Questions about outdoor bitcoin mining

[pcbacon]

I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7, but will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada. In the summer would it be too hot? Rain won't be the issue I will come up with a pretty good box design. What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?

[1715129942]

1715129942

[1715129942]

1715129942

[notlist3d]

I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7, but will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada. In the summer would it be too hot? Rain won't be the issue I will come up with a pretty good box design. What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?

We really can't say what effects would be without seeing mining box.  Personally a box outside in elements...... sounds like not the greatest thing I would look for other options.   Yes if elements can reach it condensation, dust, etc could be a problem.  Again had to say without seeing box.   I personally am not sure how you will be able to keep rain/snow etc out and allow good airflow. 

"What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?" It depends on reason it shutdown if it's from condensation hitting the electronics it will be hard to come back from. Honestly it sound like a hard life for a miner.

[VirosaGITS]

I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7, but will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada. In the summer would it be too hot? Rain won't be the issue I will come up with a pretty good box design. What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?

As long as the rigs are mining, i think its okay. But if snow get in there, not so much. If you shut it down, i dont think you should boot it at -40C, no. Typically the best is to dump the heat out. If it was a proper heated shed, then sure why not, you could use the miner's output to keep the shed at a ok tempt and just vent what you need to keep the temps to something like 10C.

[notlist3d]

I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7, but will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada. In the summer would it be too hot? Rain won't be the issue I will come up with a pretty good box design. What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?

As long as the rigs are mining, i think its okay. But if snow get in there, not so much. If you shut it down, i dont think you should boot it at -40C, no. Typically the best is to dump the heat out. If it was a proper heated shed, then sure why not, you could use the miner's output to keep the shed at a ok tempt and just vent what you need to keep the temps to something like 10C.

Not really true I don't think on as long as they are mining it's ok.  If water can get in corrosion is possible most keep far away from water for this reason.   This is dated at this point but shows what water corrosion can do to a miner - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg11018389#msg11018389 .  So it can be running and still get corrosion.

A box outside that allows air in/out sounds like a way for water/snow/dust/other bad things to get in.   Putting it outside just scares me.   I don't see many "mining boxes" outside being weather proof.

[InvestexMarkets]

Why would you want to build a outside one? for security reason's I would of thought it would be a very bad idea.

[ColderThanIce]

Why would you want to build a outside one? for security reason's I would of thought it would be a very bad idea.

It would prevent heat from building up inside his house or apartment for one reason, and you wouldn't have to deal with the noise of the miner. Running a miner during summer can be a real killer, especially when outside temperatures can consistently be in the mid 90's.


I would tend to stay away from storing mining gear outside in a little "mining house", especially during the wintertime. If a warm miner is shut off during the winter, any moisture in the air can (and probably will) condense and freeze onto the miner. That in itself probably wouldn't be a major problem, as long as the miner is thoroughly dried off before rebooting again. If you were to ever have a power outage for a few minutes, you'd probably be kissing that miner goodbye because it would be off just long enough to have moisture condense and freeze on it, and then it would power up again and short things out.

[notlist3d]

Why would you want to build a outside one? for security reason's I would of thought it would be a very bad idea.

It would prevent heat from building up inside his house or apartment for one reason, and you wouldn't have to deal with the noise of the miner. Running a miner during summer can be a real killer, especially when outside temperatures can consistently be in the mid 90's.


I would tend to stay away from storing mining gear outside in a little "mining house", especially during the wintertime. If a warm miner is shut off during the winter, any moisture in the air can (and probably will) condense and freeze onto the miner. That in itself probably wouldn't be a major problem, as long as the miner is thoroughly dried off before rebooting again. If you were to ever have a power outage for a few minutes, you'd probably be kissing that miner goodbye because it would be off just long enough to have moisture condense and freeze on it, and then it would power up again and short things out.

Summers can take work to have a proper mining area.  I know I had to find the sweet spot with CFM's used since in my area I'm stuck with fan's instead of evaporation cooling.  And then after all that the heat did not exhaust fast enough so I had to go to a commercial gable fan. Granted were talking about more miners.

The idea of "bitcoin mining box" i just see as a way to kill miners.  I can't imagine it being built to qualiity it needs and I think there are serious problems as I mentioned above.   He mentions Canada and cold.... and also summer and hot so guessing he get's both.   The cost to do this right I think outweigh what 1 miner will earn.   He has to make it chances are with a fan to pull air in (i would guess have not tested miner in a box) and make a filter or something that would stop all water, evaporation, snow and still pull in a good amount of air.

We can speculate all day on it but really he should send miner to a hosting facility chances are vs this outside box.   Unless OP really is building a super quality housing for it which we really again don't know so speculation.

[unholycactus]

Why would you want to build a outside one? for security reason's I would of thought it would be a very bad idea.

It would prevent heat from building up inside his house or apartment for one reason, and you wouldn't have to deal with the noise of the miner. Running a miner during summer can be a real killer, especially when outside temperatures can consistently be in the mid 90's.


I would tend to stay away from storing mining gear outside in a little "mining house", especially during the wintertime. If a warm miner is shut off during the winter, any moisture in the air can (and probably will) condense and freeze onto the miner. That in itself probably wouldn't be a major problem, as long as the miner is thoroughly dried off before rebooting again. If you were to ever have a power outage for a few minutes, you'd probably be kissing that miner goodbye because it would be off just long enough to have moisture condense and freeze on it, and then it would power up again and short things out.

Summers can take work to have a proper mining area.  I know I had to find the sweet spot with CFM's used since in my area I'm stuck with fan's instead of evaporation cooling.  And then after all that the heat did not exhaust fast enough so I had to go to a commercial gable fan. Granted were talking about more miners.

The idea of "bitcoin mining box" i just see as a way to kill miners.  I can't imagine it being built to qualiity it needs and I think there are serious problems as I mentioned above.   He mentions Canada and cold.... and also summer and hot so guessing he get's both.   The cost to do this right I think outweigh what 1 miner will earn.   He has to make it chances are with a fan to pull air in (i would guess have not tested miner in a box) and make a filter or something that would stop all water, evaporation, snow and still pull in a good amount of air.

We can speculate all day on it but really he should send miner to a hosting facility chances are vs this outside box.   Unless OP really is building a super quality housing for it which we really again don't know so speculation.

Like you said earlier the outside air has to be infinitely worse than inside.

There won't be a "too cold" problem, the box might create a "too hot" problem in the summer though.
@OP are you trying to avoid noise by putting your miners outside or are you trying to find "cheap" cooling?

[VirosaGITS]

I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7, but will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada. In the summer would it be too hot? Rain won't be the issue I will come up with a pretty good box design. What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?

As long as the rigs are mining, i think its okay. But if snow get in there, not so much. If you shut it down, i dont think you should boot it at -40C, no. Typically the best is to dump the heat out. If it was a proper heated shed, then sure why not, you could use the miner's output to keep the shed at a ok tempt and just vent what you need to keep the temps to something like 10C.

Not really true I don't think on as long as they are mining it's ok.  If water can get in corrosion is possible most keep far away from water for this reason.   This is dated at this point but shows what water corrosion can do to a miner - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg11018389#msg11018389 .  So it can be running and still get corrosion.

A box outside that allows air in/out sounds like a way for water/snow/dust/other bad things to get in.   Putting it outside just scares me.   I don't see many "mining boxes" outside being weather proof.

Right, but i'm talking about a small shed "box", you can't leave electronic exposed to the outdoor in any case. They're going to get flooded and shorted long before corrosion sets in.

[leowonderful]

I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7, but will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada. In the summer would it be too hot? Rain won't be the issue I will come up with a pretty good box design. What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?

As long as the rigs are mining, i think its okay. But if snow get in there, not so much. If you shut it down, i dont think you should boot it at -40C, no. Typically the best is to dump the heat out. If it was a proper heated shed, then sure why not, you could use the miner's output to keep the shed at a ok tempt and just vent what you need to keep the temps to something like 10C.

Not really true I don't think on as long as they are mining it's ok.  If water can get in corrosion is possible most keep far away from water for this reason.   This is dated at this point but shows what water corrosion can do to a miner - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg11018389#msg11018389 .  So it can be running and still get corrosion.

A box outside that allows air in/out sounds like a way for water/snow/dust/other bad things to get in.   Putting it outside just scares me.   I don't see many "mining boxes" outside being weather proof.

Right, but i'm talking about a small shed "box", you can't leave electronic exposed to the outdoor in any case. They're going to get flooded and shorted long before corrosion sets in.

You might be able to get away with a shed with a fan inside that pipes out the hot air inside, kind of like a greenhouse fan but in a shed. That way, water and stuff won't get in... but seriously, why put it outside? Unless you live in some place where it's cold for 3/4 of the year, there really is no point for doing this for cheap cooling. Your house is a lot safer, and if any natural disasters happened, your choice place of putting your miners at probably isn't in a shed in your backyard. With high humidity levels, vapor can build up and you'll have rust and corrosion problems. There's so many issues with a outdoor shed for bitcoin that it's pretty pointless.

[notlist3d]

I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7, but will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada. In the summer would it be too hot? Rain won't be the issue I will come up with a pretty good box design. What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?

As long as the rigs are mining, i think its okay. But if snow get in there, not so much. If you shut it down, i dont think you should boot it at -40C, no. Typically the best is to dump the heat out. If it was a proper heated shed, then sure why not, you could use the miner's output to keep the shed at a ok tempt and just vent what you need to keep the temps to something like 10C.

Not really true I don't think on as long as they are mining it's ok.  If water can get in corrosion is possible most keep far away from water for this reason.   This is dated at this point but shows what water corrosion can do to a miner - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg11018389#msg11018389 .  So it can be running and still get corrosion.

A box outside that allows air in/out sounds like a way for water/snow/dust/other bad things to get in.   Putting it outside just scares me.   I don't see many "mining boxes" outside being weather proof.

Right, but i'm talking about a small shed "box", you can't leave electronic exposed to the outdoor in any case. They're going to get flooded and shorted long before corrosion sets in.

Again we don't know what OP is talking about on quality.  I see it hard small scale box to make it allow good air flow and block all water/dust/outside badness.   Evaporation or other things could cause corrosion as I showed a old SP20 that ran till corrosion got it (not mine).  It was from being to close to window.

There is no guarantee that you would get a flood of water vs corrosion but I guess depends on build quality.  But again if were talking about such a high quality miner box outside.... it does not make financial sense for 1 miner.  I still would avoid outdoors I don't agree with your "As long as the rigs are mining, i think its okay." due to air outside getting into this small box chances are.

[VirosaGITS]

I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7, but will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada. In the summer would it be too hot? Rain won't be the issue I will come up with a pretty good box design. What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?

As long as the rigs are mining, i think its okay. But if snow get in there, not so much. If you shut it down, i dont think you should boot it at -40C, no. Typically the best is to dump the heat out. If it was a proper heated shed, then sure why not, you could use the miner's output to keep the shed at a ok tempt and just vent what you need to keep the temps to something like 10C.

Not really true I don't think on as long as they are mining it's ok.  If water can get in corrosion is possible most keep far away from water for this reason.   This is dated at this point but shows what water corrosion can do to a miner - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg11018389#msg11018389 .  So it can be running and still get corrosion.

A box outside that allows air in/out sounds like a way for water/snow/dust/other bad things to get in.   Putting it outside just scares me.   I don't see many "mining boxes" outside being weather proof.

Right, but i'm talking about a small shed "box", you can't leave electronic exposed to the outdoor in any case. They're going to get flooded and shorted long before corrosion sets in.

Again we don't know what OP is talking about on quality.  I see it hard small scale box to make it allow good air flow and block all water/dust/outside badness.   Evaporation or other things could cause corrosion as I showed a old SP20 that ran till corrosion got it (not mine).  It was from being to close to window.

There is no guarantee that you would get a flood of water vs corrosion but I guess depends on build quality.  But again if were talking about such a high quality miner box outside.... it does not make financial sense for 1 miner.  I still would avoid outdoors I don't agree with your "As long as the rigs are mining, i think its okay." due to air outside getting into this small box chances are.

If you dont agree, then you're probably repeatedly mixing stuff. You may want to reread the topic and then how condensation happen, and then comment again? At no point have i said as small box with the miner inside was ok. I talked about a heated shed only. Something like this:
https://www.familyhomeplans.com/project_details.cfm?ProjectNumber=90030
But designed to pull the clean air from bellow and then dump the excess heat out with probably a big fan pushing air out would be nice.

As long as the miner is running, condensation should'nt happen. I already told you but i'll tell you again. I'm not saying to run this exposed to weather, he asked about "too cold" i say "its fine".

Just to be 100% clear, i was commenting about the temperature question;

will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada.

Being in Canada, i've done this for 2 winter already. Humidity is nearly capped out here (70-90% is very common) and there is no problem as long as no condensation happen. If someone got his miners wet when they were next to a window, it was probably due to rain or such hitting the miner.

[notlist3d]

There is no reason to get into a forum battle... as who wins? No one.  Honestly forum battling just is not worth it.  I will say what I did not agree with and leave it with that.  OP mentioned "I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7".  So I take this as a box not a super designed "heated shed" type device.  You anwsered him with:

I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7, but will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada. In the summer would it be too hot? Rain won't be the issue I will come up with a pretty good box design. What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?

As long as the rigs are mining, i think its okay. But if snow get in there, not so much. If you shut it down, i dont think you should boot it at -40C, no. Typically the best is to dump the heat out. If it was a proper heated shed, then sure why not, you could use the miner's output to keep the shed at a ok tempt and just vent what you need to keep the temps to something like 10C.

So were talking about reading thread though re-reading this is 3rd comment so hard to get it mixed up.  I still say putting a miner outside is not a good idea in a box as I don't see most having the build quality for outside air (rain/snow/heat/dust/etc).   But I do stick with in no way does a rig currently mining mean it's ok.  

You can go back and forth if you want. Mix and twist posts but I don't agree with your original idea and that is my opinion.  But I will  leave it here as I was not seeking a forum battle.

[navigatrix]

I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7, but will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada. In the summer would it be too hot? Rain won't be the issue I will come up with a pretty good box design. What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?

Hi. I don't see any reason you can't run something that has fresh airflow from outside but just leaving the miners without cover would be a bad idea. You don't want them to suck in  actual water. I'm in the Pacific Northwest and I've been running miners for 2 years in my 'garden shed'. I took out the wall on the exhaust side and put in screen. I leave the door slightly open and the space under the rake edge of the roof as well. It's in a sheltered placed so the wind can't blow in rain and snow.

If I were to build a minimal BTC-Hive^tm it would be: roof-line->1 ft -> screen -> 2 ft -> intake of rack or shelf with miners -> exhaust of miners -> 1 ft -> screen -> 1 ft -> roof line.

I.e. you could put about 24 miners in a 6 ft x 6 ft (2m x 2m) configuration.

But I would certainly make sure the roof of whatever miner-house you build extends past each wall by at least a foot. If it's in the wind, then 2 ft on the prevailing wind side at least.

[VirosaGITS]

I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7, but will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada. In the summer would it be too hot? Rain won't be the issue I will come up with a pretty good box design. What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?

Hi. I don't see any reason you can't run something that has fresh airflow from outside but just leaving the miners without cover would be a bad idea. You don't want them to suck in  actual water. I'm in the Pacific Northwest and I've been running miners for 2 years in my 'garden shed'. I took out the wall on the exhaust side and put in screen. I leave the door slightly open and the space under the rake edge of the roof as well. It's in a sheltered placed so the wind can't blow in rain and snow.

If I were to build a minimal BTC-Hive^tm it would be: roof-line->1 ft -> screen -> 2 ft -> intake of rack or shelf with miners -> exhaust of miners -> 1 ft -> screen -> 1 ft -> roof line.

I.e. you could put about 24 miners in a 6 ft x 6 ft (2m x 2m) configuration.

But I would certainly make sure the roof of whatever miner-house you build extends past each wall by at least a foot. If it's in the wind, then 2 ft on the prevailing wind side at least.

Indeed. At one point i've had the miners suck in -20C air, and i'd done various setup of pull, push during winter. It is very humid here and maybe i just got lucky, but really i never had any problem, corrosion or otherwise.

Once there was a storm and some snow went through the miners. I quickly fixed that but it turned out okay. So as long as you dont do like me, i dont think there would be any problem long term. Specially with a purpose built box. It should be able to keep itself warm enough as needed. A lot of Electronics has specified rated "running temperature" but i don't actually know if there would be a problem if it reached very low temps.

Maybe minus 0 would be a problem, if the electronic itself reached that.

[LukeTheMiner]

I want to build an outside bitcoin mining box that will have a roof and vents for Antminer s7, but will condensation be a problem? what about in the winter will it be too cold for it? I live in Canada. In the summer would it be too hot? Rain won't be the issue I will come up with a pretty good box design. What if it shuts down for what ever reason will it be okay?

Hey, i'm in the Midwest united states south of lake Michigan and I actually had this idea a few days ago and I was putting it together today, I should be finished tomorrow and i'll post some pictures for you and get some feed back from the community.

[surfnetworking]

You will need to monitor humidity levels in the summer, and heating in the winter.

Humidity and electronics, especially 100% duty cycle electronics because they can run hotter and less efficiently.

Winter will require heating because the heat produced by the miners will not be sufficient unless you close the vents, but you would be pulling in hot air still causing them to run less efficiently.