Overview
Want to be able to fill / empty your portable tanks or canisters with any gas, without a convoluted mess of pipes and connectors? Here’s a simple solution that can also be adapted and modified for late game.
Overview
Tank & Canister Fill & Flush System
Flush System (and connected canisters / tanks):
1. Ensure Gas Mixer, Valves 1 & 2 (etc), Pressure Regulator are all closed / switched off. Also make sure any tanks /canisters are either disconnected, or empty and that that Valves 4 and 5 are open.
2. Switch on Pump.
3. Ensure Valves 3, 4 and 5 are open.
4. Wait for both Meter’s to reach zero before switching off Pump.
Fill System:
1. Ensure all Valves, Gas Mixer, Pump and Pressure Regulator are off / closed and that the system is flushed (check pipe meters)
2. Open Valve 4 or 5 (or both) depending what you want to fill.
3. Set Pressure Regulator to desired Pressure (fill amount).
4. Switch Pressure Regulator on.
5. Open / switch on desired valve / gas mixer to fill system with that gas / gas mixture.
Notes:
1. System does not have an overflow safety system for the gas mixer. You can work around this by adding a few Back Pressure Regulators to the main input pipe (the one the Gas Mixer, Pump and Valves 1 & 2 (etc) are directly attached to), and setting them to something like 50MPa (this is 10MPa below max capacity of pipes). These can be left on all the time.
2. You can adjust the Pressure Regulator’s value depending on how full you want you canister / tank to be. If you’re not using smart canisters, you can set it to 10MPa to fully fill a connected canister / tank.
3. You can replace the Pressure Regulator with a Pump (or run it alongside) if you want quicker filling, but note the lack of any overflow valves, so don’t leave it on! Alternatively, control the Pump with logic, setting it to shut off once the meter reads 10MPa or greater.
4. Late game, you could replace Valves 1 & 2, (etc) with digital valves (and meter’s with digital meters) and control the whole system with consoles / logic, but always remember that the pipe meter’s must be at zero before commencing filling, else you’ll contaminate everything!
5. You could replace Valves 1 & 2 (etc) with Pressure Regulators. This would prevent accidentally creating backflow into your filtered pipes, but this would increase power requirements (Pressure Regulators have a power requirement of 100W when switched on). This system would also take up more room as you would need space for wiring.
6. You can add as many filtered gas inputs as you want, you just need some piping and valves for each gas (in addition to Valves 1 & 2 shown).