Questions about the S19 XP (Reliability and Type of Heat Sink)

Hey everyone, I’m trying to get into Bitcoin mining but I’m stuck on a few final details before I go ahead with a purchase. I’ve done my homework but really need your insights on some questions. I’ll have access to free solar energy plus really cheap grid power, but there will be frequent power outages, with the miner likely turning off at least once a day for several hours. Also, the place will have pretty high humidity. Is this gonna ruin my setup, or can Antminers deal with those conditions? I’m considering the S19 XP, and I want to set up some custom water cooling plates and a radiator/fan combo, something like these: https://www.lianliwork.com/products_detail/39.html https://www.zeusbtc.com/ASIC-Miner-Repair/Parts-Tools-Details.asp?ID=2316 There are two reasons for this: first, the miner will be in a hot storage room (around 30-35 degrees C) without AC, and second, I want to cut down the noise from over 80 decibels to around 60. I initially thought about getting an S19JPro+ for this, but I noticed that the water cooling boards available seem to be for the S19JPro or S19Pro. The companies mentioned they could create a custom cooling board for me, but I’ve read here that might not be a good idea since the S19JPro+ reportedly has individual soldered heat sinks: https://this forum.org/index.php?topic=5449809.msg62158269#msg62158269 So now, I’m curious if the S19 XP has heat sinks that are individually soldered or if they’re bolted on, allowing for easier upgrades to custom water cooling solutions?

To switch the miner on and of regularly does not affect it at all. I have miners that are used as heaters and they are turned on and of several times per day. Also rental miners turn on and Off, depending if they are rented or not. The humidity could be more of an issue, but from what I have heard bitcoin miners are operated in every climate zone of the world and often even in warehouses/shipping containers where there is also a high humidity.

It is not that simple: For the longevity of the miner, it is better to have it shut down when it is cooled a bit. For that, the fans should run while the hashboards stop mining. You can use the "Sleep" or "Standby" mode on some miners. Although everyone will tell you, it does not matter - and they are right in general. Physically you will do your miners good, I can not tell you how big of a factor it is. I have experience in regular blackouts. You need to make sure that the miners do not get overcurrent. In my area sometimes the power goes on and off several times in seconds before it comes back. That fried several miner until I installed a switch, that keeps them off until you physically turn them on again, once the energy is safe again. So the message for you here should be, that you make sure your miners only get "good" power. Humidity is a problem, but it is more of a problem, when your ambient is cold and it condensates. I often have high humidity, but if the miners run and are hot and the ambient inside the room or chamber or whereever they are is hot, it should not be a problem. In your case, if you have them run with solar and they turn off in the evening, it might get cold over night and there might be condesate in your miners in the morning, if your ambient is too low. You can prevent this by having e.g. a miner run permanently to heat the ambient a bit. I would install a humidity sensor to check, so you can find a good solution for this. Regarding the heatsinks: I am courious, too. I have S19XP incoming.

I'm not entirely sure about the miner switching off during power cuts, but it's worth noting that Antminers are generally built to handle high humidity environments. However, you may want to look into getting a backup power supply to ensure uninterrupted mining. Regarding the S19 XP, I believe it has individual soldered heat sinks, which may make it more difficult to install custom water cooling boards. You could potentially look into other models that have bolted heat sinks, such as the S19 Pro, to make installation easier. Also, keep in mind that custom modifications can potentially void the manufacturer's warranty, so proceed with caution. Good luck with your mining project!

So many details that I will try to summarize, the S19 XP comes with 2 large bolted heatsinks,  regular power cuts are not good for miners, humidity is worse than heat and can really kill your miners. the water plates are a tough route, why not use immersion cooling instead? Have you looked into it? it would be a lot easier to do than water cooling, and nowadays, they sell those plug-n-play tanks which would make life a lot easier for you.

Thanks for you reply, and for information on XP heatsinks, I'm glad to hear it as it should make the conversion easier! I think if I was building a small farm the immersion cooling would make sense. For example the water cooling plates + radiator is about $500. For 4 miners it would be $2000. An immersion tank for 4 miners is $1700, but I couldn't find an immersion cooling kit for a single miner close to $500. Do you have a specific product in mind? I'm interested to learn but my Google Fu is failing on this

This is what I was thinking when I saw the news about variable load grids and bitcoin miners being shut down to help manage power, surely it can't damage them too much otherwise no one would be putting there miners at risk for this?

If you switch them off locally, it is not a problem. Damages are possible, when they cut power on the whole line. Or on a general blackout.

Thank you Andartis, and for your post above. I should have clarified earlier but solar system has an MPPT inverter, so the miner will be behind that to protect it from any grid based power surges. The risk is that the miner with the rest of my house sometimes causes a breaker to trip, so I’m looking to install a load shedding relay/breaker for the miner, which will trip to protect the house. At the moment I’m trying to figure out how to either automatically turn a this relay/breaker back on after a certain amount of time. When you say if you switch them off locally, I was under the impression they didn’t have an on/off switch, you just unplugged them? So would a load shedding breaker tripping be a safe off method for a miner?

They do not have switches on them. Regarding the switch, I can not tell you. As long as there is no sudden peak in current to the miners it should be fine.