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this thread is here as a place you can discuss ideas on how to run your mining rigs free/cheap i.e hho, wind, solar.
NOT HOOKED UP TO NEXT DOORS ELECTRIC POINT OR A LAMP POST.
i have no ideas personally, apart from maybe a hho generator kit, but maybe as a community we can get bitcoin to a green status

This doesn't make any sense. Some states have expensive power and good return on investment for Solar (California for example.) my California house has a 7kwh solar system.

http://s18.postimg.org/sqryxjdy1/Screen_Shot_2014_04_03_at_3_28_06_PM.png
http://s23.postimg.org/mvjwhp5nv/Screen_Shot_2014_04_03_at_3_35_14_PM.png

But California has very expensive tiered power. I live in Texas (that is my rental property in Cali) and our power is .09kwh, so that solar system above would be more expensive than just using city power. So it really just depends on your specific variables. But it is extremely rare to generate power less costly than what you can get from the city. California is just unique...

Hope that helps.

Oh and HHO generator is snake oil. If you get an HHO generator you might as well order that 125Th system for $10k..  :D

There is no magic for free/cheap power. Wind/solar are typically more expensive than city power.

over the long run i presume this may be viable. i am in the very sunny uk so solar outputs may be half of yours. im just looking for a way to shave some usage off seen as i have ordered a miner thet may or may not break even on power consumption.

i can make one for pretty much nothing from pretty much "scrap" metal but obviously it needs electricity to run. but far less than pulling direct off the grid

Just build one of these. Technically you get paid to exercise (you get BTC as payment)

http://howmuchsnow.com/bikegenerator/100_1378.JPG


http://asicminingequipment.com?ref=a87ff679a2f3e71d9181a67b7542122c (http://asicminingequipment.com?ref=a87ff679a2f3e71d9181a67b7542122c)

HHO generators are not snake oil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyhydrogen

However, turning it into electricity burning it wouldn't make a lot of sense as you need electricity in the first place to generate HHO.

Options like solar however are totally viable. Yes, you pay a lot up front for the cells and infrastructure, but eventually they will pay themselves back as the Sun won't burn out for another few billion years or so, and if you generate more than you need your local power company will pay you for it if you are grid tied. My local power company even offers grants and other help for solar projects, and encourages green power development. How this is "more expensive" than city power escapes me.



As an alternative energy researcher myself I have been thinking of how a mining company could implement those technologies to power itself, though many are very underdeveloped and/or are just BS.

now thats what im talkin bout! id be inside out by the time i earnt a btc

run miners hot enough to run a steam generator least at the farms that is.

I disagree on solar - doing some calculations before on http://www.solarminer.com/ their platform shows that you must:

a) buy replacement cells at least once per year
b) need to scale up your nighttime power cells such that they can power a device for a minimum of 12 hours but a desireability for a higher amount of time for rainy and cloudy days

The other underlying issue is that solar STILL isn't very mature in terms of efficiency and require constant maintenance - dust on top of the glass reduces efficiency for example.

According to this article published yesterday, 20.9 percent is the efficiency record http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/04/solar-frontier-sets-another-pv-efficiency-record

That's bloody terrible. 

OTOH hydroelectric power seems constant provided you have an ample river or stream close by. 

Human powered mining equipment that is hosted in a paid membership gym....hmmmm

gonna have to stop you there on that one. me and a friend was thinking of a free of charge gym that ran a back warehouse of miners just about a week ago. fancy that. wouldnt need to be paid membership at mast subsidized sessions

Not snake old eh? Ok. Just use Cold fusion then. Look it has a Wikipedia entry too that means it is real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion


Using electrolysis to pull hydrogen out of water is simple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water

But what HHO implies is that you can use perpetual motion to generate power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion

This violates the laws of thermodynamics and preservation of energy. You cannot take energy out of water at a lower energy cost than the energy you get out of the water (hydrogen/HHO). HHO generators are snake oil.

Don't get my wrong, I'd love for them to work, obviously i'm a geek I have a 7kw solar array on my house. But they don't.

I could see them possibly working on a car to a limited extent since the alternator load doesn't really change with it's generation of power, so you could increase the efficiency of the engine theoretically by utilizing more of the energy, but you are never capturing more energy than it takes to gather that energy. No matter how efficient your system was you'd be better off unplugging it and plugging it directly into the wall. Whenever you convert energy you lose a significant amount of it. Think about the heat out miners generate, a car, etc. it's all energy lost (not lost but being converted into something you don't want). The more efficient the less heat.

If you have a stream or another form of stored energy (plutonium, stream, star (sun), etc.) you can capture some of that energy. But again it takes money to make money. If you want to invest 20k in a solar system so you can have 'free' power please do so. I did :)

The Current solution seems not so efficient. I have heard one thing about the material used on the solar plate, rare earth based versus flora brewed. It's been testing for at least six months.

Note that nothing is free. Trust is not free.

Source: https://hk.news.yahoo.com/3%E5%AD%B8%E7%94%9F%E5%93%A5%E9%A9%9A%E4%B8%96%E7%A0%94%E5%89%B5%E8%91%89%E7%B6%A0%E7%B4%A0%E7%99%BC%E9%9B%BB-223013779.html, Accessed on 4 April 2014

From the article you kindly posted:


HHO generators are a net negative. Worthless. Like snake oil.

I suppose it's all relative to your power usage, being only a hobby miner at 15gh/s my power usage is low.

I have 4 x 170 watt pv panels and a couple of soladin 600 micro grid tie inverters, that I picked up cheap a while back just to mess about with.

So what I do is not directly run my rig off the PV (well the soladins are plugged into the same ring main as the miners so in reality during the day it is) but offset the power usage by what my panels produce thought the day, so it works out atm anyway I'm not paying for any mining electricity usage.  ;D

get one of these, lol


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kldA4nWANA8

looks great and the application in a large scale excellent. but im sure in my detached house with small garden my neighbors would complain

Well we had Tesla's magnetic generator but the government took it away from the people so oil companies can make a fortune...DEMOCRACY!

wondered when the elusive tesla machine, death ray, thunder generator would crop up. free energy from the air yeah but that thing looked deathly

Tidal power is free.   Hydro power is fairly efficient but you do need to live near a river or sea, so basically land rich but I still call it free if you are skilled enough

Yes. Free after spending a few million on infrastructure to support it.

UK gov were offering grants for upgrades to houses for Solar / other heating systems... so I am wondering about Solar and if the program's are available and worth doing, my elderly dad's house around the corner could do with it and run a rig in there :)

Any carpenter skilled type person can build a water wheel, it can scale pretty well.   Its the kind of thing they'd do in frontier towns where being lazy isnt an option, here its red tape that be the biggest reason why not

Are grid tie inverters even legal in the U.S.??  I was hearing that it was illegal?

Has anyone tried something like this out?  You wouldn't need a inverter...just the PC PSU.
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-any-home-appliance-into-a-solar-electr/?ALLSTEPS

Using a cheap charge controller and a 12v relay could allow from switching from a pc power supply to solar.

Would you really want to feed your miner(s) worth thousands of dollars that nasty power?

Oh yeah, it's for real, lol.  Just ignore all of the refererences to "fringe science" and "fraud" in that Wikipedia entry.   ::)

I suppose it depends on the area/power company but as far as I know it's completely legal just about everywhere in the US.  Why would it be illegal?

Yeah...if Wikipedia is your source of reference...that's right...

Try something more serious, buddy... ;)

That Nasty power would be 12V DC from a battery.. Your Miners will love it  :P

Peaks and valleys in the current.

A battery doesn't provide the consistent current you'd want unless it was a very large battery(s), you'd need something to control the voltage to ensure it didn't go up and down. I would just be wary of feeding my miners power like that. Plus the energy lost going to a battery would make the whole thing inefficient. Would be better to just grid tie the inverter.

Grid tie inverters are 'illegal' if they aren't registered with the power company. When they turn 'off' the power or the power is off in the area if you have 10kw powering the line that nobody knows about you can end up killing someone. So you need to have disconnects they can access so they can disconnect your service from the grid. Most modern inverters will automatically disconnect when the grid power goes off.

So breaking into an abandoned dam is off-topic?

C

you could use capacitors to regulate the voltage but i recon u would need a damn big one


no as far as i see it it would be fine if you could route power off it and hack its controlls. just live there a few years and its yours.

what you need is a regular old gasoline powered generator, and a bottle of those pills that change water into gasoline. ;D

You can use the heat output of miners to generate electric on some small scale, atleast enough  for the power used to light your facility

The Stirling engine could possibly adapter to power LED lighting around your facility

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_heat_engine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjmaihOvcbc

https://i.imgur.com/lqdJFCV.jpg

This would work just fine.

Stick a kite with wind vane out the back of a train or bus you are a passenger on and get free power :D


Power your computer with thousands of potatoes ?

http://totl.net/Spud/media/news.bbc.co.uk/

Hi man,

do you live next to a river ? you can buy cheap hydro generator like this :
http://www.ph-energies.com/images/turbine/kaplan/lh500_250p.jpg
source : http://www.ph-energies.com/index.php/energie-hydraulique/turbine-kaplan/serie-mhg-lh (http://www.ph-energies.com/index.php/energie-hydraulique/turbine-kaplan/serie-mhg-lh)

it will generate about 1kw to 5kw depending on the model you buy.
Advantage : low maintenance cost (almost nothing)
Disadvantage : need a building close to a river with descent water flow, need to plan it seriously with the help of expert because this is serious shit here :)

As i live in France, it's pretty easy to me to find good place, dunno for USA. Maybe you need to move for free electricity;)


PS : its working

Nice setup, have you got a video of yours.   How much for the 1000w one   MHG LH 1000

translation link - https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ph-energies.com%2Findex.php%2Fenergie-hydraulique%2Fturbine-kaplan%2Fserie-mhg-lh&edit-text=

no, its not working atm, it's far away from where I live. With my setup, i've been able to take out between 1-2 kwh from a 3.5kwh . My setup is not great and i don't have enough flow to make it work @ 100%.
I've find one for you with the different step of installation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqKiesYY1xQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqKiesYY1xQ)

edit : I paid 4k€ for a kaplan turbine 3.5 kwh (can remember the brand) without the cost of the additional work.

i have 2 ponds with a waterfall between them. but i suppose it wont generate enough power to pump the water back otherwise thats perpetual energy and that cant exist.

well, perpetual energy does exist : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8yW5cyXXRc

PMSL

Make the ponds bigger, till they drain out you have power - maybe if it rained alot  :P   Some energy companies pump water up hill during daylight or times of overcapacity on the network.   Then when everyone turns on the kettle after watching a popular tv program, they pull the plug on the pool and get the extra boost.   Not free but capacity costs and Enron took advantage of this

Yup.. Just another way of storing energy. This is probably more efficient than most. Everyone please stop saying batteries too because they are SUPER expensive and not all that efficient. Batteries are good when space is a concern.

Can you cite some examples/data of energy companies pumping water uphill? That sounds awesome I wonder if it can be done in smaller scale.

Well my father worked for a water company.   A very small part of the business was energy production, obviously they are managing resources like lakes anyway.  Peak power capacity sells at a premium, thats why you can be sure it is used where its easy to do so.  To just flick a switch and sell 1mw of energy for an hour could earn alot I imagine and justify upkeep for all the times it sits collecting rain?
   Im pretty sure power companies do it but only in minority nationally, nuclear is incredibly cheap when done right.   They could use tidal power, I live a few miles from one of the largest tidal ranges in the world; if Brunel was still alive he'd do it

On a smaller scale, I dont know.  I think a watermill setup is small scale already, this device above is remarkable
Is does require a gradient though, alot of places I know the river/stream is flat.  However they could dig it out but then you got the green brigade objecting to your interference

What about a used (filtered) Veg oil diesel system.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=veg+oil+diesel&aq=

steal ur neighbour's electricity... :D  :D  :D

 ;D ;D ;D  I may be wrong ….but you ain't right

how do they know, you had one?

This is a good idea for sportive people, but not for the lazy ones so yea i dont think that this will make it that far haha.

That's a good solution for my kids.

Still, I think the best option is renegade hydro setup near an abandoned dam. Wonder how long a BFL single would run submerged in a stream.

C

I know it's a joke but why would someone cycle to turn on 8 lights? Is there any other advantage for this stuff?

I just saw the website. The first one weight is 75kg? That's so heavy. It should be implemented in a river or a waterfall?

lol at some of the ideas coming out of this thread !