Bitcoin Forum

Anyone using 220v in the U.S. to power their home based miners to increase power supply efficiency?  I've tracked down these NEMA 6-15 power cords http://www.stayonline.com/detail.aspx?id=28155.  I've wired a NEMA 6-15 outlet for a central vac in my last home, but these outlets are fairly uncommon for residential use.  However, they seem to be the most appropriate solution for supplying 220v in the U.S. to ATX power supplies.

they could work

Nema L6-30R on a 30A breaker,  PDU, c14 to c13 cords from digikey (or wherever).

This is the best way.

BTW it's 240V, not 220V.

I have them both ways - I wish for wiring sake and efficiency of transport -  that I would have done all 240 v.  If you get a pdu with amp/current readout that's also a bonus.  If you are doing more than a couple - you will save in wiring from the breaker box alone.  I.e.  I run 3 Ant S4s with a 30 amp 240v circuit -it takes 3 10 gauge wires when sharing the neutral.  Otherwise it would have only been capable of 2 Ants on 120v still sharing neutrals.  (yes I already had the 3/10 wire)  Most of your efficiency gain in 240v is in transport.  Not in efficiency with power supplies.  I assume there is a little bit there - but not much...

Boomin

I have half my load center wired for 240v, going to miners.  About 140 amps worth.

And it is actually 220v-240v depending on wiring and voltage drops, transformer load, etc etc.

The other benefit of using 240V is that you don't have to worry about load balancing the two lines. Really, if you're planning on running more than a couple kW worth of gear you might as well do it right and run 240V.

Thanks for the replies everyone.  I ran a 10/2 line off of a 30A 2 pole GFCI breaker (my miners are in a basement/crawlspace) to a L6-30 receptacle.  Picked up a APC AP9571A PDU for $10 of ebay and a dozen or so c14 to c13 cords from monoprice.  Fortunately my home is over powered with essentially an extra 200 amp panel, so I could run a couple more lines if I needed to.

By the way, you don't "need" a special plug or an outlet to have 220V.
It just have to be connected appropriately.
I have few regular 5-15 and 5-20 outlets connected to have 220V.
Now, you do have to mark them properly, so that you don't plug in your 110V stuff there:)

Eliminates the need to have to buy special PSU power cords and such.

I've used them and ordered the plug that converts my dryer plug to a 220v30a standard twist lock.  It plugs directly into my pdu.  Works great and very solid heavy duty.

nice thread. I am loking at getting a 220/240V breaker put into my house so I had some of these questions too.

Would one of these work for running from the 30A recepticle to standard PSU's?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002MGJ2F4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002MGJ2F4&linkCode=as2&tag=bitfrotheblom-20&linkId=LGCJPTNP3QDYUYYX

These are typically used on a generator to split the 240v output into two separate 120v lines.  Since most all power supplies that you will be powering can run off 240v, I don't see an advantage in doing this. I believe the power supplies will run slightly more efficiently at 240v.  If you use this adapter you would have to run 10/3 wire to have hot/hot/neutral/ground wires.  I only needed to run 10/2 wire hot/hot/ground for the L6-30 receptacle which is what I have my PDU plugged into.   Your power supplies are then plugged into the PDU using C13/C14 cords.

Perfect so I can just go directly from the L6-30A receptacle into the a 240V rated PDU and jsut use the C13/C14 cords from there to the PSU's? No additional special equipment required?

No. That 30A plug has 4 wires, L1-L2-N-G. It splits them out to two plugs, L1-N-G and L2-N-G, each at 120V.

Great, thanks for the input MrTeal :)