Cooling a room/basement with mining rigs

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kerbos5

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So I have 7x 280x, 10x 750TI and a lowly 270x in a spare computer running 24/7 mining...as you can imagine my basement gets toasty.... so hot I can barely stand working in my office down there...so I needed a solution and quick....I have a whole home integrated backup solution, and was justifying in my head a portable AC unit that could be used anywhere in my house but I didn't want to drop $399 on that equipment right now...soooo...a friend said go redneck...I was skeptical, however I have been pleasantly surprised...for 20 bucks and 5 min of my time, I built this...and I'll be a son of a gun if it don't work PERFECT! Just thought I would share for anyone else with a toasty room that doesn't want to spend a fortune spot cooling a room.

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so you have a fan blowing into the styro cooler and a PVC elbow coming out that will disperse the cold air? how often to you change out the ice packs?
 
Just don't use a freezer inside the house to make the ice. Otherwise, you're adding even more heat to your house, further increasing the load on your AC come summer.
 
So I have a deep freeze in my garage that runs anyway for meats and whatnot with plenty of room to cycle these 1 gallon containers so no extra heat in basement from that.....I'm not sure how long one set of frozen water will keep cool, I have running for a test 2x 1 pint water bottles, 2x 1gallon of milk jugs, and 1x 2liter of sprite, with the bottom lined with medical chill packs for shipping meds...they last a real long time. :)....will let you know as soon as it melts and becomes useless. Also I remembered that in WWII, allies researched Gigantic blocks of ice with sawdust, as Aircraft carriers, because the ice melted slower....might figure out what kind of sawdust they used, and mix a concoction, and see if that's true compared to regular ole water. :)
 
kerbos5 said:
Also I remembered that in WWII, allies researched Gigantic blocks of ice with sawdust, as Aircraft carriers, because the ice melted slower....might figure out what kind of sawdust they used, and mix a concoction, and see if that's true compared to regular ole water. :)
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That's really not relevant. They were just trying to keep the ice from melting. You're intentionally forcing room air through the "ice packs" to transfer the heat into them. If anything, you'll just insulate the ice, making your system less effective.
 
Does not compute.

You will generate MORE heat overall because your freezer will need to re-cool the ice packs every time you put them back in. While you will get localized cooling you're still going to heat up your house overall by doing this, because a freezer is not anywhere near 100% efficient.

I took the easier route of just making open mining racks out of wire shelving and PVC pipe and sticking them in the garage, where the heat will mostly vent to the exterior.

My 290 Tri-X cards are running scrypt mining @ 64C right now and I don't have to deal with the heat or noise.
 
IEC said:
Does not compute.

You will generate MORE heat overall because your freezer will need to re-cool the ice packs every time you put them back in. While you will get localized cooling you're still going to heat up your house overall by doing this, because a freezer is not anywhere near 100% efficient.
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Nope.

I have a deep freeze in my garage
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My opinion is you will stay cooler in a localized way.
But you will probably use more watts to do it than an efficient AC unit.
That's not to say you won't save on the equipment cost in the short term.
If the deep freeze is in a hot area, garage, then you are working it hard by cycling warm water into it and out and opening it up to the hot air.
But, as you say, it's keeping you cool :)
 
Core32 said:
My opinion is you will stay cooler in a localized way.
But you will probably use more watts to do it than an efficient AC unit.
That's not to say you won't save on the equipment cost in the short term.
If the deep freeze is in a hot area, garage, then you are working it hard by cycling warm water into it and out and opening it up to the hot air.
But, as you say, it's keeping you cool :)
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Yup, it'll cost him more in energy, but it'll help to keep the house cooler.
 
well, if we're going to argue semantics, we'd have to know the conduction rate for the wall between his garage & house.

Technically, it could increase the temperature in his house, but the difference will probably be miniscule.
 
How do we know his garage is attached to the house? :)

Such a simple question, leave it to [H]'ers to F it up :D
 
Parja said:
OK, let's try this again.

Thus, not going to heat the house more.
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Haha yup definitely missed the important part of "in the garage". Mein Fehler. That makes sense then. While you'll still have a bit of heat conducted from the garage to the house (assuming it's attached) it will be minuscule.

Though I still think putting at least some of the rigs in the garage is a better solution overall :D
 
I'd be concerned with humidity/condensation in the garage especially since we're on the doorstep of the rainy season.
 
edge929 said:
I'd be concerned with humidity/condensation in the garage especially since we're on the doorstep of the rainy season.
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As long as gear stays above the dewpoint it shouldn't be a problem. Testing that as we speak.
 
Parja said:
Yup, it'll cost him more in energy, but it'll help to keep the house cooler.
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It is not costing me more in energy people, if I'm reading all the comments correctly, the garage is the hottest room in the house come summer, so I will not be putting any of my open frames there (all are opened framed except 2 cards). The energy allocated for the deep freeze already is and will be, because of the meats..ect...so I'm killing two birds one stone. The only thing taking any MORE electricity is the minimal amount drawn from the fan on the cooler, which is FAR less than a portable AC unit, which I have still not ruled out completely, for preparation purposes in case of power outages when its hot out, and humid out...which has known to happen in late spring/early summer here in the midwest.
 
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Yes it will cost you more. A deep freezer does not have the pump on 24 hours per day. it's only on a fraction of the time. By adding water jugs to the freezer at a temperature above freezing, you're adding energy inside the freezer. Thus the pump must operate longer & more frequently to freeze that water. That costs you electricity.

Plus, the more often it is used, the more heat it dumps into the garage, which increases the temperature of the "reservoir" and the pump must do more work then to remove the same amount of heat from inside the freezer.
 
~0.1kWh per lb to freeze water is a good thumbrule for modern reefer equipment.
 
JM,
You are technically correct and thank you for the lesson on refrigeration, however my point is.... energy output will not be as much as a Portable AC unit, like some speculate, and it is a piece of equipment already at my disposal, so no immediate up front costs. and Consider this, if I really want to go green, I could power the fan with a little itty bitty solar panel....that's for another day when I'm bored. :) then I can use outside for parties. :)....and if as a collective think that this is less cost efficient than a portable ac unit...lets get creative we got engineers out the wazoo in here including my self lets design something via colaberation....could be the next big thing. :)
 
yeah, i've been trying to think of a better way to get my mining rigs out of my house for this summer.

Your ice method is okay, but I fear that it wouldn't be enough for my little 15 cu. foot chest freezer with my food to keep up with my 20 gpus.

I am planning on building a shed outside and just using massive airflow.
A/C just kills the profits, imo and it's more cost effective to just have it outside.

Of course, I've dreamed up underground cooling loops & doing water cooling with all the cards, but the cost & lack of availability & difficulty to install an underground coolant loop negates all the pros.

Last summer I made my wife suffer; our house was usually ~85F. Our heat pump is just too small for our house and I had to cut down the large willow tree that was shading a good chunk of our roof.

Other ideas we've had is to submerse the gpus in mineral oil and have it go through a heat exchanger to reservoir that is constantly trickling off hot water into the ground and refilling cooler well water.
 
JM,
Your assuming a few things
1) Without specifics your are arguing that it is more energy than a portable unit, without even knowing make and model of freezer I have, there is a wide range of power efficiencies with these things.
2) You don't know how often I have to put these in the freezer...hell neither do I....yet.

So based on those two things can you really argue definitively that it will cost me more in the long run than just purchasing and powering a portable AC?

Observation of Test:
I have been running this thing since 9 am cst, temp output is the exact same as it was when first turned on this morning at 41 degrees....so its still going strong.
 
oh no, I would never even suggest that a portable AC unit is cheaper. That's not what I wrote.
I said:
"a/c kills profits"

whats the power draw for the 10 gpus?
 
The only way you're going to remove the heat from the house more efficiently than your central AC unit without significant upfront cost is to remove the heat source from the house. Especially true if your AC unit was made after 2005, which means it's at least 13 SEER.
 
kerbos5 said:
JM,
Your assuming a few things
1) Without specifics your are arguing that it is more energy than a portable unit, without even knowing make and model of freezer I have, there is a wide range of power efficiencies with these things.
2) You don't know how often I have to put these in the freezer...hell neither do I....yet.

So based on those two things can you really argue definitively that it will cost me more in the long run than just purchasing and powering a portable AC?
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I'd put money on your redneck cooler costing more money. For one, chest freezers are made to keep frozen stuff frozen, not to frequently try to bring warm things below freezing. Therefore, even on a good chest freezer, the "efficiency" is put into the insulation, not the cooling system.
 
I'm no expert in thermal control but assuming you have a basement or even an out-of-the-way room, why not just keep the rigs there and close off the room/area from your AC? The room will eventually hit max temp and stay there. As long as your outside ambient temperature isn't consistently in the mid-nineties or higher, the cards should be fine.

My basement is naturally the coolest part of my house and even if I didn't run the AC, it would stay well under outside ambient temperature which rarely exceeds 95F in the summer (midwest). Are you guys in the south?
 
J Macker said:
oh no, I would never even suggest that a portable AC unit is cheaper. That's not what I wrote.
I said:
"a/c kills profits"

whats the power draw for the 10 gpus?
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I stand corrected I re-read that after I posted....from the wall right around 1800w if I added correctly, its split coming off two separate breakers.
 
edge929 said:
I'm no expert in thermal control but assuming you have a basement or even an out-of-the-way room, why not just keep the rigs there and close off the room/area from your AC? The room will eventually hit max temp and stay there. As long as your outside ambient temperature isn't consistently in the mid-nineties or higher, the cards should be fine.

My basement is naturally the coolest part of my house and even if I didn't run the AC, it would stay well under outside ambient temperature which rarely exceeds 95F in the summer (midwest). Are you guys in the south?
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Well, even if it is a room that has two exterior walls and a ground floor (a corner room), about the most heat you could reasonably expect to not still transfer into the rest of your house would be half. Depending on how well that room is insulated, you would be surprised at how high that max temp might be.
 
edge929 said:
I'm no expert in thermal control but assuming you have a basement or even an out-of-the-way room, why not just keep the rigs there and close off the room/area from your AC? The room will eventually hit max temp and stay there. As long as your outside ambient temperature isn't consistently in the mid-nineties or higher, the cards should be fine.

My basement is naturally the coolest part of my house and even if I didn't run the AC, it would stay well under outside ambient temperature which rarely exceeds 95F in the summer (midwest). Are you guys in the south?
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Nope Im smack dab in the middle of the country....as far as another room......I have twins....enough said. They know "Daddy's area is off limits, the danger zone" I brew wine in basement as well....again another reason to keep it cooler, don't want it to age to fast.
 
Parja said:
Just don't use a freezer inside the house to make the ice. Otherwise, you're adding even more heat to your house, further increasing the load on your AC come summer.
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This. Unless you're making the ice outside, which is what I would do. Just lay out some containers on the porch fill with water, let it freeze overnight then bring it in. Though even easier is I would just add an intake and an exhaust and bring in cool air from outside instead of having to replenish something all the time.

As long as you keep the room below 25 you're ok. People seem to think they need to bring it down to like 15 but most equipment will run happily at 25-30. You just don't want it to get to 30 or it is simply uncomfortable for humans.

For summer then you'd probably need AC as well for when you get heat waves and the outside temp is above 25.
 
Well just a quick update, looks like all the frozen Ice were going strong, and about 1/2 melted in the 1 gallon jugs, so I think that the way I have it packed it would last with decent cooling for around 15 Hours in a room that is 78-82 degrees, it actually worked far better than I anticipated, and will see if I cant engineer to be cooler longer.
 
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