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[yasic]

Hello,

I am trying to build a massive pumpstack to pump lava from the bottom to a nice little pool at the top of my fortress right under a few lava using workshops. I know the standard way is to use watermills, but I don't need the lava constantly flowing, just once now and perhaps again when it runs out 80 years down the line. . . so I was wondering... what happens when you put a single dwarf to operate a pumpstack? Would he just fail to turn it, will it work as if he has infinite power or will it just go by slowly.

Perhaps he might output a certain amount of power and I could use a dwarf to supplement my watermills if they are not enough?


Also, on a slightly different note: What will happen if I hook up my pumpstack to my watermills but they don't have enough power for them all?

Thank you all very much!

[Tsarwash]

you will need one pump operator for each pump, or else it will be very time consuming for you. If you have more power required than you have, then nothing operates, as far as I know.

[yasic]

So if I put a dwarf on the topmost pump, will he power the pumps below him as well or only the top one.

If only the top one, it will take much less time and energy to just build the mills...

[Hyndis]

If the pumps are unpowered you will need a dwarf at each pump. If you have a 30 level stack you need 30 dwarves. Probably more like 50, considering all the boozing they need to do.

[yasic]

Ok, thank you for your answers. Off to making pumps I go.

[HermitDwarf]

Build a water reactor and connect it to the top most pump. Make sure there's a gear assembly in the power train. Put a lever to disconnect the gear assembly when the pump stack is not needed.

[decius]

I'm building a massive windfarm above my pump stack. I didn't bother to do the math on power required, either. I figure it will be more fun that way.

What are you using for pump material? I'm using magma-safe rock blocks, nickel pipes, and iron screws, but smelting that much nickel and iron means I had to dig out magma smelters and forges at the bottom of the map, somewhat defeating the purpose of bringing magma up to the magma workshops. I'm doing it anyway, just to be dwarfy. And to have a ready supply of magma for other projects.

[Skorpion]

Put in reservoirs, so you don't need everything operating at once.

[decius]

How do you power half a pump stack?

[NecroRebel]

How do you power half a pump stack?

You don't. You make two pump stacks, each half the height of the distance you want to pump fluid, and power each of them seperately (ideally one at a time, else why are you making 2 stacks?).

[decius]

I see. Properly done, you could also trade time in deconstructing pumps for time and materials spent building the pumps as well. My first thought was that each stack section would need it's own vertical axle stack for power, but one riser with gears tapping of to the side could supply any number of stack sections.

How much magma do you normally lose to evaporation? Off the cuff I'd say 2 units per tile of footprint. It wouldn't be good to miss the guess and have a 3 of magma drifiting around under the forge when the weaponsmith gets moody.

While it's too late to implement in my current project, It's even relatively easy to implement in a partially-built stack, now that I think. Just dig the resovior at the discharge of one of the existing pumps, dig the power down, and connect. I just need a way to safely deconstruct the existing stack after it becomes primed with magma. Will a pump work with an open hatch cover, door, or floodgate in the inlet square? Will it stop working when it closes?

[vogonpoet]

Build a water reactor and connect it to the top most pump. Make sure there's a gear assembly in the power train. Put a lever to disconnect the gear assembly when the pump stack is not needed.

I too am currently trying to make my first 'proper' pump stack. I want to bring water from the first cavern up 150 z-levels to the surface. Can I assume from this post that pump stacks have to be powered from above? I was kinda hoping to put my water reactors at the bottom, cos obviously, that's where the water is, although I can painstakingly siphon some muddy pools if I have to.

Sadly my map has medium wind, so each windmill in an utterly badass enormous wind farm on the surface would only create 20 power, and I suspect the power overhead in connecting machinery would make it impossible to get enough power to the pumps - I need 1500 power for 150 pumps presumably.

EDIT: Oops, I have another question: about water reactors - can I make the design on the wiki fatter, and put two waterwheels on each side of the pump to increase power output?

[WrathNail]

I too am currently trying to make my first 'proper' pump stack. I want to bring water from the first cavern up 150 z-levels to the surface. Can I assume from this post that pump stacks have to be powered from above? I was kinda hoping to put my water reactors at the bottom, cos obviously, that's where the water is, although I can painstakingly siphon some muddy pools if I have to.

Sadly my map has medium wind, so each windmill in an utterly badass enormous wind farm on the surface would only create 20 power, and I suspect the power overhead in connecting machinery would make it impossible to get enough power to the pumps - I need 1500 power for 150 pumps presumably.

EDIT: Oops, I have another question: about water reactors - can I make the design on the wiki fatter, and put two waterwheels on each side of the pump to increase power output?

No, the power source can be on any level as long as it connects to one of the pumps in the stack. The pumps will then distribute the power further.

And yes, though keep in mind that waterwheels require flowing water and after adding a certain number of waterwheels the lone pump won't be enough to generate flow under the outer-most wheels. More pumps are required for larger reactors.

[vogonpoet]

Thank ye kind sir. I guess I will go for 4 wheels per pump for now, and just build several. Maybe later I will worry about optimisation.

[Hyndis]

Considering FPS issues you'd probably be best off with a windfarm. While DWR's can produce staggering amounts of power (my current DWR produces 5200 units of power) it also tends to kill your FPS, as you have liquids flowing everywhere.

My pump stack only needs about 1000 units of power, so my reactor is five times too big, but when I have both the pump stack and reactor running my FPS drops to 4.