Bitcoin Forum

Do AntMiners comply with Part 15 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_47_CFR_Part_15) of the U.S. Federal Communication Commission's rules and regulations?

Implicit in my question is what percentage of watts going into an AntMiner get converted to RF interference. If it's a lot, it could be a safety issue, especially since the cases of many AntMiners (e.g., S5s) are open and thus do not act as Faraday cages.

UPDATE: Answer: Yes, they do. Their sales page (https://www.bitmaintech.com/productDetail.htm?pid=00020141223034607777DtzESHvI06C9) says "Certified By: FCC / CE."

I have a decent amount of Bitmain and other gear.  I don't think any of my asics would have trouble complying with this.

I do have a amateur radio license and I am able to go on many freq's and have never had trouble with interference from asics.

Me, too
I tuned to 350 MHz on my radio, the freq at which my S5s are operating, and I heard quit a lot of interference (squelch had to be set above 10 on my Yaesu handheld just to silence it). I changed the freq of the AntMiner, tuned to 350 MHz again, and didn't hear anything. I tuned to the miner's new frequency and heard the same noise. Certainly the S5s, not being in completely enclosed cases / Faraday cages, emit more RF interference than enclosed miners, but it doesn't seem to be much, considering my power levels decrease fairly rapidly with increasing distance my handheld Yaesu is from the miners.

let me tell you how much a Chinese manufacture cares about Merican regulations.  0, zero %.

About as much as they do with some of the class c fireworks that I have seen which if handled wrong could easily blow a part of your body off.

I would guess it is to do with the electricity as much as anything your talking about a decent amount of watts.   And it would create a electric field that farther you get away less it is.  I cant think of the device name but I have one where I can see if electric is flowing through a cable just by the air around it because of the electric field.

Go by something else with 550-600 watts of electricity and I think you will see a small amount of interference no matter what it is.  If you really want interference look at a electric drill going along antenna wire, or run near a microwave.

A current transformer... They are used every where!

Good question.  Wish I still had my meter from the cable company.  I'm sure it's not noticeable.  But that would explain all of Boeings planes falling out of the sky by my house. ;D

They do according  to the papers bitmain posted on the S5  post the other day .

I personally don't doubt that they do.  I have used a few mobile HAM radios, and one big scanner.   No issues and I have decent amount of miners and have had zero issues.

If you go right up to anything with lot's of electricity it will cause interference right around it.  But again you turn up squelch if for some reason you feel you need to transmit with your head right next to a miner.

I have many various Antminers at my home and I have no problem with radio, TV, Wi-Fi (and on my roof is 8 Wi-Fi AP 2,4 and 5GHz ).
Much worse it is with my Espresso coffee machines :-)

My  worst is my microwave.  If I use it I can count on no wifi in the kitchen till it's done :).  

Other then that rest of items seem pretty low on interference.  I to have wifi, tv, radio, amateur radio, and a "micro cell" that makes a cellular connection from your internet.

Sounds like the shielding on your microwave is toast, put some metal screen around it and you should be able to use wifi in the kitchen again.  I'm sure your wife would like a metal cage around the microwave, too.  ;D

Reviving this thread as I have just acquired a secondhand S3 that seems to produce a ton of RF interference.

No radio (by which I mean normal broadcast FM or DAB radio) will work at all within about 15 feet of the miner.  Unfortunately I haven't a lot of flexibility with siting it and so at the moment I can't use it at all.  Switch the miner on and about 5 seconds later the radio can't find a station (DAB) or just has static (FM).

I'm confident I've isolated it to the miner itself as the cause.

Anyone experienced this or got any ideas how to address it?

Put an Iron case around it..? hehe but really.

Well I have thought about something like that, but ...

A) I'd have to get the cables in somehow; and
B) how would I cool it?

The case should already be most of a Faraday cage, what with the metal housing and such. Kinda strange that it'd put out so much noise.

Yes, 1 cm² chicken wire should work pretty well as a Faraday cage (at least for wavelengths longer than 1 cm). Air/heat passes through chicken wire easily.

Are you sure it's the S3 putting out the interference? I know I had 4 or so of them in a room and a HAM radio antenna on the roof above.   I never had any issues.

Is the PSU and radio connected to the same electrical circuit?  If so might look at the PSU itself.  I just really don't see the S3's putting out 15 foot of interference.  They are pretty well encased in a nice metal case.

I am pretty confident it is the S3, I have tested the PSU without the AntMiner; and I have tried both mains and battery powered radios; the issue is only apparent when the AntMiner is active.

I used to have a bunch of S1's and S3's powered by ibm dps2000's.When I switched them on I lost about half of the tv-channels.Well they came back after 12-16 hours thou.Wifi worked well.I never bothered to examine what caused it.Those tanks didn't need to reboot very often.

How bad is reception?  Normally a standard microwave has much much more RF interference.   When you turn on your microwave do those channels stop working?

There is no reception at all on a DAB radio it just shows "station unavailable"; an FM radio just gives static.

I don't have a microwave so can't comment on that.

I should have asked.  But when you say testing the PSU without the antminer did you plug it into something of equal load as the S3? Or did you just turn it on with nothing attached to it?

No, just turned it on I have no other way of loading it, so definitely a possibility, though it is a new Corsair CX750M so I'd hope fairly well made.

There could be lots of possible causes.  It could be anything from the wiring it's self to a device.   With just turning on the PSU it's not putting the load on the wires, so does not show much.

Is it possible that your S3 is causing it?  Yes but highly improvable in my opinion.  You really need something with same load to test the PSU.  I think PSU or wiring, or other causes are most likely. 

The S3 is just built like a tank with metal around it.  But if you are sure it's the S3 you could build a faraday cage around it.   

Useful thoughts there, thanks. Wondering if this is actually a ground/earth issue at the socket.

Will do some more testing.

Not a problem at all.  Unfortunately they can be hard to find the cause.  If you Google there are a few common ones it could be.

You might bring S3/PSU to friend or family's and test it out there to see what happens to radio there. I think it will still work at their house, but I could be wrong.

I don't think mining is for you if your seriously care whether a chinese bitcoin hardware manufacturer is complying with US FCC regs...lol

Yeah, I know what you mean, but I'm worried about excess RFI.