Dear Steemit Friends,
I have been mining and buying Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies for the past 5 years. I have had ordered and paid for GPU video cards for mining rigs, Bitmain's S1, S3, S3+ S5, S7, Canaan's Avalon S6, and now Bitmain's S9, L3+, and D3 Miners. I have been through times when mining has been profitable and when it has not and now in the "golden age" of Cryptocurrencies, I am still mining. Throughout the years, mining has gone from a silent past time hobby (starting with USB miners) to an ear-piercing loud activity using the latest generation of miners.
There have been many attempts to try to and reduce the amount of sound generated by these miners to a more tolerable and sustainable level. With some of the earlier miners, the sound was acceptable, starting with the S5s, miners began looking for alternative ways to replace the fans and mask the noise a bit. With the latest generation of miners, it is virtually impossible to completely silence the noise, and in most cases, miners are only able to reduce the noise by a few decibels.
Last year I decided to make an attempt and built myself an enclosure with several layers of insulation. It offered a pretty substantial reduction in the amount of noise the miners generated. I felt I had succeeded in building an enclosure that would work for me, that I could replicate for the rest of my miners.
The build, however, was only a temporary solution. Why you ask?
My first attempt was built out of wood, drywall, soundproof foam and other layers of sound dampening material, but as most of you know, miners can generate a lot of heat and can potentially cause fires when using flammable material. Rather than take a chance and wait for an accident to happen, I decided to make a second attempt at building a better, more durable, and fire-proof enclosure - or at least an enclosure that would be able to contain any fire that broke out long enough for me to get to it.
I watched several videos on Youtube of other miners who made their own enclosures. Some simple and some crazy complex, with most of them ending with the same result... an average 20dB reduction in noise. For those of you not familiar, 20dB is a lot when it comes to these Antminers!
I admit, there was a case you could order from Russia that virtually eliminated the sound, but for the cost, it just wasn't worth it. You can see it HERE. Some people used old refrigerators that also worked, but I don't have any old refrigerators lying around. In some cases, some people chose to submerge their miners in oil to keep them cool, and yes, this completely eliminates the noise since there are no fans, but who wants to take that risk with a $1200-$2500 piece of equipment?
The solution I found that was the most cost-effective and worked most was to buy a cooler and build the enclosure out of that. There were several tutorials, but I decided that I would try my own using similar materials I could find at a reasonable price around my area - although most of my materials were from Home Depot and Lowes.
Below is an Image of a majority of materials I used for my soundproof enclosure build:
I would also recommend having the following tools to make the build easier:
- Power Drill with various Drill bit sizes
- Screw Driver with various bits
- Pliers
- Scissors
- Cutting Knife
- Various sized screws
- Zip ties
- Aluminum metal tape
If you have one, a 3D printer would be helpful - the 120MM Fan to 4 Inch Duct I used was very difficult to find and order and I ended up having to buy it from eBay from a seller who printed them out using a template (see black 4-inch connectors in picture below)
The seller was reliable and even offers the design in case you want to print them yourself - Link to Seller's Page
Above is what the Antminer looks like with the shroud attached. The air is directed to a 4-inch hole that you can connect an insulated duct to in order to direct air away from the unit and at the same time mask the sound some.
Over the course of the build, I continued to add materials and make adjustments to improve the design, and as most things go, it is still a work in progress. I continue to find more and better ways to insulate and reduce the noise levels even more.
Currently, the sound level has gone from a whopping 80dB to a little less than 50dB and I'm hoping to build a second enclosure for this closure which will reduce it even more by adding a second level of noise dampening space to reflect the sound back inwards while maintaining the same temperature.
The current build is pictured below
One end has a 4" duct fan blowing cool air in, but can be replaced by or attached to the end of a long insulated duct, like on the output end to reduce the noise by a few more decibels.
The build total currently cost me a little over $120 USD which is not bad, considering that one S9 miner earns that in one week at current Bitcoin prices. This enclosure will also work with the L3+, the D3, the Avalon 7 and most other ASIC miners.
Below is a video of the build process which took about 2 days to complete. I hope you enjoy it and find it insperational to help you on your own build journey.
I will also upload this video to DTube in the next day or so!
My next project will be to tackle building an outdoor closet/room to house all my miners.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my build journey. If you have any suggestions, comments, questions, inputs, or feedback, please feel free to let me know by posting a comment below. I would also appreciate your support in the form of an Upvote, a Follow, and a Re-Steem of my post if you found it informative and entertaining.
If you have a build of your own, Id love to hear about it since I'm always looking to improve my design.
