Advice on home mining

[JulioH]

Hi everyone, i'm glad i've found this forum with so much informations and insight regarding bitcoin mining.

I'm french and there is not so much quality resources available in my language.

I have access to cheap electricity (around 0,03$/kwh), and I would like to begin mining, with an initial budget (hardware investment) from 5k to 10k$ at most.

I have some important criteria, that are more important than pure efficiency (due to my cheap elec cost), and also the fact that I want to mine directly at my place :

- more or less 7000W max (in total, one or several rigs)

- Very silent hardware : I found some stuff about liquid-cooling and also immersion, I would like to know how I could best achieve a very silent mining, for example for working all day long next to the rig. I saw the s21 hydro but it says 50 DB online, I'm not sure it will be silent enough. Is the DB information is correct ? Can I found quieter ? Do I have to immerge myself any rig ? And subsequently, if I have to immerge myself a rig, I would have to buy the most efficient one I suppose ? Are they all compatible with this type of solution ?

- Durability : Due to the cheap electricity cost, i'm pretty sure it will be profitable during an extended period (maybe even after the 2028 halving), so I would like the hardware to last as long as possible, and to most preserve it (best ratio for down/over clocking for example).

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I begun to read a lot of stuff but didn't found answers for all my question, that is why I started this post.
For the setup, pools, etc., I begin to learn and I'm optimistic about succeeding after some researchs, even if for now I don't have all the knowledge.

For the pool, I look for one that is transparent (and share fees if possible), free or very cheap, even if the rewards are not everyday or even every weeks. It has to be big enough to ensure to find enough blocks to share regularly though. If you know any pools like that let me know !


Thank to you all in advance for your advices and expertise. Sorry if I did some grammar or spelling mistakes, I could use deepl or something like that but this makes me practice my english better !  

[DaveF]

https://www.asicminervalue.com/miners/bitmain/antminer-s19-hydro-158th will give you a basic idea of profitability.
But keep in mind those are in 'an ideal' situation.
As difficulty goes up your profits will fall.
If BTC -> fiat goes up you get more fiat if BTC -> fiat goes down you get less.
If anything goes wrong with the miner you will loose
If for whatever reason your cost of power goes up you will loose.

And so on.

There are a few other miners that are quieter but they are less efficient so generating any profit would be even more difficult.

-Dave

[JulioH]

Hi Dave, thank you for your reply.

I'm more afraid about the setup for having a very silent miner (is it possible without much experience ?), and the durability of the miner. In the other hand, I'm quite confident about my cost of power and the price of btc which I'm convinced will be up in a long term trend. I plan to hold the BTC mined.

Do you have any experience in immerging a miner ? Is the result is less than 50 DB ? Can I do it with any miner ? If you have any advice on that I would be much grateful.

Thank you and have a nice evening !

[philipma1957]

you can make the s19 quiet using the epic controller.

I have a t21 using a  spice controller.

you do not need the t21 or the s21

s19 units are cheap right now. here is the controller I recommend to add to your miner.


https://altairtech.io/product/epic-umc-wm/

if you put this in you can lower fan speeds with no effort.

you should be able to find s19 cheap right now.

put the epic controller in it and clock low

a 100 th burning  3000 watts fans at 5000 rpm

drop it to 60th 1700 watts fans at 3000 rpm

do one and see if it works for you.

I think you could do 4 all told


fast eBay uk search
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196420125286?

you would pay 800 pounds plus the controller I picked.

at 60th you earn 3 usd a day and burn 1.30 usd

net $1.70 say you went for 1000 usd 588 days for payback

but if you hold coins and coins go up payback is faster.


I would do this is I lived where you do and could have the 7kwatts of cheap power. every hour.

[JulioH]

Thank you philipma1957 for your answer, that is interesting. I'm looking into your solution.

What would be the estimated DB of a 3000 RPM fan ? around 40 DB ? And four of them might be louder I suppose.

Why would you pick this instead of one more recent/efficient miner that would be liquid cooled or immerged ? Do you think it's more reliable hardware ? Easier to setup ? Quieter ? And I can try one first with a partial investment ?

The cons I see is I would need a bit more space than one new/efficient miner. It can be done but it is a bit less convenient. And maybe the risk that the miners are obsolete quicker ?

Thank you again, I'm looking into this

[philipma1957]

Thank you philipma1957 for your answer, that is interesting. I'm looking into your solution.

What would be the estimated DB of a 3000 RPM fan ? around 40 DB ? And four of them might be louder I suppose.

Why would you pick this instead of one more recent/efficient miner that would be liquid cooled or immerged ? Do you think it's more reliable hardware ? Easier to setup ? Quieter ? And I can try one first with a partial investment ?

The cons I see is I would need a bit more space than one new/efficient miner. It can be done but it is a bit less convenient. And maybe the risk that the miners are obsolete quicker ?

Thank you again, I'm looking into this

The noise restriction means fans at 3000 rpm they are not silent. But they are far far far lower sound than full speed at 5500 rpm.

7kwatts  could mean  you will have a lot of heat issues.

I did a build with the t21 but a t21 will cost 3x that of a s19 maybe 4x

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5491800.0.

you would like this more but it cost way way way more money  I run it at low speed for now as it is warm where I am.

[JulioH]

For the heat issues, do you mean that whatever the solution I come up with, with 7kW of power, the miner(s) will generate too much heat ? In the worst case, I could turn off the miner(s) 2 months a year (from 86.000°F to 95.000°F at most in the summer).

I'm looking to your build but the DB level is still the main issue. I'm really looking the most silent setup, even at the cost at some efficiency (but still enough to be the most profitable).

Thank you again !

[philipma1957]

For the heat issues, do you mean that whatever the solution I come up with, with 7kW of power, the miner(s) will generate too much heat ? In the worst case, I could turn off the miner(s) 2 months a year (from 86.000°F to 95.000°F at most in the summer).

I'm looking to your build but the DB level is still the main issue. I'm really looking the most silent setup, even at the cost at some efficiency (but still enough to be the most profitable).

Thank you again !

silence is not going to happen if you are burning 7000kwatts.

but you can make the fans do 3000 rpm and they are tolerable.

[BitcoinSoloMiner]

Get a bitaxesupra for some initial testing and setup!

Go for maximum efficiency!

Consider a bitmain s21/s21pro/s21xp hydro with your own DIY radiator/fan cooling setup

With 0.03 per kwh you will be profitable. Best of luck!

[mikeywith]

If you have access to the outside, then your best bet would be immerged cooling, dcx and Fog Hashing have some cool kits, the C2 from fog hashing does 12KW @30c (fits your 7kw limit prefectly), it takes two miners and the dry cooler is pretty noiseless, last I checked it was selling for $1500, it takes roughly 80 litters of coolant which I think costs about $500, so you are looking at  about $2000 for the entire set up, but you run with good silence and very good cooling.

For gear durability, go with Whatsminer, they beat Antminers in every aspect of quality, you can get two M60s 180th for $3.5K each, or two M50s 130th for $1.5k each.

Another option would be the water cooled gears like M66 or M62, but those are rack-mounted and required 3phase, actually, almost all hydro gears require 3phase electricity and are not meant for home mining unless your house has it.

What would be the estimated DB of a 3000 RPM fan ? around 40 DB ? And four of them might be louder I suppose.

due to the small blades and the heatsinks behind them, there is an annoying whistling sound that comes from these miners, I think 3k rpm is more or so not loud, but I don't think you can sleep next to it.

[JulioH]

Hi, thank you all for your answers.

Get a bitaxesupra for some initial testing and setup!

Go for maximum efficiency!

Consider a bitmain s21/s21pro/s21xp hydro with your own DIY radiator/fan cooling setup

With 0.03 per kwh you will be profitable. Best of luck!

I can't get exactly for max efficiency because it is in the inside of my apartment (not in the bedroom at least) and I want the setup to be as silent as possible.

I'm looking at the build proposed by philipma which is very cost efficient at first for the THs achieved, but i'm a bit reluctant to build it myself, even if it doesnt seem to be out of reach. I'm looking at the heaters at D-central that Ive found recently, which are more costly first but efficient nonetheless and pre-build. Do you guys know that ?

I bought recently 2 avalon nano 3 to have a first foot in mining and setup (september future)

If you have access to the outside, then your best bet would be immerged cooling, dcx and Fog Hashing have some cool kits, the C2 from fog hashing does 12KW @30c (fits your 7kw limit prefectly), it takes two miners and the dry cooler is pretty noiseless, last I checked it was selling for $1500, it takes roughly 80 litters of coolant which I think costs about $500, so you are looking at  about $2000 for the entire set up, but you run with good silence and very good cooling.

For gear durability, go with Whatsminer, they beat Antminers in every aspect of quality, you can get two M60s 180th for $3.5K each, or two M50s 130th for $1.5k each.

Another option would be the water cooled gears like M66 or M62, but those are rack-mounted and required 3phase, actually, almost all hydro gears require 3phase electricity and are not meant for home mining unless your house has it.

I didn't precise but I don't have access to the outside unfortunately, I thought about puting one or two miners in my balcony but it will be too much work I think. I studied a bit the dry cooler and the setup seems to me a bit difficult, and the noise is still high I guess : here's an answer from someone from apexto
 --> "i checked the noise just now.
immersion cooling:
c2 tank, 45db.
c2 dry cooler, 65db."
So except if I manage to put the dry cooler in my balcony, I will still have some important noise from the dry cooler inside. But I may be wrong.

For the M66, I just checked and I confirm I don't have 3phase so it is out of the equation

[mikeywith]

c2 tank, 45db.
c2 dry cooler, 65db."
So except if I manage to put the dry cooler in my balcony, I will still have some important noise from the dry cooler inside. But I may be wrong.

65db isn't all that loud, if you put it in the balcony it will be the equivalent of two people having a normal conversation there, so if the door is closed you will hardly hear anything.

Obviously, sleeping right next to it is a different story, however, if there is a wall in between, you will be good.

Here is a review of the C2 kit, you can get a good idea how loud it is https://youtu.be/NVyFg6sK8Ak?si=dOOHKzLT7bB1VWms

[JulioH]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share the state of my interrogations regarding this topic.

Side note : I received the 2 nano 3 and it's working very well, the fans sound when high mode is a bit high pitched but it's very discrete in normal mode.

I ruled out immersion mining even if the pros are appealing : relatively quiet, best efficiency and max THs
The reasons are the setup is a bit complicated in my situation, the dry cooler is better outside and I don't have easy access to it, plus the upfront cost of 2k + the few extra per year to replace the coolant. Also I will only have 6k Watt at my disposal which is a bit low to take advantage of for example the C2 tank (the C1 being not interesting I think, to much work to setup and upfront cost, just for 1 unit). Thank you nonetheless Mikeywith for the idea.

Because of that and because I want a setup as quiet as possible, I will probably go for the D-central Loki edition units, which will also have the little pro side effect of heating my home. I will take probably 5 units (6k Watt) which I will dispatch across my apartment.

S19j pro or S19k pro is my current hesitation, as I would ROI the S19j pro on less than 2 years, and the S19k pro on a bit more than 2 years, but it will be profitable a bit longer. It seems quite similar with the setup Philipma suggested (s19 units downcloaked).

If you have any experience (durability, efficiency) with the two hashboards types (s19k pro / s19j pro) I would gladly take it, I think I've found that it's the same chips ? But not quite sure.

Thank you

[mikeywith]

I am not against what Philipma suggested, but there is one piece of information that might be missing when you buy a miner and then underclock it or run it with two hash boards you are basically paying a lot more for the same hashrate, if they gear costs you $1000 and you run two boards only, it would about $300 waste, that 30% or so loss might not be too noticeable if you already have a used gear sitting around or you found someone selling it locally for cheap, but if the gear is new and expensive than that difference might be enough to buy you the immersion cooling kit.

One thing to keep in mind as well is that the extra money you pay for silence is going to go to waste the moment you move to the next gear, whereby if you buy immersion cooling kits you would always be able to use it in the future, I think you should explore the smaller single-miner options like C1 from Foghashing, or Bitpod by DCX, those have very small dry coolers which you may be able to place inside the house to keep it warm, or connect it to your water supply to heat the water.

[JulioH]

That is a very close call, I had in mind that the immersion cooling kit would be an investment (it could probably be sold at the same price in 4 years if it's effectively reusable for the next gear, which I think is not a guarantee at all). I don't know yet what will be my situation in 4 years.

I have also the impression that the new gear seems to be sold at a premium price, in comparison with the old gear which barely nobody wants because it's non profitable for a majority of people. The space heaters are not made of new/expensive gear.

I'm really not confident with the dry cleaner inside but maybe i'm wrong, if I could see/hear it in person maybe I would change my mind but 65 DB inside is too much on paper.

Something that I didn't mention is that I may have to setup new wires/breakers for 3000+ Watt (20 amp minimum on 240v). I have some 20 amp but I'm not sure it's at the right place to put the immersion tank / miners. I don't have this problem with several 1200 Watt miners, it's more flexible.

For a first time mining, as I'm non experienced, I rather not start with immersion mining as it seems a bit more difficult to setup, and I feel more stuff can go wrong.

In short, there is a good chance for the immersion choice to be more profitable overall (same price/hashrate approximately but far more efficient) but the risks seem to me far higher.

[mikeywith]

As for putting the dry cooler inside, if it is heat related, it won't differ from just putting the miner with fans since it is the same heat, As for noise, I am sure the dry cooler would be a lot quieter than the small fans on the miner provided it has an EC fan (variable fan speed).

You are right in regards to the complexity level, it won't be as simple.

one thing you can try would be using inline fan, something like this https://youtu.be/8JJHSj-F0yI?si=SLk-Uj7HRZzcG0PO

The bottom line is this, to mine at home, you need a larger fan that spins at lower RPM.

[BitcoinSoloMiner]

Anyone ever seen someone plum a hydro s19 or similar into the radiator system? Might work? But maybe the radiator water corrodes the heatsink on miner? Or flow on the miner Heatsink is too restrictive?