Climate System
The Climate System's primary ecological output is condensation: water vapor converted to liquid water that the Rain System then delivers as rainfall.
Overview
The Climate System's primary ecological output is condensation: water vapor converted to liquid water that the Rain System then delivers as rainfall.
What This System Is
Ecological Context
The Climate System's primary ecological output is condensation: water vapor converted to liquid water that the Rain System then delivers as rainfall. Without the Climate System, the rain cycle stops. The consequences cascade through every terrestrial and edge biome: the Lowland Meadow's plant community loses its only freshwater input; the Mangrove Forest's moist microclimate fails; cockroach, isopod, Amber Snail, and other moisture-dependent organisms face desiccation pressure. The Climate System is the physical foundation of the terrestrial food web. Secondarily, condensation-driven humidity across the interior glass surface creates localized moist zones that extend the activity windows of moisture-dependent organisms (Amber Snails on Lakeshore glass, periwinkles and Eastern Melampus on Marine Shore glass, isopods on moist substrate surfaces) beyond what passive atmospheric humidity alone would support.
What Is Confirmed
- Four custom-built PVC atmospheric heat exchangers installed on Biomes 2-5 (54 cm x 41 cm, switchback coolant path, externally mounted).
- Coolant: shared water/glycol mixture circulated by a laboratory chiller loop.
- One BYT-7A015 12V pump per branch; MOSFET PWM pump control from ESP32 GPIO27.
- DS18B20 coolant probe in each exchanger, reporting to matching biome ESP32.
- Previous working coolant temperature approximately 0°C.
- Chiller currently under repair; chilling not currently active per most recent Hardware status.
- All exchangers externally mounted; coolant circuit is outside the biosphere boundary.
- A fifth heat exchanger is planned for the Freshwater Lake (Biome 1); the rear glass mounting surface was prepared (background paint fully removed) July 10, 2026. The exchanger itself is not yet fabricated or mounted. It will mount horizontally against the tank's own back glass rather than against a vertical atmosphere-tank glass, per the confirmed July 13, 2026 design update; the horizontal baffle geometry is not yet designed.
- The chiller pump repair plan is confirmed as an independent bypass pump with its own controller (not an OEM-pump repair), as of July 13, 2026. Not yet built. Heat-exchanger installation work is confirmed to proceed independently of this bypass build.
- The bypass pump will circulate chiller fluid in a loop external to the chiller, which the four branch pumps tap into (confirmed July 28, 2026); this is a settled design detail independent of the still-open question of which specific pump product will fill the bypass role.
- A specific confirmed source of passive air leakage exists in the coolant loop: quick-disconnect PEX couplings at the heat-exchanger branch lines. A fix (permanent crimped coupling) is planned but not yet executed.
Active Tensions
Chiller downtime and rain cycle: The chiller is currently under repair via a confirmed bypass-pump plan (July 13, 2026), not yet built. Without active cooling, condensation is reduced or absent. The first ecological consequence is in the terrestrial realm: reduced rainfall to the Lowland Meadow and Mangrove Forest. The ecological chain from chiller downtime to plant health to herbivore and detritivore response is the most direct hardware-to-ecology dependency in the system, and its current restoration timeline is not confirmed in this record.
Sensor reliability: Biomes 2-5 have documented SHT31-D sensor health issues (water damage, wiring problems). DS18B20 coolant readings also depend on reliable I2C and GPIO4 connections. Until the June 2026 sensor repair pass is complete, climate telemetry from Biomes 2-5 should be treated as potentially unreliable.
Cooling asymmetry (narrowing for Freshwater Lake, July 10, 2026): All four atmosphere tanks receive one exchanger each (Biomes 2-5). Freshwater Lake and Seagrass Meadow have had no atmosphere tanks and no direct Climate System coverage. This is beginning to change for the Freshwater Lake specifically: the rear glass background was fully removed July 10, 2026 to prepare the mounting surface for a planned fifth heat exchanger, directly connected to the existing Daphnia/Moina temperature-limitation hypothesis in that biome. The exchanger itself is not yet fabricated or installed. Seagrass Meadow remains without any planned Climate System coverage as of this record. Whether ambient temperature control for Seagrass Meadow is adequate or whether it is thermally unregulated is not addressed in current hardware documentation.
System Description
- System Description
- The Climate System is the chiller, coolant loop, circulation pumps, custom-built atmospheric heat exchangers, and ESP32 pump-control behavior that chill the rear glass of miniBIOTA's four atmosphere tanks and produce the condensation that drives the rain cycle. A shared laboratory chiller circulates a water/glycol coolant mixture through four parallel branches, one per atmosphere tank; each branch is driven by a BYT-7A015 12V pump at 8 liters per minute, controlled by that biome's ESP32 via a PWM MOSFET module; and each branch's coolant temperature is monitored inside the heat exchanger by a Hilitchi DS18B20 probe. The working coolant temperature during normal operation reached approximately 0°C (the chiller is capable of -30°C). The chiller is currently under repair. Research references the Climate System as the ecological driver of condensation, humidity, and the terrestrial water cycle, while treating all current operational claims as pending Hardware or App readback.
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