Zhikuang University takes you to visit the mines - Xinjiang trip highlights

The activity of "Zhikuang University takes you to visit the mine - Xinjiang" has come to a successful conclusion. The editors all said that this on-site visit to the mine was fruitful and worthwhile. In the future, the editors will share with you what they saw, heard, learned and felt in Xinjiang in the form of articles or videos. Let's start our sharing this time.

01

Travel

On December 2, 2019, a group of people from Zhikuang University packed their luggage and rushed to the airport. While waiting for the flight, the editors took a group photo with interest wearing the company's customized sweatshirts.

▲Do you think it is cool to wear a sweatshirt with the word "Bitshuai" printed on it?

This trip to Xinjiang is the first time that Zhikuang University has visited a mine in Xinjiang. The editors are looking forward to the trip. What makes the editors look forward to is not only going to the mine to learn from professional miners, but also experiencing the customs and customs of the Western Regions and tasting Xinjiang's special food: sweet raisins, delicious lamb skewers, beef skewers, big plate chicken and delicious Hami melon? What makes the editors even more fascinated is that it is said that there is a Dilireba every five steps in Xinjiang and a Gulinaza every ten steps. Xinjiang is simply a paradise on earth in the editor's heart. Dilireba, here we come...

The only thing that worries me at this time is the severe cold weather in Xinjiang.

▲The temperature in Xinjiang is 15 degrees lower than that in Shanghai. I am torn between the desire for beauty and the fear of the cold.

We arrived in Xinjiang at 9 o'clock in the evening, and as soon as we got off the plane, we felt the severe cold of minus 10 degrees Celsius in Xinjiang.

▲The editor who wore a sweatshirt in Shanghai started wearing a coat in Xinjiang

After more than 9 hours of hard work, we finally arrived at the hotel. Before we could settle down, we couldn't wait to order barbecue takeout. The Xinjiang lamb skewers were so delicious!

▲Happy eating barbecue

02

Mine Overview

After a night of rest, everyone was fully revived and headed towards the mine with great anticipation. Let's feel the dawn of the desert frontier.

▲Sunrise in the desert

Let’s take a look at the aerial footage we captured. The desert is vast and boundless, and the mining machines are working in full swing:

▲Deep in the desolate desert, the mine is full of vitality

The vast desert exudes primitive desolation, but the modern mine built in the heart of the desert breeds Bitcoin, which represents justice and freedom. Nature and science, primitiveness and civilization are perfectly integrated in such a picture.

After experiencing the beauty of "the desert sand is like snow, and Bitcoin is better than gold", what left us with a good impression was the warm reception and professional and detailed explanations from professional miners and mine operation and maintenance personnel.

1. Mine planning and construction

The professional miners first introduced to us the necessary facilities and equipment for a mine. A mine must have a factory building, power supply and network.

1. The size of the mine depends on the power supply

The scale of a mining farm mainly depends on the power supply load. The power consumption of the mining farm must match the applied load, so that there will be no waste of electricity and the mining farm machines will not be idle due to insufficient electricity. In other words, after determining the scale of power consumption, the construction party of the mining farm can plan accordingly, how many factories to build, how much load to allocate to each factory, how much power consumption the mining machine has, how many positions to plan for this, how many sets of shelves, and how many layers to design for each set of shelves. With these data, a mining farm can be reasonably designed, and the actual power consumption of the built mining farm can match the planned power supply load.

2. Mining farm network

Mining farms usually arrange the network according to the design requirements and reserve a certain amount of redundancy. Generally speaking, medium and large mining farms are equipped with multiple 100M broadband networks. Of course, mining farms will also increase or decrease network resources according to actual operation conditions, and even add mining farm servers to optimize the network and reduce the rejection rate.

3. Mine factory

The main part of the mine is the factory building. The miners gave us a detailed introduction to the main structure of the mine. Combining the miners' explanations and what we saw on site, I drew a cross-section diagram. This is also the benefit of visiting the site, which can be said to be "seeing is believing". We will focus on this part later.

2. Mine payback period

How to estimate the payback period of a mine? Allocate the construction cost of the mine to each machine position and calculate the average cost of each machine position. Of course, the construction cost of each machine position in different mines varies greatly. The payback period of a mine running at full capacity is about 1.5 to 2 years, or even shorter. It can be said to be a highly profitable industry, but this kind of profit is based on resource channels and professional skills. The editor sighed as a poor person: the life of a mine owner is too plain and boring.

03

Main components of the plant

▲Sectional view of the main structure of the factory building

The above picture is a cross-section of the entire factory building, with cold air entering from the right and hot air exiting from the left. The cold air passes through the dust screen and water curtain, and then passes through the mining machine shelves to take away the heat generated by the mining machine, turning into hot air, and then discharged by the negative pressure fan.

The factory building mainly includes the following parts: transformer, low-voltage distribution cabinet, water reservoir, dust screen, water curtain, convergence switch, distribution box, shelves, negative pressure fan, shutters, etc.

The mine operation and maintenance personnel gave us a detailed introduction to the functions and roles of these parts from a professional perspective.

The factory is built on the desert. There are often sandstorms in Xinjiang. Paving the ground outside the factory with stones can prevent sand and dust.

▲Gravel on the ground outside the factory building

The transformer outside the factory converts high voltage electricity into 380V three-phase electricity, which is then connected to the low-voltage distribution cabinet, and then distributed to each group of shelf distribution boxes, and then distributed step by step to each shelf and each mining machine.

▲Each set of shelves has a dedicated distribution box to supply power

The most curious thing may be the water reservoir outside the factory. What is this pool used for? It supplies water to the water curtain, which draws water from the pool to lower the temperature in the factory.

The cooling process of the water curtain cooling system is completed in its core paper pad. There is a thin water film on the corrugated fiber surface. When the outdoor dry hot air is sucked through the paper by the fan, the water on the water film will absorb the heat of the air and evaporate into gas. The cool and moist air enters the room. At this time, the indoor temperature can drop by about 5-10 degrees.

▲Pool and water curtain

Considering that Xinjiang often has windy and sandy weather, a dust-proof net will be made outside the water curtain to prevent the wind and sand from blowing onto the water curtain and into the factory. The choice of dust-proof net is also very particular, and it is best to choose fire-resistant materials.

▲Dust screen

The shelves in the factory are used to place mining machines. The specifications of the shelves should be designed according to the load of the shelves, the number and models of the mining machines placed.

▲Shelves filled with mining machines

The function of the negative pressure fan is to discharge the hot air out of the factory, lower the ambient temperature and prevent the hot air from flowing back. The temperature in Xinjiang is very low in winter, and the low temperature will also affect the operation of the mining machine. The operation and maintenance personnel will adjust the number of negative pressure fans to be turned on according to the temperature in the factory. If the ambient temperature is low, some negative pressure fans will be turned off. If the factory is extremely cold, the hot air return system in the factory will be turned on to allow the hot air to flow back to the cold air to increase the temperature in the factory.

▲Negative pressure fan

The shutter is installed on the outside of the negative pressure fan. Its main function is to adjust the temperature of the mine and prevent dust. The shutter opens and closes with the switch of the negative pressure fan. When the negative pressure fan is turned on, the shutter is blown up, and when the negative pressure fan is turned off, the shutter is closed.

▲The shutters are half open and half closed

▲I am Bitshuai, I ❤️BTC.TOP

04

A busy day for the maintenance guy

▲ Daily life of the mine operation and maintenance guy

Most mines are built in remote areas with cheap electricity prices and living conditions are relatively difficult. However, the operation and maintenance guy in the film likes his job. He feels that his job is sacred: ensuring the safe and stable operation of the mining machines is like ensuring the logistics of a mighty and righteous army. This makes me very proud!

05

Conclusion

▲Zhikuang University takes you to visit the mines - Xinjiang trip

Although the mining industry is still criticized and questioned by some people, as practitioners in related industries, we have seen more positive and positive signals:

We have seen that the country has taken blockchain as an important breakthrough for automatic innovation of core technologies, and has accelerated the development of blockchain technology and industrial innovation.

We have seen that some leading mining machine manufacturers have already successfully listed on the Nasdaq, and several other leading mining machine manufacturers are also actively preparing for listing.

We have seen that the construction and operation of mining farms not only transforms waste water and electricity into easy-to-store cryptocurrencies, but also creates jobs for people in remote areas, improves living conditions, and increases tax and fiscal revenue for local governments. Mining is also an environmentally friendly, zero-pollution industry.

It can be seen that people’s misunderstandings and criticisms about mining are gradually disappearing, and mining is being accepted by mainstream society.