Topic: Acoustic Insulation for Mining Rigs (Read 375 times)

I believe, Ivanko88. 
Sometimes you don't need complicated things to get the desired results.

But of course it will be good to see this test, because it will certainly help more users.

The noise most miners make is consistent.

Get two layers of plasterboard inside a dedicated room, with a 2.5cm air gap between, and then observe the results.

it actually is that simple.

and as for new houses and acoustic problems, thats because they are dealing with different noise frequency ranges outside... such as a car beeping, a lawnmover, radio sets, neighbours shouting... the noise miners make is a different frequency range.

anyway when I have time I will make a video using my Decibel meter from inside the miner room, then outside the plasterboard setup, then outside the entire room.

I have a mixture of miners, S17+, Ebang, Avlon, GPU...

It's not that simple.

I understand that it works in most cases and for what it is intended for. But if it were that simple, many of the new constructions of houses would not have as many acoustic problems as they do (where neighbors hear each other from one side to the other). 

You wont need 4 boards ontop of each other... and even still lets say you did, they are 1.25cm thick. so you lose 5cm one wall 5cm the other wall... negligible....
Its a much better idea than overpaying for these materials the companies like to claim "Took 10 years of NASA super conductor research" which then lets them justify the £200 per sqm price tag.

£5 sqm plasterboard beats any of that overhyped rubbish.

If you did a setup of bedroom wall - 2cm airgap - 12.5mm plasterboard - 2cm air gap - 12.5mm plasterboard. you will most likely be more than happy... and you can add more miners to the room as you please without having to spend silly money on custom materials

Furthermore, acoustics is a very scientific field, different materials effect different pitches and the rest of it.

The only disadvantage of this technique is that it shrinks the space of the room. Especially if you have to place more than 4 boards on top of each other.

But if you want to make it extremely cheap, you always have the egg cartons, which don't seem like it, but even have an interesting soundproofing effect.

Instead of all these special materials and boxes etc, the better and most cost effective way is to use plasterboards and build room inside room...and if its not enough dbi reduction? then put another set of boards, until you get the rating you need...

in the UK its £10 for 1.2m x 2.4m board... you can do avg whole room for £100 - £150.

https://www.wickes.co.uk/Knauf-Plasterboard-Square-Edge---12-5mm-x-1-2m-x-2-4m/p/104123

minimizing the sound generated from the mining rig will be important .
read an article sometime back today on some locals from a new Zealand town complaining and protesting against a new mining company.

There is insufficient time to map out several solutions, but there are a couple of things I would do first.

Measure the acoustic spectra.  Audio analysis software which runs on a cellphone will do it adequately.  The microphone is adequate, and most cellphones have enough CPU to do a 4096 or better FFT.  Once you know how much energy you have, and at what frequencies, you can start to design an enclosure

My guess is that you will have little energy at 120 or even 360 Hz, because most sound enclosures are targeting motors and motor generators and hydraulic pumps. 

My guess is that the bulk of your energy will be above 1 kHz.  Looking at the noise of my server, next to me, which is not as loud and has slower fans, etc. it has bimodal peaks at 1500 Hz and 3800 Hz.  So I would pick materials and an enclosure to maximally attenuate those frequencies.  My guess is that a polyurethane foam works well.  Like to stuff used in packing material.  In fact I would start with used packing foam sheets, because they are free.  I am talking about the stuff which has hills and valleys cut into it.

Good luck.  If you have more questions, ask.  I have taught acoustics at the university level.

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The main things to keep in mind is that:
a) for all intents and purposes the spaces between the sound baffles are air ducts and air flow through them must be calculated. Those 90-deg bends will introduce considerable resistance to the airflow so include that.

b) remember that you are calculating the airflow rate as in CFM or M³/min. The air velocity should be kept very low as velocity is what drastically increases airflow resistance through ducts and around corners.

There should be scads of calculators found online. Just search for "calculating HVAC duct airflow"

Exactly. This aspect has to be carefully calculated in order to get a suitable location for the situation we have.

The graphic shows an exhaust fan that pulls in cool air while exhausting the hot air. Just no true indication of the size which of course all depends on the heat load.

No more!
It's not enough to just add cool air to the cabin. Because sooner or later the air ends up getting stale, and fresh air can come out instead of hot air.

The air must be circulated. You have to force the hot air out. And the best way to do it is to force the entry of air, in the place where the hot air is. This will cause the hot air to move downwards or to the opposite location so that it comes out the right place.

Bearing in mind that we are working with two important elements: air circulation; acoustic conditioning. It is necessary to balance the two things in order to make the structure viable.


In large halls, in addition to the acoustic element no longer being so important, the cooling is done using air extractors.

Yes it does but -- in confined space forced air systems the layout shown is correct. What they are doing by feeding the cooler air upwards at one end of the enclosure is sweeping the hot air from above and forcing it downwards at the end to give a more or less circular airflow inside the enclosure to avoid creating dead spots. They are also relying on the motor fan to provide horizontal airflow towards the inlet side of the box where it hits the wall and moves up to mix with the cooler inlet airflow.

Note that the design is only for small(ish) enclosed layouts - not large layouts with aisles of server/miner racks. Once you dealing with rooms full of gear the airflow's are radically different.

Simple fact, you can't enclose normal miners.
They need air flow, and air flow doesn't go through sound proof walls.

Even liquid cooled miners require some heat outlet.

... and 'STRUCTURE OF RIG" is wrong.
Hot air goes up ...

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I will post about this problematic as soon as possible.

I know that we can do something about noise

Since this is certified material, prices are not low. Depending on the models, the plates are between 1 and 2 square meters.
The price per square meter can be around 80~150$.

The final cost will depend on the area you want to isolate. If it is a small rig, maybe a plate will be enough.

Do you have price information for these insulators since the company website is not listing them? I'm guessing most of these are going for $15 for 12pcs given that's what other insulators are selling for in retail, but depending on the quality some of these could be more expensive.

You might be able to double-insulate say a small enclosure containing 3 or 4 miners for a few hundred bucks.

I will post in on this.

I will limit it to a one miner setup an s17 pro

it does 55th at 1850 watts with vanish firmware.

and it does 50th at 1750 watts.

this allows slower fans.

if you are willing to lower hash to 36th it will do 900 watts and have slow fans.
it is under 60db. I would argue it is the way to go .

I lean a piece of plywood against my garage wall.


   / l
  /. l and i am under 50db I added a movers blanket and I am at 45db

Since this is BTC only, I assume you are talking about ASIC miners noise, while I do like the topic and I do think that to some degree that loud noise can be reduced, I would advise against mining for anyone that thinks the noise is an issue, if you have to worry about the noise then you will cripple your "racing horse", people have no idea how tight profits in mining are, they google the "revenue for x miner" and expect things to work so great, which is not how it works, I am pretty sure the majority of small miners end up losing money, I believe most of us here agree to that.

Buying a mining gear at a reasonable price is no longer an option, adding an extra cost for cooling and then sound suppression materials will simply shift the odds against you even further, you want to keep your business cost as low as possible if you want to stand a chance of making a profit on your investment.

Mining rigs need a good cooling system to keep equipment at an adequate temperature. The higher the rig, the more cooling is required, causing an increase in noise. When the rig is close to a house, the noise can become unpleasant or uncomfortable, especially if it affects others who are not involved in mining. Therefore, it is important to create good insulation to reduce this noise impact.

This topic presents some ideas of sound insulation, which can be used in mining rigs. The topic was developed based on information collected from the manufacturer AMC Mecanocaucho (I have no connection to this company).


NOISE LEVEL

The first thing to analyze is the noise level of the place. The ideal is to keep this level below 60db.
A mining rig, depending on the refrigeration equipment used, can easily reach 80db, requiring a reduction of up to 20db. But it is not enough to just reduce the db, it is necessary to choose the appropriate insulation for the type of noise frequency.

This company offers an application that allows you to analyze the noise level of a space, and thus have a sense of how many db are recommended to be reduced and which equipment to use.
You can see more details here.


SOUNDPROOFING
Here are some isolation models, which can help to reduce 10 ~ 20db, the noise of a space.
Find the full list here.

__________________________________________	_______________________________________________________________________________ MODEL PD Perforated PVC coating and insulating polyurethane foam. Ideal for the interior of soundproofed or vehicle cabins, good insulation. Available in colors: Beige; White; Black Reduction level (estimated value): PD-15mm 10db PD-25mm 8db PD-40mm 18db Technical details.
__________________________________________	_______________________________________________________________________________ MODEL PF Black fabric film and insulating polyurethane foam. Ideal for the interior lining of soundproofed or vehicle cabins, good insulation. Reduction level (estimated value): PF-15mm 11db PF-25mm 12db PF-40mm 11db Technical details.
__________________________________________	_______________________________________________________________________________ MODEL AGLO Perforated PVC coating and 150 Kg/m3 density agglomerated polyurethane foam. Ideal for the interior lining of soundproofed or vehicle cabins, good insulation. Reduction level (estimated value): AGLO D-20mm 23db AGLO D-40mm 23db AGLO FAR-20mm 21db AGLO FAR-40mm 18db Technical details.
__________________________________________	_______________________________________________________________________________ MODEL FD Perforated PVC coating and M-1 flame retardant insulating polyurethane foam. Ideal for covering the interior of soundproofed or vehicle cabins, good insulation and insulation with fireproof behavior M-1. Reduction level (estimated value): FD-15mm 13db FD-25mm 11db Technical details.
__________________________________________	_______________________________________________________________________________ MODEL FAR Black woven fabric film and M-1 flame retardant insulating polyurethane foam. Ideal for covering the interior of soundproofed cabs or vehicles, good insulation and insulation with fireproof behavior M-1. Reduction level (estimated value): FAR-15mm 10db FAR-25mm 10db Technical details.
__________________________________________	_______________________________________________________________________________ MODEL FARM Black fabric film, M-1 flame retardant polyurethane foam and heavy viscoelastic mass of 5kg/m2. Ideal for covering the interior of soundproofed cabs or vehicles, good insulation, insulating with good behavior flame retardant M-1 and damping blade that increases mass and dampens vibrations. Reduction level (estimated value): FARM-15mm 12db FARM-25mm 13db Technical details.
__________________________________________	_______________________________________________________________________________ MODEL PDM Perforated PVC coating, insulating polyurethane foam and heavy viscoelastic mass of 5kg/m2. Ideal for the interior of soundproofed cabs or vehicles, good insulation and with damping blade which increases the mass and dampens vibrations. Reduction level (estimated value): PDM-15mm 12db PDM-25mm 12db PDM-40mm 20db Technical details.
__________________________________________	_______________________________________________________________________________ MODEL PFM Black fabric film, insulating polyurethane foam and heavy viscoelastic mass of 5kg/m2. Ideal for the interior of soundproofed cabs or vehicles, good insulation and with damping blade which increases the mass and dampens vibrations. Reduction level (estimated value): PFM-15mm 14db PFM-25mm 14db PFM-40mm 14db Technical details.
__________________________________________	_______________________________________________________________________________ MODEL PT Self-extinguishing polyurethane honeycomb foam. Thermal insulation, good sound insulation and decorative aspect. Reduction level (estimated value): PT-30mm 8db PT-50mm 8db Technical details.
__________________________________________	_______________________________________________________________________________ MODEL PT FIREPROOF Alveolar M-1 flame retardant melamine foam. Thermal insulation, fireproof M-1 behavior, very good acoustic insulation and decorative appearance. Reduction level (estimated value): PT-30mm IGNIFUGO 9db PT-50mm IGNIFUGO 10db Technical details.

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STRUCTURE OF RIG
Another important thing in mining rigs is the air flow. The space must be well ventilated, for fresh air to enter and equipped with a hot air extractor. But these openings can cause the noise to spread, despite the insulation that can be used.


That is why it is essential to place the air inlet and outlet, in an area or opposite direction where people may be. Ideally, the openings are at the top, in an area with a large volume of air. The inlet and outlet openings, created for ventilation, must use insulating material. If possible, installing double walls will also help to reduce the noise generated by ventilation.

For more tips on this subject, you can see here.


I hope this information is helpful.