Topic: Regarding Steamtyme's list of competitive hardware (Read 457 times)

Heh, too young to know who Seinfeld is and too old to be in that group that now thinks you can say anything

Most people don't agree with his moderation choices - and the fact that he's specifically meriting those replies to me, that only an idiot would merit, is quite clear what he's doing

I pissed him off by reporting him to theymos once ... and theymos looked into it.
... and he doesn't like the fact that I run a pool better than the one he wants the world to mine on

Edit: though I used to help make him a lot of BTC by reporting off topic threads in the mining section all the time.
Maybe it's also to do with coz I don't do that much any more either.
(mods get paid - I always thought that was the reason he edited so many posts)

I added the S17+. Feel free to post these sorts of suggestions in that thread or PM I'm always open to making changes.

I will disagree that the list is anything special. While yes it is a stickied post it's only there because it's simply a list of gear with links to where the discussion and information can be found. I try to provide as much information as possible as a cursory glance, which is why I was more than willing to make the change for 3KW+ miners. This is also why Frodocooper goes in there and clearcuts anything that goes outside serving as solely informative or list related.

My comments were more in reference that there was a better place to put information and opinion on what is or isn't useful for a home miner. Like the other sticked topic I have First time/Small miner reference for getting started. This is also a topic I'm more than willing to add information to when people bring it up, as can be seen in the discussion. It's also one where discussion and opinion is useful, and probably a better place for the original posts that were moved to have taken place - if the choice was between the 2.

Really that seams beneath you to try and tie together nazi-control with forum moderation, there are much better ways  that could have been worded. It's not even like he wiped all your comments from the earth he put in the effort to preserve the discussion and move it.
I don't agree with all his moderation choices but this reflects poorly on you and not him.

I added the 3KW tag to the listing.

Indeed there is a difference, you wont find any blocks with a hair dryer no matter how hard you try nor how off-topic your post is

But if you feel that it's OK to risk living in a house with poor wiring, and use hair dryers and microwaves etc I'd suggest you are stupid.
As I would say about the mod who seems to think that's ok also and keeps meriting you

Though he's only meriting you coz he doesn't like me not being under his tight nazi-control

It's not "simply" a list though is it,  it's a stickied post that always stays at the top of that section of the forum, so it had more impact than a regular post that can get lost in the SNR odd the rest of the forum.

Also can you add the S17+ to the main list now? It does 40W/Th so is pretty much the second most efficient miner after the S17-Pro.

Its definitely been delivered to customers and is out there in the wild hashing away, I can attest to that.

I have found creeping melt to happen.

lets say we are 60 days into summer. gear is borderline safe wiring.

melted pcie jacks will start to occur.

so the gear worked say

all of  fall
all of winter
all of spring
month two in summer melting happens.

maybe the psu is rated 1600 watts
maybe the volts are 220
maybe the line does 20 amps
your s9 pulls 1300 watts

and creeping melt happens.

most likely volts dropped to 205 due to summer brings amps up and pcie jacks melt.

the l3+ never does this why most likely cause mine pull 725 watts on an apw3+ psu.

uses eight cables for 4 boards each board pulls around 180-185 watts.
each jack does 90-95 watts.

this is a really good safety margin.

yeah i know l3+ is not a btc miner.  but the point i am bringing is a pcie jack at 90-95 watts is very good safety margin..

for a btc miner to run rugged it needs to not tax wires due to voltage drops.

new gear right now i guess the heater from russia. under 800 watts.

the s17pro set to low.
should be safe on 10 amps and 220 volts.
that is about it.

There is a difference between hair dryers / microwaves / blenders / air compressors that run at 12A to 15A for minutes vs something that may run for hours 9A or 10A
Stoves / clothes dryers /etc are on 220 lines that don't suck as bad.

-Dave

If your home is not wired up correctly, well, you shouldn't be plugging anything that needs 1kW into it anywhere.

That includes clothes dryers, hair dryers, microwaves and other such things.

If you want to home mine in usa.  You want a 800 watt miner
The best thing on the market is a home heater it is not really a miner.

this is it:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/quiet-36-db-8-ths500-w-hotmine-convector-miner-product-overview-5152874

it does not turn a profit it is primary a heater first a miner second.
it is currently for sale.


The s15  by bitmain set to low speed   was very low power use  around 880 watts  It did 47 watts a th.

No longer made by bitmain  you need to find used ones.

There is a market for a s17 LN model with 2 boards.

27 th at  900 watts at a low speed setting is possible

It would sell at a premium price  people would buy it.

That ^^ is a perfect example of a regulator that uses a variac (trade-marked name of one make of variable transformer). FWIW 'variac' has become a generic name for them rather like Kleenex became the generic name for facial tissue.

They do not switch between multiple fixed taps, a servo moves a sliding contact over the exposed windings of the transformer so there is no dropouts during adjustment. Und ja - that is a perfect solution that is usually lower cost vs pure electronic regulation. Their only drawback is that along with slower response time, after many years of use the graphite contact brush will eventually wear out and need replacement. Any 'clicks' you are hearing is usually the raise/lower relays operating to drive the motor that moves the sliding contact arm.

It's all about the cost, makes no sense to nearly double the ROI of your gears just to avoid a "minimum" risk of using a much cheaper alternative, I have been using some cheap Chinese-made SVRs (voltage regulators - servo motor control) for a long time, and had no problems yet. You can literally here the tap changer every now and then, but it happens too fast the miner's PSU does not power off.

The problem with these cheap stabilizers is the integrity of their marketed specification, I found out that in most cases you will only be able be get 2/3 of what they "promise", so if it has a 20kw lablel, you can really go pass 13kw without burning something.

Below is an example:



This one regulates the voltage between 130v and 250v and output is constant at 220v, they come under different brand names, but they all seem to be the exact same in the inside, it's just the design that differs.

Of course this sorta should have it's own thread but - in reality few folks use AC voltage regulators.

That said, ANY buck-boost transformer that is designed & intended for industrial use (like the ones from Larson) should last for at least several decades even when ran at 100% load. It's just the nature of the beasts.

Consumer types such as this are utter crap! Long long a go I tried a few different types and despite being ran at about 50% of their 'rated 3kw' load all crispy-fried themselves in about 1 month. Upon doing forensics it became obvious why: a. the core is too small causing excessive eddy current loses, b. the wire used in them is far too thin leading to even more losses and the windings getting very hot.

As for regulators: Biggest thing is that they MUST use fully electronic control for adjusting the output voltage (like the Norstar's) or drive a variac to do it. Lower cost tap-switching units cannot be used as they all momentarily drop to 0v out during the switching process. Ja it is only for a few ms but nonetheless it's a safe bet that the miner PSU will have a problem with it and probably trip a reset.

The only place I use a regulator is at home where the line can have substantial sag during the summer. For that I use Cyberpower's line of dual-conversion UPS's that run AC > DC > DC > AC. Their AC power is always derived using a inverter that directly adjusts the voltage (and freq) so there is zero switching time for voltage adjustment or switching to battery when the power drops out.

we have discussed a similar topic "Bitmain & Canaan To Release 5nm chip ASIC Miners in Q1 2020".

Based on the alleged 20% power reduction on the new 5nm based gears, I imaged something like this at first:


After giving it a second thought, I think even those numbers are too high for home miners, so probably those numbers need to be cut in half, and we get something like:


The problem with making smaller mining gears (aside from what others have mentioned) is the base cost, they will still need the same control board and other components for all miners' sizes. I think moving to home scale mining gears will be forced upon all mining manufacturers pretty soon, every halving is going to be more harsh than the previous one, and I don't think that BTC price is going to follow to fill the gap.

Having said that, there is really nothing we can do for now but "hope", and maybe by 2024 or at worst case scenario 2028 industrial mining will come to an end, making a room for home miners to take control.

It would be beneficial to include for home miners which models have low power settings.  A 2.5-3 kw miner can be used in home/hobby setting with a low power mode.  Power input voltage is also handy as quick reference on a list since some mfg's require 220v and other list 185~285V. 

With that being said, I would request a separate thread on voltage regulation.  I recall Phil had mentioned, think it was s15 thread Norstar Power Converter with Voltage Stabilizer and a Larson Buck/Boost Step-Down Transformer as options but have seen a follow up as far as functionality or durablity.

Okay, so you are just referring to the list at the top. Each of the miners that I have spec'd out on that page have their advertised power draw stated in Watts. When I do the next update I will tag gear in red with an asterisk point underneath stating what the color represents.
While not perfect, and definitely not the norm I run a 3KW miner as a home miner. It's not ideal but is doable, mainly because I have a garage and am willing to put in the effort of soundproofing in the winter months for my house. People have complained about running gear in home for as long as I can remember(not long compared to some here), it just takes some knowledge or extra cash but can be done. I also personally don't recommend anyone run any miner on 110V, in North America all homes are fed with 220V so it's a no brainer to run miners on those circuits. It's no different than stoves and dryers.
For me my biggest concern is the large chunk of hashrate that I lose when it's down not necessarily the power draw.

Either way the list is simply that a listing of gear available, the forum and it's threads are where people need to make the decision on what they can mine with, how they can mine with it, and what if anything they can do about the decentralization of mining.

my home was built in 1970/1971. all aluminum wiring. due to copper shortage from Vietnam war.

So i rewired it in the 1990’s .  I was a hifi nut 🥜 so I did all code or above code.

No 14 gauge.  Only 12 or 10 gauge. Got lucky as my home is easy to run gear as I have three extra 30 amp circuits 240amp.

My problem Is winter power is 13.7 cents reduce to 10 due to heat benefits.

Even with all that It is not very profitable to mine at home.

Now the idea of space heating yeah I can justify some of that.
Prepping gear to bring to clifton i can justify.
But i do not think 🤔 Home mining ⛏ will ever be feed by asic builders like it could.

I 1kW range/2 kW for 110/220 is still iffy in older construction that has not been updated. Sadly there is a lot of that. Parents house was built in 1970/71 and the wiring in there scares the crap out of me.

If you are building a setup in the garage or shed and bringing in new power I would hope it would be done properly.

-Dave

Well it would simply be to include on your list, a comment simply based on power usage.
Clearly, a 3kW miner is not a home miner anywhere in the world.

But also there's the issue of J/GH - since with the next batch of miners, the top miners will have a lower J/GH again - which of course means that old miners are even more pointless mining with.

In the USA on 110V a 1100W miner uses 10A and thus is borderline going to melting/burning power leads.
So for the USA, it should be less than 1kW

Anywhere in the world where you have 220V, 2kW is really what the limit should be to classify it a 'home' miner.

Any company producing current miners 2kW or less is still in the ball park IMO.
But anything in the 1kW range should get a higher rating for home mining.

Kano. I'll look to fit this information in somewhere. If you have a nice write up or post you would like me to link to that would be great. That list in itself is meant to be just a listing of what's currently competitive from an efficiency standpoint.
So even a small homestyle miner that is competitive would be listed.
I would more likely think it fits in my First time/small time miner thread, and would also be willing to link there from the competitive list. It makes sense someone looking at hardware could benefit from seeing that topic.
I'm not always great with words but have been invited to produce some blog posts in regards to anything crypto and this was a topic I have been planning on writing about as for their platform.
I'm still on mobile as I was yesterday when I saw your suggestion you can also reach out to me on discord anytime if you want to discuss something.

If the s17 pro had a s17 LN pro version

two boards with bigger heat sinks it could sell.

28th.  low 850 watts
34th.  medium 1400 watts
38th.  high 1800 watts

I think 🤔 it would be a hit.

Some would use it at home.
Some would use it at data centers.

^^Perhaps.
However I also see  a technical need for less THs per-miner and the resulting less power draw per-machine: namely what happens when a miner goes down.

The fact that 1 miner down can now mean up to what, around 75THs or more lost? On the PSU side, keeping the total output to say (with margin) 1,600w makes it easier and cheaper to make than one that has to pump out 3-4kw. Certainly easier to cool. Those multiple tiny fans scream....

To me, unless you are running several hundred PH or more, I'd much rather have say 20-30THs per miner drawing 1,500w or less. Sure, you need more of them but unless they are uber-reliable like Avalons have historically been then I'd much prefer a miner failure to take out a lower % of the total farm hash rate.

The side benefit is that it keeps power draw to something that a 'home' miner can easily provide if they decide to mine regardless of electric cost.

Home mining has effectively been dead for years.
Home power costs WAY more than the large miners and datacentres get and it has been that way for a very long time.

The point of the request was to make it clear which miners are available to use at home for the average person and give a push to the manufacturers to actually produce home miners rather than finalise the push of Bitcoin in the direction of only having centralised companies mining ... the way the mods here seem to want it to go.

FYI, check your January 2020  electric bill. Mine just went from 10c kWh winter rates to 12c kWh winter rates. Last summer my rates were 17.6c kWh. Sh*t. This would have hurt like hell even when I was home mining a year or so, back in the day. So equipment may not be the issue anymore with home mining.

Well, you are lucky if you get 10 cent power here in Serbia...

It's usually around 12 cents for homes and I use commercial power which is around 6 cents before additional costs.
So yeah... Home mining is gonna die faster here than in states...

Here in the states most home miners don't have cheap power.

A s17 pro  at 53 th pulling 2250 watts.  uses 54 kwatts a day at 10 cents that is 5.40 in power cost.

It earns 7.66  the net = $2.26

Very marginal but doable if you need it to heat home 4 or 5 months a year.

We could say home mining is dead in usa.

Or not.  But with out much other choice for a home miner With 10 cent power a risky move at best I would say yeah it is dead.

I think that home mining has been dead for almost a year or even more. S9's have been the last of so called "smaller miners". I remember when I was making space for my "farm" to grow and I had to take separate fuse box and make ventilation holes in wall for all my miners, but it was just a hobby then. And I ran around 10 miners there without any issues. Now I am having trouble running more than 4 S17e/S17+ in that same place due to heat, power usage and overall amount of cables. And soon I will have to request another fuse box and search for a whole new storage hall so I can accommodate new units.

From home mining it turned to "big fishes" only really fast... And it is just going to get worse as years go by. I wouldn't be surprised if next miner had to use 3 cables instead of 2 like they do now.
Also, as far as I remember Bitmain used to have equipment for handful of different coins. Remember DR(D)/Z/E(G)/X/A/B/L models? They were all a bit cheaper than V/T/S models as far as I remember, and they could have easily been home miners. And what happened to them? They stopped producing them... For unknown reasons (but probably due to regulation or profit margin).

Home mining was much easier in past. Now it is harder and harder to find buyers even here in Serbia for such a big models (even tho they are more profitable than other smaller miners). And as time flies, all smaller miners will sell their equipment and farms are going to get bigger and bigger. Decentralization of Hash power is become more and more centralized day by day. And you can quote me on that.

im out of btc miners entirely for that reason: anything that might be profitable is not usable in my house. too loud (not that big a deal to a point), too power hungry - needs to be configurable to some figure, say, 500 watts or so. this figure would allow spacing rigs out in ones home too, both to spread waste heat out to manageable levels (no need for industrial fans and large scale heat management when 500 watts per room is all that needs to be dissipated) and no need for dedicated 120/240v line for every miner.

hey i loved mining on gpu/early FPGA/early ASICs. donated to both -ck and kano for their work on cgminer. but now? i mine shitcoins with gpu/FPGA to exchange for btc. which does nothing to secure the network

yes, i realize that btc mining now is vastly different and its for the "big boys" now. fine. but to run even  ONE decent btc miner at home now? probably have to run another dedicated electric line and build some sort of special space with soundproofing and ventilation/ducting.

lower noise, lower power units that can be spread around the home.. is it that hard to do? genuine question. i would love to have a home friendly btc miner back in the home. mining shitcoins just seems... dirty heh.

Yeah the only really good new home miner is the s17 pro set to low speed.

It is quiet
burns under 1400 watts set to low.

I have the bigger spot with a lot of 3000 watt units they scare me. 
We use every thing correctly  proper wires proper cooling proper air filters still make me nervous.

Modded s9's set low are good to heat a home.

But you would think a s17 variation burning 1000 watts or so  would be desirable.

It would be great if the industry was similar to the GPU industry, where the chip manufacturers may come out with a reference design but leave most of the mass production and end-user support to other companies.

The other factor I think coming into play is support.
Do you think Bitmain wants to support 5000 users who bought 1 or 2 or 3 miners each. Or one big player that bought 15000?
Customer service and support is not cheap.
Then add on the fact that now you are dealing with home users who may or may not have as good power as a big industrial data center so now you have to deal with more repair issues.

The R4 was great, the a741 was great as was the a821. But sadly I think those days are gone.

What I would like to see is them partnering with someone like sidhack who they sell all their last generation chips to who produces a slower but quiet miner.

That or towards the end of the run start making the same miner with fewer boards (like many of us are doing with the S9) that can run cooler.
Sell them cheap to move stock of the old boards and chips with a 14 or 30 day DOA warranty and be done. You can get away with that with an old gen product for $249 you can't do that with a current gen for $2999 because, nobody is going to buy something that expensive that they plan to run for 18+ months with no support. For $249 a lot of people will roll the dice.

Just my view.

-Dave

Yeah I have one of the R606s (and 4 NewPacs) but they are just toys that already run at a loss.

But I mean all the new models coming out, that will make many of the current or older miners obsolete or close to it in the not too distance future.

I've even asked Canaan about it directly, and they've said they wont be making smaller miners since they see no market for it.

i.e. there needs to be some community response to tell the manufacturers to make home miners, and this thread probably would help with that.

With the specs of these new miners, making one half the power, thus requiring much less cooling, would even make them usable at home due to much lower noise - which also leads back to using them as home heaters like I've been doing for many years and told quite a few about how to setup the old A741 years ago for that and since then there's been threads about that also.

Using them as heaters is a very smart use, but secondary to the issue of actually getting new miners you can easily use at home.

So any current say "product' that you get now from Bitmain or from whomever (besides maybe the Sidehack 1TB miner) you'd get when? Say 2nd week in February? At the very prompt best? (assuming, as usual, the Chinese new year does not mess up shipping for any China ASIC's as was done in the past)

Anyway, you are still faced with:

(1) 5nm miners coming out at the end of Q1 supposedly. Call such as April 1st, 2020. Again a very optimistic date.

(2) Then about say at best, 6 weeks later, the BTC Halving happens currently May 12th, 2020. https://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com/

I mean to get any more signs for not mining, you'd maybe need a mountain top with stone tablets made. Just saying, this does not look like anything that will change for the better and I'm not talking Home miners, IMHO, they are mostly out, I'm talking it looks beyond 'ugly' for the big miners that have to 'buy' equipment. Interesting Times. Though I must say, it is rather tranquil just selling crap on eBay and then buying dust BTC for HODL mode. Calm, compared to getting a miner these days.

Anyway, my take, others may have better angles or electric or whatever, we are all 'limited' by above and circumstances.

The s17 pro is pretty good for a home miner.

The a1046 is pretty good for a home miner.

but that is about it.

sidehack has a 1tb miner which can be some fun for people.

I would suggest you add info about decentralisation of the miners ...

You see, lately ALL the miner manufacturers have been making models that preclude home mining.

Requiring 3kW or more connections on a single miner, is, in general, not what most people would have available at home.

Thus they are forcing out home miners and thus CLEARLY going against the decentralisation of Bitcoin.