Unpowered Pump

[Ranakastrasz]

The Small pump, I think, Should act exactly like a normal pipe when unpowered.
I had the Clever Idea to use the accumulator-switch trick to disable my steam engines when I had solar power, and have it power pumps. The pumps are linked to the accumulator, and pump water away from the steam engines, towards the boilers. That way, when the solar panels power the accumulator, the pump keeps thee steam engines off. When the solar power runs out, the pumps run out of power, and the water floods back through.

As it is, I cannot see any difference between a powered and unpowered pump. Both seem to force water to flow in a single direction, although I cannot personally tell anything about speed. I find this sort of disappointing.

~Fixed typos.

[sillyfly]

An unpowered pump (in factorio) doesn't allow any liquid flow.

What do you mean by real pump? how do they operate when not powered?

Edit: I just noticed you said the water pump, not small-pump.
The water pump doesn't use power. I think it's a simplification decision, to avoid a "chicken and egg" problem - you need power to start the pump, but you need the pump to get power...

[ssilk]

I tried, what you mean, and i think I can say it doesn't work good enough, cause with rising pressure (level in the tanks) the pumps are not able to pump enough water back.

What works is something like https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=3724

And that design is highly dependend on pumps not letting any water through if powered off.

@sillyfly: with real pumps he means, that under normal circumstances water runs through a powered off pump as it likes. That is also the way, how water power plants work. I'm not for that, cause we will need an element, which works like an electric ventil.

[Ranakastrasz]

Fixed Typos
Well, what I want is to be able to block water flow when I have solar power.
Unfortunately, if I set it facing towards the tank, it entirely forbids any flow whatsoever. meaning a "Small Pump" needs no power to function so far as I can tell.

Did some experimentaiton, and an unpowered pump blocks flow in both directions. I still can't think of a way to create a not gate with power.

[FrozenOne]

I just thought of some complicated way how to do it:
-rotate the pump so its heading towards steam engines
-make a circle of belts and 1 smart chest with a few items in it
-let solar panel power an inserter that empties the chest an sends items through circle back to the chest
-build smart inserter putting fuel into 1 boiler that runs 1 steam engine that will power the pump during the night
-connect chest to a smart inserter with colored cable and set condition that if the chest contains all items (it's night and solar power is not emptying it)

So once solar power stops, chest will stop getting emptied, and inserter will fuel the pump that will give water to all steamengines.
In the morning item will be put out of chest, inserter will stop fuelling the steam engine and the pump will stop giving water to all steam engines.

[Ranakastrasz]

That might actually work.

Its kinda sad when you realize that a Rube Goldberg machine is the most practical solution to your problem.

[Rahjital]

meaning a "Small Pump" needs no power to function so far as I can tell.

The small pump has a valve that closes whenever it doesn't operate (ie when it's out of power or when there's no more space in the pipe it pumps to). This makes sense for most ordinary uses of the pump.

You are trying to do complicated things with Factorio's very simply circuit system, though, it's no surprise if the solution is a bit hacky. Circuit logic improvements are slated for 0.11 or possibly 0.12, so you might have to wait a few months to get a proper way to do this.

By the way, using small pumps to give water to steam engines is much less than idea, you will need a lot of the pumps to get the engines enough water.

[ssilk]

I want to add a tip for all, which are in the state directly after gaining solar cells, but no accu yet. This tip is also useful, to priorize other tasks than just researching accu or built new steam-engine-lines.


My current power setup for my new map is so:

Code: Select all

 Lake -> 3 x Offshore Pump -> Cascade of burners to fill the full pipe (about 15?) -->  MANY STEAM ENGINES (about 30)  --> Tanks for the remaining hot water

It's of course clear, that the pipe is too small to fill all steam engines, when full power is needed. But with solar cells it isn't needed! So on day the tanks are filled, cause the solar cells reduce the needed power significantly and in the night the tanks are emptied, which brings the other 15 steam engines to run.

This reduces the need for a second or third line of steam power, because your burners are fully utilized the whole day and not only during night.

With my setup it is enough power to come quite well through the time and some hours ago I finally researched accu, so I'm now able to rebuild the whole stuff, but it works nice till now and I think this idea can be expanded much more, to fill a much larger tank-store with much more hot water and drive much more steam-engines, if needed - with only 15 (!) burners.

[cpy]

An unpowered pump (in factorio) doesn't allow any liquid flow.

What do you mean by real pump? how do they operate when not powered?

Edit: I just noticed you said the water pump, not small-pump.
The water pump doesn't use power. I think it's a simplification decision, to avoid a "chicken and egg" problem - you need power to start the pump, but you need the pump to get power...

Well if you right click on pump, maybe you'll be pumping water by hand slowly and fixing chicken and egg problem.