Liquid Small radiator (convection) not convectifyin'.

[Ortho™]

Started a new game recently. I have a lot of experience cooling and heating water before the phase change update but now it seems small liquid radiators aren't working at all. Do I have to pressurize the pipe somehow?
It's about 20L of fluid at around 10kpa on a very small pipe network. I am on Mars and using radiators should cool it at night but the temp doesn't move at all. Only cools with ice being added but It's like I am not getting any convection whatsoever. The gas radiators appear to be working fine.

[ulzgoroth]

Can you describe your setup in more detail?

It's a few versions back now (but post phase change) but I certainly had a small liquid pipe convection radiator working just fine.

[Ortho™]

Have a small base, 12 blocks total interior, about 9 Hydroponic pots inside. The water network is connected to the pots, fillers and ice-crusher outside. I have 4 small radiators outside connected to the network with 1 small inside. I only see the temp change when using an attached cooler or input Ice. But I never see a temp change during the night/day cycle on Mars. Even after several game days, the temp never changes.

[ulzgoroth]

If the temp never changes, that's a lot weirder than 'the radiators aren't working'! That would mean the radiators are working, in an improbably-perfect equilibrium!

[bloodscon1976]

Due to mars having a very low atmos pressure radiator work very slow on mars

[Whiles34]

I’m having an issue with the small liquid convection radiator as well. I have a tank of water (c. 700 L currently) that’s at about 6.1 C. The tank is attached to a very small uninsulated pipe network inside a room that is currently maintained at 22 C and is pressurized to c. 50 kPa (N2, CO2, and O2 mixed atmosphere). Needless to say, this means that the temperature inside the tank is quite steady and hasn’t changed much. I wanted to warm up the water without using a pipe heater (power is scarce right now) so I put a couple of convection radiators onto the pipe network inside to room. However, this immediately started to cause the water inside the tank to cool down. It dropped to 5.8 C by the time I noticed (not a long time). I thought that radiators brought the pipe contents into thermal equilibrium with the environment. Am I incorrect?

[Ortho™]

Originally posted by Whiles34:

I’m having an issue with the small liquid convection radiator as well. I have a tank of water (c. 700 L currently) that’s at about 6.1 C. The tank is attached to a very small uninsulated pipe network inside a room that is currently maintained at 22 C and is pressurized to c. 50 kPa (N2, CO2, and O2 mixed atmosphere). Needless to say, this means that the temperature inside the tank is quite steady and hasn’t changed much. I wanted to warm up the water without using a pipe heater (power is scarce right now) so I put a couple of convection radiators onto the pipe network inside to room. However, this immediately started to cause the water inside the tank to cool down. It dropped to 5.8 C by the time I noticed (not a long time). I thought that radiators brought the pipe contents into thermal equilibrium with the environment. Am I incorrect?

Yes, it should cool the room. Usually when I build a room for gas sorting I don't insulate the tanks. So it can all equalize for easier handling.
In this instance I am using a simple setup, monitoring it (game) daily and it won't cool at night and won't warm during the day. If it's 16c in the water pipe and you have 4 small radiators on the pipe. When night comes and its -48c it SHOULD drop. It's not moving at all and I don't think I am crazy. As I stated before, the gas is working, the liquid pipe cooling with radiators is not. I am trying a medium radiator to see if I can get any kind of feedback.

[powerkek]

Originally posted by Ortho™:

It's like I am not getting any convection whatsoever.

If you point your tablet with atmo analyzer directly at the radiator (not the pipe) you will get its convection/radiation numbers. Then you can figure out if it's actually zero, or if it changes with pipe fullness, air pressure in the pipe, etc.

It does seem like they reduced convection somewhat. I think I remember reading in the patch notes that it's now also dependent on airflow around the radiator, and not just air pressure?

[Beercules]

they added 2 types of pipe radiators, one is for vaccum and other is for atomspheres, my experience is while these work in theory, they never function correctly in practice.

I made a wall of water radiator inside a room with a natural gas generator, ran 1c water into the loop in took near nothing out of the room, the radiators just seems out of balance compared to the new heat exchanger or cross flow exchanger.