Rob Walther, previous with Fidelity Investments is now the founder of an exciting startup called ContainMint. Rob has led IT infrastructure and operations for global companies. Most recently, he has been focused on the construction and support of hosting facilities for cryptocurrency mining. Rob is now developing cost-effective ways to mine cryptocurrency with his new company, ContainMint, developing a highly efficient mobile data center based on liquid immersion technology.
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1YqKDnpYwaYJV
https://www.facebook.com/groups/crypto.mining.tools/permalink/471987810381859/
Transcription
Welcome to everybody crypto mining tools podcast. And today we have Rob as our guest and Ethan our cohost. Hi everyone. Rob, why don’t you tell us a little bit about who you are and and what you’re up to. Awesome. Well thanks God. Thanks Ethan. First of all let me just say happy holidays to everybody. Hope everyone’s having a great holiday season and getting a chance to take a break from the, the crazy world that is cryptocurrency. My name is Rob Walther and I’ve been in it infrastructure and operations for about 25 years. I’ve been building data centers and running it operations all over the world. And I was a director of global operations for fidelity investments for about five years. And while I was at fidelity I went to a lunch and learn and they had a a little expos, a on Bitcoin mining.
And fidelity is, as you may know, is doing quite a bit with Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining and you know, being a, an it as they explained the technology and the blockchain and everything behind it, I immediately became just enthralled. I left that, that meeting just really wanting to learn more and I started researching and learning everything I could about it. And started networking in, in the area in, in Raleigh, North Carolina where I was living at the time. And I met some really great people in the space that were also as just as excited about the technology as I was started working with JP Barrick at mining store. And we did some fantastic things together, building some data centers and hosting for mining equipment all over the country. And they’re still doing some phenomenal things very excited about what they’re bringing to the community. And and then a couple months ago I, I, and for the past year or so, I’ve been doing some research on liquid immersion cooling became very interested in that, in the future possibilities that that brings to the mining and efficiencies. And so that’s a, that’s kind of a little history of how I got to where I am today. I’m just really excited about the future of cryptocurrency and mining and supporting in any way that I can.
Tell us what you’ve, what have you learned about immersion systems? Cause I’m always fascinated by immersion technology and I do believe it is the future of mining.
Yeah, absolutely. So, so liquid immersion cooling, and this is really the, what I hope to get most across today in this podcast is an explanation of all the research that I’ve done and try to boil it down no pun intended to some, some easy, digestible information. So liquid immersion is comes in in a couple of different types. There’s single phase liquid immersion, there’s two phase liquid immersion, and there’s indirect liquid immersion. So those three types, single single phase.
Yeah. Tell us the different types. This is, this is very interesting.
Yeah. So single phase basically the, the, the computers and the servers are completely immersed in a non-conductive liquid. While these machines are in the liquid, you can actually put your hands in the liquid and you won’t get shocked or like, all right. So, so they’re completely non-conductive and single phase. Basically the, the heat from the chips and the computers goes into the fluid directly and then as the, the hot fluid rises to the top of the immersion tanks that fluid then goes to heat exchanger where the heat is removed and, and then transferred to either directly into air or to another fluid potentially. And then that, that same fluid then comes back into the bottom of the tank and completes the cycle all over again.
Okay. So it goes from the bottom to the top of the tank?
Correct. Natural convection takes the heat to the top and they call it single phase because the fluid actually doesn’t change phase. It doesn’t evaporate. It doesn’t it just up. Okay. So these fluids have, have a high boiling point. So they don’t actually boil, they just take the heat and then that heat is in gone through the heat changer and removed and then that cooler fluid comes back in.
What about fire? Is this fluid flammable at all? Is it, you know, it just seems so unnatural to see electronics immersed.
It does. It’s really counterintuitive, isn’t it? You know, the, the, the fluids that I’ve been using and there’s a couple of different types of fluids and I’ll explain here in a minute, but they’re very, it’s very important to make sure that the fluids you’re using have high flashpoints have high burn points so you can eliminate the, the, the risk of fire. Okay. So many of these very, very high flashpoints.
Yeah. Tell us about the the, the dual phase. So you told us about single phase. So tell us about the, the dual phase.
Absolutely. So, so dual phase or, or two, a two phase is exactly what it, what it says. So the fluid actually changes phase. So it goes from a, from a liquid to a gas to a, it actually has a low boiling point. So as the the heat from the chips goes into the fluid the fluid boils and, and that change of phase is great way to remove that heat. Now that as that gas and vapor from the boiling of that liquid goes to the top of the tank, it brings the heat with it. And in these two phase liquid immersion tanks, what they have you’ll commonly find is a heat exchanger right above the fluid. As that gas in vapor interacts with the heat exchanger, it re condenses and a JIP drips right back down into the container, into the tank. So
I’m imagining, I’m imagining something like a a still, right. So you have the fluid at the bottom and then it evaporates up through some condenser coils and then comes down to something similar to that.
Yeah, it actually it doesn’t go into the coils. It condenses on the surface of the coils and then drips back down. So what’s nice about two phase is that that fluid in the tank stays in the tank, essentially. It doesn’t need to get piped out to, to a separate heat change the heat. It stays self-contained. Now the, some of the potential problems with, with two phase is that it can, it can, some of the fluid can evaporate completely out of the tank. Now it does, it does tend to stay. The vapor does tend to stay right above the fluid, but you know, you have to have sealed tanks to some extent to prevent loss from just evaporation. And so it’s a, it’s a little trickier, but it’s, it’s also very efficient and and then the, the fluid in the heat exchanger above the, above the tank fluid is usually water or some some cooler based fluid.
Yeah.
That makes sure that it hits the saturation points so that that vapor recondense is and drips back down into the tank.
Wow. So yeah, it sounds like a much more complicated system. So tell us about now. Now there’s also a three phase system.
Well, there’s what’s called indirect cooling. So you, yeah, a lot of you may have heard of like water-cooled systems and, and basically it’s the, the machines aren’t necessarily immersed in water, right. Cause that’s conductive. So that would not be good. But the, the water is brought directly to the chip and in plate in, in in contained, however, so it doesn’t leak out. But it removes the fluid in right into the water, which is right next to the chip in, in a contained chamber. And then that fluid then gets ejected out and cooled and then Brock that back in. But those are very specific, require a lot of treatment specific to the boards to make sure the water doesn’t leak out, actually can get on the electronics equipment. So it’s called indirect. Okay. So Rob, why don’t you tell us a little bit about how this relates to cryptocurrency mining and and how you’re using or planning to use immersion.
Yeah, sure. So one of the great things about liquid immersion is that it is known to be more efficient than air cooling systems. Now there’s a lot of statistics around how much more efficient is liquid immersion. I’ve heard anywhere from 10% to 40%. It really depends on what sort of air cooled data center you’re comparing liquid immersion to. There are some air cooled data centers that like in cryptocurrency in, in many cases that where there’s no chillers, no air conditioners, it’s purely just outside ambient air, which is more efficient right then than your traditional data center with a very expensive crack unit or air conditioner unit. But it’s still is more efficient. And, and what’s great about a liquid immersion for cryptocurrency is that you can remove the fans entirely from the machines themselves. So the, the machines don’t have to spend all that power to run fan cool them, right?
So a lot of times when, when I’m, you know, putting cryptocurrency miners in, in this liquid immersion fooling cooling systems, I’ll just take the fans off completely. And that can save anywhere from, you know five to 30% depending on how many fans or what types of fans on the, on the equipment. So more efficient. Other benefits are like a lot less noisy. And, and it’s, it’s able to run equipment and hot and humid climates. So we can keep machines running here in Texas where I’m at middle of the summer in liquid immersion cooling and also in colder climates. You know, we don’t have to worry about hot air, certain recirculation back into a data center unit because the, the liquid immersion keeps it at a, at a consistent temperature and is able to do that in both hot and cold climate.
So there’s benefits and running in both environments. It’s it’s also eliminating dust in, in airborne contaminants and humidity from running through these, these machines, which can be very destructive and corrosive to the equipment. I’m sure many people in the cryptocurrency industry, mining industry have seen dirty, dirty machines and, and that’s just not, not part of the liquid immersion world. These machines stay running, stay clean, stay consistent, and, and use less power and create less noise. So it’s, it’s just so much better overall. And it’s, it’s a technology that is going to, I think really start to take off here as it becomes more affordable which has been a, a challenge for liquid emergent.
So I’m really glad that you mentioned affordability because I think that’s been the, the largest hurdle for anyone to get involved. What are you doing to, to help with those challenges? To, to make it more affordable, to make it easier for people to get into it?
Yeah, so that’s, that is really one of my main objectives with what I’m trying to do here is, is what can we do to not necessarily reinvent the wheel. Liquid immersion has been around for a long time. It’s very well proven technology, but what can we do to optimize it, make it more efficient take this bread box and make it just a little bit better of a bread box. Right. so there’s a couple of ways that you know, based on my 25 years of experience in it infrastructure and operations, so I’m bringing into that. Some some ingenuity. So some innovation that make it more cost effective. For example a lot of liquid immersion systems require an external dry cooler where the single phase fluid leaves the tank and goes out to this external dry cooler system.
It’s chilled and then brought back into the tank. Well, that’s a lot of plumbing that, that heat exchanger outside the unit is, is very, can be very expensive a lot of pumping in, in moving parts. So what I’ve done with my modular data center design is I’ve actually integrated the heat exchanger directly into the module, the container itself. Okay. So that eliminates the the amount of piping. The the heat exchangers that I’m using are much more cost effective. Then the, the dry coolers, these big units that are outside it makes the the modular data center much more mobile because we don’t have external pieces lying all around that, that have to be integrated. So it’s, it’s very integrated, all built inside of this one container system. In addition to that I, I’ve been bringing in a lot of innovation into the design of the tank, keeping it simple and, and not over-engineering it.
And also working with the fluid providers to make sure we’re getting the best cost possible on the, on the fluids. And the, the other thing is maintenance. So you know, it takes a lot of time and energy to maintain an air data center. Well, I’ve designed my liquid immersion systems to be completely remote controlled. Everything, every circuit, every breaker, every pump, every machine, every network port can be completely 100% monitored, maintained, stopped and started in from a remote location. It’s all internet connected systems. So and, and then one of the other things that I’d like to touch on here as well is, you know, I think a lot of us start are starting to see much more powerful mining machines coming on the market. So we have machines like the [inaudible] are, I think are 3,200 or 3,600 Watts.
It’s just, it’s crazy. And, and these machines require a tremendous amount of power in, in heat removal, which liquid immersion is really becoming the way to go with these higher powered machines and air cooling just really can’t keep up with some of these higher powered machines or, or I should say in certain climate conditions, it can be very difficult for your cold systems to to maintain some of these higher powered equipment equipment depending on airflow and the design and everything. Right. So one thing that I’ve done with my design is each circuit is capable of supporting 4,000 Watts. Wow. so we can end in with the liquid immersion cooling, we can help to make sure that that heat is removed efficiently and that that equipment is run at a, at a very safe, stable, supportable temperature in the longterm to keep that machine running for years to come.
So at 4,000 Watts, I mean, at that point you’re not really dealing with C 13 or C 19 connectors. Are you thinking about modifying how the miner actually connects to the power source? At that point? Yeah, that’s a great question. So the, the C 19 connectors, C 20 connectors are still viable for, for that set up. The PDs that I have actually with the 4,000 Watts per circuit can, can support the [inaudible] connectors. So that’s still possible. But I think as we, we, that it really is pushing the limits, those God as we start to go even potentially above that so they’re going to have to start using new and different connectors and the power supplies are definitely changing. There is seems to be a movement towards four 80, two 77 directly as opposed to today. Most of the power supplies can only go up to two 50, two 60. So there’s, yeah, there’s starting to be some movement and change there as well. That’s fascinating. Yeah.
And I had going back to the maintenance yeah. So I was wondering if you put something in immersion, usually it’s going to, well, yeah, it’s going to break the, the warranty. It’s going void. The warranty. So, and I know there’s some mining manufacturers that are coming out with boards that are made for immersion so that, that might be advantageous to work with a company like that. But for the most part, yeah. You know, if you’re buying the bit main or ebbing or, or what’s minor, they, they, it’s going to void the warranty. So are you thinking like you’re going to be putting used miners in here or, or brand new miners or what, what’s your strategy for sourcing and, and using those types of minors?
Yeah, so there is concern around warranty for sure. Right now we’re, we’re just specking out the [inaudible] just to start with. And then you know, the, the thing about voiding the warranty, you know, the, the liquid immersion is capable of keeping these machines free of dust and free of crows materials and free of the problems that usually break machines. And so that you’re going to end up finding that the machines just run better in, in liquid immersion cooling. Not to say that we wouldn’t want to get the machine fixed. If a component does break, but you’re right’s got a lot of these manufacturers are starting to come out with boards and equipment that is specific to liquid immersion. And what’s nice about that new equipment is that it’s, it can be more dense, even more dense than, than air cooled systems.
Cause you can really pack in a lot of equipment in a small amount of fluid and and get a lot more density with that new equipment. So you know, what, what we’re finding is, is users are generally okay with putting their equipment in liquid immersion, even if it affects the warranty. A lot of these machines just, you know, have the chance to run better in liquid immersion so they’re, they’re not so concerned about it. But we also are able to provide repair and maintenance services for anything that does break. So that’s a, that’s a way to mitigate that as well.
[Inaudible]
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[Inaudible]
Awesome. Yeah. So, yeah. Rob, with these [inaudible] like what are the pitfalls that you found? I mean, obviously you’ve overcome a lot of the, the, the challenges that immersion brings, but, and I really love the idea that everything is self-contained. Is that like a shipping container that you’re talking about or,
Yeah, right now we’re, we’re building this into a high cube shipping container both 20 and 40 foot models. So everything fits inside and like I said, including the heat exchanger there’s each each 40 foot container has 20 tanks and can support 920 [inaudible] each container. Each continuous data center is 920. Each tank has, can hold 46 [inaudible] or 24, 17 type devices. Okay. What are you making your tanks out of? [inaudible] Material? stainless steel and there’s, there’s all different kinds of you can use cold rolled steel, stainless steel aluminum. There’s some people that are using some some plastic fiberglass type units as well. But right now we’re, we’re looking at stainless to be the most cost effective and corrosive resistant and, you know, providing the few of us particulates into the, into the fluid.
And that, that brings to mind maybe the different types of fluid I could talk about if you’d like. Sure. Yeah. So you know, w with single phase the, the main type of fluid there is, is a dielectric. Synthetic dielectric is, is the preferred choice. Mineral oil is also possible for you may have heard machines running in mineral oil with men with mineral oil. Though I’d be really careful because there’s not as many controls around the, it’s mineral oil is just simply a byproduct. It’s, it’s a distillate of the petroleum process and it’s a petroleum petroleum byproduct that can contain Sofers and corrosive materials. And even carcinogenic stuff that’s could be hazardous to employees. So when you’re looking for a single phase fluid, I would look for something that’s synthetic that is made in a controlled process where all of the contaminants are removed and it’s very homogenous.
Liquid also mineral oil is very, it can be very viscous and oxidize over time and change color and get dirty. Whereas synthetic dielectric fluids don’t really oxidize or they stay clear. They’re odorless. They’re also food grade. They’re very biodegradable. They’re very environmental friendly. Mineral oil depending on how it’s made can, can be the exact opposite. It can be very, very non-biodegradable and I’m very environmentally friendly. So that’s for a single phase for, for dual phase, the two phase they, they use what’s called a, a floor unaided fluid, and that’s the type of fluid that I mentioned earlier that boils that are really low temperature. And one thing about that is it, it can also be non-biodegradable and it can also be, it’s traditionally more expensive then some of the synthetic dielectric fluids and it, and it can be there, there’s some material safety issues as well with some of those fluorinated systems. So a fluid, so there’s, there’s pros and cons to both, but those are the three different kinds of fluids. And then obviously there’s, there’s water for the water, chilled systems. Yeah. Yeah. So
You mentioned it’s, it’s food grade. Would, would this be something like I could dip my finger in and put it in my mouth and like, I wouldn’t have to go to the hospital and, and worried about being poisoned or anything like that.
That’s absolutely correct. You know, I wouldn’t do that with mineral oil. You know, mineral oil is really built for lubricant machine lubricants and cosmetics and things like that. But this synthetic dielectric fluid is, is safe. I, I wouldn’t recommend ingesting it. But it is safe. It’s not going to cause you any, any major harm. There’s, there’s no the material, material safety data sheets do wreck do say that it is, it is safe to ingest. You don’t, you’re not going to need a medical treatment for so yes there’s even some people who have on videos you know, ingested it, you know, you’re not doing that. I am not doing that. I do not recommend it. But again it is safe. Yes.
Okay. And you also mentioned the, the viscosity of mineral oil. I, I know from firsthand experience that mineral oil can be very viscous. And when I first started looking into immersion systems, I mean this was like two and a half years ago and I was seeing Russians putting it in Tupperware containers and, you know, mineral putting their miners in there. Can you give me a little bit more of an idea of what the viscosity of, of the dielectric that, that you recommend to use?
Yes. Yeah. So that, that is a great question. I don’t have the viscosity number off the top of my head, but what I can tell you is that the fluid that I’m using is has really good viscosity, low viscosity, even in cold weather temperatures with mineral oils, you have some waxes and things like that that are in the fluid, which cause it to really thicken. And, and the problem was as fluid gets more viscous it’s heat removal properties are reduced. So this synthetic fluid that I’m using is is controlled and built in a way that it, it doesn’t the viscosity does increase in, in cold weather slightly, but nowhere near to the point where we’d be becomes unusable for heat removal and, and is very similar to to water in many respects.
Okay. Yeah. So I just kind of wanted like a comparative, is it like water? Is it like baby oil? Is it like, you know, five w 30 that you put into your car? Like,
You know, the best way to explain it is, is if you would imagine water with a little bit of a, almost like baby oil kind of feel to it and it has an oil type feel to it, but it’s almost pores and flows very similar to water, but it does have an oily feel to it.
I have another question too, and I’m sorry to keep them bartering you with these questions, but when, when you take the cars out, let’s, let’s hear, here’s another thing that, that Scott and I see in the industry is, you know, we help broker the sale of minors. And so, you know, obviously if somebody has an emergent system and then they want to repack them, you know, into you know, just the regular, you know, rig frames and put the fans on or what not. How would you get the oil off of the circuit boards itself? Is there a process to that?
Yeah, that, that’s a fantastic question. And that raises one of the pros and cons too, of the different types of fluids that are out there. So with the dielectric fluid, it does leave a residue on, on the equipment. And they the providers of these dielectric fluids do provide solvent that are also very safe, that can be used to simply dip and remove that fluid. And when that that, that solvent and when it comes out of the solvent, then it comes out and essentially clean and dry. So you can, you can let, you can restore that machine back to an air base system if you needed to. And I’ve, I’ve seen some of those before that, that have come out of immersion and they look brand spanking new sparkly jewels and, and, and with the two phase the fluorinated fluids those do come out dry because that essentially the floor needed fluid is a solvent already.
That’s what it is. It was at fact the fluorinated fluids were designed to be solving from the get go. So they come out dry. But with the synthetic dielectric fluids they do come out with with a, a film on them has to be washed off, but then they come out clean and clean as a whistle. Like you said, there’s additional process there though. Yeah. Okay. Well, Rob before we wrap it up, why don’t we, why don’t you just tell us a little bit about where we can find you online and if somebody has questions about immersion where they could find you. Yes, absolutely. So before I get to that, I just wanted to mention one more thing real quick. In liquid immersion you can generally overclock the equipment more than you can in air cooled systems.
And so being able to get 10, 20, 40, 50% more if not, if not more out of each machine is a huge advantage for liquid immersion versus air cooled systems too. So I just wanted to make sure I pointed that out, right. As far as finding me. So, so you guys are really hearing about the beginnings of, of my company. I’m just in the, in the startup phase. I do not have a much of an online presence and that’s on purpose. But I will be having a website coming up here early in January. I wanted to finish up my testing and the prototype build. We’ll be offering a joint venture opportunity for anybody who’s interested in participating early on which will have some great benefits and potentially even some equity for folks that might be interested in participating with this company and this new startup.
And I’ll be having, you know, the, the Twitter and the Instagram and all the other great social media platforms to go along with it. In the meantime, just feel free to, to reach out to me directly on telegram is the best way to reach me. I also have a Twitter handle, which is at containment contain M. I. N T. A. You can reach me there as well. So I look forward to answering any questions that you have and really appreciate your time and really look forward to bringing liquid immersion to the market. And help helping expand its, its use across the industry.
Yeah, absolutely. Well thank you for coming onto our podcast and we’ll talk to you again.
Yeah, thanks a lot, Rob. We really learned a lot and very informative and I just want to give a shout out to all of our, our audience, you know, happy holidays.
Happy holidays and happy new year if we don’t see you again. Take care. Thanks. Goodbye. Bye. All right, and one last time. Thank you to our sponsor [inaudible] dot com and like I said earlier, you go to their website and on the top right hand side, click that signup button and there’s an area for an invitation code and just type in O, F, F, O R D one eight, and you can get a permanent reduction in your pool fees down to 1.8%. Thinking of a block.