Bitcoin Forum

I was recently given 20+ Butterfly Labs 500gh/s mini rigs (Bitforce 500), and I was wondering if they held any value?
They each have 2 1500 watt power supplies I could scrap and sell individually, but are the units as a whole worth anything, or are they too obsolete?

Scrap heap. Obsolete hardware.

pull the psu's

 pull the fans

the heatsinks have value.

If you got free power run them, otherwise they are collectors item to put on the shelf or trash.

What would the heatsinks be worth? It looks like my best option is to scrap and get a few bucks from the metal shells

OMG 2300 watt for 500gh! Just keep the heatsink, the fans and power supply.
 ;)
You could probably keep them for futur project. Some board are starting to be created and will need heatsink and powersupply.
Check the board of sidehack!

It's pretty amazing o many you found.  But sadly I would say the PSU's have the most value.   You might be able to sell a few on craigslist if you live in a big town, but you will not get rich off of these miners.

And as far as running them at this point you will mine at a big loss.

That's quite a weight of PCBs right there. They might not have any hashing value, but they should have a reasonable scrap value to a specialist. They may even be able to pull board components off and reuse them.

If you got two of them that work I'll buy 'em off you for the museum shelves.

I'd like to get/buy one for the sake of research.

Might be interested in a few of the PSUs depending on specs/configuration/price.

Aluminum is
about 70 cents a pound

 http://www.metalprices.com/p/ScrapAluminumFreeChart


copper heatsinks are about 2.50 usd a pound

All 20 units are in working condition, if anyone would like to contact me about purchasing anything feel free to text
(816) 604-0408

Heres what I would do, search if there is any that are selling any of these units on ebay 1st.

Take your chance on see how one listing goes, and at anytime even if they won you still can cancel the listing if you felt like it the price quote was no where near. Label it then as error on listing.

Make sure if you do list it, list in bulk like x3 units to see a better price reaction.

The next thing to do would be listen to the advice you got on gutting it out, eg: the psu`s which can be used you can use it for your own use for future miners or sell it.

From there you should get an idea what to do.

Same here. Are this ASICS already? Would you ship to EU? Thanks.

Sell the PSU's on Ebay... scrap the rest IMHO

useless for the difficulty level to mine with them

I suggest emailing him your phone number if you are not able to PM yet.  I cant remember if you can PM or not at beginning.  But I personally would not leave a phone number up.

Also where are you located can i ask?

Were these ever profitable? Even back in Dec 2013 ?

Sell them for some a decent bit of money. There are people that collect BFL miners.

Yes and no.  The first people that got them it was a massive amount of power.  Were talking about a time when a BFL 60 single was huge.  To have 500 was massive.

The other side of that I have seen people pay more for the miner then they ever mined.  BFL was not good at getting products to customers on time.  If you watch the bitcoin documentary I think its The Rise Of Bitcoin.  It does a good job showing someone who bought one.

The only July 2012 65nm preorders that were really profitable were the jalapenos.  BFL shipped only a very small number of minirigs at first; claimed there was a problem chaining them together and eventually offered customers the option to get 8x singles instead.  The very first to get singles and the absolute first to get little singles and mini rigs might have just barely made profit.  This is mostly due to paying for them when btc was ~15$ and not receiving them until mid or later 2013.  Jalapenos shipped far before anything else; which is very similar to BFL's recent "refund the small orders first bs".  BFL had opened paypal preorders in September 2012.  These orders BFL shipped before many BTC preorders as PP started to get on them about no delivery; these buyers made the largest profit from BFL as they paid with cash or cc despite ordering 2 months after the majority of BTC preorders.  It is sad how shitty BFL handled the whole thing as the BFL FPGA Singles were great; and it would be nice to have a good American miner company.

If you sell them what are you looking to sell at?

Dont scrap it yet, sell it on ebay as a whole. There are still people buying Butterfly Labs ASIC due to its historical value.

Where can you watch the "The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin", can't find it on youtube or on the web anywhere.

You should have them in November 2013, back in then ther where 10k+ :D

I'd run them if I had dirt cheap or free power 2300W though is brutal for 500 GH/s.