Well some may be familiar with my
winter mining setup thread, the cool times have passed and I'm back to the grind with full electricity costs and heat management. Then there's the ever dreaded noise that can accompany these shiny little beasts. I had recently completed a trial run on my tunnel for exhaust and noise reduction; and am super happy with it as a working design. Running are 3 M10's and 1 M20S, off 2 basic Dlink routers. I have 2 30 Amp circuits and 1 20 Amp circuit supplying the Miners, all 240V.
Warning *** It's not pretty, but it works
The TunnelWhat you are seeing is the 4 miners directly on the concrete slab of my garage to work as a heatsink. The insulation above/near the intakes is rigid pink to avoid fibers being sucked in the intake - I do have to adjust the left side or cut some rigid to cover that. There is roughly a 6-9 inch gap in front of the miners before I laid down 4" insulation so as to not restrict the exhaust of the miners. Sides are all 6" Mineral wool and the ceiling of the tunnel is a mix between 6" and 4"; no specific reason here just used what I had. The reason my Tunnel uses the mineral wool insulation is for the sound dampening effect it has by being a porous surface. I directed exhausts towards the walling and even created a little bend in the tunnel itself to try and improve the overall length of the path the sound waves might bounce. The reason I used metal and mineral wool for everything in front of the miners is strictly a fire precaution should the worst ever happen. The airflow is all there as well, the sides are filtered intakes. There will be minimal recirculation of air as this exhausts to the open and the heat goes up while the garage sucks off the ground level unimpeded. Don't mind the sizing of the filter I had intended to place the tunnel in a different spot, but made due with a sweet fold job.
So the list of materials here is all stuff I had a round the house apart from a 20$ shelf and 12$ in wire. Here's the list of materials you can see; you might even recognize some parts from the winter setup.
Mineral Wool Insulation - 6 battons of R20, and 3 1/2 of R14 Left over from renovations.
2 shelving racks - 1 I had previously from the winter mining setup, 1 I grabbed cheap as I like the idea of a wire rack shelf in case I needed to change the design.
25" of wire - Just some threaded wire I used to support the insulation resting on top.
Duct tape - How could I not involve it in one of my projects, would almost be sacrilegious. It's really only there for the filters at the moment. Like I said working design and what not.
Above you can see various images of the tunnel as it was first laid out and is currently operating. The meter readings are done off my phone and from left to right are - Directly in Inlet near miners, Within 3 feet of the inlet standing, Outside 5 feet from the exhaust of the tunnel, and directly at the tunnel exhaust.
This is a far cry from where I started June of 2017 with 3 working S5's and one S4+, overheating in my garage as I had little concept of the importance of heat exhausting. Up until recently I had my 3 M10's on a rack pointing into my yard out the window. This was okay but I could hear the miners within say 60 feet, mostly because I knew to listen for the humm/buzz. It annoyed me more than the family but I hated being 30 some feet away listening to them with the kids; felt a little like a jerk lol. Now I'm not worried about the noise at all. I have 2 neighbors within 60 feet of this garage door and I had all sorts of dampening plans for the driveway that I can essentially scrap.
All that remains for my adjustments are a few extra connectors to ensure a good hour of cutting for anyone trying to enter the garage unnoticed - currently I'd say it would take about 25 minutes if they're prepared. Most days my car is parked within about 18 inches of the door not allowing much chance of entry. I also ran out of screen mesh that I want to put on the outside to reduce visibility and seal up the last few spots bugs could enter.
