Complete Newbie

[sliproad22]

Hi Guys

Here we go. I am jumping in with 2 feet here, I have only ever made 1 crypto transaction in my life though coinbase that turned into 2 transactions.
Anyhow I hope that will give you an Idea of my Knowledge on crypto which is zero.

Mining

I don't know what came over me but decided to buy 3 mining machines. Its done and they are on their way.
I do know about power costs and profitability so know I am up against it. I am also aware of the halving coming UP
There will be a total of about 60 odd Th/s If the machines decide to work. It has cost me roughly $700 so far.

I need to know about wiring and how you would set up these machines on a circuit. So looking to know what way you would go about a standard 12kw 240 volt domestic connection. Each machine is about 2200 watts. I am looking to know would you give each machine its own dedicated Socket and breaker ? Or would it suffice on one loop of 3 sockets on say a 40 amp breaker ?

I know you are probably scratching your heads thinking why now on cheap gear but I would like to learn.

Also Pools and address I have no idea where to start.

Any help would be great

Thanks

[jackg]

I haven't heard of domestic units going as high as 12kw. If you have access to them and an appropriate fuse/cbbr and it doesn't become too hot...

Not sure why people have left this for so long to reply although I'm also not sure if there are retail psus capable of handling 6600W.... And unless a splitter is licensed for the full 12000 if suggest caution before trying to use it.

[sliproad22]

 jackg

Thanks for answer.
I am doing this to learn about mining in general. I am not familiar with the general abbreviations for mining.

I am just looking to know how to run these 3 machines safely in a domestic house "shed" out the back. I am wondering what way I would set up the power to the shed without being dangerous.

Thanks

[BitMaxz]

~snip~

If you are a newbie and you want to learn about mining much better read the sticky thread on this section. Which I think will help you to start your journey on mining.

Here look at these threads below just added some useful threads to learn.
- First time/Small miner reference for getting started.
- Current List of Competitive Hardware - January 2020
- Why all miners need to mine on a pool that pays them the tx fees.

[philipma1957]

so the machines do 20th each and use 2200 watts each correct?

I will pretend you have free power  since  they suck at power savings.

It would really help to know what you purchased

Do they have a built in power supply?

etc.

you will be needing a 50 amp sub panel with 3  20 amp breakers. or a 50 amp sub panel with 2 30 amp breakers.

you managed the get a very bad power usage at 2200 watts.

and 3 pieces .   

I could go into details but 6600/.8 = 8250 watts  is the minimum  rated you should plan to do

that would be 3x 20 amp  or 2x 30amp if I were you I would feed a 4 gauge cable from the house breaker  to a 4 breaker box 

with 3x 20 amp circuits   leave a circuit open.


the main panel would have to have space for a 60amp breaker that feeds to the sub panel in the shed.

I have no formal training so don't trust me.


Please find a good electrician  that knows your codes show him what I wrote and ask him if it will work.

good luck as I take zero responsilbity if you don't do it correctly.

[sliproad22]

What I bought x 3: https://coinminingcentral.com/products/love-core-a1-24th

Making profit is not important at the moment. I decided on these because they are cheap and I can learn about asic mining from them.

Thanks for your reply ref power. I know its only advice and not certain.

[BitMaxz]

It's not actually cheap the price of this times 4 of Antminer S9 SE 16th/s so you can get more hashrate on SE miner (64Th/s in total) compared to love core a1 with 24th/s only.

Honestly, this kind of miner doesn't have its own support it is imitated version of Cheetah a1 miner and Aisen A1 25T.

[vickersja]

That’s quite a bit of power.  I had a dedicated  30 amp 220v installed for my 3 - S15’s.  Running on low power they total approx 2,700 watts (13amps) and on high power they total approx 4,800 watts (21amps)

Using the 80% rule that’s all I would put on that circuit.

Agree with Phil. Get an electrician involved.  That’s not something I would personally do myself.

[sliproad22]

Thanks Lads

I am located in a 240v area so no converters or anything on that side of things. I already have power running into the shed on its own breaker box. Nothing much runs off it at the moment only lights. Have a few sockets that are not used. I will get some Pics up of existing set up and see what you think.


https://imgur.com/l1BY0TB
https://imgur.com/1OyNORL
https://imgur.com/12uUsor

My Thoughts before I came on here was to replace the main breaker to 40amp. Then put another 2 sockets in on an additional 30amp breaker. The sockets already there could run 1 machine 2200 watts. Then the new breaker could run the other 2 machines 4400 ?

[philipma1957]

Is that breaker in Canada (I saw some french words)

I am not familiar with that style.  So I will stop all advice from me.

Just be sure  the cables are fat enough to handle power.  Melted wires will happen if breaker can handle 6000 watts  and wire is mare for 4000 watts.

and those miners really suck.  S9's would have been far far far far far and away better to use.

My advice is get rid of those miners don't run them and find a decent s9 deal.

[sliproad22]

Yea I have noticed about the miners  . Yea decent main wire rain from house to shed but May upgrade the socket wire. I will post pics of the fire ..... lol

Thanks

[vickersja]

Good luck.  BitMaxz posted some great links.  Make sure you check them out.  I also unfortunately cannot help with the power questions but please err on the side of caution.

[mikeywith]

First mistake:

You bought some shity gears for pretty high cost > don't let that bring you down to your knees, but next time maybe ask before buying anything?

So what do we have?

Volt: 240v
Wats: 2100*3 = 6300w or 26.5 amps , those need at least 35 amps mcb, I am not sure they make those, so you you might need a 40amp mcb, now for 40amp running on 240v you going to need a 6AWG cable.

That is based on the form below

Wire Circular Mils =   (Conductor Resistivity)(2)(Amps)(One Way Distance in Feet)
Allowable Voltage Drop

Depending on what and what you are not allowed to do as far as wiring is concerned, you could simply run 6AWG copper wire from a single 40amp breaker to the sockets/miners or get 1*40amp mcm and 3*15amps breakers, each breaker is for a single miner

Wires from 40amp to 15amp is 6AWG and 12AWG from 15amp to miner, so you need a ensure your sockets can handle 2100w.

My Thoughts before I came on here was to replace the main breaker to 40amp. Then put another 2 sockets in on an additional 30amp breaker. The sockets already there could run 1 machine 2200 watts. Then the new breaker could run the other 2 machines 4400 ?

That will work too, but double-check the wirings you have, breakers are easy to change, wires are not.

Now, of course, I would advise you to hire a professional, but if you decide to do it your own you could have a look at some of my setups.



you can read more about it here

Keep in mind my setup could be bad enough to send me to jail if I was based in the U.S or any other similar country, it's perfect where I am located and done by the code   and it works for me.

As for the mining pool and all that, I wouldn't worry about it, get your wirings done, set up your gears and then start a different thread for that only.

Good luck.

[sliproad22]

Hi MikeyWith

Thanks for your input. Fairly similar power setup if I upgrade main breaker. I would be looking at a similar setup as your shed but only 3 miners in mine be it they take 6600 together. I am based in Europe. What I compare these to when looking at power is electric showers. any decent 1 here uses 10.5kw and allowed a max on 2 on my system at any one time. They have to have a dedicated breaker each.

Cheers

[vickersja]

I may have missed it, but what is your power rate?  You may want to look at trading those things in for something more efficient.  Here is a good link to see power usage and profitability.  Take profitability with a grain of salt but the usage is good. At the bottom of the screen you can put your rate in.

https://www.asicminervalue.com/

[Biffa]

With the cheapest rates in the uk of around £0.13 or $0.16 per Kw/h he probably won't want to do that.

I think he knows he isn't going to make anything at this stage with the price of BTC as it is. It would take a massive mooning of price to start making a profit, let alone paying back his investment.

Think of it more of a curious experiment

[sliproad22]

Hi Biffa

Yes exactly that. Not an investment its a learning curve. Who knows, I might enjoy doing it and decided to invest in proper efficient miners in the future.
For now with these it is a lesson. Whatever I learn may benefit me and at least give me some knowledge of crypto coins.

[mikeywith]

. What I compare these to when looking at power is electric showers. any decent 1 here uses 10.5kw and allowed a max on 2 on my system at any one time. They have to have a dedicated breaker each.

Keep in mind the "time" factor, taking a shower is 30-60 mins max, mining is 24/7, so the infrastructure might not be set up to handle the same load all that long, I also doubt the 10.5kw thing, are you sure about that? what kind of shower is that? I have a 200L water heater and a large pump and those combined don't go past 3kw, 10.5kw is enough for 2 average houses almost everywhere on planet earth, why would they allocate 10.5kw for an electric shower? 

Yes exactly that. Not an investment its a learning curve.

With all due respect, I always talk about "Newbies" who mine at loss or break-even when we discuss future difficulty, sometimes based on the numbers in front of us, we expect diff to drop by say 10% and then it doesn't, or any other kind of speculations we do, those numbers are usually off because we miss a very critical element in the equation, which is miners like yourself, that is not a bad thing at all, I am just trying to tell you that "you are most certainly not alone in this", and I do encourage you to actually learn how to mine, and the best way of learning is by practicing it in real-life, mining for a week by yourself probably teaches you more about mining than reading half of the topics you find here, so mine on!

I might enjoy doing it and decided to invest in proper efficient miners in the future.

If you are located on the west side of Europe, then your best move would be finding a better power rate and not just more efficient gears, the word efficient gear is rather misunderstood, the word efficient is subjective really, as @Biffa mentioned that power costs about 16 cents in the UK, no gear will be efficient long enough and turn out to be profitable at such power rate, in other words, S15 is could be more "efficient" in China than S17 pro in the UK, when mining you are basically competing against everyone else, almost every competitor has access to the same mining gears so having more efficient gears than some other miners is not a huge advantage, however, having better power rate is the biggest advantage one can have against the world.

That's just what I think, it's not a popular or proven fact, it's simply how I interrupt the mining business based on my humble experience so take it with a grain of salt.

[sliproad22]

Hi Mikeywith

Thanks for that. Maybe its not so bad as it turns out the units are not actually shipped yet. I would love to have some input on the following models that are available in my budget.

innosilicon T2T, 30T
Iinnosilicon T2, 25T

love core A1 24T
antminer s9 14T
antminer s9i 14T
antminer s9i 13.5T
antminer s9 13.5T
antminer s9j 14.5T
antminer s9se 16T

Avlon 851
Avlon 852
Avlon 921

T2T 17T

If anybody could give some input on this so I can change the models being shipped. 3x Units

Ref 10.5kw showers

The showers here are instant heated water pumped. All from the same unit here is a 10.8kw
https://www.mirashowers.co.uk/showers/electric-showers/mira-sport-108kw/

[vickersja]

I just parted with the Antminer S9i 14T.  Only reason I got rid of it was to upgrade to Antminer S15 which is decently efficient in low power mode.

I do like the S9i for the multiple working load options.  I kept mine on Low Power Enhanced Mode.  Good model to play around with.  Here is a breakdown of the working modes:

https://support.bitmain.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019738593-Difference-between-Low-Power-Mode-and-Low-Power-Enhanced-Mode

Youll need an external PSU.  Either the APW3++ or APW7 would work well.  Here are the links for the PSU's with power outputs:

https://www.antminerdistribution.com/apw3/
https://www.antminerdistribution.com/products/apw7/

[sliproad22]

Okay

I am probably totally wrong with this,

The S9i is a 1320w for 14TH

The innosilicon T2T, 30T is 2200w for 30TH

2 x S9i 2640w

Is the innosilicon not superior than 2 x S9i ?

[mikeywith]

S9 can do as low as 75w per terahash after tweaking, so you could be looking at 700-750w for 9-10th, just about the same efficiency as the T2T, so I see the T2T as a better option here, but since you are willing to spend up to $700, why not get 1 proper gear that can actually make you some profit? like the T17 from Bitmain, or M21s from MicroBt? those have better efficiency, the T17 does 40th at about 2200w, so that can be both a learning experience and some profit, at worst case scenario you wouldn't be mining at a loss.

The other reason why I suggest buying newer gears is the fact that those old gears' design is over with, the S9 for an example, that was a beast that can bear all the heat and voltage instability, the newer gears are less robust and need to be treated gently, and I am pretty sure these gears get more sensitive as we move forward, remember how you could crack open almonds using Nokia phones?  . So really it's best to get used to these new gears rather than learning using an old gear that you will probably never deal with again.

[sliproad22]

Him

I don't think this guy will do a refund. The list he gave me is what he has. Unfortunately at the moment the shipping is taking up around 300 USD for 3 units. I was thinking of asking him to send 2 X innosilicon in place of the 3 X love core. Or maybe 1 innosilicon and antminer se
What's members thoughts on this ?


I don't know anything about bitcoin prices history only that is was all the rage at one point. I have a feeling due to the current situation regarding all major governments having to pump money into their countries that this money will have to be clawed back over time. The fat cats will have to hide their money but a major problem exits this time. There is nowhere to run most countries in the world are in the same boat. So I can see investors in crypto rising over the next few years as counties introduce the covid 19 levy.

[mikeywith]

Then go with the most efficient gear he has which is innosilicon T2T 30T if I am not mistaken, you need to do a bit of googling in terms of power consumption vs hash-rate, but by a quick look at the list you posted it seems like the T2T is the most efficient. Another reason why you should pick gear with higher hashrate is the shipping cost per TH, you mentioned $300 for shipping which sounds like a lot (maybe normal given the situation we are in now with the virus) but still getting fewer gears is better IMO, I wouldn't buy S9e, nobody reliable made a custom firmware for it, so not much tuning can be done on it, S9j is still better than S9e.

TL;DR

My vote goes to Inno T2T 30T

[sliproad22]

Yea
Ref shipping I buy other items direct from  China regularly . It seems DHL are the only co operating at this time.

[Biffa]

For future reference, best to buy directly from bitmain.com , pangolinminer.com , whatsminer.net , innosilicon.com  or blokforge.com

These are either the manufacturer or official resellers.

There are some trusted third party resellers, but not many. You really do risk a lot if you don't do your research and buy from someone reputable.

coinminingcentral.com don't have a much of a reputation on here, they run out of a virtual office in London and purportedly ship from china direct, no-one of any repute has bought from them.

They say they trade under a company called Retro Collect 1000 which is listed on companies house, it isn't listed.

Any reputable company would give you a refund if the goods haven't shipped yet.

As they are supposedly a UK company and you are buying your goods over the internet they are subject to the UK's distance selling act: https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses

Right to cancel
There are different rules for downloads and streaming services.

You must tell the customer they can cancel their order up to 14 days after their order is delivered. They don’t need to give a reason for cancelling.

If you don’t tell the customer about their right to cancel, they can cancel at any time in the next 12 months. If you tell them about the right to cancel during these 12 months, they have 14 days to cancel from when you told them.

[sliproad22]

Cheers for that Biffa, I actually bought from someone that accepted PayPal. So some protection there. It was also paid by card so a little more protection if they are faulty.