Topic: Using the heat from bitcoin servers... (Read 3178 times)

Like adamsworks, I use my S1's for space heaters. 

I have a server/mining room and this also acts as a furnace room; it heats up the basement and main floor (and it's huge).

I currently only run 1TH/s worth of OC'd S1's in my home with more on their way.

I've also used it to dry clothes, keep food / coffee warm, heat up water and even to dry my hair!  (My hair is down to my a$$)

In a way, the heat's a Godsend in winter but still a pita in the summer, which is usually rather short anyways.

If I was legit rich I would make a bunker in siberia full of ASIC machines and servers, all of this heat would deliver me nice cozy warmness and I would direct the heat to a system that delivers enough heat to cook. Ultimate self sustainable bitcoin experience 

Just last night I placed 2 rounds of frozen bread next to my antminer to defrost for a sarnie... took about 3 mins and was better than using the microwave or just leaving it on the kitchen table 

this is a great idea!! old used mining gear is a good way of saving money, however u need to think about administrating time and therefor i recommend only buying one kind of miners to make it easier. i would recommend used antminer s1's

Good Idea on using the heat for a purpose....

During Canadian winters, I use miners a space heaters... And it drastically cuts down on my oil bill as I mostly heat the whole house. Right now during summer it is cool at nights, and I just leave windows open to expell heat in the basement.

There are two ways to reuse the heat... Venting via air, or hydronic. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages.

WRT air movement: move the heat via air ducting... However you have to consider a return air...  Without a return, things just don't work. Air flow might need to be filtered for dust and other contamination that is not good for electronics.

Or move the heat hydronicly via water.... Much more efficient, and also more expensive to implement. You would need to move the heat to your kiln, and then back. A third location may be needed to expend or further bleed off excess heat if the kiln has already built up a lot of heat.

In short, input temperature to miners... Miners raise temperature of hydronic (water), output temperature to kiln, and if required, further output temperature outside or someplace else (hot tub or pool perhaps, or heat a garage partly).

You would need to consider the water cooling equipment for electronics... Which is expensive. The list of miners that are water cooled is narrow, but you might be able to contact a company directly as you may be able to eliminate certain items such as a radiator (or reuse it on the 2nd stage of expelling excess heat.

As to the 3G cellular connection, I run a total of 3 KNC miners, one rock miner 450, 2 BFL jalapeños, and a total of 25 GPU's across 6 rigs for x11... All under a 4G (not LTE) bell canada turbo hub because I can't get DSL or cable.

The bandwidth usage is minimal for mining, but a lot of bandwidth is spent wrt to maintaining operating systems for me. With a 20 gig cap, downloading linux updates or rasp-pi uses up a lot of bandwidth.

I also use up a lot of bandwidth maintaining a block chain for certain coins... But multibit for Bitcoin saves bandwidth, but with alt coins you are generally SOL.


Sounds like a great project! Good luck.

Ryan

I have several 65-nm BFL's currently running and they are pumping out a great deal of heat.  Terrible for profitability and they suck quite a bit of juice.  With regards to your network connection, it really depends on the sustained latency you will have between your unit(s) and your pool.  Increased latency results in an increase in stale shares.

ref: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/the-effect-of-latency-10806

Pretty much every environmental group would be opposed to putting a turbine at the mouth of a bay considering how ecologically sensitive such an area would be.  As noted above any use of tidal or wave action would require off shore deployment.

To be honest I don't know much about those devices at all.  But the way you describe them makes them sound like they aren't relying on tides so much as on swells and surface waves.  If you put a turbine underwater at the mouth of a bay you can guarantee the rate of water running through the turbine based on the tides.  If you're talking about putting a bobber on the surface and using the up/down action of the surface waves that doesn't seem directly tied to the tides (excuse the pun).

Have you seen the worms and floater and other devices that are trying to capture tidal power?  Most of them are not based on the coast since that land value is too high to warrant putting a plant down.  Most will be further in the water.  They need the constant wave action which is not always guaranteed except in some areas.  Same could be said for wind to a certain degree.  Solar is much more reliable (steady) compared to these 2.

Wait a minute, maybe you meant another adjective other than reliable.  The tides are connected directly to the motions of the moon and the earth and their relative position to the sun.  What's more reliable than the fact that the earth turns on it's axis?  Maybe you're talking about the fact that the size of the tides varies a lot from locale to locale.

Dryers use both heat, pressure, and flow rate to control dessication.  The exhaust temps will not be high but the flow rate will be elevated.

What the replies are missing is the a key consideration, the rate of drying. The rate of drying will be controlled by the temperature. The higher the temp, the faster the wood drys.

While I have no doubt the mining equipment can heat up a room, the max ambient air temp that an S1 miner could take is probably around 60C.

The air temperature of a kiln based wood dryer is probably much higher than 60C to speed the drying process.


To pass on another use for the coin mining heat would be to preheat the water in a tank feeding a water heater.

I've done some experiments and an S1 miner could probably heat 25 gal of water 20C above ambient.

Ya I remember seeing it on a guys house that was on the beach itself. He had it setup so every time the tide came in it ran into a trench that would generate electricity and store it for later use. I wasn't actually expecting you guys to take that idea seriously but wouldn't that be some shit?

Solar / Tidal / Wind powered bitcoin mining operation strictly powered by green sources and then using the heat to warm your house, charge your vehicle, etc.

That'll be the way of the future my friends

Unfortunately tidal power is very unreliable compared to solar and wind.  There are fewer places where tidal changes are reliable enough to generate sustainable power.  Hopefully that will change in the near future.

+1

Tide powered btc mining with heat production used to dry a wood kiln.  This might be the "greenest" bitcoin idea out there.  Also, I remember a lot of bitcoin detractors decrying the "waste" of engery performed by miners hashing out blocks.

How close are you to the sea? Singapore is a big island, you might be 10 KM away from sea.

Wait, what? How close is "close to the sea"? I live on an island (Singapore) and we're surrounded by sea. Should be I be keeping my ASIC in a dehumidified area?

The problem is, ASIC would spoil in few months if it is close to the sea..

If you lived near a tide you could use that for electricity too!

I would love to see pics when this is finished. Please keep us updated