Topic: Residential Hobbyist Miners: power concerns? - page 2. (Read 3870 times)

Alright... seriously, what is it with the inordinate amount of NJ dwellers here?  LOL... I'm also in Jersey (down south by Philly).

I live in Hopewell NJ and I have a 200 amp breaker box just for my basement that I can use for just mining.  Planning to get more antminers

I will chime in.  I was an audio freak. So in the 1990's I put in lots of wiring in my home. (Who knew)

I live in Howell NJ USA.  My home was built during the Vietnam War around 1971.  The USA had a copper shortage and some homes in and about the country were built with aluminum wiring not copper.  This turned out to be a big fire hazard and many home owners had to retro fit the wire to copper or use special (magic for lack of a better word) outlets that secured the aluminum wire to the out correctly.

  New Jersey has the best state laws for wiring you own home..  No electrician is needed or required  as long as it is your home that you live in.  Just go to your town hall and pull the permits.

So I pulled the permits and pulled every fucking piece of shit aluminum wire out of the house. I replaced every wire with copper  and I put in 6 extra circuits for home theater and gear in the shop.

I was afraid to do any 220 wiring so only my central ac is 220.  It was the only copper wire in the house.

I did call in an electrician to pull the 100 amp service and upgrade to a 150amp service.

All my circuits use 10 gauge not 12 gauge. Over fucking kill  but when you do all the labor yourself well before copper got expensive why not.

So my garage has 6 separate circuits .  One is for the furnace /ac fan. One is for the ac compressor the only 220.

  The other 4 can all be 20amp  120 volt since they are 10 gauge, but they are all 15amp breakers.

I can run  4 x 1440 = 5760 watts 24/7/365 no issues or worries.   About wire overload.  I do push to 4500 watts in the winter.  When it is hot I go down to  2400 or 2000 watts.

Right now 6 ants pulling 2400 watts hashing 1.2th  seventh one comes today.  A 12 piece gridseed & 30gh btc  in  usb sticks  pulls 180 watts.
  so 2600 plus 400 when I setup my seventh will have me at 3000 watts.


I will lower that to 2000 watts when the heat is too much by undervolt and under clock.

 I only buy good psu's with long warranties.

Evga 1300 watt super nova with 10 year warranty
Seasonic 1000 plat with 7 year warranty
seasonic 1200 plat with 7 year warranty
seasonic 760 plat with 7 year warranty

my cheap psu is  this

 http://www.antec.com/product.php?id=704513&fid=11

Since I am going long term

fuck the loud cheap power hunger dell server shit shock hazard garbage purchased second hand on ebay

All my gear is shock resistant and safer.
 All my psu's have worth beyond mining.
All my psu's get better power ratings then the dell's


Now if you wire your gear with 220 volt  please ignore my rant about the dells as they do better with 220 volt power.

The highest I've ever seen on the S1 Miner status is 58.  So that's a good operating temperature for me.

Barely, I used to make 0.01 BTC a day per rig after electric, even mining X11, I am at 0.003 BTC a day. Each rig cost $1000, so not really

Thanks! Really hoping to NOT see any issues with heat as this will be my first summer with my full ant farm. I don't want to add air conditioning to my garage so I added an exhaust fan and vent to the east side gable, another fan above the ant farm rack and exhausting heat to that exhaust fan. Another fan on the floor pointed up to push the air past the front of the rack (all ant's exhaust to the front) up and out the gable fan. With the other two fans bringing in cool air from the north always shaded side and exhausting air to the south always sunny side, I hope to mitigate any problems and run 24/7. Best thing about a garage setup is when I am here I just open the garage door and everything stays nice and cool without turning on the fans.

I do have a question for anybody. My units run between a low of 26c to a high of 62 c. Most stay around 58 c. I experienced a shutdown of a few when they hit 72 c. After adding fans and vents; none ever go that high.

Question: What temp do most of you on average see as a good operating temperature for your S1's?

Not overclocked, though I keep going back and forth on doing that instead of adding the 3rd. Not much else on the (known) circuit since setting up the 2nd but I haven't completely checked all of the outlets and switches (yet) to be certain. Not everything makes sense in an older house like this, I've seen some "interesting" (read: redneck rigged) "upgrades" (read: I wish they hadn't f'n done that;-).
Now I've done some "interesting" things with electricity in my younger years but I'm trying to keep things safer these days. What I would really like is to figure out (inexpensively) how to run a small farm through one of my dedicated 220 outlets.

Isn't it still profitable with GPU mining x11 due to the power saving? I am currently mining on groest

Might want to be careful there.  Assuming you haven't over clocked the S1s, and if you believe Bitmain's claims of 360 watts each, you're looking at 1080 watts minimum on that circuit to power the miners when you get your third.  Assuming you've got a 15a circuit breaker (or fuse since you said your house was old), you can draw 1440 watts continuously, or at most 1800 watts before that breaker/fuse trips.  Hope you don't have too much other equipment drawing power in your living room

Hobbyist mining altcoins.

Had 4 rigs of about 1400kh each, sold 1 and down to 3 rigs. Lost a ton of $ due to Scrypt ASIC

Yes I'm a hobbyist and have my Ants set up in my living room. 2x Ants on 2x Corsair 600 and planning for a 3rd to split between the 2 power supplies.
That will be the limit. My house is old and in need of an electrical upgrade.

You replied right before I did... great post.  You added extra circuits - a similar suggestion to what DeathAndTaxes made earlier.  19 S1s... nice garage setup

HA!  Heating a water bed.  Keeping the house warm in the winter by placing a miner or two in each room.  No need to cook because the miners are producing enough daily to allow meals to be eaten out.  All are great reasons to give for allowing mining hardware

I have actually said to the Little Lady, "Honey, look at it this way.  My investment turns into more jewelry for you."

@iglasses you bring up a very good point: safety first.  I'm certainly not implying, nor advocating, people doing crazy things like overloading circuits, leaving bare wires around, etc.  I don't want to see anyone hurt in the name of a few extra hashes per second.

What are some other setups?  Would love to hear what you've done and how you've done it.

You are a smart person! I am the same way when it comes to mining.

1 Had a qualified Electrician add 6 20 amp circuits in my garage. Cost was $1100, really only $600 as I built his website for $500.
2 Added north and south wall vents for airflow. With added fans the heat dropped by almost half.
3 All 19 S1 units are on a restaurant type metal rack, great for airflow. Every unit has an extra fan for overclocking.
4 Every unit I get in is tested for 24 hours and sits on a metal plate for that testing duration, before being added to the farm.
5 I use CGRemote software so I can see temps anytime I want and it will send me an email if any units go offline.
6 My wife knows where all of the breakers are and how to shut down the power to the whole house if I am not home.

For most this is a hobby, but we don't need to burn down our house doing it.

Safety first!!!

Hope this helps.
Rob

Good Point +1 @ safety first

I like that "getting flak from the little lady" thing.. This is a more immanent (even not more dangerous) thread to the "mining at home" thing, so we should produce solutions where the little lady gets happy with...

Any ideas, guys? Using the thermal power of the rigs for heating a water bed? replacing oven by mining rigs and promising that little Lady will never be in the Need to cook again, cause you can afford going out for dinner instead from the winnings?

How does this affect the rentability?

:-))

+1 

I am in the US.  I am a flea on a donkey's butt pushing almost 2Ths with Antminer S1's and a few BE Cubes.  I am not running from a residence and am pulling a few thousand watts across all of my equipment.  If I had to run this stuff at my home there is zero chance I would be doing it.  My miners are in a temperature controlled data room (not a data center) with over 15,000 watts being provided to the room in the aggregate.

When I see all these pics of guys running stacks of various hardware and wires hanging out all over place on carpets, in kitchens, in high travel areas, etc. my heart skips a beat.  I really don't know how they do it.

I think the main takeaway here should be for folks to put safety #1 ahead of EVERYTHING else.  You can't break even or get rich if your house burns down with you, and god forbid, someone else in it!  There was a thread on here not too long ago about someone who had a fire and IIRC it burned the computer he had his wallet on with it!  So he lost his equipment AND whatever coins he had mined before the fire.  Devastating!

Every time I add a new piece I monitor it and all associated connections very closely for at least the first few hours.  You can do everything right and still get a bad board, etc.
Watch your connections.  Don't over split!
Heat is your #1 enemy.  If something is running abnormally hot there is a reason for it!  It will not just go away!


Be careful!
Happy Mining 

I think the basement angle is the best because the main thing I would be concerned with is the potential for electrical fires. Don't try to cut corners with the quality of the power supplies you're running, and make sure your wiring is in good condition. I would elevate your units on some non-flammable surface like cinder blocks (if the possibility of water is a real concern) and place them far away from any easily-flammable materials.

I am not sure if it is worth it, but use a natural gas generator to power your mining farm. Don't know if this come to mind for most, but it has been on my mind since I met mining. Same with solar panels and even a small windbind turb.

https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=wind+mill+turb&sa=G&gbv=1&prmd=ivns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&ei=GBJsU8yfNJGSyAT6hYGABw&ved=0CBoQsxg

edit:
idea's run in my head all times of the day, just don't have the money to kickstart the ideas.