Solar Powered Bitcoin Mining Design Project

[C_T]

i also think with the hardware shortage, leasing computational power is the way to go, the cost is all sorted and no hidden costs like 6 months wait for delivery, and no surprise electricity bills.

but with the way coins work, i think a pool of like minded people would do better in the long run, than going at it individually. many hands make lighter work. or in this case, the more GH/s you can mine in the shortest period of time (before difficulty gets too out of hand) the better.

[Slybacon]

Even with 100% difficulty increase its still very viable at todays trade value.

[SayN]

I heard they are dodgy. To be honest I am using them as an example, out of interest, why would the card only output 500?

Well they originally advertised 30 and 60GH/S. I bought two 30GH/s... But one of them only puts out real hashing power of 20 to 25GH/s and surprise, surprise they now only sell them as 50GH/s. So my guess is that the 600GH/s is a best-case scenario. I could send back the faulty unit, and principle says I should, but the downtime of not mining, the cost of shipping, and the reality that it might come back no different means i'll probably just tough it out. Strangely, i've managed to get it up to 26.94GH/s today...

Check out this spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Auya3iRE6az1dDc0UVgwMU52YVpTazVjSHByOGNiWHc&usp=sharing from this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236050.20 It has a much more pessimistic, but probably realistic, speculation of bitcoin difficulty... I just cant decide. I'm tempted to take BFL up on the hosted mining but not knowing when they will deliver is just too speculative - I had to wait 7 months for BFL miners and I anticipate the same wait for the 600GH units (ie. hosted mining) as well by which time the difficulty looks pretty nasty... If their customer service was better...

But then with BTC peaking over $1000 i just don't know...

Edit: I just noticed BFL is having a Black Friday sale with 25% off their entire range. They are not helping my dilemma.

Edited November 28, 2013 by CrayZ

[C_T]

how long ago was that mate? when did you order and when did you get it?

i think the company is absolutely swamped under by people hounding them...

that and the fact that if i made them, i'd use them at the factory for a month then ship them, to take adv of the difficulty before it hit the consumer. im sure they are doing this.

Edited November 29, 2013 by C_T

[SayN]

I ordered from BFL early April and received just this month.

Yesterday, on an impulse, I ordered one of these:

http://cointerra.com/product/terraminer-iv-2ths-networked-asic-miner-march-batch/

Haven't paid for it yet - I planned to think about it over the weekend and seek counsel from friends and family... Hit me.

[C_T]

thanks for the update CrazyZ

[SayN]

For anyone even remotely curious:

My Cointerra Terraminer IV arrived this week.

Terraminer - so named because the sound of those fans running at full tilt strikes fear into the hearts of small children and animals.

Busted my arse yesterday building a soundproof box to house it in. This box is design #2 and cost about $160 and 10 hours of hard (ie. lotsa swearing involved) labour. Total cost so far: approx $9000. (Design #1 at $26 was a much smaller prototype that was uglier, not very efficient and caused the miner to overheat if used on full power.)

I've given up wondering if i'll ever recoup this cost... Have mined about 0.5 BTC in the limited time i've been able to use the device this week. Thats about $250.

Fortunately electricity is still cheap and when the weather turns cold it will heat the house very efficiently.

[C_T]

yeah you want some serious airflow, and airflow + soundproof = counter efficiency

nice one