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Hello guys,

I am new on this forum, I hope that I posted in the correct section.

I am trying to build immersion cooling system for 20 AntMiners S9. For now I made a research and found that my coolant (liquid) will be PDMS silicone oil. The bath will be made from PVC sheets welded together.

My question is : does PDMS silicone oil interacts with electronic components, PVC sheets, cables, brass pipes and other materials that will be immersed with this oil?

Thanks for answers!

Suggest googling Immersion cooling, there are hundreds if not thousands of threads on doing that for PC and GPUs.  The same rules will apply.

Curious why your looking to do this with your S9s?  The only advantage would be noise since you can't overclock the auto-freq ones, and you would still have to get rid of the heat...

You will spend so much on this immersion cooling idea you will never make a profit on your machines.

Also, nothing im reading about the fluid you have chosen states that it is safe for this idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydimethylsiloxane

I am thinking about immersion cooling because of a very high air pollution in the country where I keep miners. Another thing is that 20 S9s is only immersed in one bath and we will have maaany baths. So there is also no need to worry about heat, because each bath will use heat exchanger.

I know that there are many threads about immersion cooling, but the answers are totally different. Some people use 2-phase Novec liquid, some use cheap mineral oil, other guys say that mineral oil interacts with S9 and needs some additives and the last guys say that they use silicone oil.

That is why I was confused so I asked here.

Thanks for any help!

Heat does not qualify as air pollution... and the S9 does not, in itself, generate any.  The power plant likely does of course, but that is not something you have any control over.

That said, you still need to get rid of the heat, so oil immersion buys you nothing but cost you a fortune to setup.  You won't save anything on space either, since the S9s are pretty compact.

Haha  :D

Who told you that heat qualify as air pollution? I know the place where I have my mining farm and I know how bad pollution is there. You can trust me bro! :)

Of course that I save - I have a huge free water flow supplied by the power plant and that is why I want to use it to cool the computers. I won't be able to cool all my computers (few thousand) with just air.

I hope now everything is clear. Still need answer about my Clearco ST 50 oil as a coolant.

Thanks,

If you mean ST 50's compatibility with electronic components, so far I've seen zero issues.
As I posted in the original immersion cooling thread we have high voltage power supplies putting out over 10's of kw waste heat each that use it. Components in those range from epoxy encased diodes, various wiring with PVC (most common general wiring used everywhere), polyethylene, and silicon jacket wiring, nylon connectors, transformer varnish and potting epoxy, silicon rubber seals on electrolytic capacitors. Zero changes in their properties seen after so far >60k hrs on the oldest individual systems.

What I would be careful of is silicon rubber glue or sealant aka RTV joints - That tends to gel then crumble so use other ways to seal and bond things.

Based on that *if* I was to go with liquid cooling for a large installation I would definitely use the Clearco fluids. Again, because at least the ST50 is proven to not harm components/wiring, is water thin for easy pumping and great flow properties, has great thermal transfer specs and very high ignition point. Also, while certainly not cheap it costs about 1/10th what Novec costs and more important to me does not evaporate/require a vapor-tight system. Ja if there is a leak you have to contain/clean it up whereas even at a moderate 75F or more Novec will quickly go away on its own but there is also a chance to capture the fluid and filter/re-use it.

Have I yet put any of my farm in it? No. Why is because I am at my power available limit and normal ventilation works fine.

Do be aware that as an industrial fluid it is NOT sold to private individuals. Clearco and their distributors will only sell to registered companies.