Post
Topic
Board Mining
Merits 7 from 2 users
Re: keep a small mining farm cool with only air conditioners.
by
mikeywith
on 07/08/2023, 21:21:35 UTC
⭐ Merited by LoyceV (4) ,stompix (3)
If noise is a problem for the outside, how about heat? You'll be emitting 175 + 60 = 235 kW.

On average there is 30kw worth of heat reaching from the sun for every 1 square meter on earth, the effect of that 235kw on the outside tempters is so negligible unless someone stands right in front of the external AC unit, they won't even notice that there is much heat being generated from the building.

Even with the normal setup of using only airflow, you would need to stand right in front of the exhaust fans to feel the heat, standing near the other sides or even leaning against the wall won't be enough to notice the heat, probably a little warmer to set next right next to the building during winter, but nothing much.

Furthermore, the building is isolated, the only problem is the noise, miners can be very noisy, I took a measurement of my farm running 200 S9s + 100 of a mixture between M30 and M20s, when the miners boot at start up the overall noise on the exhaust fan of the building reaches up to 110 db, that's as loud as a subway train, I went to the farm once in the winter around 11 pm it was very quiet in the area, I was able to hear the fans of a distance over 1000m (I made sure it the noise was coming from the farm).

Honestly, I am now more concerned about the noise than the cooling for this project, cooling will be solved by just adding more ACs, if 10 of them don't cut it, just power off or underclock some miners till we can add more ACs, the noise part is not something you can predict, it has to be a trial and error process until we reach desired noise levels.


That would mean the other half of the heat has to flow through the walls.

Yes pretty much, the room will lose heat as long as the outside temp is colder, the colder it is outside the more heat the room loses, of course, insulation and the type of wall plays a very big role in this.

And ya, 1:3-4 ratio is the correct math "on paper", but we will find out in time.


@stompix and philipma1957

We paused the operation for a while, turns out we have a bigger problem than cooling which is the noise, with the door closed the noise was still high, especially during the fan check phase, the place has the capacity to grow to 1MW so we want to do it the right way accounting for 150 gears, we tested with 14* M30s for a few mins before the room got hot (no ACs yet) and the noise was somewhat bad, the noise level will increase 3db with every doubling of the miners, so it will only get worse.

We are now considering two plans:

1- Build a second wall to reduce the noise (this will make cooling more difficult but probably cheaper than plan B)
2- Get rid of the stock fans and use fans with bigger bladers, less RPM, and the same airflow (will be expensive and need some extra work)


We are not rushing this for a few reasons, one being that it's pretty hot and will be until mid-September, and two is the fact that this is a huge investment and we must test everything before taking a risk, I ordered an inline fan that does 500cfm which should be enough for whatsminer, its advertised noise level is 60db (way below the 85db of whatsminer), will need to print a 3rd shroud to fit it to the miner and see how it performs, meanwhile we are getting quotes for the second wall.

This will take a while to finish but hopefully, we will get there before winter.

If so then it changes everything about that room. In summer hot air can easily take away the coldness with it. In cold it might have some positive effects. I am sure these details will help a lot when it comes to mining operation that will be run for virtually permeant.

No windows, just a door that isn't perfectly sealed, your point is valid, we want to seal the cold side as much as possible while trying to get away with not so much selling on the hot side to allow air to escape, doesn't matter summer or winter the exhaust side of the room will always be hotter than the outside temp so we could use every little crack or just bad insulation, but then again, every little crack will allow the noise to escape, it is extremely difficult to balance the two aspects here, you want

1- low noise.
2- less ACs.
3- less spending.

if option B mentioned above works, the noise level could be low enough that might even allow us to make a few holes at the exhaust side so that more heat can dissipate, but then having to buy an inline fan for every miner, printing the shrouds, buying different expensive shelves that are big enough for the miner + fan could be way too expensive, it might be better to build a second wall, make things worse as far as heat is concerned, and then just add more ACs than initially planned.

It's like trying to win in competitive eating without having to eat too much  Cheesy, not an easy task, I knew it wasn't going to be easy, I just didn't think it would be this difficult, so ya, going to take a lot of time and money for this to happen.