Topic: Lets Share Ideas of Ways to Manage Heat From Mining in a Home or Warehouse - page 6. (Read 7201 times)

I was recently asked in a PM, "How are you calculating the cfm that is required of your exhaust system?  Or the number of air changes needed per hour?  Are you approximating it on a per gpu basis?  I can do the math from cfm of a fan to air changes per hour based the cubic feet of my mining room, but I'm not sure what goes into calculating the cfm or air changes per hour that my set up will require."

My response:

As for calculating the CFM required for exhaust, I have not done any such calculation(s).  I have no idea of number of air changes per hour.  If one wanted to know the number of air changes needed per hour, I believe they would ALSO have to decide WHAT TEMPERATURE would be the "mean temperature" they want to achieve in order to come up with an answer.

As for what "mean temperature" would be ACCEPTABLE for rigs to mine efficiently and/or effectively, that would also have to be determined by the operator.  It can be 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the room and the mining cards still mine fine.  However, I do not want the temps that high in the mining room.  Mainly for humans to be more comfortable [Temperature wise] in the house.

I'm shooting for mid to upper 80's [Fahrenheit] in the mining room with outside temps at 100 degrees Fahrenheit this summer.  That's with bringing in outside air with the intake fan.  Keep in mind, the outside air will be cooled as it is accelerated through the intake fan into the mining room.  Hence, the lower temperature in the room.  I would "accept" the ambient temp in the mining room in the 80's [Fahrenheit] this summer.  I would be "ecstatic" with those temps this summer.  That would put my GPU's in the low 50's to low 80's Celsius range [Depending on the GPU].  For example, my REFERENCE RX 480's already run at fairly high temps Celsius compared to GPU's with multiple fans.

I may be forced to get higher CFM intake and exhaust fans this summer.  I'm not sure yet.  Hence, the reason for your question(s) on calculating the CFM air changes per hour equation.  I've always been one to learn the hard way [Via experience] rather than by math in regards to temps in the mining room.  I'm "winging it" so to speak.    

With the mining room currently at 99 degrees Fahrenheit, my EVGA NVIDIA 1080 Ti rigs are at mid 60's to upper 70's [Depending on location of GPU].  Why am I saying, "...depending on location?"  My 1080 Ti rigs sitting on a rack with my newly designed fan frame for 12 x box fans are currently mid 60's.  While the other 1080 Ti's [With fans but NOT with newly designed fan frame] are mid to upper 70's Celsius.  It's only logical to conclude if I had the entire rack system of four (4) racks properly sealed with my new design of fan frames TO KEEP HEAT GENERATED BY THE RIGS FROM BEING SUCKED BACK INTO THE BOX FANS AND BLOWN BACK ONTO THE RIGS; the rigs would run much cooler.  The main reason the mining room is 99 degrees Fahrenheit currently is because racks are sitting out in the open with no new fan frames on them to SEAL in a HOT ISLE (area/room) to separate from a COOL ISLE (area/room).

By the way, when I said, "One would need to determine what mean temperature would be acceptable to them," I was referring to the COLD ISLE (area/room).

I currently have NO COLD ISLE (area/room).  All the air brought in from outside is currently being mixed with heat from the rigs and sucked into the box fans to blow on the rigs.  Hence, the reason for my design to seal off the outside air brought in via the intake fan FROM the heat generated by the rigs BY CONSTRUCTING the fan frames for each rack with properly sealed frames around each fan to keep heat from the HOT ISLE (area/room) from getting out into the COLD ISLE (area/room) and heating up the COLD ISLE (area/room) to make the air no longer COLD but warm or hot.  Which would get sucked back into the fans and onto the rigs.

Except for one circumstance.  Where you have a hot isle/area/room AND a cool isle/area/room.  Also, my intake and exhaust fans are 20 feet apart.  Meaning, the intake is not sucking in heat from the exhaust.  I'm currently creating the hot and cold isles in this remodel.

The fans are TPI Corporation; manufactured in Tennessee, United States.  https://www.tpicorp.com/uploads/2/2/3/3/22337256/electrical-f.pdf

I purchased mine on Amazon.  It is 30 inch in diameter and 7,800 CFM.  They make a yoke mount and stand mount.  I have two of them.  One for intake and one for exhaust.  They have worked 24/7/365 since September, 2014.  Very well made and durable fan.

What kind of exhaust fan are you using?  I had my airflow problem fixed in my head until someone pointed out that intake and exhaust shouldn't be through windows on the same wall.  Makes sense, it just didn't cross my mind until someone brought it up.

I think my new plan is to exhaust the heat through the ceiling into my attic.

Sure, Happy to document and allow others to learn from my experience with previous remodels and this remodel.  I want others to learn from my success and/or failures.

I can agree with you there.  However, because of how many rigs I have AND the layout of my mining room, I'm FORCED to do it the way I'm about to do it in order to keep the temps down in the mining room {And therefore the entire house}.

Great work OP! Thanks for documenting and sharing the photos with us.

I use a lot of those Lasko box fans. In my experience, the temps stay cooler buy placing the box fan above the rig blowing directly onto the GPU's. I find it's 2-5 degrees cooler that way instead of blowing the air from behind.

In this photo you see that 77"W x 72"H x 24"D rack I need to set back up in here.  I also need to take down that other small rack behind the door [Which will be used in the construction of the NEW cooling rack system.  A "lot" of stuff is on the shelves of that rack behind the door in which I'll need to find a place to put it away in the garage.  I already have seven racks for storage in the garage.  I suppose there might as well be 8 racks now.  ROFL. 

Just outside the French doors [Which is the entrance to the mining room] you see a heap of wood stacked on the floor from the OLD mining closet that I need to get put away in the garage:

Next on the agenda for tomorrow will be to clean out some other stuff against a wall to make room for setting up ANOTHER 77" W x 72" H x 24" D four shelf rack system.  I have a lot of plywood and 2"x4"x8' pieces of wood from the OLD mining closet I need to get out of this room to provide room for constructing the NEW rack system for proper cooling this summer.

Here are three photos to give you an idea of all the stuff I "must" get out of the way in order to construct the NEW cooling rack system for the three (3) remaining racks [One of which needs to be put back together]:

In this photo you see several sheets of plywood, 2x4's and a make-shift temporary table I had set up about two weeks ago when I was sitting in here proper clocking my new NVIDIA rigs for better power efficiency:

Well, I have the OLD mining closet dismantled [For the most part].  All that remains are some joists I made for the ceiling of the OLD mining closet.  I have not decided yet if I will take only a portion of those down or all of them down.

Yes, the power cords, PDU's and ethernet cords (Cat6) are a complete unmanaged mess.  However, it will look VERY organized and clean when I've completed this.  It's more important to me I keep everything mining at the moment to avoid losing revenue.  I'll get back to it again later this evening.

Cheers and Happy Mining!  

Thanks!  Much appreciated.  Still a work in progress.  Looking forward to completing it and sharing photos of it completed.

Yeah, I would be worried about it discharging on it's own without an actual need for it to do so.

Here is the extinguisher I have:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TPOU5O/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_23?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A30XU5Y510T9EB

Agreed. That's the best advice for heat management. You have to move the heat off the cards.



Love everything about your setup! I know fire risk is extremely low but I mounted one of these above my rigs the other day. However, now I think I'm more worried about it discharging than a fire - cleaning it up would be a mess.
https://www.amazon.com/Elide-fire-Purpos-Extinguisher-Self-activation/dp/B01H35HRR8/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1519136617&sr=1-2-spons&keywords=elide+fire+extinguisher+ball&psc=1

If you're wondering what's up with the black marks on the wall in the mining room, that was from painting these cast iron staircase spindles when it was raining outside a few years back.  I was going to paint that wall a different color anyway.  So, I thought, "why not... it's raining and I needed to get it done."

The temperatures were getting too hot in the OLD wooden mining closet when it was packed with 2 x racks having 5 shelves on each rack FULL of GPU's.  There were approximately 205 x GPU's inside that OLD mining closet at one time.

THEN, I later added ANOTHER rack outside the mining closet with another 77 x RX480 GPU's (11 x RX480 rigs).  I have a total of 13 x RX480 rigs.  The temperature REALLY got hot then.  That's when I decided I was desperately in need of another remodel.  Cause it would get up to 109 to 111 degrees Fahrenheit with all rigs running during the summer.  Which forced me to turn off about 6 rigs during the day time during the summer and back on during the evening.

My original design on the old closet was poor.  As it allowed heat to come around the top, bottom and sides of the fans and get sucked back into the fans; only to recirculate the heat back onto the rigs [Making them even hotter] AND THAT WOULD RECIRCULATE [Making it even hotter]; till it became like a convection oven.  That's when I came up with the design for the WALL OF FANS PERFECTLY SEALED AROUND EACH AND EVERY FAN to keep heat from coming around the tops, bottoms and sides of the fans.  I tested it on one rack of fans and checked the temperature on each rig and found to my amazement they ran MUCH COOLER.

Here's what the OLD design looked like without sealing the sides, tops and bottoms of the fans.  The fans were just sitting on top of 2x4's and not sealed at all to keep heat from coming around the back of the fans and getting sucked back in to blow on the rigs [Making them hotter and the room hotter].



A "WALL" of fans for EACH RACK will work MUCH better [In this next photo].  I used 1"x4" to rest each fan on in this frame.  I like the 1"x6" we used at my dad's place better.  So, I'm doing the remaining fan frames for the other racks in 1"x6" and using small 1 inch "L - Brackets" to hold the fans in the frames.



PERFECTLY SEALED around EACH fan:



A look from the other side of the wall of fans:



Those super hot temperatures last summer was when I made up my mind to dismantle the OLD and reconstruct a NEW closet that was much larger than the old one with 4 x racks having a wall of fans on each rack.

My Dad recently decided he wanted to get into crypto mining.  That's when I went over to his place and helped him build his according to my recommendations.  I'll make it to his place later on this week to get some rigs going that I gave to him from my place.  Because I added 11 x NVIDIA 1080 Ti rigs with 6 x 1080 Ti's per rig.  So, I gave him eight ( of my old R9 380 rigs with 6 cards per rig which were replaced by the 10 x 1080 Ti rigs.

The temperatures should work quite well this summer.  We'll know for sure when I complete it and summer arrives.  Although, I'm quite certain it's going to work this time after seeing the improvement to the temperatures of rigs I had placed on that rack with a NEW wall of 12 x 20" box fans perfectly sealed.

Yes, I had a smoke detector inside the old mining closet and one outside.  I will have 3 smoke detectors inside and 2 outside the NEW mining room when it's completed.  I also have a fire extinguisher designed specifically for electronic equipment to keep from ruining the hardware in the event of a fire.

I have one 30 inch in diameter 7,800 CFM fan for exhaust out of the mining room and one 30 inch in diameter 7,800 CFM intake for the mining room.  There will be a total of 42 x 20 inch box fans when it's completed.  Each one of those are approximately 1,800 CFM on high.  I will probably be able to run them on medium or low this summer.  At least that's what I'm hoping for.

I'm not scared at all with having them in a wooden mining room.  The only thing that will be wood in this NEW mining room will be the exterior shell of the room.  Because the interior guts will be metal racks and tile floor.  I will be adding small pieces of fire retardant sheetrock underneath each motherboard when I finish constructing the mining room.  Just to feel a little more at ease.  The good thing is I'm not running ASIC's in my mining room.  If I were, I would be more concerned about fire.

Super impressive mining room!!!

I curious, what is the temperature inside the room? You might have mentioned in in the posts somewhere but do the fans extract air from the room or blow air into the enclosed room?

Also as a security measure I presume you do run smoke detectors? I'm paranoid with my 3 card rig, I can only imagine you sleep very light enclosing all those cards in a wooden room?

Wow, no words, impressive to say the least!

One more view of that 48 inch wide rack that's full this time.  It wasn't the last time I posted a photo of it.  RX 480 8GB and Sapphire R9 Fury's on this rack mining ETH.

Quite a bit of the OLD mining closet has been dismantled.  I plan on getting supplies to start the NEW and finish up dismantling the OLD later this afternoon.  The black marks on the walls are where I painted staircase spindles while it was raining a few years back.

an image of the other rack just outside of the old wooden mining closet.  It has 5 more empty spaces for 5 more rigs.  Then I will simply box up the remaining rigs to setup after the old wooden closet is dismantled and the new LARGER mining room is constructed.

More accomplished last night in MY mining room.  I was able to remove 3 remaining rigs off a rack inside the old wood mining closet and placed on another rack just outside of it.  Then vacuumed the floor a bit.

I noticed this forum has been moved to a different board other than bitcoin mining; even though SOME bitcoin mining rigs will be included with this mining setup.  Oh well...

More updates with photos will hopefully be posted by Sunday.

Happy Mining!

Thanks for your kind comments, GbrilliantQ.  Much appreciated.

Yes, the fan frame with 12 x 20 inch box fans does a great job getting the heat away from the rigs.  However, I've found it's extremely important to have everything sealed in to create a hot isle and cold isle [So to speak].  In this case; a hot room (area) and cold room (area).  It's also important to have the means of getting out the heat in the hot room (area) with a proper exhaust fan.

When I've completed the 3 x 80 inch wide fan frames and 1 x 48 inch wide fan frame for a total of four racks [With everything sealed in properly, I'm hoping my current 7,800 CFM fan used for exhaust will be enough to suck the heat out of the hot room (area).  I'll know when I check my thermometers inside the hot room (area) and cold room (area).  It may be I will have to upgrade my exhaust and intake from 7,800 to 16,000 CFM.  Time will tell...

Yes, it's cool seeing my dad finally getting involved in crypto.  He will see how addictive mining can be soon enough.  He's still kind of cautious in regard to the ability of mining being able to provide extra income.  I think what has him more cautious at the moment is his concern about the U.S. government possibly coming down on crypto in the future.  I believe we'll be fine in that regard.  Only time will tell...

Thanks for dropping by...

NOTE TO OTHERS WHO VISIT THIS FORUM:

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE YOUR MINING ROOM AND/OR THOUGHTS WITH TIPS AND PHOTOS.  THE MORE THE COMMUNITY LEARNS AND SHARES WITH ONE ANOTHER THE BETTER CRYPTO WILL BE SECURED.

Cheers and Happy Mining.