Bitcoin Forum

like what gh level?

Like i am putting my first dedicated rig together.. aiming for 2.4gh..

need a bit more funding to put get more 5970s

I would say that any respectable miner has at least one dedicated rig, and isn't just mining on an existing box that is in use.

About tree fiddy ghash/s.

Edit: Damn, nvm, guess I'm not respectable cause my mining rig is also my gaming rig.

I'd like to have 2.4 ghash/s but haven't found a decently priced 3rd 5970 yet, that and with my current set up they'd be right up on top of each other in my case and I think the heat would be a bit much.

A year ago, for one short week, I was 0.5% of the network.

haha how did that happen?

see i tried that and just didnt enjoy it.. jut felt my machine being more sluggish and blah...

I opted to build my first rig when i came across my 2nd 5970 and 2 5870's for insanely good prices...

funny thing is my 4870x2 in my gaming rig is ok for mining (220mh if you can believe it) but is still plenty good for gaming.. so ill just keep that in my desktop.. and run with the newer cards in the dedicated miner

4 GPUs, difficulty was less than a tenth what it is now.

WTB that kind of luck... haha

my goal is just to get to 12gh someday

lol I respect all miners equally despite their hashrate. <3 But really its an addiction I'm at 5 gh/s now with 11 cards. I'm running out of power at my house.

I have always used the term serious miner (not sure if we are respectable).

Like:
If your garage sounds like an enterprise grade datacenter, you might be a serious miner.
If you spent time thinking how you could use 20,00 BTU/hr of waste heat, you might be a serious miner.
If you installed a 30A 240V dedicated circuit and matching NEMA L6-30R outlet, you might be a serious miner.
If you understood that, you might be a serious miner.
If you had a custom AC system installed other than a window unit,  you might be a serious miner.
If you are considering submersion oil cooling,  you might be a serious miner.
If you have started one or more bounty projects to improve a miner, you might be a serious miner.
If the members of your pool notice when you go offline faster your friends notice when you are missing, you might be a serious miner.
If when the weatherman says there are record lows in the forecast and your first though is "that will help my temps", you might be a serious miner.

On edit: changed format.

hahaha love the if you understood that one haha

Consider I'm living in a country where -20 is common in January.

-If you can heat your feets with your mining rig, you're just starting.
-If you can heat a room with your mining rig, you have a nice hobby.
-If you're starting to save on heating because you heat the house, you're serious dude.
-If you can heat a whole 4-story house, with people keeping the windows open because it's too hot, and having the oil company giving you refunds on your heating bill, I believe it is the point where you are "respectable".

you're missing another one.

if you can produce extra heat and sell it to your neighbors cheaper than the oil company.

...wait, i think that's more like "overkill" than "respectable"

You're giving me ideas.... ;D

I am wondering if it would have been better to do the 240V 30A thing -- didn't know any better at the time.

I had our electrician put in 4 20amp circuits (120V) two weeks ago.

Higher voltage gives you slightly better efficiency. I'm just about to switch, so I should get a good clamp meter so I can determine the change in the power usage.

OK - help out those of us less electrically inclined  ;)

4 x 20A @ 120V = 80A * 80% = 64A @120 = 7,680 W

Now that is 1,920W per outlet or 960W per "plug".  Not quite enough for a 4x7970 rig or a 3x5970 + 2x5870 as the latter will pull close to 1200W.  This leaves one "plug" kinda worthless = BAD.

1 x 30A @ 240V = 30A * 80% = 24A @ 240 = 5,760 W

Then you need a PDU which can be had for ~$60.  These have tons of plugs but still need to balance the circuits...

Just thinking out loud here...

He used 12/3 as I recall...

12/2 with ground, or 12/3 with ground?

I am currently installing another 2 40 amp drops from my main panel.
Might need another A/C unit too. :(


I need 1.21 Gigawatts!!! Oh and my computer to go 88mph! lol

I deleted my post above because it likely contains misinformation based on comment from a friend who is electrician. 

While 12 gauge wiring is good for 30A Section 240.4(D) limits branch circuits to 15A on 14 gauge, 20A on 12 gauge, 30A on 10 gauge.

Still you could switch to 240V 20A at some point in the future giving you 80%*20*240V = 3.8KW per drop.

I saw somewhere that Facebook is using 277v PSUs to save even more energy somehow. Does anyone know where to get these PSUs, and how high of wattage they are available in? I have 480 3phase that works out to 277 phase-to-ground, and if its more efficient I should be using it.

Right now my 240v comes thru a transformer that does 480 --> 240 conversion, at who knows what efficiency. Skipping that would help even more.

277V PSU won't do you any good if your mains are 480V to 240V.   I would imagine no transformer is involved you are simply supplied 2x 240V legs.

Given there are now 80-Plus Platinum PSU getting 93%+ efficiency at 75% load (and likely +2% higher @ 240V) there isn't much inefficiency left to trip away.

Google also had custom PSU built for their datacenter years ago but that was back when avg ATX PSU was 70% efficient.

Now you are getting outside my knowledge base.  I thought I was doing well with knowing the whole 12/3 part  ;)

Thanks D&T...

Then I would need to get "The Clamp" to measure wattage as the Killa-aWatt is worthless on 240V?

Correct.  Alternatively there are 240V devices which are similar to Kill-a-Watt.

http://cablesaurus.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=15&product_id=30

Cablesaurus sells one.  I have no idea how good it is.  

A good clampmeter that kind measure AC current accurately (often called "True RMS") is kinda expensive, >$140 ish.  DC only or AC/DC averaging meters are cheaper but aren't going to do you any good for measuring AC efficiency. 

So a good cheap kill-a-watt like meter for 240V it would be useful.

If anyone's interested in some graphs.....

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ukzeb9vRpNwJ:pqlit.eaton.com/ll_download_bylitcode.asp%3Fdoc_id%3D11366+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESje68l6FOYZ8zwk-4FqJnO9Dqf-9cDrP4StWMi1X7JJSuZtHEOjN6bTK8KoyjDgg8I1Rgy33ttjV8vvDDy9vtD2y-hIoeteutnkW-G9baV3q7VTtwY_hMOuIDvBJDKTKAnIgrQ7&sig=AHIEtbQNixyUn7sxvcECcb0bI4Z_6ZHJsg

Though it'd depend on the PSU, high-end PSU gains seem to be ~2-3%.

I spend ~$70.50/month (@~$.12/kWh) to power 6 5850s running on three rigs @~2GH/s. Assuming 2% efficiency gain, power savings per month would be ~$1.41/month. *12=$16.92/year - (Assuming a 3% efficiency gain, $25.38/year). Not sure this would be worth the time, space, and up-front cost unless you're running many rigs (or have electric appliances which'll run on 240v).

I have access to a panel on both sides of the transformer. I found the PSU I was looking for: http://opencompute.org/projects/power-supply/
It actually is autoranging from 180v to 305v, but optimal efficiency is at 277. According to the spec sheet, numbers are as follows:

>0.95 power factor and <10% THD with harmonics up to and including 40, at 277VAC RMS 50 or 60 HZ.
90% efficiency at 20% load, 95% at 50% load, and 91% at 100% load.

However the PSU is only 450 watts. The reasons for choosing 277VAC are:
a) Still only one phase to worry about - not two or three per PSU. Less wiring.
b) No 480 --> 240 VAC transformer losses. (Not sure how much efficiency loss there is, but I don't think the transformer could be any higher than 96-97% efficient. Mine is a 45Kva SquareD)
c) Smaller gauge wiring due to the higher voltage.

So it makes sense for datacenters with thousands of custom servers like FB and Google, but probably not much for the average miner.

You are a respectable miner if you have already tripped circuit breakers and/or contributed to global warming and/or got kicked out of your "mining office" by your commercial landlord.

The latter happened to me half a year ago.
3 day notice to vacate for breach of lease terms.
"The owner has seen the electrical bill of the entire office building DOUBLE, and he wants you out."
"Consider this your 3 day notice."

I had four mining rigs plugged into the 20 amp circuit of the left wall, and four mining rigs plugged into the 20 amp circuit of the right wall, drawing close to 40 amps total. Once I tried to print a document on the laser printer - when the laser printer heated up its toner filament, it caused the circuit breaker to trip.

Good times. ;D

Well "a" doesn't really matter.  If you home isn't 3 phase you aren't getting 3 phase anyways.

On "b" I think you are forgetting about the 480 -> 277 VAC transformer. ;) Still transformers tend to be very efficient.  97%+ is certainly likely, 99%+ is possible.   Energy in = Energy out.  So all the energy on the 480 VAC side becomes 240 VAC or heat.  An inefficient transformer on a mains where it could be pulling 100 amps+ would quickly melt.  Some quick numbers.  The transformer is rated at 45KVA so at 5% inefficiency and peak load ~2.5KW would be converted into heat.  Heat output on the transformer would be more than 10x 5970s. :)

Optimally the best thing for you would be a high efficiency 5KW 480VAC to 12VDC powersupply.  You could power an entire rack of GPUs.  :)  Then just run the low wattage mixed voltage components off some low wattage ATX PSU units.  Now if you found and rigged that you might be a serious miner.

hahaha.. i thought of doing that renting some space at an executive office building.. only concern i have is that they tend to turn the AC off on the weekends :(

Good news for me is the miners are in the basement in the same room as the box (i.e., not much to run).  Might have him put in the 240v 30A right beneath the box and then i have the 12 foot cord from the PDU to my advantage...

If yall are in south florida PM me I have a location that I let miners put their machines. I charge 1BTC for every  10BTC your miner generates. Currently I am at 7.6GHash and I have two clients (Friends, lol) that are at 1GHash each. If I get enough people to mine at the location might do a local pool.  I would like as much input about this as possible.

If you bought four 7970s and still can't maintain a 1.00 KDR in BF3/MW3, you might be a miner.

This may be a very good deal for miners with power-hogging graphics cards, such as the HD 6990, but not a good deal at all for FPGA miners.

No, there isn't a transformer because the delta circuit is 277 phase-to-ground but is 480 phase to phase ;D I think you might have been confusing 277 with 240 ;)

True about the efficiency though - when the industrial machines in the same building are running at full blast, the transformer is uncomfortably warm on top, but not so hot you would burn yourself instantly. So yes probably better than 97%.

seriously, i have only had to turn on the heat once for this winter, and it's because the internet was down!

Actually, an office AC can only get rid of maybe 1000 W without the room getting uncomfortably hot - in the old office there were two window panes that opened (left and right) and I had all 4 mining rigs on the left and 4 on the right and had cardboard ducts with fans to blow the hot air right out for the windows. And still the room was like a sauna.

In my current office, unfortunately the window does not open at all, and I have only 3 rigs in operation, four HD 5830 each, and once again it is like a sauna and I always take my shirt off when I'm there.

So, now you know why I'm increasingly interested in FPGA mining. ::)

Wish I had yall's problem. I have only been able to shut off my A/C for one day this Winter.

this is how i feel being in phoenix, power isnt badly priced... but AC will be working overtime! haha

and when its 125 outside not going to get much cooling going out there haha

Given what % of PCs (most of them) are sold with chinese crap PSUs (not necessarily no-name but of similar quality) with an avg. efficiency of 40-60% I think some time has to pass when an average ATX PSU is 70% efficient.

b) 480V three phase is 480V leg to leg and 277V to ground. If you want to run 277V, you would need to have a 4-wire service.  The kind of tr

You might be a serious miner:

-If you pulled two 10/2 cables across your attic and wired that up to a 60A breaker because you are already using up ~60A on your existing farm and you want to expand.
-If you mine inside your house in South Florida with >5Ghash in the summer
-If you convince your significant other that 87F is an acceptable indoor temperature...in January.
  -And further convince her the hair dryers(4x5970) on the kitchen table are actually making enough money to be worth the heat and noise.
-If it is cheaper for you to go home early from work to find out why your farm went offline than it is to stay at work for another few hours.
-If mining is a job, not a hobby

All that is some of my personal experience. Depending on your house wiring, you start finding out about power problems at about 3-4Ghash (I think, that was awhile ago). By the time I hit 5Ghash I had extension cords coming from all areas of the house. I'm at 10 Ghash now, and while I know I have more than a lot of people, I know there's some dudes with a *lot* more than that. The longest my A/C has been off since last March was when I was pulling those 10/2 cables into my main service panel (about 2 hours).

how much is power down there?

about $.125/kWh

not too bad.. im on a multi tiered thing.. pay different rates at different times of day.. it ends up being like 7.3 cents pr kwh...

I hear that.  Florida only has two seasons, unlike the rest of the world.  Hot, and "Damn Hot".  Middle of "winter" and it's going to be 83F today.

Same here but it happened to me twice so far ;)

Id say I agree a dedicated rig with 1g/hash thats pretty respectable and decent size investment for average person. Im sitting at 460mh/s But im looking at upgrading my rig to 5870s soon and moving 5830 to new rig. ;)

lmfao, same here I actually opened my window 1inch to cool the room. Stays 70F in room with outside temp in 40s or bit lower....haha

Can you send some of that 40F weather down here to Florida please, I'm tired of running my A/C in the middle of winter.

The repectable miner is the one that can get the most hashing power for the least wattage and make it stable enough to run it without hiccups; that person deserves respect..

I would say a 'respectable miner' is someone who can makes enough bitcoins (minus electricity, hardware depreciation, time) to support himself in the country he is currently residing in.

Ditto! All the way to South Florida.

Wow then there are likely 0 respectable miners.

;D

I am not saying it is someone who solely relies on income derived from mining but someone who's mining profits are enough to make a modest living had he not had another job; in many ex-USSR countries this could be as little as $200-300 a month, especially if that person is sharing a two-bedroom flat with 3 other people and rents a basement or a garage for his rigs for something like $10-20.

 ;D  ;D  :P

You guys are good ;).  Had me laughing at a lot of these points.  Gotta crack the room window here for sure.  My main system is fine by itself but I have one more miner here with 2 5970s that's being relocated soon.  With that cranking 24/7 too, I do have to vent the room sometimes. 

At least it's only been in the 20s-30s here in Michigan in winter.  I'd hate to know how hot this room would get in summer.

At the price/difficulty levels currently, I only keep my miners running to add heat this winter. I have no plans to upgrade from the old 5830s.

Think you'll expand to FPGAs?

https://i.imgur.com/Uw7Fi.jpg (http://imgur.com/Uw7Fi)

I have 1200amp service.   I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing.   ;D

Evaporative cooling FTW!  Dry AZ should be a great place for it.

I was wondering, if the reward goes down to 25 BTC instead of 50 BTC per block, then that will drive the bitcoin price up based on
scarcity law. Please correct me if I'm wrong...

That is the 1 million BTC question.

While reward going down doe cut future supply and should be bullish to prices how much and how quickly is hard to gauge.  Remember the existing 10 million coins will still be available for trade.  Revenue in BTC will definitely be falling 50%.  Prices may rise but they likely will rise less than the 100% necessary for an "even trade" and the rise is more likely to be felt in the long term.

A miner in the short term likely will see a significant drop in revenue.  If block goes from 50 * $5 = $250 (today) to 25 * $7 = $175 after the cut the fact that prices will rise in the future may be of little comfort for the marginal miner.

Simple way to avoid that is to not be the marginal miner.  Marginal miners get squeezed out and difficulty falls boosting revenue of those who "survived".  Don't be the marginal miner.

$500K?  $50K houses in US often have central air especially in sothern states. :)

Your most economical option is a minisplit unit (somestimes also called ductless).  Far less cost and installation overhead than a traditional central air unit.  5KW ~= 18K BTU/hr.

It consists of three parts.
http://www.heatandcool.com/v/KLIMAIRE%20PRODUCTS/KSWM/pagepics/Indoor18K.jpg.jpg

The upper part is mounts on the wall of the room you want cooled (cellar).
The square box with the fan mounts outside.  
You then just need to run insulated flexible copper lines to connect the two.  No ducts needed, and only about 1" hole in the wall to run the coolant and return lines.  The outdoor units need 220-240V and the indoor units are usually powered by the outdoor unit (electrical line runs along side the coolant line).

In the US at least a unit like this is <$1000.  Usually units this small are precharged so it is is literrally "hook up and go".  Might be a little involved for a DIYer but it is possible.  A normal "handyman" contractor should be able to handle this kind of job.  No real expert knowledge necessary (like w/ central air systems).

AC units tend to be ~300% efficient.  So removing 5KW of heat will require another 5/3 = 1.6KW of electrical load.

No idea on importing, installing, or code issues in UK though.  

One thing I would point out is that while FPGA use less electricity they still use some.  10GH/s @ 10 MH/W = ~1KW of heat.  Like running a space heater 24/7.  AC probably isn't necessary but if you ever expanded to say 30GH/s you are looking at 3KW of electrical load.

However, FUD will shock the market. It is very likely that a bubble will form (like the one formed in May if I recall correctly). How high the bubble will go and
when it will burst is another question. Another interesting effect will be the velocity of price-decline after the burst. It may take months before the price comes
down to what it is Today ( if it ever stabilizes at this price, I expect that it will be higher ).

Another interesting effect is that certain people who have huge reserves in Bitcoin will see instant value increase in their assets. This will prevent them from selling,
since they'll be waiting for bubbles peak. This will decrease the number of Bitcoins available for trade, which in turn helps increasing overall market price of the
Bitcoin... Also, those who continue mining with GPU will expect revenue decrease and may stop mining ( if the bubble kicks in late ), which may reduce network difficulty
rate, unless it's componsated by miners who increase their processing power in preparation for the big-bang day.

I believe that many miners are already considering extreme processing power increase (2x minimum) to compensate for the expected revenue loss..

Let's hope for a mild bubble.

BFL-Engineer, is BFL invested in BTC in the form of mining or just going the HW sales route?

Capacity is irrelivent.  MH/W isn't a perfect metric more like cost per PH.  Someone with $0.10 per kWh and 3MH/W rig is more efficient than someone with 4MH/W and $0.25 per kWh.  The goal is to have the lowest operating cost possible.  Since one can't usually change their electrical rate we focus on MH/W but what really matters is electrical cost. The highest cost miners will go offline first as they can't handle the pain and when they do difficulty will drop.  

The rig being paid off isn't as important to efficiency.  That being said having unpaid rigs can be more stressful and risky.

I was going to suggest any chance of using small window AC units but in a cellar that wouldn't work ;p.  Thanks for the insight into English mining though. 

@DAT yeah, the million BTC question for sure.  Of course difficulty change isn't factored into this again either.  It could spike up before the reward drop then plummet, making it easier to find blocks but agian, it's anyone's guess until it's upon us.  I think we can infer some "more-likely-to-happen" approaches and guesses but still, no one knows.

Difficulty does not factor into your operating costs, it factors on the revenue side. So irrelevant to somehow forcibly include into the COSTS side of things, when it's REVENUE side :)

But how does one factor power costs when one pays annually, basicly getting interest free loan to pay it once per year AND doesn't need any kind of A/C AND first 7-8kW usage for 10months a year is "kinda free" in the sense that it replaces (more expensive, heating oil costs more for heating purposes than plain electricity here, thanks to taxes) heating :P
Does the first 8kW have negative cost then? *whistles*

I'm a disrespectful miner, bitches.