Topic: I am thinking of a contest. Convert an S-1 into a space heater. (Read 2318 times)

Yeah I am Independent miner operating from my home.

 I just think it is a good idea to have this  contest. It will help BTC/alt coin growth in an area anyone can understand and use.

I also would like to see others ideas .  And I have made enough to give back the 400usd in total prize money to the community.

Well given the usual disclaimer "Warning: Moderators do not remove likely scams. You must use your own brain: caveat emptor. Watch out for Ponzi schemes. Do not invest more than you can afford to lose."

Then IMO your only issue is whether this is the right section really, as long as you disclaim any connection with Bitcointalk.

Oh and by the way here is the link to undervolting


https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/guide-undervolt-antminer-s1-119wgh-at-the-wall-526060

This pretty much will be a factor in this contest.  Since getting the best watt to hash ratio allows for the longest running.


 In the mean time   look at the hot deals thread I came up with.




https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.6491363


If you grabbed the  evga 1300 watt psu  at under 175 and grab the dlink 8 port switch  you could be on your way to a design.   Please post any hot deals you find.

combining that thread with this thread may make a case with 3 s-1s that would win easy.

 I am making an effort to  push an extra reason for mining.

Down the road maybe in Oct or Nov I will do a gridseed contest  but that is a long time from now.

  That is second reason for the delay.  Ending it June 30th gives people time to convert it for the fall.  Most of us will find the s-1s need to be downclock / and under volted by mid July..

  Since they will be off line for the pencil mod  why not set them up to space heat at the same time..


  I am hoping for 30 to 40 entries at  the least.

If only you could do ac also lol

Cheers Deja,

I'd only been looking on fleabay for ones already in the UK.

They're 0.55 BTC on the bitmain site, includes Worldwide delivery but plus the dreaded VAT, customs etc (£60ish maybe?).

Still gonna be less than the £400-450 you're talking about, maybe even half

Hth

This contest  will be delayed Until June 1st.  I have 5 s-1's in house and I have looked at when I need to down clock Diff need to be at 20 since it is at 8 or so I do not want to down clock .  I am sure many other are in the same boat.  But that by June 1 we will be closer to 20 mill and down clocking s-1s will be needed to be done. 

So I will run the contest for 30 days June 1st until June 30th.


1st prize is 250 usd.

2nd prize is  100 USD

3RD prize is 50 usd.


Keep in mind the idea is to make this easy for others to copy. 

  No in fact ideas of loose blades are welcome.   I am trying to restrict this to a max power circuit that is standard. Plus Shock/short safety.

 Here in the USA a standard circuit is 15 amps 120 volts = 1800 watts x 75 % for safety = 1350 watts

   Thus the limits to a single 1300 watt psu.
   Or two 750 watt psu's .

   And the 1 to 5 s-1 limit.  5 under clocked s-1's will not pull more then 1200-1300 watts.

I like the separate the blade idea.  

 One of my factors it awarding the prizes are the idea works and people will copy it.

Still waiting on a moderators approval on this idea.  I do not want it to be ended as a not approved idea by the moderators.

And I want to locate this in the correct part of the forum.

Great idea,

I had already made my mind up to keep my S1 and use it to help heat my conservatory in winter, so this is damn handy.
When the price for them drops I'll get a second one (£400-450 currently for a S1 even second hand is a tad steep here in the UK, given the limited time to get any return).

Do the blades have to stay in the current chassis?

yes. Im looking at wrong column

  the time is the same..

  you are looking at return I am looking at profit ie does the machine out earn the power cost.

first one I below I put in 280 cash and used 20%  jumps  with a 140gh 200 watt s-1 in August it stops paying for power






second one I put in 280 cash and used 15% diff jumps with a 140gh 200 watt s-1 in mid Sept.

This could be done with a stirling engine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4LIO_xs1es

The time is alot quicker when you adjust the hardware price to $280 instead of 70

  So basically being able to convert your s-1's into  heater kit is worth it at summers end.  Running the contest now gives all current owners of s-1's a chance to plan the conversion.

A 2x or 3x s-1 in a decent case underclocked /undervolted running with lower speed fans is well worth  owning for a space heater.  Time to start your planning for this is now.

at 15% percent   the undervolted under clocked  s-1 stops earning its power use in sept

I understand this line of thinking.

I have BFL hardware, that I do actually expect to barely remain profitable into the summer, due to BTC price rising, but after that it's definitely a "space heater"

So I'm thinking of some kind of frame with a handle on top, that holds 2 or 3 miners, exhausts pointed say 45 degrees, made to sit on floor, simple portable unit you can move round the house. Also yes, either got to find slower less noisy fans or slow down the stock ones.

For the BFLs I have an extra problem in that there is no onboard host, so I will be thinking of modding a router, for a small easily powered device with wifi.

So, maybe for "heat control" I'd do something like strip a scrollwheel out of a mouse and somehow use the cgminer or bfgminer API to use that to set thermal throttle threshold of the miner... but not sure if that will work on ants.

One thing though, the price of natural gas is supposed to go up large. I had calculated it as worth about 2 cents a kilowatt, if it is around 4 cents a kilowatt going into winter next year, and you're paying 8 cents a kilowatt for electricity, basically if you use/deploy the heat efficiently your miners are only costing 4 cents a kilowatt to run, displacing 4c worth of gas use. So they might only have to cover "half" their electricity use, for people who normally have gas heat. If you're heating with electricity anyway, even early avalon machines are as "efficient" at making heat as a bar fire or space heater so, may as well run them.

 

No timing is perfect ..    look at the following:


will post later  at 20 percent diff rise an underclocked undervolted s-1 stops paying for its power use in Aug.

Shock safety.

It's easy to split to take a piece of speaker wire or 16/18/20 awg wire, strip the end so you have exposed conductor.  Crimp on ring or spade terminal on both ends.   Crimper and terminals are  available at your local automotive hardware store or hardware store like Home Depot.

Connect one end of ground wire to S1's metal chassis (check and see if you need to make some bare metal exposed), and secure with metric screw (haven't checked it out whether it's actually metric size).  Connect the other end of the wire, and secure to the ATX power supply.  Usually one of the chassis mounting hole is available.  If not, a little dremel sanding can get you a nice clean metal to secure to.

Voila.  A semi-working ground.

*I am too lazy to calculate possible fault current.  You do the home work.   

For S1's waste heat, warm exhaust goes to keeping the indoor garden warm.  Especially the Thai basil and hot pepper.  Yumm.

The space heater heats humans and plants.  No modification required.