Extreme Cold Era: Shelter Don't Keep Waste-Chapter 849 - 78

In the icy cold wind, the cargo barge has now landed on the ice field, with four newly-designed mining robots extending their mechanical arms, the jagged drill heads spinning rapidly as they pierce through the frozen soil.

Inside the control room of the cargo barge, Perfikot is personally overseeing the testing of the new mining units.

"The vibration amplitude is exceeding the standard," she suddenly said, pointing to a particular data point on the display screen.

The control room instantly fell silent, the alchemists' fingers frozen on the console.

The engineer responsible swallowed hard, quickly approached the screen: "Lord, it might be caused by the uneven density of the permafrost layer..."

"It's not a geological issue," Perfikot pulled up the transmission shaft data of robot number three and pointed to a part of it: "The hydraulic rod's contraction frequency within the gear mesh dynamic model is half a beat slower than other components, and there is a delay in the hydraulic buffer of the second joint—did you use an old model of the sealing ring?"

The engineer's back was drenched in cold sweat.

Due to the rush to meet deadlines, indeed two buffer sets had to use spare parts due to a lack of sealing ring stock, and he hadn't expected this subtle difference to be captured by the monitoring system.

This monitoring system was specifically designed by Perfikot when designing the automated robots. Although the signal transmission still had some issues, it was sufficient to monitor various data.

After all, when automated robots encounter problems, the error report also needs to transmit the signal to the necessary location for the timely repair by either a person or an alchemy puppet.

"Robot number four's efficiency has dropped by 12%," Perfikot turned her attention to another screen, only to see robot number four dumping shattered ore onto a stalled conveyor belt, the dark red iron ore debris quickly piling into a small hill, starkly contrasting the surrounding orderly transport flow.

"The heat compensation device of the conveyor belt hasn't started—did you think that in minus forty-degree environments, Ore could still be normally transported after being smashed?" Perfikot turned to look at the engineers and alchemists beside her.

During mining, the friction of the drill head generates a large amount of heat, thus requiring water spraying on the drill bit to lower the temperature, even in cold weather now.

This leads to a lot of Ore mixed with frozen soil being frozen into blocks due to water accumulation, affecting transportation.

The responsible alchemist hurriedly rushed out, personally climbing onto robot number four, and activated the relevant device.

With the operation of the alchemist, large amounts of steam began to rise from the conveyor belt of robot number four, as the steam heating finally caused the belt to emit harsh creaks and start operating, though the piled-up Ore had already formed a small mountain.

Perfikot shook her head helplessly at the scene before her: "Activate the emergency plan, let number three assist number four in processing the Ore!"

Suddenly, Perfikot felt an abnormal vibration on the mining barge; she quickly turned to see that robot number one's main drill head had forced entry into the ice layer without full pre-heating, triggering three yellow alarms on the monitoring screen instantly, plunging the entire control room into chaos.

As technicians busily adjusted the parameters, Perfikot had already pulled up the monitoring data for robot number one: "What's going on? Have you not tested the operating parameters of these robots?"

The responsible engineer opened his mouth, but ultimately lowered his head in silence.

This action further lowered the air pressure in the control room; all thirteen engineers collectively muted their breathing.

Only the data stream on the alchemy screen continued to flow madly, converting each mistake into cold numbers.

...

When the last robot completed the mining of the scheduled area, the clock on the wall showed that nine hours and seventeen minutes had passed.

Perfikot stood at the hold of the mining barge, looking at the final summary of the Ore yield, she slightly frowned: "15.7% less than expected."

"That's because production time was lost during robot number four's malfunction..." the engineer's voice grew quieter.

He watched as Perfikot pulled out a pen from her coat and annotated on the edge of the production report—the scratch of the pen tip across the parchment caused everyone to hold their breath.

"Change the preheat structure of the robot transport belts to my design." She suddenly smacked the report onto the console, on the ink-wet blueprint, a brand new conveyor belt design was drawn on the back of the text report: "Connect the preheat source to the main drill head's waste heat recovery system to ensure the transport belt has sufficient temperature."

The engineers took the blueprint, quickly began researching with the alchemists.

The mining barge retrieved the robots, then reascended and returned to the Floating City.

-----------------

The roar of the steam hammer in the forge was deafening.

Through the double-layer explosion-proof glass, the improved conveyor belt component can be seen being hoisted onto the test rig.

Several alchemists surrounded the newly manufactured component, comparing it to the improved blueprint. Their gaze swept back and forth between the blueprint and the physical object, finally, someone said softly: "The structure here still deviates, needs adjusting again."

The engineers swiftly took action, disassembling the parts for reprocessing.

The sky outside had completely darkened, but the lights inside the factory remained glaring, steam and metal odor permeated the air, swallowing time itself in this busy atmosphere.

Perfikot, who came to inspect, stood in the monitoring room, watching the belt component on the test rig through the explosion-proof glass.

Her gaze was sharp and focused, capable of penetrating the metal surface to see every part's operation beneath, her fingers gently tapping the edge of the control console, seemingly calculating something.

"Adjustment complete," a brief report from an alchemist.

Perfikot nodded, indicating to begin testing.

The conveyor belt component slowly started, gears meshed, the belt gradually accelerated, steam spurted from the preheat system, instantly heating the belt to a suitable temperature.

"Normal operation," the engineers stared at the monitoring screen, the data flow swiftly scrolling before their eyes.

Perfikot frowned slightly: "The response of the preheat system needs to be faster."

The alchemists quickly noted her instruction, while the engineers began to adjust the parameters of the preheat system, making the entire factory act like a precision machine, each part functioning for the same goal.

After several adjustments, the conveyor belt's operation finally met her requirements.

"Start durability testing," her voice resonated in the control room.

The conveyor belt sustained high-speed operation for a long time, and during this, no faults occurred; the monitoring data displayed that the efficiency of the preheat system had significantly improved.

Perfikot's gaze remained focused; she turned to the engineers and said: "This improvement is excellent, but it still needs validation in a real environment. Install this component onto the robot and conduct field testing tomorrow morning."

The engineers nodded, fatigue but relief evident on their faces.