Antminer S9 - How to power in Canada?

[sidehack]

At 220V an S7 should pull under 7 amps. A 20A breaker per unit is extreme overkill. My hosting shelves run 208V and I put them four to a 30A breaker.

[Mr.Beegood]

The paperwork that came with the hardware said it needs 16 amps but perhaps it was referring to 120v power. If this is true than I can double the number of miners in my group. Thanks for pointing that out.

[sidehack]

16A would be a good margin for powering on 120V. Bitmain also recommends their 1600W PSU though, which won't work on 120V, so I don't know what they're doing.

[xhomerx10]

You have gotten alot of good info already  but I will tell you what I did anyways. When I got my 3 s7's I had the same issue. I needed each of them to have 220v and 16 amps. I ran a 6 Guage 3 wire cable from my main breaker panel pushing 220v to a new subpanel that I installed just for the miners then I got 3 20 amp 2 pole breakers and some 220v outlets from home Depot and installed 3 20 amp 220v circuits, one for each miner. I then had to get some heavy server power cords and splice new ends on them to fit the 220v outlets that I bought. I know there are alot of ways to avoid having to do this but it seems to me that each miner should have its own 20 amp circuit with the appropriate sized wires to avoid heating up breaker panels and wires. I read about pdu's and it seems to me like trying to put too many eggs in a carton. If you are interested I can upload pics of my setup.

 Yeah!  Upload away.  Miner porn is always cool

[Mr.Beegood]

Ok I will upload in a bit but it's not nearly as impressive as the ones posted by Erumara earlier.

[Mr.Beegood]

As I said before its not amazing and I know I could stand to do a little construction to make it prettier but they function just fine being ugly.
with the info that sidehack has made me aware of I will have to do a little construction to make room for three more miners.
Also I know that since I am a newbie these will only show up as links but apparently if someone awesome quotes me they will show up as pics in the quote...otherwise i guess you will have to visit the link to see them. Pixel375 I hope you have enough info to make a plan!


http://imgur.com/4MBvfFG
http://imgur.com/3dEeg4Q
http://imgur.com/ZfUzMag

[Erumara]

As I said before its not amazing and I know I could stand to do a little construction to make it prettier but they function just fine being ugly.
with the info that sidehack has made me aware of I will have to do a little construction to make room for three more miners.
Also I know that since I am a newbie these will only show up as links but apparently if someone awesome quotes me they will show up as pics in the quote...otherwise i guess you will have to visit the link to see them. Pixel375 I hope you have enough info to make a plan!

Quoted for pics

Nice short runs, that's a pretty handy setup you're running Never forget that "home mining is dead"  



I'll just leave this here....



*For some reason it keeps refusing to display: http://imgur.com/P5mHhNo*

[pixel375]

That's tons of interesting posts you guys. Now I need some tips...
I have only one free breaker left... I want to get a 220V circuit on it. How high in amps can I go? How many S9's would I be able to run on one breaker?
Explain it like you try to explain it to a 3 year old, That's all I am 

[Mr.Beegood]

In order to get 220v from it you would need 2 spaces together to fit a double wide breaker in it. how many amps you can use depends on how many you are provided with and how many are already being used. maybe you should upload a photo of your breaker panel, that would be a good place to start.

[Erumara]

To power a miner with 240v you will need two breaker spots to fit one of these PER MINER




If you only have one (or zero) spot(s) available, you will need one of these:



Which will allow you to power ONE miner on the middle hookup (An antminer MUST HAVE a dedicated 15A breaker, for 240v those two 15A breakers MUST BE ganged together to prevent potentially serious damage to a power supply) and give you two 120v spot to replace whatever you had to move.

Hope that helps


Edit: Thought I should mention the top breaker will run you about $20, the bottom one is closer to $50

[pixel375]

Oh I see. So how about just adding a second panel?
I think it would be dope to just get a big new panel and have it dedicated to just the bitcoin miners!

[Mr.Beegood]

That would be ideal but you would still need two spaces on your main panel to supply 220v power to your subpanel. But I wouldn'the get into that stuff unless you know what you are doing. There are alot of things to consider and failing to do that can be deadly. I would get an electrician to do it.

[Erumara]

That would be ideal but you would still need two spaces on your main panel to supply 220v power to your subpanel. But I wouldn'the get into that stuff unless you know what you are doing. There are alot of things to consider and failing to do that can be deadly. I would get an electrician to do it.

100% correct, I'm lucky enough that my business partner is a Red Seal electrician. We wired a 60A 240V sub-panel in a day to power the miners, cost us about $1000 dollars in materials (the 60' of 60A 3wire cable was $280 alone).

[pixel375]

Damnn that's pricey!
My neighbor is an electrician. I would get him to do it.
But first I have to save up $1,500 more only to get an S9 

[sidehack]

Glad I'm not the only one thought it was high. My 400A 3-phase run, 100 feet from the pole to the main distribution panel and from there 80 feet to the hosting sub-panels was only $4500 in materials, including 1400 feet of 250kcmil aluminum. Most of the rest was the new main panel plus three breakers at 150 or 200 amps. A simple 60A two-pole subpanel shouldn't have cost nearly a thousand bucks.

[fr4nkthetank]

With your remaining 15amp breaker...well, either put one s7 on that (120v and underclocked), or swap it out for a 20amp 120v, and put it on that instead.  20amp 220v like sidehack said is mooore than enough for one s7.  its simple really, 120v*20a*(80%) = 1920watts.  You have 220v*20a*(80%)= 3520watts.  So yeah technically 2.5 antminer s7's per 20amp 220v breaker.  I dont know where you are sidehack, but in canada (i think thats where op is ?) breakers cost more, wire costs more and in general the cost of everything is higher (accessories, plugs, adaptors), even adjusted for exchange rate than in the us of A.

[sidehack]

I'm perched happily in Missouri, US where a dollar goes about 7% further than a lot of other states.

Also, if anyone needs any 20A single-pole breakers like would fit in a Square D Homeline panel, I got at least 20 of 'em I don't need. They sell here for around $3

[irun4fundotca]

Damnn that's pricey!
My neighbor is an electrician. I would get him to do it.

yeah id say so too, buy used at demolition reseller shops such has habitat restore
I picked up a fully populated 100a breaker mains panel for $70 on kijiji
, the outlets and wiring and steel tubing were also reclaimed and free
i have an ats switch installed that cost $50 thats between my solar setup  inverter and the 220v mains from the house to my panel
my whole solar setup, and ac hardware cost less then $2000 and i can power everything on solar for 4 hours, my next steps to buy more agm batteries to get more reserve power

id say i spent less than $300 to rig up a whole panel as far as the ac side goes , since the solar was close to $1800 and thats CAD too

[pixel375]

We do already have a cable pulled that we got from a friend, so all I need now is just a panel and breakers. Panels cost about $50-150 on Amazon, and 220V breakers are usually $10-25 each.
So I also heard that here (In Canada Manitoba), you need to get a permit from your power company for getting a sub-panel installed. Does anyone have any experience with that? How hard is it to get a permit, and how much did it cost you?

[Erumara]

Yes you *should* get a permit in order to add a sub-panel, I have no idea what the fines may be for doing without as you will need (if I'm not mistaken) full electrical drawings by a Master (or at least Journeyman) electrician which can cost quite a bit. Based on experiences of other people I have talked to, the worst they will do is force you to tear out the additions.

The permit itself should only run you a hundred bucks, not including the planning and blueprint work which will be significant. Keep in mind this is issued by your Municipal Government, not the utility provider.


Quoted from Office of Fire Commissioner of Manitoba website: http://www.firecomm.gov.mb.ca/codes_forms.html

Building and/or Plumbing Permits are also required for building additions, alterations and renovations. Most municipal building by-laws do not normally require a Building Permit for renovations that do not exceed $5,000.00 construction value provided there is "no structural or life safety changes" to the building. To be sure of the requirements for a Building Permit contact your local building department, also known as an Authority Having Jurisdiction.

Based on this it sounds like you're better off than me, regulations are a bit stricter here. I wouldn't worry overly about doing the work, though I'm certainly not a contractor.

Modifying electrical so long as there is one layer of protection between the work and your meter (Your main breaker at your panel is more than sufficient) is not illegal, I took the risk on just making the changes as there's realistically only a small chance it could become an issue if I do a large contractor reno, or if I sell the house. Even in these circumstances I may be able to get the work permitted later so long as it can be inspected.

If for any reason you need to change the main panel, (assuming there's no shutoff between the panel and meter, which would unusual in residential) you're SOL and will need a permit without exception.