Question for experienced "semi-large" scale bitcoin miners

[GMPoison]

looking at that warehouse reminds me of something....ahhhh a brick oven hahaha

btw OP i think you are underestimating the power of ventilation, the sheer amount/volume of air passing thru will make things good enough for miners just take a look at a typical cpu heatsink with fan, it simply relies on air going thru the heat sink fins.

I'm no HVAC expert, been mining for some time now so if I'm at your shoes this is what comes to my mind as a solution...lets get creative  



an example of roof turbine..


use this filters for air..they are cheap .... dust problem eliminated...there are different type of materials used and rating (there are different standards in filtration measurement like MERV rating)...typically filter rolls are in pre-filter category, but for dust they are very good specially the highest rating and thickest.



i think assembling your own evap cooler is cheaper, good for customization (special case to case basis), parts are bought separately (you can go high quality per parts), you can go bigger...just look at this pump https://www.amazon.com/Zoeller-Mighty-mate-Submersible-Sump-Pump/dp/B000H5PYR2/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1494031508&sr=1-1&keywords=zoeller+sump+pump   , this is the one i bought..

i haven't assembled my evap cooling so my creative setup isn't finished and i can't show a running setup and pitfalls in making one...I'm also in the process of acquiring a filter roll...

also buy some humidity measurement devices.

Thanks. I never bothered to ask the owner about installing some sort of roof ventilation, but I suppose if that would be possible it would be better to use the fans on the garage door for intake rather than exhaust to get fresh air in. I just never though of that because it would be sucking in hot Florida air, but with an evap cooler or two right in front with a dehumidifier the air wouldn't be as hot or humid as outdoors.

[1715017410]

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[1715017410]

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[arielbit]

it is humid here in southeast asia...none of my 280x's since 2013 died because of humidity..all are still fine.

[GMPoison]

it is humid here in southeast asia...none of my 280x's since 2013 died because of humidity..all are still fine.

What are the humidity levels like there? I'm sure you're not running your miners out in the open without regulating humidity, but they're inside where the humidity is controlled to some degree like I want to do with a dehumidifier. 

[arielbit]

it is humid here in southeast asia...none of my 280x's since 2013 died because of humidity..all are still fine.

What are the humidity levels like there? I'm sure you're not running your miners out in the open without regulating humidity, but they're inside where the humidity is controlled to some degree like I want to do with a dehumidifier. 

haven't used a dehumidifier...like I said to you in PM, my pump and humidity measuring devices are still on ship from abroad so i can't give numbers yet, they will arrive this middle of May..excited to see those numbers myself. BTW i dry clothes better in my mining room compared to drying them in the open that's why i feel that humidity isn't a problem..

[GMPoison]

it is humid here in southeast asia...none of my 280x's since 2013 died because of humidity..all are still fine.

What are the humidity levels like there? I'm sure you're not running your miners out in the open without regulating humidity, but they're inside where the humidity is controlled to some degree like I want to do with a dehumidifier. 

haven't used a dehumidifier...like I said to you in PM, my pump and humidity measuring devices are still on ship from abroad so i can't give numbers yet, they will arrive this middle of May..excited to see those numbers myself. BTW i dry clothes better in my mining room compared to drying them in the open that's why i feel that humidity isn't a problem..

I'd love to see some pictures of your setup if you want to PM me

[arielbit]

it is humid here in southeast asia...none of my 280x's since 2013 died because of humidity..all are still fine.

What are the humidity levels like there? I'm sure you're not running your miners out in the open without regulating humidity, but they're inside where the humidity is controlled to some degree like I want to do with a dehumidifier. 

haven't used a dehumidifier...like I said to you in PM, my pump and humidity measuring devices are still on ship from abroad so i can't give numbers yet, they will arrive this middle of May..excited to see those numbers myself. BTW i dry clothes better in my mining room compared to drying them in the open that's why i feel that humidity isn't a problem..

I'd love to see some pictures of your setup if you want to PM me

i already posted it here, twice in this forum here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1584973.msg17247745#msg17247745

it a bit outdated..i added a rack with 5 gpus already in there and 3x 1080 ti coming today.

[ImHash]

Just for the record, if you'd bought 2 weeks ago with your money some bitcoins when price was below $1200 now you'd have earned $10,000 on your $40,000.
I know mining bitcoin will eventually lead to profit one way or another, but it's about the time which you could save if simply enter trading.
Does any of you know bitcoin mining needs at least $1M and adding more every day in order to compete?

[arielbit]

Just for the record, if you'd bought 2 weeks ago with your money some bitcoins when price was below $1200 now you'd have earned $10,000 on your $40,000.
I know mining bitcoin will eventually lead to profit one way or another, but it's about the time which you could save if simply enter trading.
Does any of you know bitcoin mining needs at least $1M and adding more every day in order to compete?

i say do both, mine, trade and do altcoins too..it is a journey, learn and get better.

[GMPoison]

Just for the record, if you'd bought 2 weeks ago with your money some bitcoins when price was below $1200 now you'd have earned $10,000 on your $40,000.
I know mining bitcoin will eventually lead to profit one way or another, but it's about the time which you could save if simply enter trading.
Does any of you know bitcoin mining needs at least $1M and adding more every day in order to compete?

Yeah I know I could just trade, but that's much higher risk. If the price of bitcoin drops, so does the difficulty, keeping my miners profitable. If the price of bitcoin raises, so does the difficulty, keeping my miners profitable. It's easy to say I could have made $10,000 after the fact, I believe that's called the hindsight bias. Plus I can imagine trading would be more difficult to deal with taxes, where the point of mining is to keep all the profits clean and easily reportable.

[arielbit]

read this from other thread..an old timer miner says..

I've been contemplating the same thing,

My garage has no windows, garage door, and a door. I guess this is similar to OP.

Virginia gets pretty hot and humid, how would I create a proper setup?

It seems I'll have to run a commercial style AC unit and a couple large fans to circulate air.

I am in NJ  humidity  lasts 3-4 months.  Been garage mining since 2012  no rusting yet.

most of the time the hot gear solves all humidity issues.

A/c only works if power is dirt cheap .

otherwise it is too costly.

I have a back door that i open 3 to 4 months a year.

when it is hot I scale mining done when it is cold I scale mining up.


i.e. 2.5 kwatts june 1 to Sept 30

5 kwatts October 1 to May 31

[GMPoison]

read this from other thread..an old timer miner says..

I've been contemplating the same thing,

My garage has no windows, garage door, and a door. I guess this is similar to OP.

Virginia gets pretty hot and humid, how would I create a proper setup?

It seems I'll have to run a commercial style AC unit and a couple large fans to circulate air.

I am in NJ  humidity  lasts 3-4 months.  Been garage mining since 2012  no rusting yet.

most of the time the hot gear solves all humidity issues.

A/c only works if power is dirt cheap .

otherwise it is too costly.

I have a back door that i open 3 to 4 months a year.

when it is hot I scale mining done when it is cold I scale mining up.


i.e. 2.5 kwatts june 1 to Sept 30

5 kwatts October 1 to May 31

How does hot gear solve humidity issues? Heat + humidity = death lol

[arielbit]

read this from other thread..an old timer miner says..

I've been contemplating the same thing,

My garage has no windows, garage door, and a door. I guess this is similar to OP.

Virginia gets pretty hot and humid, how would I create a proper setup?

It seems I'll have to run a commercial style AC unit and a couple large fans to circulate air.

I am in NJ  humidity  lasts 3-4 months.  Been garage mining since 2012  no rusting yet.

most of the time the hot gear solves all humidity issues.

A/c only works if power is dirt cheap .

otherwise it is too costly.

I have a back door that i open 3 to 4 months a year.

when it is hot I scale mining done when it is cold I scale mining up.


i.e. 2.5 kwatts june 1 to Sept 30

5 kwatts October 1 to May 31

How does hot gear solve humidity issues? Heat + humidity = death lol

humidity does it magic when gear is not running (metals are cold)...I remembered an old timer in cars here told me that it is better to run a car for a bit more far than using your car in short distance driving, because the cold air from evening and early morning makes the exhaust pipe wet/moist, running short distance does not eliminate all moisture/water therefore causing rust..longer distance usage eliminates all water/moist in the exhaust pipe.

another example:
some mildew grew in a picture frame in my house...brought that picture frame in the mining room = dead mildews

[OgNasty]

I'm no HVAC expert, been mining for some time now so if I'm at your shoes this is what comes to my mind as a solution...lets get creative  

i think assembling your own evap cooler is cheaper, good for customization (special case to case basis), parts are bought separately (you can go high quality per parts), you can go bigger...just look at this pump https://www.amazon.com/Zoeller-Mighty-mate-Submersible-Sump-Pump/dp/B000H5PYR2/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1494031508&sr=1-1&keywords=zoeller+sump+pump   , this is the one i bought..

i haven't assembled my evap cooling so my creative setup isn't finished and i can't show a running setup and pitfalls in making one...I'm also in the process of acquiring a filter roll...

I've been very curious about HVAC cooling use with mining for a while.  Have you implemented this yet?  I didn't see anything in your pictures.  I'd love to hear/see more about this.  I think it would be an ideal situation for those living in warmer climates looking for a cheap method of introducing cool fresh air as opposed to sucking in hot air from outside.

[GMPoison]

I'm no HVAC expert, been mining for some time now so if I'm at your shoes this is what comes to my mind as a solution...lets get creative  

i think assembling your own evap cooler is cheaper, good for customization (special case to case basis), parts are bought separately (you can go high quality per parts), you can go bigger...just look at this pump https://www.amazon.com/Zoeller-Mighty-mate-Submersible-Sump-Pump/dp/B000H5PYR2/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1494031508&sr=1-1&keywords=zoeller+sump+pump   , this is the one i bought..

i haven't assembled my evap cooling so my creative setup isn't finished and i can't show a running setup and pitfalls in making one...I'm also in the process of acquiring a filter roll...

I've been very curious about HVAC cooling use with mining for a while.  Have you implemented this yet?  I didn't see anything in your pictures.  I'd love to hear/see more about this.  I think it would be an ideal situation for those living in warmer climates looking for a cheap method of introducing cool fresh air as opposed to sucking in hot air from outside.

That's what I'm curious about because really the cost of a good cooler isn't too expensive when you're talking about spending tens of thousands on mining gear. I just think sucking in hot air from outside would be a bad idea, even if the air inside is warmer than the warm air outside. Makes more sense to me in my 650 sq ft warehouse scenario to use the fans at the garage door for exhaust and generate some sort of "intake" via a cooler in the back of the room with fans right in front of it pushing "cooler" air, creating what would be like a wind tunnel, then sucking the warmer air out of the front. I would rather have three of those fans up front exhausting 12,000 CFM of hot air rather than sucking 12,000 CFM of warm air inside. 12,000 CFM is around 500 square feet/minute, nearly the entire size of the entire 625 sq foot unit, every minute.... Hot air wouldn't have time to stick around for long if you had those fans exhausting that much air per minute, no?

[QuintLeo]

20 T9s is only 32kva. Any commercial building can handle that no problem. The biggest problem you will face is actually making a profit. 10 cent power is pushing the limits of viability.

 A LOT of commmercial spaces, especially smaller warehouse or retail, have 100 amp OR LESS service available.

 The BUILDING may have more, but many commercial spaces are not the entire building.

[QuintLeo]

IMO it's better to use filtered positive-pressure INTAKE fans over exhaust fans and ghods only know what kind of dust pollen and whatnot come into your space from wherever.

This kind of cooling is cost prohibitive and unnecessary for what you are doing. If it is a dusty environment just blow them out with a compressor every couple months or so. You wont find a profitable large scale mine out there that gives two shits about dust and spends a ton of money on air filtration. At best they use swamp pads and consider those their filtration system.

 The ONLY additional cost is the air filters - common 20x20 furnace filters work fine for this application, and are NOT all that expensive.
 At the scale OP is positing, you're basically be replacing 1 or at most 2 filters a month.

 I do agree that it's redundant in cases where evaporative cooling is in use.

[gbBit]

I've really enjoyed reading your thread and I would recommend that you take another look at the hosting option.  See this thread as it can get lost at times.   https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=622998.0  I've also looked into doing something similar as you and I think until you're ready to grow larger hosting is the way to go.  You can find a hosting company for around $55 kWh/month or $.07 KWh which can do the same as you much more efficiently.  The biggest drawback of using a hosting company is that your machines are away from you therefore you're somewhat out of control.  As long as you can handle this then it's not such a big deal.  The other big lost is that most hosting companies want payment upfront for usually 3~6 months which will cut into your initial investment into miners where the power company will want post payment.  

They way I looked at it was to decided But in any case even if you have power at $.06 kWhr you're looking at saving about  $16/miner doing it yourself versus hosting.  So if you're looking at getting 30 miners that's a saving of about $500/month.

[QuintLeo]

So now what I'm trying to figure out is heating/cooling

 Heating is NOT an issue.
 I have somewhat less total power consumption on my rigs than you are targeting, yet I've had to keep at least 2 windows open during the last 2 winters (one of those in IOWA, where it hits negative-F COLD pretty much every winter at least some of the winter, the other in central Washington were it never saw 0 this past winter but did see sub-freezing for a few months straight every night) to avoid OVERHEATING during the winter.

 Your only issue is cooling - and given Tampa humidity, massive airflow is your only viable affordable option.

[GMPoison]

So now what I'm trying to figure out is heating/cooling

 Heating is NOT an issue.
 I have somewhat less total power consumption on my rigs than you are targeting, yet I've had to keep at least 2 windows open during the last 2 winters (one of those in IOWA, where it hits negative-F COLD pretty much every winter at least some of the winter, the other in central Washington were it never saw 0 this past winter but did see sub-freezing for a few months straight every night) to avoid OVERHEATING during the winter.

 Your only issue is cooling - and given Tampa humidity, massive airflow is your only viable affordable option.

Given the humidity levels you don't think a dehumidifier would do any good? Or an evaporative cooler to be able to be able to keep the temps down to a reasonable level? When you say "affordable" what do you mean? The dehumidifier and evap cooler I linked above are about $1k each. Does that not qualify as affordable to you?

[QuintLeo]

I'm also not sure how my power calculations are wrong, I've run through them so many times.

 It's not that they are wrong, it's that nobody does the computations in power used per month when figuring how much power you need to be available.