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[taptap]

Love the thinking behind it, truly innovative. Sat down to hook one up to the plumbing in my old science fort - while keeping the water source going.

Setup: My plumbing is an aquifer pierced from below, from there a few horizontal tiles for emergency shutdown, a 2x2x5 water reservoir and from there a straight down stair. Put the PD (no pump, only minecart stop set to dump into wall) about 40 z-levels below the aquifer behind a door directly next to the "pipe".

Finding: It drained down to the lowest of the 5 z levels in the reservoir, which remained on 6-7 water level, it never reduced water levels any lower (30+ column of water in the pipe + lowest reservoir level untouched). I.e. the capacity of the PD depends on water flow and finds an equilibrium with the water source even when it initially can lower fluid levels.

Applications: Simple drainage, really easy traps based on permanent flow + drainage (shutting off drainage results in instant raise of fluid), new swimming pool / shower designs, prevention of climate change (dump all the carbon dioxide into a wall).

P.S. A door linked to a lever works as small footprint emergency drainage without edge connection as well (not good to run permanently, though).

[FantasticDorf]

Love the thinking behind it, truly innovative. Sat down to hook one up to the plumbing in my old science fort - while keeping the water source going.

Setup: My plumbing is an aquifer pierced from below, from there a few horizontal tiles for emergency shutdown, a 2x2x5 water reservoir and from there a straight down stair. Put the PD (no pump, only minecart stop set to dump into wall) about 40 z-levels below the aquifer behind a door directly next to the "pipe".

Finding: It drained down to the lowest of the 5 z levels in the reservoir, which remained on 6-7 water level, it never reduced water levels any lower (30+ column of water in the pipe + lowest reservoir level untouched). I.e. the capacity of the PD depends on water flow and finds an equilibrium with the water source even when it initially can lower fluid levels.

Applications: Simple drainage, really easy traps based on permanent flow + drainage (shutting off drainage results in instant raise of fluid), new swimming pool / shower designs, prevention of climate change (dump all the carbon dioxide into a wall).

P.S. A door linked to a lever works as small footprint emergency drainage without edge connection as well (not good to run permanently, though).

I have a question in regards to this 'swimming pool', could you make a shower using said portable drain below some floor grates that will rise through into a small area with ramp access, (grates require 2x2 maximum unless you created a chessboard alignment and flooded them all, which may be useful for mass showering a large area if you can force the water up enough, could work too with lava  )

[greycat]

I have not played with this technology yet, but it looks like it should be useful for a simple, elegant mist generator.  Aquifer or river or brook generates infinite water, which falls down, makes mist, then drains into the black hole.  No power needed.  (Or is mist simply not a design factor any more, with temples and taverns providing so much joy?)

[flameaway]

Love the thinking behind it, truly innovative. Sat down to hook one up to the plumbing in my old science fort - while keeping the water source going.

Setup: My plumbing is an aquifer pierced from below, from there a few horizontal tiles for emergency shutdown, a 2x2x5 water reservoir and from there a straight down stair. Put the PD (no pump, only minecart stop set to dump into wall) about 40 z-levels below the aquifer behind a door directly next to the "pipe".

Finding: It drained down to the lowest of the 5 z levels in the reservoir, which remained on 6-7 water level, it never reduced water levels any lower (30+ column of water in the pipe + lowest reservoir level untouched). I.e. the capacity of the PD depends on water flow and finds an equilibrium with the water source even when it initially can lower fluid levels.

Applications: Simple drainage, really easy traps based on permanent flow + drainage (shutting off drainage results in instant raise of fluid), new swimming pool / shower designs, prevention of climate change (dump all the carbon dioxide into a wall).

P.S. A door linked to a lever works as small footprint emergency drainage without edge connection as well (not good to run permanently, though).
[/quotes]

Concerning your finding: I agree that gravity feeding a PD is not the most efficient way to use the drain. However, had you inserted a pump between the tank you were draining and the hole...had you pumped the tank into the hole, the entire contents, but for 5/7 would have drained away.

Thanks for confirming my results, and passing along the info on large scale gravity feeding. I think I'll do a wiki article on the PD.

[taptap]

Concerning your finding: I agree that gravity feeding a PD is not the most efficient way to use the drain. However, had you inserted a pump between the tank you were draining and the hole...had you pumped the tank into the hole, the entire contents, but for 5/7 would have drained away.

Thanks for confirming my results, and passing along the info on large scale gravity feeding. I think I'll do a wiki article on the PD.

It is impressively efficient and simple, definitely should be on the wiki.

The biggest limitation (for the PD and other drainage schemes) seems to be how fast you get water into it, not how much it can process. Pumps may speed up things, but have the same limitation since you can only pump what arrives in the input tile.

Some unconnected ideas / questions:

* Can a messed up double-slit aquifer site that removed the last interior aquifer tile too early be recovered by a PD?
* Using a hatch/door for a start of drain without delay and a link to the trackstop for an end of drain without delay looks like a good combination (both working on ON signals).

@fantasticdorf: Swimming pool / shower are not euphemisms for drowning/magma chambers, but worthwhile applications in their own right for cleaning, happiness and swimming skill / attribute training. All of which should be possible with improved designs now.

[FantasticDorf]

@fantasticdorf: Swimming pool / shower are not euphemisms for drowning/magma chambers, but worthwhile applications in their own right for cleaning, happiness and swimming skill / attribute training. All of which should be possible with improved designs now.

I meant in the sense that by close management of the drain you could apply it to be a on demand. I already have a hypothetical design in mind (im no fluids expert, but if it creates inspiration for people to try its worthwhile) obviously this design is small for the purposes of demonstration.

KEY: (B stands for bridge, R for ramp, G for grate and F for floor)

BBB
RRR
FGF
GFG
FGF
RRR
BBB

Water would be funneled in through a pierced aquifer cistern with a PD below and contained by floodgates 2 tiles below the grates to each individual grate, depending on the size of the room you could release one in the middle and shut it off again to let the water dispersion thin the tiles to a walking shower space or a swimming space (ramps used for purpose) lower the water with the PD and release all floodgates to empty the floor, using the same method vertically, making a 'pipe' running off a seperate aquifer channel to drop floodwater above through the grates (and subsequent open floodgates else it will spill over) while its draining can also produce mist.

More offensively you could lure invaders within with a statue or base design to that area on the non grated floor, seal them inside, release the floodgates en masse and let the water build up while the bridges shut behind them walling them inside. Filling it to full of water or other fluid of your choice until they drown.

[Bakaridjan]

Just set up my first test case and I'm impressed by the results. I want to drain a significant amount of lava from a Volcano to install a temple inside the column. It's deep so I'd like to speed up the process. My question, since the limitation seems to be how fast you can get fluid to the PD not how fast the PD can dispose of it, is, would multiple pumps pumping to a single PD be as efficient as multiple pumps each pumping to their own PD? Does that make sense. If the science hasn't been done, I guess It'll be my first DF science project.

[PatrikLundell]

@taptap:
As far as I understand the method, a messed up double-slit can be salvaged with a PD.

However, you can salvage it using the double-slit method as well (had to do it myself when I was cocky enough to think I'd understood how to do it):
Switch the 3:rd and 4:th sections of the double slit lowest level around. You probably realize you've screwed up when starting on the 4:th section and find the water doesn't drain. At that stage, turn the pump around again (to pump from 3 to 4), remove a piece of wall to get a drain, turn the pump around, now treat the 4:th section as you should have done with the 3:rd one, i.e. leaving a sink tile undisturbed, turn the pump around again and reseal the wall.

My guess is that double-slit salvage is still less work than a PD. I want to clarify that I think the PD is an impressive find with a nice potential, but aquifer penetration is probably not where it shines the brightest.

[flameaway]

Never used the double slit method.
(Shrugs)

[Insanegame27]

PTW

[Naryar]

So does it mean you can store infinite amounts of magma into a minecart, and does it mean when you empty the minecart it suddenly goes all Boatmurdered and floods the local map tile with magma ?

I assume the minecart cartoonishly inflates as it gets magma in it.

Because there are some interesting applications for magma traps...

Edit: Ah, no. It just deletes magma. Ah, still nice.

[flameaway]

I wish it stored fluids... I'da called it the portable reservoir, and you lot would be composing odes about me.  Alas, for my visions of mass admiration, the PD only deletes fluids.

On the other hand,  you could always load  a bunch of mine carts with lava and another bunch with water.  Put them all on a trackstop with a lever linked to it. Flip the lever to dump... Makes a nice mess...of anything flammable.  All from a single tile.

[infrequentLurker]

Just a question - if things can path through fortifications when both sides are submerged in 7/7 liquid, could you use your portable drain as a sort of lockdown that will hold against building destroyers?

[taptap]

Just a question - if things can path through fortifications when both sides are submerged in 7/7 liquid, could you use your portable drain as a sort of lockdown that will hold against building destroyers?

You may be able to stop people swimming through fortifications this way, but flow can push things and persons through it, as far as I know. So you are trading risks instead of making it safe. If you look for safe water supplies from the surface/cavern floor grates are your friend.