Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Viprince]

assuming you did extra testing with the large scale power production, How does the system react if you mirror it, a waterwheel on each side, but keep the one pump? I'm not sure if both waterwheels will work with half the water going both ways each cycle or if they'll alternate...

It (somewhat mysteriously) works just fine if you mirror it.  The only problem is, once both waterwheels are in place, there's no way for a dwarf to get to the pump to start it.  You just have to add the second waterwheel after it's already running, and then be careful not to overload it so you never have to restart it.

You could just replace one of the pillars (the walls which are each side of the unpassable square of the pump) with a door. It'll block the water fine, if it shuts down no water moves so the dwarf can come in without letting water escape. Once its back up he escapes through it again. (might coz spill on the escape coz of that whole pressure blocking with diagonals though? could be combated with a lever operated floodgate for a door instead to get radical)

Which makes me think, could you not just replace both pillars with grates? who cares if the water has time to spread to those two squares, they'd both be over the water body they will fall into as soon as the input tile gets its 7. I could be missing something important relating to flow and whatnot, usually do, but I don't see an issue with that.

Edit: Did some testing with replacing the pilars in the original design when mirored with grates and it worked fine but there was a tiny amount of spilling. Not a problem for short term but the water level in the system did seem to go down slowly which could reacha  point where it affects power production. Doors work a charm though.

Mirroring the design causes one of the wheels to be unreliable as the power switches from 100 to 200 (didn't notice any 0). adding 2 extra wheels each side created a situation where you get 400-300 most of the time and 200 sometimes (didn;t notice any 100 or 0s)

On a side note I had a few dwarves fall in there and funnyly enough, This design kicks ass for swimming training. Dwarves without any supervision just racked in the swimming skill fast cause the flow pushed em around forcing them to move (making swimming experience be gained faster). Getting the dwarves out is another story, (although I did notice a few of them actually getting out on their own after gaining the required skill to hop onto the ledges, didn;t pay much attention but this could be compromised depending on design and if its surrounded by walls)

[freeze]

Brilliant! But more importantly, which tileset is that you're using?*

*I kid, I kid. I really do want that tileset, though.

It's a combination of tiles from two different sources, made so long ago I don't remember the details.  It looks like it's mostly the default tileset with the line-drawing characters taken from Plac1d's tileset.  I've uploaded the result here.  The colorscheme is, I think, the "Natural" scheme from the wiki.

Thanks!

[epdtry]

Edit: Did some testing with replacing the pilars in the original design when mirored with grates and it worked fine but there was a tiny amount of spilling. Not a problem for short term but the water level in the system did seem to go down slowly which could reacha  point where it affects power production. Doors work a charm though.

Cool, I'll keep that in mind next time I rebuild my power plant.

Mirroring the design causes one of the wheels to be unreliable as the power switches from 100 to 200 (didn't notice any 0). adding 2 extra wheels each side created a situation where you get 400-300 most of the time and 200 sometimes (didn;t notice any 100 or 0s)

I hadn't noticed that before, but when I checked, my power plant's total power output was varying between 1500 and 1300.  (This may or may not be the same problem, since I also just noticed that water has somehow leaked out of my system .)

With the mirrored setup, I would guess that the power loss is mainly due to lack of flow rather than lack of water (which is normally the problems with using a single tile beneath each waterwheel).  The next thing to try would be to add 1/7 or 2/7 water to the input tile by bucket after the machine has been started.  This should prevent the water beneath the waterwheels from dropping below 4/7.

On a side note I had a few dwarves fall in there and funnyly enough, This design kicks ass for swimming training. Dwarves without any supervision just racked in the swimming skill fast cause the flow pushed em around forcing them to move (making swimming experience be gained faster). Getting the dwarves out is another story, (although I did notice a few of them actually getting out on their own after gaining the required skill to hop onto the ledges, didn;t pay much attention but this could be compromised depending on design and if its surrounded by walls)

Also good to know.  Hmm... With the extra 2/7 in the input tile, that tile should get up to 5/7 temporarily when water spreads into it.  Depending on when, during the course of a single tick, the game checks whether dwarves are in deep water, this may be enough to train swimming.

I plan to test all this stuff when I have time, but if you (or anyone else) get to it first, post here and let me know .

[Shinziril]

Did some testing on perpetual motion.  Here's the simplest and most compact perpetual motion plant I could find, in words:

1.  Dig a single-tile hole in the ground (with the Channel designation). 

2.  Fill the hole with water via dwarven bucket brigade (the Pond activity zone).  They'll only fill it to 6/7, but that's okay. 

3.  Build a gear assembly next to the hole for support, and build a waterwheel with its center tile over the hole.  The waterwheel will extract energy from the water (don't ask how).

4.  Use the power for your nefarious plans!

5.  ? ? ?

6.  Profit!

[Slayer1557]

I just so happened to need perpetual power, and lo and behold, you start this thread right when I need it.  I have used this design to make 6 plants, generating approximately 375 net power (connected to a bunch of other axels and stuff leading elsewhere)  and it works like a dream!

Thanks!  Now to finish my waterfall/mist generator.

[gtmattz]

Did some testing on perpetual motion.  Here's the simplest and most compact perpetual motion plant I could find, in words:

1.  Dig a single-tile hole in the ground (with the Channel designation). 

2.  Fill the hole with water via dwarven bucket brigade (the Pond activity zone).  They'll only fill it to 6/7, but that's okay. 

3.  Build a gear assembly next to the hole for support, and build a waterwheel with its center tile over the hole.  The waterwheel will extract energy from the water (don't ask how).

4.  Use the power for your nefarious plans!

5.  ? ? ?

6.  Profit!

This does not work at all...  what version are you using?  I tried it in d16 and, as expected, nothing happens, no power etc.

[happydog23]

Did some testing on perpetual motion.  Here's the simplest and most compact perpetual motion plant I could find, in words:

1.  Dig a single-tile hole in the ground (with the Channel designation). 
2.  Fill the hole with water via dwarven bucket brigade (the Pond activity zone).  They'll only fill it to 6/7, but that's okay. 
3.  Build a gear assembly next to the hole for support, and build a waterwheel with its center tile over the hole.  The waterwheel will extract energy from the water (don't ask how).
4.  Use the power for your nefarious plans!
5.  ? ? ?
6.  Profit!

Tested this... Can't reliably reproduce....  With a single hole of water I didn't ever get power.  I tried again with 2 and 3 holes under the wheel along with up to 2 squares that weren't under the wheel that were diagonally connected.

I did at one point when I had a waterwheel over 3 squares of water with 2 diagonal overflows

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

XXXX
X5XX
XX4X
XX4X
XX5X
X4XX
XXXX


get power for about 15 seconds of 30 fps...  The water was all 4s and 5s.   and as far as I can tell nothing "changed" in the system, it just stopped working.


If you can reliably get power from one bucket brigade-ed square of water, more power to you but it doesn't seem to work well for me :-/

Edit:  Like gtmattz above, I am also using d16.

[epdtry]

Did some testing on perpetual motion.  Here's the simplest and most compact perpetual motion plant I could find, in words:

1.  Dig a single-tile hole in the ground (with the Channel designation). 

2.  Fill the hole with water via dwarven bucket brigade (the Pond activity zone).  They'll only fill it to 6/7, but that's okay. 

3.  Build a gear assembly next to the hole for support, and build a waterwheel with its center tile over the hole.  The waterwheel will extract energy from the water (don't ask how).

4.  Use the power for your nefarious plans!

5.  ? ? ?

6.  Profit!

It sounds like your one-tile power plant somehow acquired flow while it was being filled (which shouldn't have happened since the water wasn't moving anywhere), and then the flow got bugged so it stayed around permanently.  If, however, you can repeat this and get it to work reliably, I would love to see it.

I just so happened to need perpetual power, and lo and behold, you start this thread right when I need it.  I have used this design to make 6 plants, generating approximately 375 net power (connected to a bunch of other axels and stuff leading elsewhere)  and it works like a dream!

Thanks!  Now to finish my waterfall/mist generator.

Glad to hear it!  Just be careful if you're using the mirrored design - your pumps might shut down temporarily due to the recently-discovered flaw that causes inconsistent power output.  (The design in my first post should be fine.)


Finally, an update on my current testing:

With the mirrored setup, I would guess that the power loss is mainly due to lack of flow rather than lack of water (which is normally the problems with using a single tile beneath each waterwheel).  The next thing to try would be to add 1/7 or 2/7 water to the input tile by bucket after the machine has been started.  This should prevent the water beneath the waterwheels from dropping below 4/7.

Adding extra water to the system doesn't work, as I should have realized before posting that .  The extra water gets picked up from the pump's input tile, but it can't be put back in that tile by the pump, so instead it gets pushed up by pump pressure and ends up leaking out of the system.  This did, however, lead me to the following (highly theoretical) design:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Top:    Bottom:
###     ###
#7#+    #7##
#%#+    #77#
+%++    ##7#
+=++    #4##
+=+     ###
 =
= is a waterwheel, % is a pump, # is wall, + is floor, 4 and 7 are water (always on the current level).  The pump pumps from the south.  The water levels shown are for the running system - the 4/7 in the input tile will probably need to be added by bucket brigade while the pump is running.  Note that the waterwheel may or may not run before all 4 units of water are in place.

Assuming that spreading water creates flow in the destination as well as the source (which seems likely), this should keep a 4/7 with flow under the waterwheel pretty much all the time.  This also assumes a pump will take up only part of the water in its input tile if its output area is too full (this also seems pretty likely, but I'm less confident).

[happydog23]

This did, however, lead me to the following (highly theoretical) design:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Top:    Bottom:
###     ###
#7#+    #7##
#%#+    #77#
+%++    ##7#
+=++    #4##
+=+     ###
 =
= is a waterwheel, % is a pump, # is wall, + is floor, 4 and 7 are water (always on the current level).  The pump pumps from the south.  The water levels shown are for the running system - the 4/7 in the input tile will probably need to be added by bucket brigade while the pump is running.  Note that the waterwheel may or may not run before all 4 units of water are in place.

Assuming that spreading water creates flow in the destination as well as the source (which seems likely), this should keep a 4/7 with flow under the waterwheel pretty much all the time.  This also assumes a pump will take up only part of the water in its input tile if its output area is too full (this also seems pretty likely, but I'm less confident).

I tested it... and it doesn't work as drawn due to a flaw... You can't place a water wheel that way to connect it to a pump...

I instead did the following:



I then from the z level above designated a pond over the pump output square and had water dumped in until the bottom was all 7/7 and the pump output was 4/7.

Manually start it, and you're off with 75 extra power to do whatever with.  I used manual step for a couple hundred steps, and you never see the water change from the way it is in the image above. 

I initially left the water wheel the way you have it in your design, but then to get power to the pump i was using 2 gear assemblies and a 1 square axle and that just seemed like a waste when i could turn the wheel and cut out 2 of those pieces.


Edit:  Some people don't like Tilesets, here it is in "code" format:

Code: [Select]

Top:    Bottom:
+###     ###
+#7#+    #7##
+#%#+    #77#
+G%++    ##7#
===++    #4##
++++     ###
= is a waterwheel, % is a pump, # is wall, + is floor, 4 and 7 are water (always on the current level), G is a gear assembly.
Stolen from the post above for simplicity/consistency

[Slayer1557]

Nah, I'm not using the mirrored style.  I'm not greedy.  I like to keep things simple as possible, complex as dwarfish honor (or awesomeness) requires.

[Shinziril]

After the others failed to reproduce the experiment, it turns out I had forgotten to mention something  critical.  For the working perpetual motion machine, I had actually constructed the containment device (a 3x3 circle of walls with a floor in the middle) rather than channeling it out of the ground.  When I tested a hole-in-the-ground plant, it failed to operate.  I thought the containment chamber would make no difference . . . clearly, I was wrong. 

Try it again with this modification.  I have a movie now, I'll try to get it uploaded.

[happydog23]

After the others failed to reproduce the experiment, it turns out I had forgotten to mention something  critical.  For the working perpetual motion machine, I had actually constructed the containment device (a 3x3 circle of walls with a floor in the middle) rather than channeling it out of the ground.  When I tested a hole-in-the-ground plant, it failed to operate.  I thought the containment chamber would make no difference . . . clearly, I was wrong. 

Try it again with this modification.  I have a movie now, I'll try to get it uploaded.

Just tried again, Constructed walls and floor inside the walls, filled to 6/7, no power :-(

[Shinziril]

Demonstration movie uploaded. 
http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1934-perpetualmotiononthecheap
You may wish to increase the framerate to 200 or 300 for optimal viewing pleasure.

Are you sure you're doing it right, happydog?  Or is this some weird bug with my copy of 40d16?

[happydog23]

Demonstration movie uploaded. 
http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1934-perpetualmotiononthecheap
You may wish to increase the framerate to 200 or 300 for optimal viewing pleasure.

Are you sure you're doing it right, happydog?  Or is this some weird bug with my copy of 40d16?

Built the same thing you have in the video (except with obsidian blocks) but I put the ramp and gear on the left side instead of the right... still didn't work.  Mine is built indoors (Inside Dark Subterranean)  maybe that is messing with it is all I can think of... I'll try building it outdoors in a bit... but yeah, no power for me still


Edit:  Shinziril, can you post the savegame that you have that built in? 

[epdtry]

I tested it... and it doesn't work as drawn due to a flaw... You can't place a water wheel that way to connect it to a pump...

I instead did the following:



I then from the z level above designated a pond over the pump output square and had water dumped in until the bottom was all 7/7 and the pump output was 4/7.

Manually start it, and you're off with 75 extra power to do whatever with.  I used manual step for a couple hundred steps, and you never see the water change from the way it is in the image above. 

I initially left the water wheel the way you have it in your design, but then to get power to the pump i was using 2 gear assemblies and a 1 square axle and that just seemed like a waste when i could turn the wheel and cut out 2 of those pieces.

Awesome, thanks!  For just a single instance of the setup, the way you moved the waterwheel does make more sense.  The version I had typed up was the one I was planning to use for larger plants, by placing them in groups of four so that the waterwheels all lined up.

Here's a new design I just tested based on the last one:

The two waterwheel tiles with blue lines through them should be open to the lower level.  All other waterwheel tiles should be over a floor.
This gives the same net power as the mirrored design (165), without the stability problems (at least from what I've seen so far).

With some simple modifications, you can even make a version that uses 3 waterwheels to provide 248 net power (untested, but I'm pretty sure it will work):