Topic: Request for Discussion: proposal for standard modular rack miner - page 4. (Read 9676 times)

240V is typical to homes, but is in very limited use inside homes where 120V circuits are substantially more common. Would it take a bit of work to get a sufficient 240V circuit for this machine in someone's house? Very likely yes. Is that impossible? Very likely no. Y'all are both saying the same thing but somehow disagreeing. How the information is packaged doesn't matter as much as the information itself.

I would not ask anyone with a 30lb 20-inch-deep case to ear-mount only.

I think 18" case is the shortest design that's really been considered so far. S2, S4, S4+, Avalon2 are all in that neighborhood.

I'd like to keep considering Witrebel's idea of having the PSUs short-socketed with part of the supply hanging out the back. That does offer a solution to using differing lengths of supply (so long as they can fit in a 1Ux2U hole), fits 8 blades with sufficiently large heatsinks, provides empty space in the airpath for turbulence to normalize (which can also be used for piping in a waterblock installation), allows for ready access to PSUs without requiring partial case disassembly, and doesn't somewhat arbitrarily increase case volume with deadspace (which would increase material and shipping costs). The layout is also more conducive to a snap-in solution for external power access. My only real concern would be making sure the supplies were secured in their holes, which will require some work since the latches are always at the back and supplies aren't always the same size.

You've never shipped racks loaded with equipment or made equipment that has seismic ratings have you? Our company does. Try just using the ears even with thick front panels (vs ears just bolted to the sides) and it's not pretty opening crates. ref https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJVr94drRIs (not ours but is a clear example of what the gear can go through) Point is shelves take up very minimal height and make life a lot easier when installing/removing gear.

And how many typical homes have rooms wired for a >24A load between 3 circuits using standard 110/120V outlets? You're talking about having a 2600+W miner that is power-able in the typical home on 15A 110V circuits without re-wiring or a spider nest of extensions cords, keep dreaming.  My point is that 240V can be had for those serious enough to want this miner in their home, otherwise wait for the smaller S1 formfactor miner and power it with ATX. Even the S4+ went 205+V for input, likely because they had too many PSU failures with the S4's on 110/120V, it is inferior in all ways for powering PSU's.

You can't say 240V is not common, because it is "at the breaker" as you said, it just means extra work and/or expenses to be able to utilize it from the panel, 3-phase on the other hand is not common in North American homes. There's a difference...

If i'm not mistaken this miner is being designed for rack-mounting, efficiency and power-density, I'm not sure that people who rent their home is the target market here. The fan noise alone on this thing will probably make it prohibitive to have in a typical home anyways.

 I have more than a few cases in the 10+ pound range that are held only by the ears - longest ones around 24" deep.

 The ears can be QUITE strong, and as short as the case Sidehack is proposing is, it could probably hit 15-20 pound range with zero issues.

 My Nikko Alpha 3 is 4u, over 30 pounds, about the same length he's talking, the power transformers are in the BACK with the heat sinks hanging OFF the back, and that rack mounts just fine (the front panal is bloody near a quarter inch thick though).

 Dunno where that "must use a shelf if more than a couple pounds" nonsence is from, but it has ZERO basis in reality.

 It's only common at the breaker box and in the main supplying the box, NOT in the home itself.
 NOT the same thing.

 Having does more than a little rewiring over the years, I was FULLY aware of how power commonly arrives at the breaker box - but you can't plug a miner into a breaker box much less a main supply.

 I didn't realise that DPS1200 was 1ux2u. Size objection overruled by additional fact input.

 15" deep is VERY SMALL for a 4u computer case. 20"+ is a lot more common. The only 4u cases I've seen that were under 18" were for audio gear, and ONE computer case designed for a microITX motherboard based server.

 If it's intended for commmercial specific, I'll point out that EVERY Bitfury rackmount miner appears to have been 6U and somewhat longer than you're aiming for.
 IIRC at least one of the Avalon rack mounts was also 6U.

Some folks have trouble keeping 1.6KW cool in the 3U S4+, which translates to 2.13KW in 4U (yeah I know you can't directly scale like that, but for the sake of argument). 7 blades at 300W is the same heat as 8 blades at 260W; the first thing I'd do if I built an 8-blade is push it to about 320W per blade and see what breaks first.

Having PSUs hanging out the back looks goofy. But - BUT - if they're secure, maybe it's not so bad. I'd be worried about trying to slide the case forward and a cord hanging and pulling the PSU out of its slot. But if they can be secured in a non-clumsy way, that might be okay. Certainly worth considering. That would also remove the need for internal mains wiring - you now can no longer run it off a single C19 cord, but that's probably okay.

The only problem with encasing the entire front in 8U blades is where does the controller go? But of course you could partition off 1-2 inches along the side (basically what would be left over from 3 120mm fans comfortably laid out) for the electronics. And it wouldn't be difficult to build a snap-in panel to fill a drive bay or two with power jacks for external supply connections.

Could work.

End of the day that's your call.  I'm just curious what leans you that way.  And for the record I don't see "many" boxes, so much as 2 identical 12" boxes that have modular innards with eachother. So you can could still source one box, one chassis, and build it up as you see fit for sale in various configurations, it just affords you alot of room to play with and keeps shipping size down.  But yeah just a fringe thought, one box is clean.

After a long few days at work I think I'm better at modeling than I am at articulating, I can see why that would be hard to follow.  

This is along the lines of what I was suggesting could be done if someone wanted to step outside of the DPS-1200 size envelope.  Basically just hang a PSU outside of the box.  
I thought you had referred to this size PSU as a 1Ux2U psu.  So I was saying that 1Ux6U across the top gives you the basic PSU bay envelop, and provided there is a backpane to match the model of PSU, you could really stick just about anything in there that will fit.  It's just going to look funny from the rear.  



But yes, I can see how you could pull off 8 * 260w in a 20in case. 

I just feel like this places an unnecessarily low thermal bound on a 4U case. Granted 2kw isn't "low", but unless you water block it you are pretty much capped.  Maybe I'm biased because my particular situation doesn't really require efficiency.  So perhaps a 2kw thermal ceiling is pretty high all things considered. 

I'd really prefer to keep a single box with fully modular innards than several boxes that stick together.


"For the stacked miner, you could run any 3 PSU's that fit in a 1Ux6U space, or any space you allocate on the shelf really.
If using backplanes and hotswap, you could ship the PSU's out of the bays so that it fits in a smaller box."

I honestly have no idea what that means.

If we determine that an S1-sized heatsink can cool 260W with 1.2" fin height instead of 1.5", I'm pretty sure we can then fit 8 S1-compatible cards with 3 PSU (up to 12" long) inside a single 4U case no more than 20 inches deep.

I don't know that I'd say it actually "rules out" longer PSU's.   This isn't the cleanest looking solution, but I don't see any insurmountable obstacles with running longer PSU's that simply extend out past the back grill.  Securing them would be a trick, but I could cook something up for that.  And you could still go with interchangeable back planes/harnesses etc.  

For a staggered fan miner, you could either run two longer PSUS, or theoretically run a third horizontally above the fans.

For the stacked miner, you could run any 3 PSU's that fit in a 1Ux6U space, or any space you allocate on the shelf really.
If using backplanes and hotswap, you could ship the PSU's out of the bays so that it fits in a smaller box.

Now this gets me thinking, why can't we get the best of everything, truly modular, ultra compatible with S1, 4U, 8 cards, 3 PSU's, small case dimensions for shipping...  Why not use 4U modules.

The core module is 8 boards, and a shelf with the controller, lets call this a 4U module 12in deep.
You then offer another module that is basically a fan module.  
You could either make all the rear modules a standard 12 in for shipping and handling purposes, as well as chassis manufacturer, or you could offer various products to meet the needs of different setups.
Fans only,
Different PSU options,
Internal vs external

If all these miners are destined to sit on a shelf anyways, then you don't need to join the two modules in a terribly structural manner.  Just make sure they line up and mate repeatedly so you can ensure some kind of a standard when it comes to airflow.  

Now you can ship in a smaller box, waste less space, and have a more flexible product line.  Yes I think there will be some give and take with manufacturing costs.  Maybe you end up doing 12in across the board on all modules and you use a standardized hole pattern that can do all products.  Just some food for thought.

Ja +10
Something to consider is wire routing from the PSU's. Even direct soldering to the output lands needs some room, using 10ga main leads from my HP's is about 2" https://i.imgur.com/rbcz0pw.jpg. Split out as many 16ga leads right at the lands should be fine with an inch or so. Add a breakout card and it tacks on about 1.5" or so. There is pic of what I mean in that collection I linked to on Imgur.

Two PSU with staggered fans rules out the ability to run a third PSU, which isn't necessary but would be nice for redundancy and anyone wanting to get full speed out of 120V.

Short PSU requirement rules out the higher-efficiency Emersons and DPS1200TBA, which are both around a foot long. I reckon a 24" deep case would solve that problem, but it seems like an awful waste of space to have 10" hash cards in a 24" case. There'd be a lot of unused volume in there.

Them renders look pretty snazzy. Nice work.

So I spent the last couple of hours playing with a 4U case 20in deep, seeing what can fit.   I opted to shoot for 8 cards and max out a single sided heat sink.  Obviously if you can fit 8, then 7 would be cake.  The first option came as a result of realizing that 2 DPS-1200 and 3 120mm fans do fit side by side in a .055in walled 17.5in wide case, with .016 in to spare.  This is just too tight to manufacture, but not too tight for some staggered fan action.  It's an oddball design, but I just wanted to throw it in the mix for consideration.





As you can see, this layout provides for 8 cards, with 1.438in for a heat sink and .5 spacing.  You can use the outside hashing cards and a small divider in front of those cards to effectively separate the PSU intakes from the hashing space.

There is less than a 0.1in overlap edge to edge of the fans, so you could just mount the center fan to the real panel, and use small strip of metal with clearance holes to attach the fans to each other.  The outside fans could then attach to the wall that is between them and the PSU.  I didn't take the time to render all the walls, but they are included in the spacing of all parts. So the fan is spaced off from the psu in this render by 0.055in + 2mm for clearance of the PSU. 

But alas, taking a page from aviation "If it looks like crap, it flies like crap" generally.  Personally I like the funky look, but I iterated on the idea and came up with something a bit more clean.  Rear mounted PSUs, they could be hotswap/backplaned I believe.  You still have the compartment you wanted for a controller.  And you get 3 120mm fans.  Only thing would be routing a bit of intake for the PSU's if they did get a back plane.  But I think thats a non issue.   You can route the intake in from where the controller section is up top. 





Again this runs 8 cards comfortably.  With full .5inch clearance board to wall and sink to board, you get an overall heat sink height of 1.625in.  And now you are back in the game of 8 cards 300 watts per, in a 4U setup.  Only catch is you are restricted to shorter PSU units. 

I countered my own argument, i was going to say "I'd say give more room for sinks, there will be someone with 150W BGA style cores they want to squeeze in there.."

but then i thought, "they can throw 2 maybe 3 of their cores and their own copper sink, that should suffice. Aluminium is good, but copper spread the heat quick enough from the hot spot.."

I'll measure what the blade size is in my AMT rig tomorrow. They marginally do it with a lot less air then you will be moving. I dismember the blades being pert near the same size as Ants, maybe a tad shorter and longer.

The boards are already sized to fit S1/3/5 sinks. It's been my plan for months to build boards for that platform, and arguments to keep the shape and compatibility for a rack standard are convincing.

If we have 13.5 inches inside to fit eight boards with clearance, that's what 9.5 inches total heatsink thickness? That makes 1.2 inches. Is it feasible to make an extruded aluminum heatsink 10x4.5x1.2 inches comfortably capable of moving 260W of heat? Thinking about it, I do kinda like that underrating for power dissipation per board being as it's fitting with the stock power specs for S5 and that's the kind of heat the S1 chassis can be expected to comfortably clear.

That's really the question, I guess, in deciding between 7 boards and 8 in the same space.

I say stick with 7x300w. Well within the range of using PCIe plugs and gives more space to fit PSu's and any air routing they will need.

Und ja, selling the smaller stand alones not a bad idea as like you said, end caps would be almost dirt cheap to have punched/bent. Now sizing the board to fit S1/3/5 sinks.... Shades of the S1/S3 upgrades I did 2 of them, interesting exercise but thass about it. Better to buy ready-made.

I mentioned the S1 endcap thing because it opens up another product stream. Boards from this box could be sold in pairs as upgrade kits for S1, but if you punched out endcaps as well you could actually make whole units for sale instead of just as upgrade kits.

NotFuzzy, you got an opinion over 7x 300W-stock blades versus 8x 260W-stock blades?

Thinking about my AMT A1... Is a later Dragon clone and has 5 cards in it with room for 2 more. As the pics in my imgur link show the hash boards make a nice - package. Anywho, it is pulling 1,300w from the wall giving 250w/blade assuming reasonable efficient psu. Took out the 120mm turbines it came with and I put in 3 Cosair SP-20's. In a biz office is quiet and runs @ 55C inside.

Just a packaging reference point as you are shooting for moar power and ergo higher CFM/louder fans.

Ja
I was wondering about the S1/3/5 thing. Good general form factor to work with per-blade but -- since the blades are going in a case you should be more concerned about how they can be packaged in said case.

Now, certainly doesn't mean one can't slap on endplates and make smaller modules from the blades but doesn't have to fit the org S-series endplates. Hell, turn the endplates around and just call them fan mounts.