Mining is the extraction of cryptocurrency, most often bitcoins, which is explained by their most serious demand and popularity on the market at the present time. In this process, the owner of the computer provides the resources of his equipment for the operation of the virtual payment system, helping to collect and process information about ongoing transactions with cryptocurrency. The more miners involved in this process, and hence the resources, the more reliable the entire system works.
For operations with information, the owner of computer equipment receives a reward in the form of a commission assigned by the owner of virtual money, or a reward in the form of a part of the cryptocurrency issued during the mining process, which is the main principle of the payment systems. For people who spend money through this system, it is important that transactions with the highest commission will be processed first. Trades with zero commission can be carried out for a very long time.
A mining farm is, first of all, a large amount of special equipment. While there were not so many transactions in the e-currency market, the average user had enough processor power to earn money. But now the work algorithms are becoming more complicated, the number of operations is growing, so a video card is already coping with this task, or rather a complex of several video cards or asics, devices specially designed for mining. Such a complex was called "farm". Asics (ASIC) are more high-performance and energy efficient, but quite expensive. Therefore, for home farms, many still use video cards. In addition to powerful video cards, the mining farm also includes appropriate power supplies that can provide enough energy, and, of course, a computer with constant access to the Internet. What processor, hard drive, RAM, etc. components are installed in the computer does not really matter. The main thing that is required of him is round-the-clock uninterrupted operation and network capacity.
And this is where difficulties can arise. Uninterrupted operation of the computer and the entire mining farm is possible only with a stable power supply. And if the voltage in the network is often low or high, or voltage fluctuations occur regularly, then you can’t count on any production. Most likely, only losses await ahead due to the constant shutdown of equipment or its breakdown.
Shutdown itself is not a big problem. The system can be configured to automatically reboot. But, as they say, time is money, and this is especially true for mining. The constant loss of time to load the operating system and the client will eventually add up to hours and even days of farm downtime. It's unpleasant, of course. But it will seem like a mere trifle against the backdrop of equipment failure. In this case, the inevitable downtime will be added to the cost of repairs or the purchase of new components. And not only a hard drive, power supply or motherboard can fail, but expensive mining equipment can also burn out.
The hashrate with which the crypt will be mined will depend on the constant power of the network. And what financial losses will you incur even due to a slight voltage drop. On a household example in this video, you can see how these drawdowns affect the quality of the equipment.
Therefore, for the normal operation of the mining farm in conditions of poor-quality power supply, it is worthwhile to provide effective protection in advance. The solution to the problem is to install a voltage stabilizer.
Choosing a Voltage Stabilizer for a Mining Farm
Modern stabilizers have a wide range of input voltages and are capable of leveling the voltage around the clock to a standard value of 220V with a slight deviation. The input voltage range of SUNTEK stabilizers is 120-285 Volts. Regulation speed about 10 ms. They also provide for automatic shutdown during critical power surges and subsequent automatic switching on when the network condition is normalized. Timely shutdown will save the equipment of the farm, and a quick turn on will not let you lose time.
How to choose a stabilizer for a mining farm? First you need to decide on the type of stabilizer and calculate the required power.
There are several types of stabilizers: relay, servomotor, thyristor (triac). Each has its own advantages, but when choosing, it is worth starting first of all from the parameters of the power grid. For networks where frequent voltage drops, a relay stabilizer is more suitable. If the network is constantly low (high) voltage, it is better to pay attention to the stabilizer of the servomotor type. Thyristor stabilizers will perfectly prove themselves in both cases. They are reliable, quiet and accurate, but they are quite expensive.
Voltage stabilizer power calculation
The calculation of the power of the stabilizer for the mining farm is as follows: the power of the stabilizer should be 15-20% more than the power of the power supply of the farm, while the power of the power supply should be 20% more than the power of the farm itself. Let's take an example.
We have a farm of four Geforce NVIDIA RTX 3070 video cards, from which you can squeeze the extraction of such a cryptocurrency as Ethereum hashrate of about 65 MH / s The power of each video card is 220W. So, let's calculate the power of the farm, 220x4 = 880W. We add here the processor (65W), motherboard (25W), hard drive (40W), RAM (2x20 W), etc., and with a slight rounding up we get - the power of the farm is about 1100 watts. Then the power of the power supply with a margin: 1200W.
It seems that everything is simple and you can proceed to the calculation of the power of the stabilizer, but there is one caveat. When calculating the power consumed by the device, the total power must be taken into account, consisting of active and reactive power and measured in volt-amperes (VA). If you do not go deep into theory, then in order to find out the total power, you need to divide the active power (in our case, 1200W) by 0.7. Then the total power of the power supply is 1715VA. We add 15-20% and we get that the power of the stabilizer for the farm should not be lower than 2000VA.
In conclusion, for those who doubt whether or not to purchase a stabilizer for a mining farm, I would like to make a small comparison. The cost of only one of the four Geforce RTX 3070 video cards today fluctuates within 600 USD, while the SUNTEK 2000VA relay voltage regulator, which will ensure uninterrupted operation and safety of all equipment, can be purchased for 75 USD. The conclusions are quite obvious.