Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

I live in Scarborough, ON, Canada. The fall and winter months are usually pretty cool/cold.

I wonder if anyone in Canada has moved their bitcoin/litecoin mining rigs to their balcony's for the folder months and what they encased them in?

I have a KNC Neptune miner which I want to put outside. My balcony faces west so I can sometimes get some pretty strong winds. I was thinking of using a rubbermaid container and drilling some holes; possible will need to build a down ward scoop on the intake side so that the snow and or rain doesn't get sucked into the container.

Does anyone have any pictures of stuff they have built they could share?

Thanks,

Why not keep them inside during the colder months and use them to heat your room/home?

Because I live in 700 SQ condo and having them running keeps me up night and interferes with my TV and video game playing. Putting it outside would not along allow me to run the cubes at 500Mhz but it would allow me to keep them super cold. :)

Never use the hot air for space heating.
This air is not good for breathing due to harmful chemicals from pcb and parts.

How bad would the hot air be? I think there's a lot of people out there who has their gear indoor (like me).

I moved my Antminer S1 outside at the beginning of July, once I realized ot was throwing off too much heat.  I have had it running outside this entire time on a covered porch, no rain is able to get near it.  I am in Cornwall, Ontario.

I would build a temporary removable screen balcony, you can make one whole sub wall that runs the length of your balcony and just cover it with screens :) put the miners as close to the main wall as possible and watch the first storm to see if any of the dampness or water hits the minersif it does put plywood on the top 2 to 3 feet of your subwall to stop the elements from getting to the miners :)

Its dangerous putting in balcony, raining would kill it.

Did you not read what I said? I bet you didn't so why don't you go and TROLL somewhere else!

A container would definitely be a good idea just to keep stuff out like leaves maybe and such.

Also regarding the conditions in the winter, generally for electronics there is a minimum-maximum temperature and humidity range where they can be operated. I haven't seen anything mentioned about this at KNC website. I personally would send them an email asking whether or not running a miner outside in the winter could do any damage to it.

I would be worried about really cold weather for very low temperatures and maybe some heavy rains due to humidity issues. Wouldn't hurt to ask them as well, they should have the specs about these.

Back when I had my Avalon Mini I used to put it outside in the winter months on it's own, if it was going to snow or rain I would put it inside the door slightly opened.

So I was thinking of taking several containers and using them as parts to make one, I was thinking of putting a scoop on the front facing open down and maybe using some fans to pull the air in, this would certainly stop any rain or snow from getting in unless we get blizzard conditions. And any holes I'd make I would cover with screen mesh material to prevent anything from getting. I live 9 floors up (in a 40 floor condo) leaves don't make up this high.

For the back I was thinking of making the power/network connection port higher off the ground. And putting slots or holes in the back or the other option would be to put them in the top and put another scoop on facing the back. The problem I have is figuring out the best air flow from front to back or out the top.

Thanks,

I once though of that idea but I am too afraid to put in balcony, mainly afraid of thief..

You must live close to the ground. It's very hard to steal stuff when you are high off the ground. :)

I think if you leave sufficient ventilation gap on the containers, an additional fan may not be necessary. Maybe you could even have a "half-sheltered" setup where you only cover one side (facing outwards) and the top of the miners? If the wind/rain facing side and top is covered, it may be sufficient.

If you want to enclose them however, the direction of air flow could be based on how you position the miners. If the miner is blowing out the warm air to the sides, I wouldn't go for top ventilation (also I'm not sure if your balcony has a roof) I would try blowing the air towards my balcony door, taking in air from the opposing side. Maybe north-south alignment of the miner.

I would advise against leaving your ASIC miners on your balcony because moisture does not fare well for ASIC chips and PCB components. It would cut down the life span of your mining equipment.

Is there any hard evidence this or is it just a theory?

High humidity can increase rate of corrosion (esp. if your area tends to have rain with high acidity). This probably isn't much of an issue since mining equipment isn't expected to last more than 2-4 years, anyway. Relative humidity >95% is likely to cause a short circuit IF your electronics are off and you turn it on in high-humidity environment. If it's hot inside the case (and it's likely much more hot), relative humidity will be significantly different inside the case than outside since hot air can carry more water vapor. I don't mean to say it's safe, though... I ain't never been much of a science-man, myself.

OP, I don't have the time to explain everything, but so long as you are confident your operation won't go down, the only thing that may have a problem with temperature delta is the PSU.  The heat generated from the miners will be more than enough to keep condensation off, though... So I'd say go for it, just have a spare Psu in case...  But I have all of my miners outsideand I've never had a problem, two of them reside on my balcony, in fact.     

I've had a similar experience. I kept a few in garage last Winter with a door open and had no problems. The garage is slightly warmer than outside, while area around mining rigs is warm, and of course inside the cases is quite hot, so as long as humidity isn't 100% and we just recovered from a long power outage, chance of critical failure is pretty damn low. I suppose a power outage with a large operation and a low-R ceiling/roof with certain other conditions could actually form rain clouds in a building (or maybe at least fog)... that'd be really cool. It'd ruin a lot of stuff, but I'd be tickled to see it raining inside the garage.

Err - anyway - I'm not sure I'd like the idea of wind going directly into the mining rig enclosure, though.

I used to run my GPUs on the balcony. :) I'll never forget how nervous I was the first time it rained. But the tarp held up. Good memories!

I also remember trying my Block Erupter on the balcony in the winter. Just to see if it would work with free convection cooling.
I was also scared, even though it was pretty cold outside, I didn't dare to run longer than a few minutes as it was getting very hot.

Never in the rain though...

I ran some of my GPU rigs in an uninsulated shed through the winter and ended with bad corrosion on the motherboard. All the GPUs and PSUs was fine, I guess because they are hot.

I had corrosion in my gpus :(

I have a 220 line on my deck for a hot tub. 
I considered making a shelter and doing some outside mining this winter.

I think my biggest hurdle would be condensation. 

I have plenty of room for miners in safer places, but I'm sure I'll experiment at some point.

If you are building an enclosed space for the miner, like a shed, maybe you could get away with buying a de-humidifier?

Dehumidifiers suck down obscene amounts of electricity. They're basically air conditioners, but they don't push the warm air outside. Given that, you may's well just use an air conditioner.

The problem was the humidity. Air conditioner doesn't remove water vapour from the air, in fact it may even increase RH which is the bad thing.

There are dehumidifiers with very low power consumption. You would need to make a balance, what is worth more, replacing expensive hardware due to corrosion  or paying a little extra for electricity?

It was just a thought anyway.

Watch out for condensation on the inside of your Rigs.
OK, while it's running it might be too hot to suffer from condensation.
But supposing your're out and it breaks down or the electricity is cut and it happens to be very cold outside.