How to organize Repairs for your Bitcoin Miners
We’re going to discuss the main things you should consider before and during repairs for your Bitcoin miners. We’re approaching this topic from the perspective that you have at least 30 or 50 miners to manage, but it’s also useful information for smaller operations. So let’s get started. (If you already have some experience with Bitcoin mining, please feel free to skip the first section.)
STANDARD PRICE CALCULATIONS FOR BITCOIN MINING
When most of us think about mining Bitcoin, we start with cost calculations. The big question is, “Will I be able to earn enough to recover my investment and make a profit?”. A basic outline of these calculations would look like this:
1) Electricity Cost (10 Cents per KWH)
2) Cost of Miners ($1100 [Antminer T17e 50TH/s] x 50 )
3) Facility Costs (Free hosting in my basement)
4) Cooling Costs (Depends on your facility and how creative you get)
5) Price of Bitcoin (This determines how fast you’ll recover your investment)
6) Mining Pool Fees
In this example, we visited Bitmain’s website (https://shop.bitmain.com/) and used their display price for an Antminer T17e and then added a bit more for taxes and shipping. Assuming you’re buying in large quantities, you may be able to get better pricing, as well you could get a better deal if you purchase your miners at a time when the BTC price is low as the manufacturer may not have as much demand for their product during these times.
If you set up your miners correctly, and all of your miners were properly manufactured (no loose microchips), then you’ll soon have a bitcoin mining farm that’s producing 2,500 TH/s. This size farm could potentially earn $70,800 over a year after subtracting the cost of your miners) with the Bitcoin price at $7,103.08.
Please note that BTC prices will change and this could negatively or positively impact your mining, if the price doubled you would earn much more and have the essentially the same costs, at least until more miners begin mining in response to higher prices.
Please note that BTC prices will change, and this could negatively or positively impact your mining if the price doubled, you would earn much more and have virtually the same costs, at least until more miners begin mining in response to higher prices.
THE OTHER COSTS OF MINING BITCOIN (Repairs and Labor)
In a perfect world, all of our Bitcoin miners would stay in a single facility and never break, but in the real world you’ll run into multiple issues with your miners and knowing about the potential problems in advance can help you plan out how to fix each issue when you encounter it.
STEP 1: Before you Repair Analyze — and Figure out what’s Happening to your Miners
Before you start repairing miners, you’ll need to know which miners have issues and whether they will affect your mining operation enough to make fixing them worthwhile.
The best way to ensure that you can quickly identify issues with your miners is to make sure that every miner has a static IP assigned and that you have a map that shows where each miner is located in your facility. For smaller operations, you may be able to skip creating this map or assigning static IPs, but as soon as you start dealing with hundreds of miners, you’re going to feel blessed to be able to know exactly where to find the miners you want to fix. Even the noise generated from a few miners makes it difficult to diagnose issues when you are looking at the miners on the server/miner racks.
Example of a Static IP Chart
If you look at the private IP addresses listed on the chart, you’ll notice that they start with the number 1 at the bottom-left corner and continue to 40 at the top-right corner. By making sure to keep the IPs sequential, you’ll know that when your miner management software tells you miner 10.11.2.24 has an issue you can find the miner without much effort.
Now that you’ve made sure that each miner has a static IP [these IPs can be set from the miner’s admin panel], you can continue on to your miner management software.
MINER MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
For this article, we’ll be focusing on APMinerTool V1.0.10 (available from https://www.antpool.com/download.htm?m=tools), but there are other tools available that can be used for the same purpose. The APMinerTool is going to allow us to do the following:
1) Bulk Update Passwords
2) Bulk Assign IPs
3) Bulk Upgrade Miner Firmware
4) Bulk Change Miner Overclock Settings (useful for older miners)
5) Scan for Viruses
6) Scan for Miner Issues (Low Hash Power, Fan Issues, etc.)
Before working on your miners, you should make sure that your miners are updated to the appropriate firmware and check for issues such as low hash rate, which could mean that there are microchips that have malfunctioned on a miner’s hashboards.
Now that you’ve determined which miners may be damaged or which miners are not currently operational, you’ll need to make a decision.
1) First, hire someone to check the miners on the shelves and check for common operational issues. (Labor Costs)
This operations specialist could check for loose power cables or reset the miners. Frequently when you have so many miners, it’s easy for a power cable or two to come loose and start affecting your operations.
2) Hire an on-site technician to come to your facility. (Parts and Labor)
3) Pay for replacement parts and fix the miners yourself (Parts and Labor)
Once you decide how to handle the broken miners, it’s good to know the most common types of fixes so that you can estimate your repair costs.
MAIN MINER ISSUES FOR BITCOIN MINING REPAIRS
1) Fans
2) Control Boards
3) Hash Boards (Microchips and Boards)
4) Power Supply
Fix Number 1: Fans
Expense: Low
Difficulty: Low
A broken fan on one of your miners is a simple fix and happens to be one of the more common issues you’ll face.
Fix Number 2: Control Boards
Expense: High
Difficulty: Low
Fixing a broken control board in most cases means buying a replacement, and there are times when a replacement will cost you more than a 2nd-hand miner, so this is one repair that we may choose to avoid.
Fix Number 3: Hash Boards
Expense: Medium — High
Difficulty: High
Hashboards are the brains of your Bitcoin mining operation, and each board is populated with microchips. When a hashboard goes bad most of the time, you’ll be able to see how many microchips are operating, and then you can decide whether you want to pay someone to replace the individual chips, or just purchase an entire new hashboard.
Replacing the individual chips and working with the boards requires experience and specialized equipment, so the option to replace a few chips on a board is usually reserved for large mining operations which can have a technician visit the site and work on the miners.
Fix Number 4: Power Supply
Expense: Medium
Difficulty: Low
Power supplies can simply be replaced.
These are the most common fixes you’ll encounter during your Bitcoin mining operations. Here are the steps we recommend you go through when setting up and repairing your Bitcoin miners.
BITCOIN MINER REPAIR STEPS
1) Set static IPs so you can find miners when they breakdown.
2) Have someone check to make sure your miners are connected to power and rebooted.
3) Update firmware software and see if that fixes the issues.
4) Start repairing your miners, only if it makes economic sense to repair them.
Mining Bitcoin is a great way to support decentralization, but it can also be costly, and as a professional miner, it’s important to make sure that you keep track of not just your operating costs, but your repair and labor costs as well. If you are looking to start your Bitcoin mining farm, we hope this article helps you in planning your new venture.
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