What is a good ambient temp to aim for? Is there efficiency gains below a certain point?
Sorry for the noob questions.
The BitMain PSU's are fine but are happier at higher voltages (220-240v is good). If you have a few of them you'll experience a higher MTBF rate than with something like an EVGA 1600, and as far as warranty service is concerned they are hardly worth the time and expense to send back to be fixed, so while the price is cheap, you should price in keeping a spare or two around. Based on the APW3's we've used my feeling is that they are designed for a service life of probably around 12 months.
Miners seem to like to mine at a sweet spot ambient temperature of around 65-75F. We have the fewest problems in this range. Below that static electricity can be a real issue. An S9 will mine happily up to around 90F, but to prolong service life I recommend 70F. During hot weather periods we start to have issue with machines once ambient gets to around 95F and above. Disconnects, wonky controller issues, lost hash boards, etc. It used to be at lower temps you could mess around with overclocking a bit, but with the autotune miners lower temperatures don't really influence efficiency gains beyond that there should be less down time across the board. We don't notice any difference in frequency set between 70 and 90 degrees F. The yield for each miner will vary anyway, sometimes widely. We have 13.5 autotune S9's from the same batch right next to each other on the rack were one will average 12.9 and another will average 13.8 and another 14.2 at the same ambient temperature and humidity conditions. The best way to increase efficiency (by a percent or two) is with Titanium rated PSU's running at 208-240v.