Topic: Placing machines outside on cold winter? -20 - page 6. (Read 16796 times)

This is the really hard part I forsee.  OP talks about a box outside in -20.   The miner will heat the inside of the box.  I think getting airflow outside without allowing moisture is going to be a really uphill battle.

I honestly hope OP does it as I have not seen it done outside in -20.  But I sure would start off with a cheap miner nothing nicer then a S3 in that box.  I'm afraid moisture will make it the box of death for a miner.

For about 6 weeks I ran a large rack of miners in what used to be an attached garage. On the East wall there are large windows I left open and on the west wall is where I had the rack and the miners pointed at the open door. The temperatures were not -20 but we were certainly below freezing many days and nights off and on for weeks. I did not have a need to run the furnace because I had strategically placed miners around the home but this was the largest concentration in the attached garage. Even when it was below freezing it would be so hot in the attached garage that I couldn't sleep in there and I can fall asleep anywhere. Once I placed an exhaust fan by the west door sucking-blowing out. To me it was perfect and I could fall asleep if I was working out there.
(It is not uncommon for me to stay awake too much and only get a couple of hours sleep for a few days and then crash anywhere I land at home.)
The miners did need a good cleaning and I broke them all down as far as possible and with a vacuum and low pressure, dry, clean, compressed air they were spotless. There was not any damage. I've seen pictures in the SP20 thread of weather damage. If you want to see some thermal damage roll through that thread. People who had the miner sitting outside their window with just the exhaust sticking inside for the heat.

I live in a humid area. It isn't extremely humid, but it certainly isn't as dry as some places. I live kind of in the same part of the world as sidehack and novac so maybe they could chime in on the humidity %, and it is a bit dryer in the winter here, but I'm certainly not going to claim it is very dry, probably average for most of the Midwest USA.

I know there were some obscene temperature changes because right beside this door where the exhaust went is an open door to the rest of the house and heat poured in from the other miners. It was so hot you could break a sweat if I didn't open the windows sometimes.

There is a difference between -20 c and - 10 c and most nights in the winter are probably average between 4 c to -6 c
Even though it was technically inside a home there was always a great breeze of cross air in the room. Some nights working out there I regulated the temperature by opening or closing a window.  I certainly had temperature swings from day to night. We have huge swings here where you can see 20 to 0 c between day and night.

I wasn't lucky. I cleaned the miners and I continue to do so.
Take one down, pass it around, wash, and repeat. Be meticulous with any buildup.

The exact same miners are running today in a different part of the home and have a filter setup. They are running great and I have added more miners, but the filters did a fantastic job and I clean about half as often. For your outdoor project I would use a fine thin layer mesh and a true filter. Don't restrict the flow much. I would also use double fans. By this I mean I would use the ones on the miner and have another at the exhaust to your structure which is strong enough to continue pulling air across the hashing boards just in case something happened to the other fan(s). I would never let them run fanless due to hotspots. This is the mistake many people make when performing sub zero and N2 experiments. Hit up overclockers.net for some subzero tips if you want, but it is pretty straightforward at this temperature.

AS long as you keep the air flowing and do not allow water to reach the miner I think you will be fine. This is around February and early march of this year and if I were you I would go for it.

As someone advised, run yourself a little test with one miner for a week and check her out. Do a deep checking and completely pull her down. Take a magnifying glass and patiently look at all components paying close attention to the area around the inlet and outlet. If it is even close to as dry as you describe I do not see why you will have issues. People in Michigan, New Hampshire, North Dakota, etc see temps of -20 c easy every year so I do not understand why -20 is exciting so many folks. After all, it is the humidity that is the killer.

Look at the previous years average. What does the temp range do when the sun comes up? Does it stay at -20 or does it blast to +10 in 30 minutes? That can be a reason for concern but otherwise you are good.

Document everything! Take pictures! I didn't and I kick myself for it. If it wasn't so much work I would set it up this way just to take pics, but I have a different plan for this winter. I am going to use the existing ductwork in my home being fed by all the miners in one room. The duct will handle it no problem. I will take pictures

Part of what makes it tricky is that he want's to run it outside.  I think preventing moisture is going to be hard.  Just if air can flow through I think it's possible for a little moisture to get through.  And even a little would be bad on miiner.

We really will not know for sure until OP does it.   I do suggest he start out with a cheap miner to test what will happen.

My assumption is that standard PC/server is in the principle the same machine. The manufacturer are limiting Operating environment. If I remember well typical figures are:
Temperature operating: 5C - 35C (41F - 95F)
Relative humidity: 8% - 80%

Running in temperature below 0C will for sure increase a chance of damadge.   

Personally I don't think if the Global comsumption is getting higher the prices will become lower. On the contrary, the higher the demand the higher the price. But I know it's not so unnatural to expect some tricks from the economics, so good luck.)

Dunno, here in sweden the grid fee and tax is in debate as many complained that it is to high.


Electricity cost like 0.0001c and the grid is around 0.02 and taxes about 0.027c .

Excatly. So 0.05 CENT are how many dollars? 

Well sure, electricity cost might go down. But grid-fee or whatever you call it, will go up! At least here in Norway!

is not a cent after 0. ? haha ,

But prices will keep falling, i've made some research.

Global comsumption is getting higher.

It don't mean it will go down to almost free from nowehre, it will take some time , specially were it is costly it might even take longer.

Companies always try to get you into contracts because the prices get lowered so if you bind yourself you will be paying 2 - 4 times more than what it should cost at current market price.

0.05$/kwh is very cheap tbh! Prices are gonna go up imo.. ^^

He's picking on your grammar btw, 0.05 cent = 0.00005$, you obviously don't have 0.00005$/kwh prices

Yeah still quite high for running few mahcines .

Global market has statet that Electricity will keep falling down as the usage keeps raising they need to compete whit the global prices.

This is for 2016 the prices would be falling 0.01- 0.02 usd and some more .

Do you mean $0.05 kwh? I can't imagine such a low price as 0.05 cents kwh. Even $0.05 kwh is pretty low too.

Well condensation only happens when you have a high humidity ambient.

Wich skandinavian is not a humidity friendly place. air is cold and dry.

what i know is that KNC have open data centers and there is were i  got my idea of as i guess they run this in winter aswell.

They close the electric gates if needed but they are never 100% close, always making  some airflow whit half open gates atleast.

Condensation can still happen, even if you weather proof it. People have tried these sort of experiments with gaming computers and it never turns out so good.

Well i was going to use them as heaters aswell, but apartments share liquid heating system, so i can not gain any benefit  as i can not shut down the heaters to save money it is just not a possible option.

I could  get the house warmer than usual whit hot fresh air..


I am still checking how SP20 is doing, but im astuck at 1650ghz as highest whit normal temps and fans at 100%.

Waiting for colder temps and the new thermal compund.


I will defeninitly have s5's inside the house heating the house but if i benefit from colt to overclock i will overlock them outside in the balcony..

ill be updating more soon

I don't know if this is a good idea but I am facing a long cold winter and plan to use my miners as heaters.  I live in a small apartment and can get away with spending a lot less on heat while my miners run.  I don't know why someone hasn't designed space heaters that are bitcoin miners.  What would the cost/benefit be?

Yeah my teacher do not know anything about asics. tought it's cpus .

The idea of this is to not have fans but normal water cooling system like aquarium.




I don't think i will try out this tought it's just to much work to be done.












I've placed the machine outside, tought it still warm.

18 °C / 79,69 °C temps are a  bit high.


2 chips are running at 120c and rest aboud 100c.



Still waiting for the new thermal paste to get home, hopefully it will bring down the temps.



Outside temps are about 10c still nights around -3c.

None of these machines you have mentioned were meant for immersion cooling. Be careful as it sounds like your teacher is giving advice he is not familiar with.

You might have to find special fans to handle this.  I don't think most of the fan's will last.  I think get brittle and break.  But that is a guess no one has tried what your doing that I know of.

The idea is something like this.

But the fans of the machines are to strong to keep it sealed.

So exhaust will be completly open and intake aswell whit a fan pulling cold air inside from the bottom.

Fans form machines will be pushing out.

My IT techer even told me that why not put the machines inside Oil cooling and cool down the oil whit the winter cold.

Might even be a clever solution, oil will protect from outside and will be more seleaded swell.

Why not just have a mining box with a small extra fan blowing -20 in and another blowing inside ambient box air out?

If possible have their speed controlled  so that the box temperature is at a more suitable temperature.

So just stick your miner/s into the box and regulate the temperature of the box by controlling the amount of air coming in and out of that box.

Of course be careful that your box temperature does not fluctuate up and down much. Fast temperature changes to electrical devices is death.

Just ordered some new Thermal GReese, AS5 just dries to quick on the sp20, will repaste all the machines and get the chips on alot of compound to protect from the winter chills.


Also ordered a fan controller will have the fans run 100% whit no machine control.


As what i understand from Overclocking under freezing temperatures the cores need to warm up a little bit before running full pontetiall.


Also checking some absorbemt materials to cover under the intake just incase to abosorbe moisture.


A s3 won't be relevant for overclocking but will might give it a try aswell to see maybe can squish 700ghz out of it.