Bitcoin Forum

I was hoping to get some advice, recommendations, or even hints at choosing a good soundproof Server Rack. I'm gonna be dumping some cash down on Spondoolies SP-10 and I've been hearing their obnoxiously loud. Unfortunately I don't have a basement to store these in so I was looking for something that could sit in the living room or even a bedroom and not be super loud.

Any links, advice, previous experience, or comments on pointing someone moving up to the "big boy" ASIC's would be greatly appreciated, especially if they accommodate Spondoolie ASIC's  :)

If noise is an issue, a more sensible choice would be a larger miner such as an Antminer S2. 

If you are dead set on an SP10, maybe you can find one of these used somewhere:
http://www.xrackpro.com/

In the same boat. This one looks best choice for me, at this moment.

http://www.rackmountsolutions.net/UCoustic_9210_Range_Soundproof_Rackmount_Cabinets.asp (http://www.rackmountsolutions.net/UCoustic_9210_Range_Soundproof_Rackmount_Cabinets.asp)

<sigh>

Noise caused by fans,
Fans cool heat,
can't put noisy server that creates heat in an enclosure.

Water cools quietly
Immersion cools quietly

Higher quality fans cool not as loudly

Good luck

I have two 24U cabinets from these guys:
http://www.acoustiproducts.com/en/ucoustic_active.asp

Both shipped from UK to New Zealand with no issues.

I have one in maple wood, as it is in an "office" location and needs to look good (which it does). The other one is standard metal and looks very professional.

I have the following in the wood one:
Bitmain AntMiner S2
Bitmain AntMiner S1
KnCMiner Jupiter
Spondoolies-Tech SP10
Plus some little miners including a BFL Jalapeño and various ASICMINER Block Erupters.

The cabinet silences the SP10. No joke.

And the cabinet itself is also silent.

(The metal cabinet is still being installed)

Where does the heat go? Is it vented out of the room via ducting from the cabinet?

Air intake through sides of front doors.
Air exhaust out top of rear doors.

My wood-veneer cabinet is in a large corporate atrium area, and I just let the heat vent upwards. Due to power limitations I can only run around 3kW in that location, and the atrium air con handles that.

My metal cabinet is in my basement, and there is a 150mm hole through the wall for the exhaust. There is a heat ducting kit that attaches to the top of the rear doors, which connects to a 150mm pipe, which goes through the wall. Air comes in from one side of the house (through ventilation holes in the wall), goes through the cabinet, and is vented out the other side of the house to prevent recirculation of hot air.  This setup can handle 7.2kW of heat, which is the max load that the cabinet can handle. I plan to take it to 7kW to be on the safe side.

So just sticking one of these in a room without aircon or installing all the ducting and having good airflow through the ambient space, isn't really going to help, the ambient air will just heat up till the cabinet is sucking in hot air and not able to cool the equipment inside.

That's right. The heat still needs to be dealt with. The cabinet deals with the noise, and provides a convenient "port" of hot exhaust air which needs to be dealt with. Hole through wall (if possible) is cheapest way as you don't have to pay for air con.

I have approached home use from a different direction. Instead try to muffle the noise I instead attempted to eliminate it as much as possible. I am using open enclosure in a small run with a high negative pressure running through it from a source of cool air. With this set up I have been able to keep a consistent hash rate from 1.35-1.62th/s per 20 minutes usingg 120a cord and fans on 40%,  FW 1.3.50

I took a couple of videos of my quiet rack cabinet:
UCoustic rack cabinet part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxMVpB9Y4wc)
UCoustic rack cabinet part 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xefxokQFeB4)

Trade up for the SP30s.

Sell your SP10s.

Get the SP10s hosted.

This problem is going to last, what, less than 6 months and you want to get an expensive rack for this one type of Miner that has a relatively short shelf life. If you are building a small node and you will keep buying miners and have the power to do that I think you are going to swap out the SP10s anyhow for more efficient and dense units like the SP30s. If you are going to stay a small operator better to buy something that doesn't blow out your hearing and that doesn't require special acoustic racking.

I have an SP30 (2U rack space) and I need to make it more 'silent'..
I don't want to spend a lot of money, so I would prefer a DIY solution..
Any ideas?

You could try mounting R-Tec insulation panels on the sides of the rack.  That may dampen the sound a bit.   Also you could see what fans are in the unit and swap them out for quieter high RPM fans.   

So you thought is to wrap the SP30 around with something like this
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fireproofing-Soundproofing-Acoustic-Studio-Decor-Wall-Foam-Board-Panel-1M-X-1M-/251809437610?hash=item3aa10317aa (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fireproofing-Soundproofing-Acoustic-Studio-Decor-Wall-Foam-Board-Panel-1M-X-1M-/251809437610?hash=item3aa10317aa)
?

I was thinking like building a custom aluminum rack and stick foam inside it. The temperatures are my concern though.

Better go watercooled!
I spend a shit load of time (and some cash) trying to build a silent cabinet.
The heat is the biggest problem you can get it a bit less loud but your temps go way up!
Now I am going to make one big watercooled system for my miners.

I don't see how I can convert a SP30 to watercooling

I tought there was a company making watrcooled spondoolies, but I am not sure if anyhing ever came from it.

I don't see watercooling a viable solution to me, even if it could be done it would be expensive.
I am thinking about a custom aluminum rack like the one below. Back side, not shown, would be open for the intake side. Front side would have a 220mm 600rpm fan to exhaust heat. The noisy high-rpm exhast fans would be just behind the 220mm fan, and the whole box will contain acoustic foam (something like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fireproofing-Soundproofing-Acoustic-Studio-Decor-Wall-Foam-Board-Panel-1M-X-1M-/251809437610?hash=item3aa10317aa (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fireproofing-Soundproofing-Acoustic-Studio-Decor-Wall-Foam-Board-Panel-1M-X-1M-/251809437610?hash=item3aa10317aa)

http://i1223.photobucket.com/albums/dd504/bomberb17/LT1/4u_1_zpsqizppjhe.jpg (http://s1223.photobucket.com/user/bomberb17/media/LT1/4u_1_zpsqizppjhe.jpg.html)