Staff Special: Crypto Mining @Home — Level 2: Mining on a Condo Balcony

In the last blog post, we shared the most accessible level of crypto mining at home. In this post, we are showcasing home-mining that involves more skills. Our engineer, foenix, walks us through how he sets up his miner on his balcony.

Miner Profile

Name: foenix

Mining Experience: 5 years

Motto: Passive, silent money is good money

As an electrical engineer by trade, working on chip design, I was always fascinated by how generic hardware, such as GPUs, can be used for other applications other than 3D graphics. When Bitcoin became popular, my first encounter with mining was with an old i7–3930k. It was a great introduction to how the whole ecosystem worked. I then moved on to ETH using old AMD cards that were lying around, and now, I’m into ASICs designed strictly for mining.

With limited power at home, I am always looking for hardware that can help power blockchains that provide valuable services. With SC200 miners, I am able to mine the Siacoin needed to use the awesome Sia-powered tools such as Skynet and Siastream. Currently, I am working to transition all my digital backups and media onto the Sia network, even hosting a bit of storage myself to help contribute.

With that said, I have my miners set up on my balcony. In Toronto where I reside, the average monthly temperature does not exceed 30°C, which is perfect for mining. If you live in a colder climate, mining outdoors might be a good option for you.

One of the benefits of mining on the balcony is that you don’t hear the noise once you close the door, and the setup does not add to the clutter at home.

Materials Needed

• A plastic storage box

  – This is the one I have, but you can use any storage box you like

• Your miner

• A PSU

• A router or wifi extender

• A furnace or car filter

• A power bar

• An ethernet cable

• A box cutter and/or drill

The Process

I cut two holes in the storage box. One is for the freestanding power outlet at the bottom, and one is for ventilation with the orange-framed car filter on the side. If your outlet is on the wall, then you should cut a hole on the side of the box, just big enough for the cords to pass through. You may need a drill to help cut the storage box.

Most people have an outlet like this on their balcony

My outlet looks more like this

Since the box resides outdoors, filtered airflow will prevent dust from accumulating inside of the rig. I chose a filter that is smaller than the sides of the box but big enough that it would allow ample air ventilation. Either a car or furnace filter should work.

Then I measured the filter, marked where I wanted to place the filter on the box and cut along the marked lines to create a hole. I covered the hole with the filter. I got mine from Canadian Tire and the filters are easily found in any hardware store. The more affordable options may be available at dollar stores.

After the box was cut, I arranged the placement of all the components inside the box. You can see how I arranged the mine from the picture below. I put a metal rack inside the box so that I could stack the PSUs on top.

This is what the inside looks like with the lid open

I could have stacked more miners. As per our previous post, we have explained how to calculate your power usage. My balcony outlet is 15 AMP, 120V. Technically speaking, I could support up to 1800 watts in total. This translates to running 2 SC200s at 500 watts each, saving 700 watts for the espresso machine 🙂

I then set up the miner as per the instructions. Once the miner is running, close the lid, and it’s done!

The benefit of the storage box is that it looks way more clean than just having the cables and the machines laid out. You can even decorate the box to suit your aesthetics. Since I am leaving my miners out on the balcony, which I barely use, I left the box as it is.

And that’s my two cents for mining at home. If you feel inspired or would like to share your setup, please feel free to comment down below or tag us on Twitter @epicblockchain.

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