Antminer S9 Cooling - Refrigerator / Cabinet

[mineintx]

Hi,

Live in Texas.  Have 6 S9's in my garage, not a problem now, as it is still "winter", temps are 30 - 60 F.  Getting Warmer very soon, summer temps will be 80 - 100 in my garage, which 6 S9 will overheat in no time.

I tried to find hosting up north (Washington State / Canada), everyone is either full or price is too expensive ($ 170 per unit).  $ 170 might not be that bad, but try find open facility now is the issue.  

My electricity costs are 10 cents per Kwh.   I do have the electricity to run (have three 20 amp breakers in my panel for miners  and miners are close to my panel).    

They are noisy, and generate lots of heat, so here is my idea.


1.  Buy a used refrigerator / freezer from auction that came from failed restaurants.    Non working freezer I think I can buy for under $ 50.  

Example:

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/search/2-door-reach-in-refrigerators.html

I will use it as my cabinet to house my miners.    I know you cannot get a refrigerator / freezer to cool these units, I will buy it non working to get it cheap, and use the cabinet to store the units and bring the sound down.


2.  Cut some holes in the bottom / top / sides and (a) have cool air brought in from either the inside of my house via ducting and an inline fan, or (b) have a portable air conditioner feed cooler air into "cabinet".  

3.  I have each miner with exhaust ducting, so I will send the hot air out of the cabinet and vent it to the air outside my garage.   Its all about heat dissipation.


What do you think of this idea ?

I know I will need exhaust fan(s) to vent approx 1200 CFM of heat from 6 miners..   A couple of 6 - 8 " inline fans will do the trick, or may a 12" inline fan.

What temp do I really need the inside of the cabinet to be , the air intake?   Seems like if I can keep the intake air around 70 - 80 F, I should be good, right?  Anyone have experience with this?   i do not think I need to get the air to 60 F, but maybe 75F should be okay?  


Any suggestions?   Thank you in advance!

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[Raymond_B]

...

I am in Texas as well and have 3 Antminers and 2 Pangolin M3s which I think equal about 75 S9s Anyway you're thinking about cooling incorrectly, what you need to think about is removing the waste heat. I made a thread called ducting check it out. The goal is to simply get the heat out of the garage. By doing just that I reduced the temp approx 30 degrees. Even the brutally hot M3s are staying pretty even.

Also your CFM requirements are waaaaaay too low. Figure around 225 CFM per miner! S9s are around 5000 BTU each, these M3s are over 6000.

Garage temp at the time of this pic was ~ 75 deg F. If I had a fresh air source it would be even better and possibly help cool that HotFlash M3... But this is just a temp setup until I find a suitable building.

https://i.imgur.com/jqKX0D8.jpg

Here they all are in their temp duct arrangement

https://i.imgur.com/NR2Ekgg.jpg


(Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to trim the quote from mineintx and to remove inline image tags.)

[mineintx]

...

I am in Texas as well and have 3 Antminers and 2 Pangolin M3s which I think equal about 75 S9s Anyway you're thinking about cooling incorrectly, what you need to think about is removing the waste heat. I made a thread called ducting check it out. The goal is to simply get the heat out of the garage. By doing just that I reduced the temp approx 30 degrees. Even the brutally hot M3s are staying pretty even.

Also your CFM requirements are waaaaaay too low. Figure around 225 CFM per miner! S9s are around 5000 BTU each, these M3s are over 6000.

Garage temp at the time of this pic was ~ 75 deg F. If I had a fresh air source it would be even better and possibly help cool that HotFlash M3... But this is just a temp setup until I find a suitable building.

https://i.imgur.com/jqKX0D8.jpg

Here they all are in their temp duct arrangement

https://i.imgur.com/NR2Ekgg.jpg


(Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to trim the quote from mineintx and to remove inline image tags.)

Thank you for the reply.  I will PM you, I am in the DFW area..

I did look at your post on ducting - and yes I will take your advice and first focus on the heat waste issue - getting the hot air that these units kick out somewhere else..   I will do that first, and then address the incoming cool air issue when needed, which is likely 2 months away..

But other main issue I want to address is the noise.   Of course my bedroom wall where my bed is against, the garage is on the other end.  With sheetrock in between I can still hear the humming of the miners (even with some ducting).   2 miners was not bad, 6 is a little noisy..

So I am thinking of putting them in an enclosed cabinet for noise, which still having adequate in and out air flow.   Anyone try this?

[Raymond_B]

Thank you for the reply.  I will PM you, I am in the DFW area..

I did look at your post on ducting - and yes I will take your advice and first focus on the heat waste issue - getting the hot air that these units kick out somewhere else..   I will do that first, and then address the incoming cool air issue when needed, which is likely 2 months away..

But other main issue I want to address is the noise.   Of course my bedroom wall where my bed is against, the garage is on the other end.  With sheetrock in between I can still hear the humming of the miners (even with some ducting).   2 miners was not bad, 6 is a little noisy..

So I am thinking of putting them in an enclosed cabinet for noise, which still having adequate in and out air flow.   Anyone try this?

Definitely PM me. My buddy and I found the perfect building with the perfect landlord just West of downtown Fort Worth it's clean, in a nice area, has plenty of power, the guy doesn't care what we do with the interior, etc. Problem is (and this is a good problem) it's too big @ 5,000 sq/ft! So we cannot justify the lease @ $2100.00 a month right now. We both want to slowly ease in to mining at a larger scale.


(Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to trim the quote from mineintx.)

[SGMPhil]

There are a lot of ways to skin this cat, but a fridge is not going to work due to the CFM that runs through these things. Best to vent the miners out of the garage or building and put in some extra A/C. One option for you might be to build a shed or buy a used shipping container to house the units. Vent them outside and install some good A/C. I have mine in a small "mother-in-law" type house with a couple portable 14,000 BTU A/C units installed with miner exhaust being vented through the floor to the outside of the building. I am in the South as well, and this solution works fine for me. If I did not already have the little house, I would buy a used shipping container - they are cheap, well constructed, secure, and easy to modify for special projects like this.

[Raymond_B]

There are a lot of ways to skin this cat, but a fridge is not going to work due to the CFM that runs through these things. Best to vent the miners out of the garage or building and put in some extra A/C. One option for you might be to build a shed or buy a used shipping container to house the units. Vent them outside and install some good A/C. I have mine in a small "mother-in-law" type house with a couple portable 14,000 BTU A/C units installed with miner exhaust being vented through the floor to the outside of the building. I am in the South as well, and this solution works fine for me. If I did not already have the little house, I would buy a used shipping container - they are cheap, well constructed, secure, and easy to modify for special projects like this.

Yes, shipping container is definitely a possibility. Insulated properly and with really strong airflow even in the South I believe it would be a great hosting space. But back to the initial question, I think I would look at simply insulating the walls between the garage and bedroom better. Heck even putting up cheapo Harbor Freight moving blankets on the garage side would most likely reduce the noise quite a bit.

I am lucky, the way my house is built the guest bedroom is against the garage wall and is very far back. Standing at the garage entrance door, but with the door closed is about 60dB. That's really the only portion of the house you can hear the miners.

[SGMPhil]

There are lots of ways to deal with the sound and since you are working with a garage, you can probably find a solution that buts adds insulation and decreases sound at the same time. Here are a few ideas: https://www.houselogic.com/remodel/remodeling-tips-advice/soundproofing-walls/

Also, if you vent your miner exhaust to the outside, that will reduce the noise (and heat) substantially inside the garage. The downside to that is that the noise goes outside, but is dampened by the exhaust tubing. It might annoy your neighbors. In my case, the outside sound is similar to an industrial clothes dryer running 24x7. I am sure that there is a way to further muffle the sound though.

Enjoy your project - I have enjoyed engineering my solution, but still have some work to do.