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2523351011
Use the videos above to see how to build it. A change I did in this picture was removing the "orange" pipe in the middle with the pressure reg. It caused problems. You may have to use IC to regulate the volume pump inputs pumping gas into the AC's. You have to limit their input gas just enough that the output gas of the AC's will be exactly either -200 or 200. These AC's will due to the waste and input sharing same gases consume 300w each. Most of the power will be spent on the pumps. It is insanely effecient.

Since these gases pass through water through heat exchangers on both the hot and cold side it will buffer heat in liquid on one end and buffer cold temperatures in the cold end. The hot liquid can expell the wastegas into surroundings or superheat your furnace. Cold side can be automated to cool whatever you want through heatechangers and digital valves.

[Grimm Spector]

The problem is that this would require me to completely redesign my filtration layout and system, and I don't want to exploit a super low power action either, as it seems cheaty. I suddenly wonder if I can use Water as a coolant in an Advanced Furnace? I don't see why I wouldn't? Although it probably doesn't increase gas pressure.

[Zefnoly]

Originally posted by Grimm Spector:

The problem is that this would require me to completely redesign my filtration layout and system, and I don't want to exploit a super low power action either, as it seems cheaty. I suddenly wonder if I can use Water as a coolant in an Advanced Furnace? I don't see why I wouldn't? Although it probably doesn't increase gas pressure.

I was thinking like you. At least it is not the vacuum room. But as it stands the devs havent tried to make a good cooler machine. What would make me really happy is an industrial grade cooler that attach to pipes and expell heat either through a gas or liquid pipe. While attaching to liquid or gas pipes like the new pipe heater. Which is purely logic controlled. The AC is broken in so many ways and devs even said they planned to remove it. It hates logic, turns off even at the smallest disturbance in the power input. Requires manual input to work properly at all. I really wish they had something better than the wall coolers. Especially now with Venus in the play. I dont get how they havent made a better cooler that does not seem like confusing unfinished component yet. Hopefully that comes next update.