120 AMP Fuse in supply - How much of this can i use

[Mr Woodsfc]

Hi All

Ive just moved my mine into a small industrial unit and had a new distribution board fitted because the existing was ancient. The electrician told me that because i would be pulling voltage through constantly i could ony use about 30 amps. He talked about the cable getting to hot and a load of stuff didnt really understand. There is a 120 amp fuse in the meter box and i am based in the UK. If anyone has an opinion on this i would be really interested.

Thanks in Advance

[fanatic26_]

You should listen to your licensed electrician over some random people on a forum. You really arent giving enough information about your setup for anyone to give you advise on here as well

[Mr Woodsfc]

Ok thanks for that, ill have another try. So i have a 120 amp 240v supply and i am told that because of the diversity factor i cant use more than 30 amps without problems. For me that equates to about 4 miners. As it seems people on here have quite a few more than that i wondered how they worked out their power needs.

[mgoz]

You're only limited to the breakers/wiring and what else is running on them. If it's dedicated solely to mining equipment and wired correctly, you should be able to safely run 96 amps worth of equipment. Perhaps he was suggesting 30 amp breakers, not that it's your total amperage for the entire 120 amp box? Wire thickness increases as amps and run length increase. You should be able to wire (4) 30 amp breakers with 10 gauge copper wire. General rule of thumb is to not overload them more than 80%, so you have 24 usable amps on each breaker, which is 4 S9 or similar power rated miners per breaker or 16 miners total.

[ccgllc]

Just guessing here, but it sounds like you have a 120amp breaker box.  e.g.  A breaker at the top of the box that is labeled 120 amps.  If so, that breaker means the total of all circuits running off that box can not exceed 120 amps short term (like over a second or two), or 120 * 80% = 96 amps continuous pull.

Under that breaker is either more smaller breakers (15 amp, 20 amp, 30 amp being common) or fuses that protect individual circuits coming out of that box.

Because miners pull power constantly, you can not use more than 80% of that 15/20/30 amp rating on any individual circuit.

[Mr Woodsfc]

Thanks for the advice