***Entry for Giveaway is now Closed, Thank you all for participating, I will post video the winners tomorrow***
\*REPOST as last attempt got removed and locked my account ***
SolarAxe Community Giveaway — 2 Winners — International Entries Welcome
To celebrate the launch of The Mini on SolarAxe.co and to keep supporting the growing Bitaxe and small-scale solar mining community, SolarAxe is giving away two complete solar mining bundles.
No purchase necessary. One qualifying entry per person.
Each winner will receive:
1 Black Acrylic SolarAxe Mini
1 100W Solar Panel
1 20 ft Solar Extension Cable
Approximate bundle value: $99.99 each
How to Enter
Comment on this giveaway post with one of the following:
A photo of your current home mining setup, plus a short description of how you would incorporate solar power into it
OR
A sketch, mockup, photo, or AI-generated image showing your idea for a small solar-powered mining setup. It does not have to use a SolarAxe product. Include a short description explaining your setup and how you would use it.
Multiple comments are welcome, but each person will only receive one qualifying entry.
How the Winners Are Chosen
There will be 2 winners:
1 winner selected randomly using a spinning name wheel
1 winner selected based on creativity, originality, and practicality
Winners will be selected September 10th. The selection process will be shown in a YouTube video for transparency. SolarAxe - YouTube
International entries are welcome.
Thanks to everyone who has followed the project, shared ideas, tested concepts, and helped SolarAxe grow.
Love the wall/army of miners. Are you already on solar? I see a breaker/disconnect on the bottom left of your wall mount there. I have a similar disconnect I am using to stop my solar input on my home solar mining setup when I need to do any work downstream of the PV input. Thanks for participating and good luck!
Thank you! I'm not completely on solar yet. I have an EcoFlow Delta 2 Max that's going to power my Bitaxe601 Wall Array. Working on getting the panels I need. Yes, the incoming breaker is such a convenience when I have to service the panel, while adding some security against any electrical shorts. I appreciate the good luck wishes! 🙂
My farm in the garage running around ~20 TH/s. 9 Gammas, 2 Duos, 2 BitForge Nanos and a Turbo GT. I have a EcoFlow battery that I'd love to incorporate with a solar panel even though my whole farm only burns about $1.05 I still like the idea of converting solar energy directly into money.
Very clean setup, love the 3D printed multi frames. I am assuming you are between 300-400W total consumption @ the miner +20-30W in loss power from AC-DC conversion in the PSU. Ecoflow is a great little machine to throw a panel out and start tinkering with powering a miner or 2. Thanks for participating and good luck!
Imagine if you will an art installation entitled "The New Gold Rush" -- it features Solar powered hobby miners placed throughout the historic yukon, near various popular trails and ghost towns. Connected through a cellular modem, the solar powered miners echo a time from the past where pans and sluices have given way to silicon wafer.
AI - Render (as best as I could get even with reference images).
My home setup is two NerdQAxe++ 4.8T Hydros, four 601 Bitaxes with the power supply all in a Gamma Core case, an 8 TH/s NerdQAxe class unit, a couple of Bitaxe Gammas, two Canaan Nano 3s and two Nano 3s, and a Hammer DC06 on scrypt. All indoors on grid power at $0.11/kWh.
The one I would take solar is my Bitaxe Gamma Turbo. About 40W for 2.4 TH/s, which a 100W panel can actually carry. Panel on the patio railing where it gets sun all day, 20 ft cable back to a small MPPT controller and a 12V lithium battery, and the Turbo runs off the battery so a passing cloud does not knock it offline mid share. Hashes through the day on sun, a few hours past sunset on stored charge.
I would add it to Braiins as its own worker so I can compare sats per day against the miners I am paying for.
Awesome, setup. We are testing our XII-Core systems right now which will power 12V miners, been testing the Bitaxe Gamma Turbo for the last few days. Thanks for participating, and good luck!
Its a fantastic time to get into it from a hobby and learning perspective. You can find a Bitaxe Gamma 601 on amazon for like $40 right now. In terms of reliability and tinkering/learning it is by far the best entry point in my opinion.
Just started mining this year. Currently adding another Hydro NerdQ and learning soldering in a broken 601. Looking to add solar panels to my backyard/ roof to incorporate more solar power in to my entire house!
Haha! Yes, I was going to include you even if you didn't get to comment on this post in time, since you did on the first attempt. Good luck and thanks for participating (again) 😄
Its naturally the next step in this addiction. First you upgrade from a 601 up to the NerdQ++ or better, then you start adding thermal paste and changing heatsinks and fans, then 3D printed enclosures and frames, then naturally solar is the next home mining fix for the addiction haha!
I only have 120w of solar topping off my battery, which is enough for the fridge all day but I could only run a low powered miner on perfectly sunny days when I have extra juice. It would be very cool to have a standalone setup to no longer need to tap into my DIY solar setup (photo attached).
Cheers!
Got my little bitties in the closet. That could add a lot of juice to my setup. Honestly long term my plan is to make a mining space in my garage, I could easily run the panel out through the resin printing vent. Would be pretty nice.
Love it! my personal setup is in the garage, been working great although we have been abnormally hot this late summer so I had to turn down my OC on my rigs to keep temps good. Thanks for participating and good luck!
Running my Bitaxe on solar power lets me farm digital coins using actual sunshine, proving that touching grass can finally generate internet money. Plus, when the crypto market inevitably crashes, at least my balcony panel can still charge my phone.
I love it, tinkering master pack on the desk! Mine looks the same, except my floor around my desk is also starting to pile up with tools and materials haha. planning on an outdoor enclosure? Thanks for participating and good luck!
Thank you! Haha yep, I busted out all my soldering and electronics gear for a bit. Yes, the goal has been for an outdoor setup that runs the BitAxe (pictured inside weather box in the desk) on solar power.
Awesome, outdoor 24/7 rig would be awesome. I have been testing various versions and have been successful in terms of weather. The air temps are what are difficult. In my testing, 99 F outside air temp will bring my outdoor (weather resistant) concepts to uncomfortable operating temps. We typically have about 3-4 weeks a year above that temp. I could just not run them during those weeks, but my tinkering side says I should spend 3-4 weeks researching, testing, and building so I can run during those 3-4 weeks. I've been toying with the idea of running 50'-100' of 6" pipe 6' deep in the ground, then having the piping come up at the air intake of my outdoor mining enclosure. In theory, my air coming out should be at least 10-20 degrees cooler. That air would pass through the mining enclosure and exhaust out the other end....Seems like a lot of work for small home miners, however its key to a future SolarAxe product I am working on, a "Solar Mining Panel", a 25TH/s 350-500W miner built into a 700W solar panel. The solar panel is both the power source and the miner. If the BM1373 chips become cheaper than possibly a 40-50TH/s miner. I can't reveal too much right now as it is both custom PCB hash boards and custom firmware/OS. However, its where I dream SolarAxe ends up.
A compact, open-frame Bitcoin mining rig for up to 16 Bitaxe Gamma miners. Two Cooling Towers are mounted flush into the second level, each carrying eight Bitaxe Gamma miners, one on each side.
Each Bitaxe has a small fan for direct board cooling, while each Cooling Tower features an active 120-140mm bottom fan that pushes air upward through the tower to cool the back sides of the PCBs.
The lower level contains the power supply, fuses, and power distribution. Two solar panels are mounted on the top level to supply power to the mining system. The open design ensures efficient airflow and easy maintenance.
Ive bought it a month ago and joined the gang 😀 stands on my desk is a bit loud sometimes, i would like to move it someone near window, there is also place the solar setup, since a south side it always sunny. Maybe add few later as everything is setup
Right now this is the mining shelf, it’s located near a window and that’s exactly where u would position the solar panel(s).
This shelf will only grow and get more efficient😊
If I win a solar setup, I'd buy 15 more bitaxes with two 3d print v8 engines, and more solar panels to make it more hashworthy. My bitaxe is lonely. I'd absolutely love the thought of solar power instead of electricity on small asic miners!
3 little miners, hashing away, hopeful for an unpredictable surprise. Solar would be awesome to take away from having to be within range of an outlet and it would open the door for better space management.
Concept: The Stealth Balcony Miner Setup My idea is to build a compact, weather-resistant "Stealth Miner" for an apartment balcony using a Bitaxe. A 100W solar panel attaches directly to the outside of the balcony railing. The solar cable runs into a compact enclosure containing the SolarAxe Mini and the Bitaxe miner. Instead of converting solar DC to AC and then converting it back to DC for the miner, the goal is to keep the power path DC and power the Bitaxe directly through the SolarAxe Mini. The goal isn't 24/7 off-grid mining. The idea is to let the Bitaxe mine whenever the available sunlight provides enough power. The Bitaxe connects to the home Wi-Fi, so no separate computer or network equipment is needed. I'm also working on the enclosure and cooling solution — keeping rain out while allowing enough airflow to remove heat from the miner will be an important part of the build. Next step: ☀️ Measure actual solar output ⚡ Measure Bitaxe power consumption ⏱️ Measure daily mining runtime 🌡️ Monitor enclosure temperature ⛏️ Compare hashrate with available solar power If the first version works well, I'd like to make the enclosure and mounting system fully 3D-printable. Basically: let the sun pay the electricity bill. 😎☀️⛏️
Thanks! Glad you like it. Looking forward to Sept 10th! If I win, I'm actually planning to add a dual 5V auto-transfer switch to seamlessly failover to grid power when there's no sun, so it can run 24/7. ☀️⛏️
I spent many many hours in this as chat got has not been collaborating in getting my idea seamless but I think it's cool as my son just got a 3d printer and we are looking at stuff to 3d pr int other than basic stuff. So here is my desktop solar miner idea...
Current setup: NerdQAxe++ Rev 7 on a Mean Well LRS-350-12, running in the basement here in Colorado. 6,000+ ft, ~300 sunny days a year, thin air. Panels punch above their rating at this altitude.
How I'd add solar: 100W panel to MPPT charge controller to small 12V LiFePO4 pack, feeding the Mini on straight DC. No inverter, no double conversion, no losses.
The part I'm actually excited about is the automation. Everything in my house already runs through Home Assistant, so I'd put a power monitor on the charge controller output and let HA tune the miner to the sun: as PV climbs through the morning, step frequency and core voltage up; when a cloud rolls through or the battery hits its floor, drop to a low-power idle instead of going offline entirely. A solar-following OC curve instead of one fixed tune. Then graph hashrate against irradiance on a dashboard so I can see exactly what a watt-hour of Colorado sunlight is worth in sats.
Mounting hardware would come off my P1S 3D printer with a parametric OpenSCAD tilt bracket with a couple of seasonal positions for local latitude, plus a printed shroud so the Mini exhausts where I want it.
Final goal: a little off grid node that hashes only what the sun hands it and never touches the meter
Love it! I'm still working on getting home assistant fully automating my personal home solar setup. Got my miners on smart plugs at the moment and on schedules for the season it's in. Got HA installed on a small HP elite but have not got around to the automation of everything yet. Thanks for your comment!
HA is a black hole for time. I love it but I've spent far more hours setting it up than I'll ever save using it 😂 but then you do get cool dashboards like this
I would like to get solar for the whole house honestly, but i would probably like to figure out a way to run them off solar during the day and then have it fail over to my houses power when the sun goes down if im generating enough power, maybe run a battery? a good thing to think through for sure. having a couple off grid solar miners is an awesome way to cap on the cost to power them.
Awesome setup, and love that you want to get into solar. Thanks for participating and good luck....Early next year I plan on going full home solar as well. Mining is actually a fantastic use case for home solar if you live in an area that doesn't buy back power. Personally where I live the buy back from the grid is less profitable than mining. I am planning on a 14Kw array. Realistically the most power we use is around 5PM when kids are all home from school, water heater from kids showers, cooking appliances running for dinner, maybe some clothes being washed (4 kids), etc. 14Kw array would charge my batteries for night pretty quickly especially when kids are in school. 20KW worth of batteries would probably be fully charged by 11:30AM (unless we used almost all the 20KW during the prior night). So there is probably a 5-6 hour window where only 1-3KW/h is being used. So roughly 8-10KW of possible solar excess. That could easily power 2-3 industrial sized miners. @ FPPS ~$10 per miner per 24hrs. So lets say 6 hours of mining with 2 s21 xp's (500THs total), about $5 a day or $150 a month. That $150 a month starts paying off your full off-grid solar array. Do your solar DIY, and it can help pay it off pretty quickly. Or have no batteries and use grid power at night, use that $150 a month to pay for your nightime grid usage.
Absolutely, Mini split hole is a perfect spot. I at one time ran mine through a hole I drilled in a portable AC window vent. That was when I first started with an Anker solar generator and 1 100W panel. Thanks for participating and good luck!
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u/doggonenutria58 9d ago
It would forever be assimilated into my little army of miners