The FutureBit Apollo BTC ships with a custom built 200W that runs at 94% efficiency. This power supply is excellent.
I decided to over power my six FutureBit Apollo BTC miners using the ARESGAME AGV500 power supply. I used the custom mode when configuring the miners and maxed out all of the settings. This was great for getting the maximum hash rate and I ran this way for about a year.
Then this happened…
I was sitting in my family room watching television and noticed a funny smell so I got up and walked around the house trying to figure out what it was and where it was coming from. Suddenly I I thought “Oh shit, the miners!” and ran to the spare bedroom where I run the miners and man did it stink, burnt wiring on the power supply and as you can see it destroyed the connectors on the main controller. Luckily things just melted and there was nothing flammable under the shelf were the miners sit.
What Went Wrong?
It has been suggested that the power connectors were not fully inserted but I think the real issue was just running the miner with way to much power for an extended period of time. I was greedy and knew in my heart that running them at 80% power was the smart thing to do but I thought what’s the worst thing that can happen? I guess I found out.
How did I fix it?
I visited AliExpress and ordered a bag of 40 (the minimum amount) the white power connectors for about $3.00 USD, they were super cheap. Then I dismantled the entire controller box, it took about 5 minutes. There is not much to it.
I then spent about two hours de-soldering the connectors, It was really difficult to get the solder to melt and I’m really surprised that with the amount of heat I was applying to the board, it did not get destroyed.
Here’s the best part
I got done removing the burnt connectors and installed the new ones upside down. ARGH!
I know what you’re thinking, “They will still work, so what’s the problem?” The board wont fit in the case properly with the connectors on the wrong side. I had to go through the whole process again. This time it only took an hour.
Believe it or not, when I put it all back together everything worked as good as new. I switched back to an official 200 watt power supply for each box. I’m running in regular/standard mode for now until I get the courage to over power everything again.
What happens when you overpower your FutureBit Apollo BTC miners?
- Heat! I was running 6 miners in a small room. it hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit very quickly and I had to buy a small industrial fan with a thermostat controller. I stuck this in the window in the bathroom adjacent to the room with the miners. I had it set to 78 degrees Fahrenheit. This kept the fan running between 50 and 100% depending on the outside air temperature.
- Noise! The fans on the miners ran at full speed the entire time. Adding that noise to the noise from the industrial fan and it sounded like I was at the airport standing next to a turbo-prop aircraft getting ready to take off.
- Electricity! With the 500 watt power supplies, I could only plug 3 into a single wall outlet. if I added more to the same circuit it would trip the circuit breaker. I ended up running an extension cord out of the room through a hallway into the dining room to find an outlet that was connected to a different breaker. Both outlets that I had the power strips plugged into got so hot that they are permanently dark brown and need to be replaced. I’m lucky that I did not burn my house down.
- Reboot! At least once a day 1 or 2 controllers would stop working and I would have to restart the main controller to get everything running again. The hotter it got, the more frequently this happened. Note: When running in normal mode I never need to reboot.
Lessons learned
It was a blast running the miners like a maniac but I’m verry happy now running the miners as the team at FutureBit intended. Hats off to them for building such robust, high quality computers. Now that the new and improved Apollo II Collection is out I’m contemplating buying a new controller, they are works of art, really beautiful. I just need to convince my wife that I NEED another one. :-)
Epilog
My miners are happy once again. I moved all of them into my home office and they are running in Regular mode. One outlet is all that is needed for all 6 miners, it’s not noisy and the temperature is only about 76F with no fan needed. :-)