Nostr Web Client

Industrial ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) miners are the most complicated to setup from a home infrastructure perspective.

To set one up you're going to have to deal with the crypro mining trilemma which is POWER, HEAT, and NOISE.

⚡ POWER ⚡

If you're home was like mine it probably had 100 amps of power. That's fine for most households but not for YOU and your cryptomining journey. You can probably get by with one or two miners but eventually you're going to trip your circuit.

Mistake #1: I underestimated how addictive mining magic internet money would be. I wasted a lot do time and energy trying to make my original 100 amp setup work only to later bite the bullet and get 200 amp service put in with 220V outlets.

The image below shows a garage subpanel with 3x 30 amp 220V outlets and 6x 20 amp 220V outlets. Along with 2x 15 amp 110V outlets for my regular computer, routers, etc. (just off screen on the right)

Please have a professional do this installation.

If you want to learn more @voskcoin has a good beginners guide which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/eZi_yx_koXc

BaronRon 2y ago

Okay, before you start putting in electrical outlets its probably a good idea to map out some of your potential power usage.

The image below shows what was my anticipated amp usage for 6 ASIC miners from #Goldshell. Back in 2021 these machines were pretty profitable and HS5 is still profitable today! 😯

Mistake #2: you need to leave 20% buffer for your electrical outlet for safety and not to trip the breaker. So a 30 amp breaker is really 24 amp max and a 20 amp breaker is really 16 amp max. You have to think strategically for how you will set up your machines on each outlet.

In the image you can see my 3x 30 amp plugs have two miners on each and are well within the limit of 24 amps drawing from each outlet.

Also remember that if you're running 220V outlets you need to recalculate your amps. Below is a handy calculator you can use.

https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/conversions/common/watts-amps.php

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

BaronRon 2y ago

Don't believe me? Don't worry, neither did I so I verified my numbers.

I had those 6 miners running and I measured the wire leading to the subpanel in the garage. While in theory it could draw 59.32 amps of power it was drawing 55 amps at the exact moment this photo was taken.

FYI...that's a digital clamp meter and you can find many types on Amazon.

If you have no idea how to use one please do a little research before you go digging in your electrical panel. You need to put the clamp over a hot wire and that may require you to remove some of the safety covers from your panel. I do not recommend you do this if you're not knowledgeable about electrical panels.

BaronRon 2y ago

The problem with a clamp meter is that it requires you to keep the panel open to get a measurement.

The good people @Sense monitor developed a way to track electrical usage from your home panel at any time from anywhere remotely.

You can see that Sense monitor unit in red with the antenna sticking up. Even though I thought about installing it myself. I paid to have an electrician install it to be safe.

After having used it for over a year I highly recommend it.

BaronRon 2y ago

You can track real-time data which is great to see when your house is using peak electricity.

In addition, I find the the long-term data to be very handy for when I'm doing my taxes at the end of the year (whole other topic!). For example, in the image below I know exactly how much energy my miners have consumed over the year. In this case it is 84.4% (Always On) of my current electrical bill. I can then deduct that amount against the profits from my miners which allows me to offset some of the cost of running these machines.