Topic: My first mining project / mini-farm (Read 2943 times)

The mining farm you created just for bitcoin mining is really awesome. If I have such opportunities, I will definitely create a firm to mine bitcoins like this. Now only I am trying to learn about mining.

The setup you have created for mining is really great. Anyone will love this mining setup of yours. You may think your mining setup is a small mining setup but it is not a small mining setup at all it is enough. There are many who want to do mining like this, they will definitely be inspired by you. Wish you all the best in your mining journey and hope you can manage your mining operations from here.

Well, my energy cost varies and I wouldn't want to put it here. I will say my farms are all on sites that generate electricity, and that is a big factor in the price per kWh that I pay.

As for consumption, at this farm I am running 36 x S21 and T21, which is about 130kW total with the fans. 3.1 MW per day, 94 MW over a 30-day period.

I don't sell Bitcoin unless I have to. I'm running around 200 rigs total, and I happened to get into mining at a very good time (shortly before the last halving, when coins were around $7000). Following the halving, over the course of several months, Bitcoin price exploded to 6x / 7x what it was when I got into it. I took out several large fiat loans to get into mining, but was able to pay them off in under a year (due to the explosion of Bitcoin price). Since then, I only buy new miners with BTC, so I have no outstanding loan payments to make - only the rent (which is peanuts as they are derelict buildings) and energy cost (which is low due to locations). So I sell bitcoin to cover costs, and also when I want something nice for myself But otherwise, my plan is to hold for long-term and watch it grow.

I'm not sure there is any system that could prevent a farm from catching fire, however this is an area I am currently thinking more about. My line of thought so far is that it would be beneficial to have some kind of suppression system that cuts power to the miners and fans via a contactor (e.g. when fire alarm is triggered) - but also Co2 extinguishers with heat activation (I have some in the engine bay of my yacht, they have a glass bulb that breaks at a certain temperature, causing the extinguisher to fully discharge).

I'm interested in the commercial component, if it's not a commercial secret.
What is the total monthly consumption (kW or MW) of your mining rig?
How much does 1 kW of energy cost you? Are you likely to pay industrial/commercial rates?
Do you immediately sell the mined bitcoins to cover current expenses or hold it until it can be sold at a favorable rate?

Have you provided a fire extinguishing (warning) system to prevent the mining farm from catching fire?

oooooooooohhhhhhhhhh, that looks sooo HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This question was asked, and answered earlier in the thread I'd estimate this setup was approx. $8000 for everything except the miners, however I did the electrical work myself so you'd probably need to allow an extra $1500 - $2000 if you needed an electrician.

So, assuming you were making a similar setup today, $100k would get you:

$10,000 - similar setup to mine including labour
$90,000 - lots of options here (depending on your available power and cost):

   * 64 x S19KPro - 120T
   * 27 x S21 - 188T
   * 23 x S21 - 200T
   * 32 x T21 - 190T

You would need a large commercial electricity supply though. I have 200A 3-phase 240V, which was already in the premises before I started mining. If you had to have a big supply like that installed, I imagine it would add several thousand $ to the setup cost

Damn, I am jealous of your set up, I wonder if I can pull something this similar off on my own, I am still rocking Asic miners tilll today, I don't have such an idea to run more than 5 Asic miners but I am looking forward to that day.

I think it will be in 2026, I plan to go big on good numbers of Asic miners at the time I am curious though about how much this must have cost you, apart from the Asics how much have you spent on cooling components alone?

I need this information just to get me prepared, I believe that I will have an extra $100,000 in 2025 to start or risk on a Bitcoin mining farm, I wanted to do this for a long and I dont want to leave this world behind without fulfilling my dream.

To the experts in the house, what can $100,000 do in terms of building a Bitcoin mining farm? Or how can one spend this in a very smart way on Bitcoin mining?

The supply at this address is 240V / 200A 3-Phase. The distribution board in the photos is rated for 250A, however it is fused at 160A at the supply end (due to using a 50mm cable). I have a second (smaller) distribution board in the mining room (not photographed) to spread load.

The 2.5mm cables were ESSENTIAL. I fitted 1.5mm cables first, they overheated (which is why I upgraded to 2.5mm). Bear in mind these were only for my Whatsminers which have only one power input, therefore you are delivering all power for the miner through one cable (vs. 2 x cables with old Antminers). I used 1mm flex cables for my Antminers. The Whatsminers draw up to 3700w each.

You should also consider cable length when calculating appropriate cable size. The longer the cable length, the more voltage-drop - so where 1.5mm cable might be fine for a 3m run, it may not be ok for a 25m run etc.

As for old rigs, they've all been replaced since this post was made (4 years old now)! It's just at the top of the forum because I fixed some missing photo links recently. I'm running S21 / T21 at this farm now.

it will fix itself maybe by April 2 as you will be here for 2 weeks.

keep posting.


takes 30 days according to this.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.63880748

Thanks philip, but im still classed as a newbie account. 

I gave you a merit you should not be a newbie any more

It's more affordable than other building materials, but it can also contribute to spreading the fire fast ^{[no matter how flawless our setups appear, we shouldn't rule it out (unfortunately)]}...

• e.g. The wood frame that's supposed to act as a divider between the hot and cold sides with the help of the somewhat combustible insulation board, scares me ^{[especially since it's next to the mining rack]}.

Brilliant - thank you! Photos updated and all working again.

P.s. interested to know why you have "mixed feelings" about wooden structures?

It has or rather had something to do with "Imgur's imposed limits on IPs" and to put a stop to this recurring issue ^{[at the time]}, "theymos decided to also put a limit" on Imgur's embedded images.
^{- It's worth mentioning that you can post direct Imgur links without any issues.}

Alternatively, you can show them the "archived link" instead.

Use another image hosting to reupload/repost them: e.g. TalkImg.com - Image hosting for BitcoinTalk

---

BTW, I quickly went through some of the images and honestly, I have mixed feelings about wooden structures ^{[will take a better look when you reupload them]}.

Could someone advise why my images no longer show in this post? I want to send this to someone I've sold some miners to (to help them build their first hot/cold setup).

The images have not been removed at the source site (imgur).

What do I need to do to fix this so images show again?

49c is very hot.

s9's have after market software. Braiins +

You can clock the s9's down to 1000 watts set the fans to 95%. and still get about 12.4 th from them

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/braiins-os-braiins-os-custom-asic-firmware-optimize-performance-efficiency-5036844

do it for the 3 hottest months.

So I think assuming 270cfm would be a safe number. Assuming I have this number, for 50 miners that would be 270 x 50 = 13,500cfm. Assuming every miner burns 1450W, I saw an online calculator to calculate the W to BTU/hr which is 1W=3.412BTU/hr ( I don't know if this is correct.) So 1450W x 50 x 3.412 = 247,370 btu/hr. I don't know if this is correct or not.

But if anybody knows how to calculate to get rid of this heat please help me. In the summer the ambient temperature here reaches upto about 49 degree Celsius sometimes.

Since the dimensions of the fan are identical to 17/19 series, you 'could' assume 250cfm (500 / 2), however it's just a guestimate.

Do you happen to know how much is expelled by the antminer s9?

I'd estimate this cost about £6000 GBP to install and setup (everything apart from the miners). That's around $8000 USD

As well as calculators to convert watts/kwatts to BTU so you have an idea of the heat load miners produce.

For me it's pretty simple, because my farms are situated in a relatively cool climate (temperatures are rarely over 30 deg here in summer) - and most of the year in the 10-20 degrees range. I just made sure that my extractor fans were capable of moving more air than the miners would exhaust. Obviously it's important to ensure adequate intake also.

For 17 / 19-series Bitmain, expect up to 500cfm of expelled air per miner (credit @philipma1957).

So if you're running 20 of the above, your exhaust fans need to be capable of moving 10,000cfm (20 x 500). You should consider also that the exhaust fans may lose efficiency over time (e.g. as dust builds up on the blades) so it would be sensible practice to allow a margin on top of this (so 10,000cfm + 15% = 11,500cfm for 20 miners).

Depending on the country, the fan capacity may be quoted differently e.g. meters per minute or meters per hour - but there are plenty of calculators and formulas online to convert into cfm.

Can you share the calculation for the airflow of the room? I'm planning to do a familiar farm.
But mine will have some swamp coolers (since my area reaches outside ambient temperature of upto 48 deg Celsius in the summer).

Hmmm, I hope you're wrong about the extension cables - I have used these in 4 small farms now without issues. The cables in this particular installation have been running constantly since April 2020. They are rated at 10A / 2300W each = 4600W per pair. Deduct 20% for constant load / safety = 3680W per pair, running 3250W load.

The Whatsminers are a different matter though, they pull up to 3700W at 240v. Initially, I installed 1.5mm cable which did overheat - but later upgraded to 2.5mm cable.

I am very impressed with your electrical supply.

Very important note for you, off-the-shelf extension cables could be very risky. I only have two GPU based miners placed in my house. These beasts takes up 1800 watt of input. I have also connected them directly to the electrical grid meter (thats what they call it in India) from where direct electricity can be drawn. I have one breaker in between.

However, over the period of time C13-C14 do not support the heating. I had incidence where my whole extension board burnt to dust. I am not sure how common is tis problem but my experience was horrible.

I have switched to heavy duty wiring now for the room where I have installed miners.

But considering your safety checks, I see myself next to zero in my set up. Lolz. 

Fans are pretty cheap, and since you have free power then you wouldn't worry much about the tiny amount of power they will consume running on higher RPM, so during summer time you might want to increase the fan-speed keep them static at say 90-100%, this is what I do to go through hot summer days, remember that you have some of the lowest quality gears (17 series) those have a very bad solder paste and high temps will eventually and easily break them, it's great to have gears of such size but the downside is that if you happen to lose a board then that's a lot of hashrate gone with the wind.



Thanks a lot for the information guys, I think I now have a better understanding about these insulation boards, I will try to source them locally.

Thank you - although it's not at home I rent some old wartime bomb bunkers (for storing professional fireworks) on a site that is now a windfarm. I am well connected with the site owners (pun not intended). They've allowed me to rent some other disused buildings on the site for hardware storage, and power is basically free but limited to the size of the supplies in the buildings - (so I can't just go putting in huge bitcoin mines)... But it works nicely for small setups like this and the site is secure.

On a VERY hot day, and just once so far, the Whatsminers threw up some error codes for PSU protection, and when you look up the error code in documentation it says "check operating temperatures" or something like that, but they never cut out and the errors just disappeared when it got cooler.

That is a very neat job mate. Takes a lot of skill and guts to put something together of that size, and at home.

Lucky you have good power costs.

What sort of temps are you getting on the miners, any problems with them stopping during heat spikes?

@ Danieleither nice work

Mikeywith here are links to boards  I  don't know sellers other then usa lowes

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Common-1-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-Actual-0-9375-in-x-3-875-ft-x-7-875-ft-R-Expanded-Polystyrene-Foam-Board-Insulation/3365576
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/5-Years-Warranty-Insulation-Foam-Board_62409612287.html
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-density-closed-cell-PIR-rigid_62526770985.html
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Roof-and-wall-thermal-insulation-material_1600078186987.html

Funnily enough - yes I learned a lot from your post, but didn't fancy the idea of using MDF for the divider (glutton for punishment there) - that does sound like hard work! I saw another post elsewhere where they had used the insulation board material that I used. Also, I saw on a YouTube video (VoskCoin channel) a large commercial mining farm which also uses insulation board for this same purpose. It is literally perfect and so easy to work with. I think the original manufacturer / inventor is a company called Recticel but there are many others that manufacture it. 'Quinn' is another manufacturer. Not sure which country you are but try searching for 'Recticel insulation board' / 'Europhane board' / 'Europhane' / 'insulation board' / 'PIR board' / 'Polyisocyanurate board' (those are the search terms I'd try).


It's approx 110kw total. The wiring gets hot on a hot day, but nothing to worry about... The supply cable is XLPE which is rated for 90deg. I have a thermal thermometer gun which I use to keep an eye on everything. The supply cable has never gone above 70deg, and the individual miner cables seldom go above 55deg (rated up to 70deg). Typically the miner fan RPMS are around 2000-2400 on the antminers, and around 3000rpm on the Whatsminers - which is a good sign the airflow is excellent.

With the first set of fans I used, I found they were only effective when the air was cool-to-warm outside. On hot days, the miners increased their own fan speeds, which in turn increased the amount of airflow going into the 'hot' room. Eventually the airflow exceeded the CFM of the extractor fans, at which point everything went downhill fast. But the new extractor fans I've fitted are much higher quality with almost 60% increased CFM, which is enough to deal with every miner on full RPM (which never happens now).

Did you just copy-paste my mini-farm? that is mining plagiarism, ya like the split-room was my idea anyway.  

Such a neat set-up you got right there, very well done, I should send you some merit as soon as my bag is filled.

I wish I could find those 25mm insulation boards where I live, do they have a more common name? like a material name or something, I am stuck with MDF sheets that are hard to cut, I have to use a CNC machine to get the wholes close to perfect and it still end up a bit off.

What is the total power consumption at the moment? 90-100kw ? Make sure your 3 phases are balanced to avoid getting into troubles, also wait for a hot day to come by and test all wires' temperature to see if they are warm / hot, I became paranoid after the last incident and the new farm has over-sized wiring to avoid any unplanned fireworks.

I would like to share some images, specs and info from my first mining project. I am very pleased with how it’s turned out and how well it works – all from knowledge and advice picked up here on the Bitcointalk forum. I hope it will be useful for others planning a small setup, and / or interesting for those that share my enthusiasm for amateur Bitcoin mining. I'm now working on my 3rd project / installation, so at some point I'll upload a similar post for projects 2 and 3!

It’s a split-room design which is essentially 2 rooms, a ‘cold’ room which houses the miners / shelving / infrastructure, and a ‘hot’ room which the miners exhaust into. This helps to keep the miners cool and prevents hot air being circulated back through the miners. Air intake to the cold room is filtered to help prevent dust and moisture ingress. This design is good for equipment lifespan, but also helps with general efficiency as the miners consume less power when running cooler. This also makes for a more comfortable work environment, since the temperature is cool and the miners run relatively quiet (since the fans aren’t spinning fast).

It is currently running at 2600 TH/s (2.6PH), but will be around 3.2PH in August (when my next order of gear ‘should’ have arrived). I am currently running a combination of Whatsminer M31S+ and Antminer 17 series, however the 17 series are being upgraded to S19 Pros in a few weeks.

The setup is in a basement below ground level. Historically, the room housed a coal-fired boiler and was also used for storing coal. It has 2 x convenient coal delivery hatches which I now use for air extraction.





Initially I used 4 x 400mm / 16” fans, however I later upgraded these to larger and higher quality 450mm / 18” fans due to a miscalculation of airflow. I mounted the fans onto 18mm MDF which is strong but very easy to work with. I installed a lintel (support beam) and cut an access hatch into the brickwork (visible in 3rd photo) for maintenance access and for fitting the ‘splitter’ wall which would eventually split the construction into ‘cold’ and ‘hot’ sides. The access hatch was later sealed over with a sheet of 18mm MDF on the other side of the brickwork and screwed to seal. Frequent access is not required, so I did not bother with a door. To prevent weather ingress, I had a carpenter friend build the external wooden structure.

The following photos show general construction of the rest of the room, including entrance and cutting / fitting the filter frames, and finally the finished entrance showing the door and dust filters.





The filter frames are standard 500 x 500 HVAC filter cartridges (which I drilled so they could be screwed and sealed to the structure with silicon). The filter material comes on a huge 20m roll and is 1m wide, and approximately 20mm thick (so 1 roll is enough to cut 80 filters). I’ve found that they can be cleaned quite easily with a hoover but eventually they need replacing. I initially used 45mm thick filter material but learned, the hard way, that it was too restrictive to the airflow.

Electrical installation was basic. Supply is 3-phase 415V (3 x 240v). Voltage is excellent, around 245-246v consistently. The installation comprises a 200A Switch-fuse at source > 50mm 4-core SWA cable > 250A incomer & distribution board. Each miner has its own 20A breaker, with the power cable wired directly into the breaker. The Whatsminers draw ~3600 watts which is approximately 16A. For these I made custom power cables using 2.5mm flex and Bulgin C19 rewireable connectors. For the Antminers, I used off-the-shelf C13-C14 extension cables (1.0mm cable, rated 10A) and cut off the C14 connector, two for each miner, wired directly into one breaker. The cables run in plastic trunking to the distribution board.





The extraction fans are split into two pairs, each with their own controller. From the photos you will see that I changed the initial controllers when I upgraded the fans, as the initial controllers were not powerful enough for the uprated fans. Under normal operation the controllers are always set to full speed as this gives optimal conditions for the miners (the more airflow, the cooler the miners run) however if I’m working in the room, I will turn down the fan speed momentarily to make it easier to work. The fan controllers are not essential and in hindsight I probably wouldn’t bother fitting again.

This next photo is taken from the ‘cold’ / intake side and shows the shelving and some S17+ being installed – this is chrome catering shelving which is cheap but strong. This is also convenient for cabling as you can tie-wrap the cables directly to it:



These next photos are taken from the ‘hot’ / exhaust side. The first photo shows the exhaust fans of the Whatsminers before the splitter wall is installed. The second and third photos show the ‘splitter’ wall being installed which divides the cold and hot sides of the room. I used 25mm insulation board which is an excellent material for this application. It is sturdy and strong, but extremely light and very easy to cut. I cut holes for each miner with a small modelling / craft knife, so that both the miner fans and PSU fans are exhausting into the hot room. I made the cut-outs so there was approximately 2mm of extra space on each side, this allows some airflow over the outsides of the miner and also means the miner doesn’t have to be precisely positioned.



Finally, here is the finished room and setup, from the cold room side. You can see the insulation board wall behind the miners which divides the cold and hot sides of the room. Finally I installed a Perspex window into a section of the insulation board so you can easily see through to the hot room from the cold side (which makes it easy to check fans are operating properly, not blocked etc but without the hassle of removing the maintenance hatch).