Alternative power supply

[n5hq]

Hello all,

I just received my first AntMiner S1 about an hour ago so I'm very new to the game.  But I do know a little about electronics.  As a ham radio operator I have a very large set of batteries for emergency backup power.  I maintain them at a float voltage of 13.6 Volts.  I would like to use those batteries with the accompanying highly regulated power supply to power the S1.  Wiring the S1 is no problem but my question is, is 13.6 VDC too high a voltage for the 12 volt input?  There will probably be  ~ .2 to .3 voltage drop in the wiring but it will still be above 13 volts.

I really do not want to destroy the S1 but in my experience with other electronics, most all have a voltage range that they will operate safely within.  Does anyone have any data or experience regarding the maximum safe voltage that the S1 will be happy with?

Thanks in advance for your input,

N5HQ

[1715639760]

1715639760

[1715639760]

1715639760

[nybbler905]

yes and no, depending how you wire it.  If you drop a regulator between the battery and the S1 you can set it to a rock solid 12V but if you wire directly to it, when the battery goes under 10V you will get issues, not so much at the 13v unless it's still attached to the charger.  If on the other hand, you want to go with it always being charged, you may want to invest in a ' solar charge controller ' as it's got most of what you want already built in.  Just connect the battery to the B+B- the miner to the load then the charger ( or solar cells, wind generator, what have you that can send power to the battery ).  I invested in a rather cheap one that can handle up to 10 Amps.  That is 10 Amps going in,  to/from the battery OR out so it can handle up to a 10 Amp draw.  The only issue was the almost month to get it from China ( one of the cheapest ones from eBay and it's still working, so is the battery I connected to it ).

To recap
direct - NOOOOO
Indirect with some regulation - yes

You did say you were new to mining, don't forget to go over HOW to get the S1 mining otherwise it will mine happily away with the default settings and not where you want it to mine to earn for you.

[n5hq]

Thank you very much for the reply.  I was nervous but wanted to start mining so I put 2 each 50 amp diodes in series with the 13.6 volt buss.  That gave me a 12.2 volts at the AntMiner.

I didn't go into detail about my setup here so you had no way to know.  First off I've been an electronic tech for years and as a ham radio operator I play with the stuff all the time.  My setup here consist of 6 each commercial lead acid cells in series rated at 52 1/2 amps for 8 hours.  They were designed to provide backup power in the event of a power failure.  I have connected to them a 90 amp wet cell battery maintainer set to 13.6 volts.  I also have a 50 amp highly regulated power supply connected and it too is set at 13.6 volts.  So in the event of a power outage I have 140 amps available to recharge the cells.

During the power outage I have a N8XJK Boost Regulator in line to maintain the buss voltage at 13.6 until the battery voltage drops below 10 volts.  At that time it will shut down and kill all the power to the buss.  If I am at home when the power outage occurs then I will break out the standby generator to keep the batteries charged.  That also keeps the wife happy by keeping the house warm and the fridge cold and allows her to watch the satellite TV or whatever she wants to do.

So all that said, I can maintain the 13.6 volts on my main DC buss in the house.  If the battery voltage ever falls below 10 volts then I loose everything at that point.  By that I have probably already lost the internet for some time anyway so there isn't much point in running the miner anyway.

I have been reading and I see a lot about over clocking and or over voltage to the chips so I figured that 1.6 volts over the suggested voltage would not harm the device but I didn't want to let all of the magic smoke out of the AntMiner.

So if I understand you correctly, it would be save to operate at 13.6 volts long term?  Most electronics don't like under voltage and I understand the problems with that.

About the configuration.  I did some reading before I bought the miner so I was up to speed on that.  I bought two of the USB miners a few weeks ago just to play with.  That required me setting up an account with a mining guild so I was ready to enter my data.  My miner came per-configured to 192.168.1.99 so I was able to just plug it in and enter my mining information and go.  Fast and easy.  But you were right, there were three different accounts pre-programmed into the miner and it took off mining for them.  Took me about 5 minutes to get to the settings, create my additional worker at the guild, enter the data and apply the settings.  So I guess they got five minutes of mining on my dime.  Sneaky isn't it?

So to recap:
13.6 volts = OK
Less than around 11.7 to 11.8 = Not OK

Is that about right?

Thanks

[nybbler905]

Not a problem and basicaly yeppers.  You may want to do some digging in the different threads ( under hardware or search for S1 overclock ) and look in to the details on the overclocking/overvoltage.  I've got AntMiner U1s so for me it's a matter of powered USB  hubs ( protective diodes, Zeners, etc ) and possibly really fine soldering in of some 10k SMD 0603 resistors ( last is the size of the tiny things 0804 are barely doable with a fine tip soldering iron, 0603 is hot air and watch you don't literaly blow it off )

You may want to look in to removing the ' extra ' mining settings while you are at it.  I've got BFGMiner on a pc set up to mine at 2 different locations and there have been times that one pool seems unreachable and it won't go back to it for a few hours manually trying to get it back there.  In your case, it may go back to mining for ' the other guy ' which would do you no good.

Good to hear it's working and good luck with mining.