Mining with Solar Power During Daylight Only

Been seeing a lot of debates about solar vs grid power lately. But what if we just use solar panels without batteries and mine only when the sun's out? Seems pretty straightforward if the sun is shining full blast.

Not practical at all. Watts measure power, not potential. You can’t just drop power without affecting the current unless you add more current, which defeats the purpose.

No such thing as a device that does that without batteries. You need a charge controller to manage the load and match the panel’s output. Just connecting it straight to a fixed voltage load will waste a ton of output.

If you’re talking about a perpetual motion setup, that's a no-go. It can’t produce constant output if the input is falling. That's literally the definition of over-unity, which is impossible.

I see your point, but a basic charge controller mainly protects against overvoltage. It doesn't do much else besides that. Sure, the MPPT models are better, but that’s a different story.

Sounds unreliable, tbh. One moment there's enough power, then poof, it's gone. Can you imagine your miner booting up and then shutting off? Not cool, especially with expensive solar panels.

Yeah, mining needs a lot of power. A huge battery could help, but then you’re adding complexity.

Solar is a decent idea, but it totally relies on constant sunlight. If it rains or clouds roll in, you're gonna have a tough time meeting demand.

You could run a miner off a 1000 watt solar panel, but it might shut off randomly. Using at least two batteries could stabilize things a bit more.

Possible in areas with tons of sun, but some places like the Sahara require daily maintenance on solar gear.

We tried using two inverters with 6 panels to power two S9 units. Didn’t work as promised. We had to add a battery for stable output, which was disappointing.

Yeah, cheaper inverters often can’t handle peak loads as well as advertised. You really need double the power rating to be safe.

Been running a mining setup off-grid for six months with batteries and solar. Switching miners on/off manually is a hassle, really wish for better automation.

Why is someone commenting on a 2014 thread? But hey, it's cool people still care. Totally agree on needing batteries for off-grid solar mining.

I’m no pro, but I think solar panels output AC, which is unstable. Without a battery, you won't get the stable DC needed for mining.

We used high-end inverters but faced issues because the load from miners isn't resistive like bulbs. Just didn’t work out.

Even with high-end stuff, it failed. My partner knows solar well, but we couldn’t get it to work for mining. The sun’s inconsistency was killer.

Solar panels generate low voltage DC, while miners need AC. You can’t just feed them DC and expect it to function.

Yeah, you string them together to get enough voltage, but the exotic inverters we tried just didn’t cut it.

Totally a mixed bag with the smaller solar setups. There are a lot of DC outputs but not suitable for running serious mining gear.