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After months of planning, stressing, and budgeting my mining operation is finally up and running! The electrician just installed three 30 amp 240v circuits/outlets, and I'm using heavy duty tripp lite pdu's to distribute power to all miners. My makeshift hot/cold isle is working nicely and keeping temps in a very acceptable range. I'm using insulated tarp to keep the hot exhaust air separate from the cooler intake air so the exhaust can be vented out of the window, and I'm using a 14,000 BTU AC to assist in the cooling process. Let me know what you guys think or if you have any questions.

I still have plenty of electrical overhead so I'm offering hosting for a handful of miners. If you're looking for hosting at a competitive rate in a well managed environment, message me.

I think you should replace those tarpaulin with more solid thing like plywood.
Also tarpaulin seem to be more easier to be burned

Yeah, plywood would definitely be a good long term solution, but this was much easier/quicker to work with and I can't imagine it spontaneously catching fire just from relatively high ambient temperatures.

Overall, i like how you set it up.
Its seem split the room between cooling room and hot room is better as i also do for my farm

Nice setup!
Which PSU are you using ?

Good lookin' setup.

I'm 99% sure those are Bitmain APW5 power supplies.

Nice, how much you pay electricity ?

Oh my god!.Did you just build that alone with your own funds? 19 antminers? seriously? How fast can that mine? This is the farm site i actually want to develop also. I guess the real profit is just starting from now. Hope the investment is worth it. could you tell us how much you paid over of that? its ok if you want it private.

Yeah, the hottest that any of them are running at is 61c. I guess server farms use hot/cold isles for a reason, it works!


HagssFIN guessed correctly, they're the APW5 power supplies. I originally ordered the APW3++ but I got an email and they supposedly ran out of parts for them so they shipped these instead. I think they're considered an upgrade though, being able to handle much more, so that's cool.


I pay $0.10 kW/h. Not the lowest electricity rates in the world, but it doesn't even matter when the L3+ is so profitable anyway. Don't let people tell you that you can't make money with anything above $0.05 or $0.08 for electricity.

How much money did you spend for that farm?  The miners, power system, racks, everything?  Call your power company and see if you can get a deal on a better rate for high use, like for business industrial rates.  Or tell them you have an electric car, some give discounts for that.

Bitmain site says $1291 each for those miners, times 19 = $24,529 , plus power supplies, plus racks, PDUs, electrician work, etc.  You've got at least $40,000 sitting there! 

I paid more than $1291 for each because I pre-ordered them months in advance, from that surprise batch they released at 6 am. Well worth it though!

Antminer L3 is a LTC miner correct? If so then you should post this in altcoin mining section, Anyhow I love what you have done, Neat and beautiful, A few days ago my brother told me that his friend has a workshop, Apparently they have been using a lot of electricity but with the magical help of some kind of device their electricity consumption was reduced into almost half, They are paying half the money of the times when they weren't using that device, Do you have any clue what that might be?

Is it more profitable to mine an Alt coin, specifically litecoin, rather than bitcoin? You got a very nice setup and the amount you invested is huge for this. I'am just wondering why you opted to mine litecoin rather than mining bitcoin. just a noob question perhaps.,

The L3+ is more profitable and more efficient than the S9 so that's what I went for.

Not anymore..

The S9 isn't more profitable than the L3+.

L3+ profitability, ~$17.13/day: https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator/bitmain-antminer-l3?e=0.1&currency=USD
S9 profitability, ~$14.20/day: https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator/bitmain-antminer-s9?e=0.1&currency=USD

Even if those numbers were switched around it wouldn't matter, they're both very profitable.

S9 is cheaper than L3+ :) Mining BCC with the S9 will give you 18$/day (non nicehash)

But yes i agree, very profitable

I remember back in the summer of '13, I had 11 GPUs mining LTC, and with the difficulty holding right around 1,000 , I was collecting about 10 LTC per week for a few months.

Awesome setup you having going there. Looking into the L3, did you purchase these all from the wholesaler?

Direct from Bitmain.

Hey mate are you really getting this amount from those machines right now?
I mean based on 2 days of having those miners running.

Nice share and I love your enthusiasm! Keep it up and more profits!!

It's 4 years almost, so what has become of the 11 GPUs and how vast has your farm grown?

Yes, almost exactly what it told me I would be paid, I have been!

It's mining through Nicehash, which gives you larger profits by switching the coin it mines automatically.

Is 14000 BTU AC enough for cooling 19 miner?

I could easily purchase another one and it would definitely help, but one gets the job done. The hottest miner of them all runs at 62c and the coolest one of them all runs at 52c. I suspect if I added another AC and put it on the other end of the room the coolest would run in the high 40's and the hottest would run in the low 50's. It's something I may do in the future but for now I don't feel the need to spend $500 for them to run ~10c cooler, 50c-60c is very much an acceptable temperature for them to run at.

Very true, if an admin sees this, feel free to move this to the altcoin mining section. Not sure what your brothers friend is talking about however.

This is a great post and a great set up. I don't think the admins should move this...Because people who don't mine Altcoins won't be able to see this then...Great work man...

very nice set up, looks clean and very organized. my facility is a huge mess lol. but I wish I would've bought more antminer l3+ also.
have you replaced those tarps yet? I would suggest get some insulated back there so no hot heat gets back around. but I mean if your not having any heating issues than why fix it if it ain't broken. lol
but very nice to see pictures of your set up!
thank you for sharing.

Thanks for the kind words, and to everyone else as well!

I could of course come up with a more optimal solution than using insulated tarps and cutting oversized holes in them, but it was a quick fix to get my miners operational, and like you said if it's not broke don't fix it, my temps are acceptable for now.

That is a nice setup that you made, just wondering the cover that you are using to control the heat
is made out of thin plastic right, isn't it hazardous for a mining farm it may caught on fire.

Thanks! It's a type of insulated tarp, and was very easy to work with. The temperature at which the tarp would catch fire is much much higher than the temperature of the ambient air in the room. I suppose if I wasn't careful and set it up so that the tarp could directly touch the inner parts of the miner that generate the heat then it could catch fire, but I'm not that careless.

There's no way that the tarps will spontaneously combust because of ambient temps, and there's no way that the tarps will come in contact with anything hot enough that would cause them to melt, thus no fire hazard.

All of those ASICs are L3 machines?
People tend to calculate profits based on bitcoin or litecoin prices.
And I have heard some miners talked the same thing which L3 is more profitable than S9.
But, Antminer L3+ more expensive, like $2250 for each. Which mean, it takes a longer time to achieve ROI instead of buy some Antminer S9 that cost around $1250. I realize ASICs price from bitmain always change in every batch, for next batch will be; $1415 for S9 and $1586 for L3+
How much it cost for 1 Antminer L3 when you bought it?
How long it takes to achieve ROI for your investment?

Just curious GMPoison, does nicehash pay you out in BTC even tho your mining LTC / Nicehash switches it between the most profitable coin?

Cool set up, nice to see you followed through, as I was watching your initial posts asking the forum for feedback. Good job buddy welcome to mining!!!

What are the specs for those Tripplite PDU's? If you don't mind me asking, how much did they cost you? I'm thinking of making my next set-up with PDUs.

Thanks, and yes, Nicehash automatically converts the coins it mines to BTC.

Here is a link to the PDU's I used. (https://www.tripplite.com/7.4kw-single-phase-basic-pdu-230v-outlets-4-c19-iec309-32a-blue-12ft-cord-1u-rack-mount~PDUH32HV19/) They provide up to 7.4kW on 240v, it's legit! Two L3+ per PSU, one PSU per connector, and four connectors per PDU makes a perfect 6.4kW per PDU per outlet! Well, well worth the $180 I paid for each of them.

@error08 - Use the profitability calculator on Nicehash, it's accurate. Based on the price I paid per L3+ ($1650) and PSU ($115) you can calculate my ROI, minus the couple grand I dropped on the equipment and electric install.

Well, I can't calculate your ROI correctly because you did not mention how much you spent to build your mining rigs.
If just calculate L3+ and PSU it will be = $33,535
Based on nicehash calculator, 1 antminer L3+ could produce $650/month. As you have 19 L3+ = $12,350/months
You may achieve ROI within 3 months, am I wrong?

One last question; where do you live? as you may hosting for a couple machines, maybe some people who stay in the same city probably want to contact you. Thanks.

Well right now the L3+ is not making $650/month. You have to use the most recent number which is the number all the way to the left under "daily" not all the way to the right under "monthly".

I'm based in Southwest FL. Even in the state that is known for it's heat, humidity, and electric rates that aren't low, these things still make really good money.

Like I said I have room for maybe 6-8 L3+'s that I may considering taking in for hosting, just let me know.

I think you're going to make even more money than you think long term. Just a week ago Bitcoin was $2000 cheaper than it is now and I'm expecting at least another $1000 up next year. It's going to be worth running the mine even when it starts to barely break even. You're still going to be getting cheaper coins than people on exchanges ;)
Great setup BTW, just make sure nobody can crawl in through that open window.

While the price of bitcoin is rising, remember these are L3+ machines mining alt coins and not bitcoin, although Nicehash does automatically convert the alt coins it mines into bitcoin which is nice. The price of bitcoin rising does of course help everything overall, the numbers just haven't recently shown too much of a rise in income is all. I will agree with you though, with how efficient these machines are I think I'm going to be keeping them for a long time, until the next most efficient miner is released (smaller nm), and who knows how long that will be.

Also, the window has since been secured. I am running this setup from the same place I live, so I won't go over all of the security I have in place as that would be an opsec fail, much the same way a hacker revealing his network config would be an opsec fail. I will say though that the physical security measures that I have in place are for the protection of would-be burglars, not for the protection of myself. ;)

Guys in your payout calculation you have to consider the fact that the BTC price also appreciates.

So, if OP for arguments sake invested $50,000 into his set up when the price of BTC was $5,000, that's 10 BTC investment. For him to ROI he needs to earn net 10 BTC on his operating cost, not $50,000. This takes into the account the *opportunity cost*.

If power costs all-in are >$0.10, OP may never reach ROI, considering some large scale miners are mining for <$0.03.

Thank you sir, and good luck - may Satoshi smile upon your farm.

Nice setup, wish I could do that in my empty Miami condo ;)

@VentMine - Opportunity cost was of course factored into the decision as I've always believed that the price of bitcoin will never stop climbing, and 10 BTC  - even at current market prices - should be attainable in less than 12 months with my setup which is very very good.

@YabaDabaDoo - Getting the electricity you need for a farm my size in a condo, apartment, or townhouse is not a process you want to go through, lol. If it were a house, you would have no problem, but being connected to other people under the same roof brings with it a whole bunch of expensive and time consuming obstacles.

Great job with your setup! Quick question. How noisy are the 19? Is it all so loud that it’d be distracting to neighbors?

Surprisingly not. When you're inside the room of course it sounds like a very loud server room, but outside the window unless you're directly in front of it it's surprisingly quiet.

Inside the house is another story. I have a professional heavy duty sound dampening blanket hung over the door which blocks a lot of the noise from the rest of the house, but even with that throughout the entire house you can hear the low pitched hum of the fans.

Have you installed any kind of surge or spike protection? What’s your take on that? Thanks

Very awesome and impressive set up your have there sir! Really inspiring hearing you're from Florida as well  8)

I have been thinking about putting something together for a while now. After seeing yours I'm more determined than ever.



So you definitely recommend going with the L3+ to mine Lite instead of the S9 to mine BTC correct?


This would back up my other buddy which is in the industry recommend against mining bitcoin because its way too crowded.


Anyways best of luck my fellow Floridian. Cheers!

Wow, this is a really nice setup. I like how you managed the airflow like that. Mad props!

I remember those days fondly '13/'14.  I only had 5 GPU's and a couple Zues/GAW 55nm asics.  It was decently profitable in the winter time, not so much in the summer time.  The damn garage would get so hot even with multiple exhaust fans.  Ambient temps here in so cal in the summer make garage setups tough.  When I bbq'd 2 PSU's in 1 week, I had to rethink things a bit

Taking a look at the Bitmain power supply, the next batch only has 10 PCIe connectors so you can only run 1 L3+ on each one which is disappointing. Does this make it half as efficient? I was really hoping to plug up 2 L3s per power supply unit, like you have setup.


any recommendations on other possible power supplies ?



or just get one APW3++ for each unit?.. wouldn't this waste more energy ? 

Super nice setup .

What sort of temps do you get in the room?

The power supplies are mainly just supplying the power required by the miner, they are using little for their own operation.  So a Power supply for each L3+ would only increase your power usage minimally at the wall.  Plus it makes sure you are not going to over tax the power supply so much that you have a higher chance of running into catastrophic failure.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. That was my original thought.  Makes sense.

OP, Nice setup.

I'm thinking of getting a small farm going myself if I can get a server space reasonable enough ( would already have fire suppression built in and adequate power setup) and business rates on the power here in southern Cali.  Would be curious to know what your first months power bill was at your rate, how long you plan to run the miners before selling the equipment in the secondary market to replace with newer units.

You mentioned three 30 amp 240v circuits. Is that the most you could get installed in your basement? How many L3+s maximum can you run? How much did the electrician charge you for that installation?

i wonder how much does that total cost your wallet? mind sharing where to order that in bulk too? =) ;)

Additional question would be how much hands on time do you spend on the farm per day?  I would imagine most could be handled remotely to facilitate off site hosting in a small office space setup as a server room for example.  Just curious how much hands on work you do daily.

@BitcoinIntern - Each miner is hooked up to a PDU which should provide enough protection.
@Crypto-Age - I was lucky enough to purchase them directly from Bitmain when they released that surprise batch late at night for $1650 a few months ago.
@DDank - Yes, if I could go back and do it again I would still rather purchase the L3+ over the S9. As far as power supplies go, you can find server power supplies that cost the same and do the same thing, but Bitmains are good.
@bizalaz - It's all logistics. The real work is the months of preparation, but after that it's fairly low maintenance.
@CMvet1 - I pay about $0.10/kWh so you can do the math, it's a funny sight to see your electricity bill be the same as your rent! As far as maintenance, there's not much to do day to day, it's all in the setup.
@falsealarm_bf1 - It's not in my basement, I live in Florida and there aren't many homes with basements in Florida. The entire electric install including labor was $3800.
 

I am worried about the electricity you are going to pay. Anyways i am shocked by watching these 19 ant miners. Can you tell us more detail like you how fast they're and your monthly income with these ant miner? I  also looking to develop some ant-miner and start working like you but maybe it cost a lot how much paid for this setup ?

Good job sir! Posts like these never fail to inspire. I too am on my way to building more GPU and ASIC rigs. Hopefully one day I get to that point as well.
Did you buy these ASICs all at the same time or did you slowly accumulate until you arrived at what you have today?



I wouldn't worry too much about difficulty, bitcoin value is also slowly going up. Unless bitmain comes out with a new ASIC (s11 maybe?) then we should be fine. An s11 is pretty far off i'd say. 6 months ROI on these antminers are not bad.

I see you are pushing the hot air out the window.. where is the cool inlet air coming from? If this is an inclosed garage, wouldn’t this cause negative air pressure?  Reason I ask is I’m thinking about doing this in my garage since I can’t find a good hosting company for my S9s. Thanks!

It would be too hot to run in my garage, it's in a bedroom. The cool air is being generated via a portable AC, with the intake hose outside of the room pulling in air from the rest of the house.

If you're going to run in your garage, just make sure it's not too hot and that you have good airflow (intake & exhaust).

Oh, haha! I thought from the second picture it was a garage door. My mistake. 😀 Thanks!

Hello GM Poison...

How did you figure out your ventilation part?
What calculation did you use for intake and exhaust?
What fans are you using?

Please share your experiences and lessons learned. Thanks.

nice one  :o but how much did it cost you overall and what do you expect to collect from it at daily basis.
would like to see some stats about the operation.

Curious about startup costs as well, aside form miners.

Did everything run well from now ? any problems?

@mrayazgul - I'm running them via Nicehash, you can figure out how much they make by using the calculator on their website. Lets just say, the electricity bill is not an issue.
@BelieveInBitcoin - Worrying about not hitting ROI is not something you have to worry about with these miners.
@BitcoinIntern - Lots of planning, and I don't have the intake/exhaust down to the very last CFM. Just make sure you have good airflow and if you can, do a hot/cold isle like I did to contain and exhaust the heat.
@jrrigs - Changes every day, but yeah, a very good ROI time.
@cupic - None of them are overclocked. I don't want them running hot, I don't want to consume the extra electricity, and I want to get top dollar for them when I go to resell them. They're well taken care of.
@sabrikks - You can calculate all of the numbers using the Nicehash calculator on their site. As far as what it cost me, I got each machine for $1650, electrical install was $4000, and misc. equipment wasn't much.
@hotmetaldobermans - The largest cost - obviously - are the miners. Next to that there was the electrical install and misc. equipment which wasn't anywhere near what the miners themselves cost.
@FrenchinHK - No problems thus far luckily. I don't have them overclocked, they're running at good temps, all is good and I'm taking good care of them to keep their resale value up.

How many in total can you run on those 30A 240Vs?

They each consume 800w, and 30A @ 240V is 7200w, so the math would say 7 or 8 safely.

Nice Setup!
With 18 L3s you need around 4,000 cfm (18*220cfm) on your "cool room" how much air is your portable AC providing? Same on the "hot room" Be careful with positive and negative pressures.

He actually has three (3) 30A 240V circuits. That's 21,600W. That's 18 maximum if I am not mistaken.

get rid of that tp link switch, its crap and you will eventually have connection problems. any miner with that kind of setup should know any type of networking hardware with link in the name is crap and eventually has link problems down the road, get something that's better

The TP-Link products I've been using have been working just fine. If and when it ever fails, it will be replaced.

This is a great setup. However, I'm quite concerned about the costs that you will be making for paying your electricity bills.

Don't be, it only takes a couple of days to pay off the entire electric bill for the month, then it's all profit ;)

I might be interested in selling the entire setup (miners, power supplies, cables, switches, etc, everything needed to start mining included) if the price is right. PM if you're the slightest bit interested.

What happened to all the pictures on this thread? I was trying to figure the PDU's used here and can't seem to find the pictures. If anyone remembers what PDU's were used in this project? I remember the industrial socket ones but don't know the model. Thanks.

l3s still make near 500 a month why would u sell