Bitcoin Forum

Hello Everyone,

We wanted to evaluate the market and ask our fellow customers whether a Mini-Rig operating
at 25 GH/s and priced at half price (15K$) and consuming around 1.2KW would be something they
consider or not.

All suggestions/ideas/opinions are welcome.


Reagrds,
BFL

Hello Everyone,

We wanted to evaluate the market and ask our fellow customers whether a Mini-Rig operating
at 25 GH/s and priced at half price (15K$) and consuming around 1.2KW would be something they
consider or not.

All suggestions/ideas/opinions are welcome.


Reagrds,
BFL

Hello Everyone,

We wanted to evaluate the market and ask our fellow customers whether a Mini-Rig operating
at 25 GH/s and priced at half price (15K$) and consuming around 1.2KW would be something they
consider or not.

All suggestions/ideas/opinions are welcome.


Reagrds,
BFL

You need to design something that is below 1500w current draw, so it can be used on a normal household circuit. With the 5x more power usage per hash than your original specification, "rigbox" can't be plugged into anything beyond a specialized circuit with a high-amperage nema plug.

Hello Everyone,

We wanted to evaluate the market and ask our fellow customers whether a Mini-Rig operating
at 25 GH/s and priced at half price (15K$) and consuming around 1.2KW would be something they
consider or not.

All suggestions/ideas/opinions are welcome.


Reagrds,
BFL

Hello Everyone,

We wanted to evaluate the market and ask our fellow customers whether a Mini-Rig operating
at 25 GH/s and priced at half price (15K$) and consuming around 1.2KW would be something they
consider or not.

All suggestions/ideas/opinions are welcome.


Reagrds,
BFL

I'd buy it today since I'm moving in the direction of FPGA. I've already bought 10 singles from you and I get $0.75 per Mhash on them. What your proposing would bring my cost down to $0.60 and who doesn't like to pay less. It's only marginally more expensive then the RigBox at $0.56. Btw I don't have to pay for electricity so I don't factor in that cost in my decisions.

Since you don't provide a warranty and there's no idea how long these boards will last before failure it's hard to invest in them. I would really like to see you guys provide a warranty on your products. It would also help if we knew what value they have outside of Bitcoin mining. Your website says they have other uses but I can't find any information on it.

Thanks for a great product and I look forward to the Mini-Rig!

The singles have a 6 month warranty, which is longer than any other similar product with the exception of Ztex's 2 year warranty.

GPUs have 2 years to lifetime warranties.

Another idea is to have a blade-like rack in which you put in compute units. It would be possible to buy the base box for ~5000$ with a few units and then add other cards as needed.

Of course, this makes cooling quite a bit more difficult, but it would lower the barrier to entry by quite a bit.

You need to design something that is below 1500w current draw, so it can be used on a normal household circuit. With the 5x more power usage per hash than your original specification, "rigbox" can't be plugged into anything beyond a specialized circuit with a high-amperage nema plug.

Just make the "smaller" one and sell two to the people who ordered the "original rigbox".

1650W max @ 110V, otherwise I can't place it anywhere.

1650 is too much on a standard household circuit.  Unless you have properly installed (and new wiring) with NOTHING else on the circuit it's going to trip multiple times per day.  1500 is definitely the max.  1200-1250 would be the perfect amount and leave enough of a cushion in case you accidentally place a fan or tv on the same circuit.

Technically, a 15 amp circuit supports a max of 1800 watts - but that is the "burst" rating, and must be reduced (derated)  to 80% of that for continuous loads. Therefore, 1440 watts continuous maximum.

I'd hope your PSUs are user replaceable ATX psu.

Some server PSU are great for the price but they're harder to find.

I'd definitively get one at 15k

why dont you worry about just getting the singles out not all of us have them yet that ordered them

So I'm guessing, based on the figures quoted, that those of you considering this have a price target of over $10/BTC ?

Well, basically, turning a profit before the block reward halves...

I'd like to see something in the $5k range.  This way I can..

1) spread them out
2) if one goes down I don't lose all production
3) expand the farm more often

We wanted to evaluate the market and ask our fellow customers whether a Mini-Rig operating
at 25 GH/s and priced at half price (15K$) and consuming around 1.2KW would be something they
consider or not.

All suggestions/ideas/opinions are welcome.

Very interested in this. At $15k it is a much more flexible option and I suspect you would get more uptake than the $30k units.

One thing: as has been mentioned a few times here, it is important that this be able to run continuously on a 'regular' household circuit. For continuous use it must be derated to 80%. For North America, that is 15Ax120V (1800W) * 0.8 = 1440W. If it can run within that envelope, it can be run in any household.

I think it will. Any builder knows that a PSU really shouldn't be running at more than 80% of full load continuously, which in this case is 80% of 1500 watts (1200 watts). Assuming they stick to this, power won't be a problem.

Says who?  Rated power is rated power.  "50% rule", "80% rule" are pure nonsense.  People need to stop babying their power supply.  Run it at full power.  If it is solid (Seasonic) it will run for years at 100% load.  If it is a piece of shit well then RMA it, and break it again, and RMA it, and break it again, and RMA it, and break it again and RMA it.  Post of forums that it is a piece of shit, give it 1 egg on newegg, make a blog about how company xyz rips off customers.

Rated power is rated power.  If a PSU can't put out more than 1000W CONTINUALLY then it should be rated at 1000W not 1200W.  Consumers that baby the suppliers only subsidize substandard products.

I mean it would be like someone selling you a sports car which has a top speed of 160 mph but if you drive it faster than 80 mph it explodes and people say "dude everyone knows not to drive a sports car faster than 50% of rated speed).  It is just as foolish to hold PSU to the same low standard.

Semi offtopic rant aside, the listed spec for RigBox is ~2500W so a 50% unit would likely be ~1250W.

Very good. But my reasoning wasn't reliability, it was efficiency. The curves on most if not all PSUs go all to shit when running under 25% or over 80%.

Very good. But my reasoning wasn't reliability, it was efficiency. The curves on most if not all PSUs go all to shit when running under 25% or over 80%.

It's usually a couple percent less than the best it can do. And the best it can do is usually with around 70-80% load. If 2-3% efficiency is a lot for you, then you should buy Enermax Platimax PSU, and run it on 70% load - you should get around 94-95% efficiency.....for a hell of a lot of money, it will pay out when your grand children get their mortgage paid out.

This is true. However, that 2-3% efficiency shows up as reasonably substantial additional heat which a) can reduce the expected lifespan in the case of cheaper PSUs, and b) must be dealt with on the cooling side of things.

I tend to think in datacenter size proportions, so I consider efficiency carefully, factor in lifespan and ease of replacement, and sprinkle on some actual cost later. This will not usually apply to most users.

You're right, but paying double price for a few more % is ridiculous at least (I'm talking about Platinum series PSU's)

There isn't much difference for anything 80-Plus rated.  For example Seasonic 1250W unit.

I hope I don't sound like a SeaSonic sale rep but here is my favorite mining rig PSU:
http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/psu_reports/SEA%20SONIC_SS-1250XM_ECOS%202811_1250W_Report.pdf

100% load - 88.7% efficiency
80% load - 89.8% efficiency
50% load - 91.4% efficiency
20% load - 89.8% efficiency

I would be OK with this for my pervious orders of the rig box.

Still waiting for my single.
Get that delivered then lets talk.

For the rig box, I've been waiting to buy a 1/4 of one with another miner(s).
That's where I see it going for many.

You're right, but paying double price for a few more % is ridiculous at least (I'm talking about Platinum series PSU's)

BFL-Engineer, I would recommend to size the mini-rig either for 960W, or 1920W.
This way, either 1 or 2 could be placed on a standard 120V-20A circuit, while drawing no more than 80% of its rated capacity per the National Electric Code (1920W).

Most circuits are 20A for outlets, Easy enuf to swap one 15A outlet wtih a Nema 5-20 to get the full 20A on one connector.

Its like a $3 dollar part at the depot.

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-25ecodZ5yc1v/R-202066702/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=20-amp outlet&storeId=10051

It is possible that someone has a 15A outlet on 12 gauge wiring but that isn't the norm.  12 gauge is more expensive and builders often don't sink lots of cost into heavier wiring as it is kinda hard to sell that once the walls are up.  

BFL-Engineer, I would recommend to size the mini-rig either for 960W, or 1920W.
This way, either 1 or 2 could be placed on a standard 120V-20A circuit, while drawing no more than 80% of its rated capacity per the National Electric Code (1920W).

Again most outlet circuits in the US are on 20A breakers with 12 AWG romex (yellow).  Its easy enuf to check and see if its a 14 AWG romex (white), 15A breaker circuit, but usually those are lighting circuits, not outlets.  If its not 20A breaker with 12 AWG, then don't put a 5-20 outlet on it..

This is just silly.  I see very few 20A installs in existing structures and even new structures, it's somewhat rare to see anything better than 14ga 15a.  Builders are some of the cheapest mother fuckers on earth and are scum right next to car salesmen and bankers.  They aren't going to spring for 12ga wire unless absolutely necessary.  15a, 14a is the "norm."

This is just silly.  I see very few 20A installs in existing structures and even new structures, it's somewhat rare to see anything better than 14ga 15a.  Builders are some of the cheapest mother fuckers on earth and are scum right next to car salesmen and bankers.  They aren't going to spring for 12ga wire unless absolutely necessary.  15a, 14a is the "norm."  Even if you specify 12ga, 20a, unless you watch most builders like a hawk or do it yourself, you're likely to end up with 14ga wiring.

Really guys?  You're going to base your purchase decision on "can I fit 1 or 2 or 3 on a 15/20 amp circuit" ..??   We're talking $15,000 here .. If you have a doubt, bring in an electrician to run a dedicated circuit.

Usually a remodel will have better wiring.  New construction by builders = as cheap as they can possibly get without setting fire to the place prior to sale.  After sale = who cares!

Really guys?  You're going to base your purchase decision on "can I fit 1 or 2 or 3 on a 15/20 amp circuit" ..??   We're talking $15,000 here .. If you have a doubt, bring in an electrician to run a dedicated circuit.

It is about maximum utilization, and efficiency.

It does not matter if you buy only 1 rig. But the larger your scale, the more you should care about these details.

I would rather spend 1 or 2 grands in mining hardware than in installing extra circuits because the BFL designers chose an awkward wattage that prevents me from utilizing my circuits to their maximum capacity.

Know what you 15A worried guys gonna do ?

Convert your 110v outlet to a 220v by adding a breaker to the neutral and be done with it!

That's a 10min - cost nothing job. As said, we talking 15k$ per box ,,, just call an electrician !

LOL & thanks!

 I wasn't clear - by "this" , I meant the mini rig

the single is very straightforward.

I did find some nice atx style redundant DC units - if it just has a standard atx we should be in business.  Waiting on a quote.

And a pony.  I want a pony, too.

And a pony.  I want a pony, too.

And a pony.  I want a pony, too.

And a pony.  I want a pony, too.

I'd be interested in what you found. As you noted, the conversions back and forth between AC and DC have fairly substantial losses, but I have never been able to find a cost effective DC-DC converter. I have an extremely powerful 48VDC power source, and that would be perfect if I could find sufficiently powerful DC-DC converter that doesn't cost too much.

Sonny allowed me to convert my rig box order to two mini-rigs.  That should work better for me since I can split the two into separate corporate data centers and avoid straining the A/C unit in just one data center.

As a side note, I plan to monitor my electricity usage and "pay back" my employer by using my personal credit card for an appropriate amount of IT purchases each month.

I wonder if adding 10% or 20% to the $.095/KWh would be sufficient for the extra A/C usage...

Well - that would imply the mini-rig is not a concept but a product you can order?!?

Lemme guess 10-12 weeks  ;)

- poor customer support despite huge sums involved
- false avdertisment regarding product specs in the beginning
- very slow delivery
- wrong delivery times
- no updates on mini-rig on website
- very few delivered pieces

I'd buy, but this scares me off.

As someone who was an outspoken (and loud) critic of BFL I am convinced they aren't a "scam".  They masively overestimated their specs and timelines.  They also seem ill equipped to handle the non-tech portions of the demand they are facing.

IMHO the only real risks dealing w/ BFL are:
a) time risk.  800 MH/s miner earns ~15 BTC per month.  4 month delay = 60 BTC in lost revenue.
b) warranty risk.  If new orders take 12-16 weeks then how long will RMA take.
c) solvency risk. If company had a huge financial setback (say 1000 singles died under warranty) could they absorb that and continue to operate

basically the risks are the same as dealing with any small business where demand way outstrips productive capacity.  It would be smart for BFL to hire an business student (for next to nothing) to handle non-tech tasks like emails, order processing, releasing company statements, etc.

Psst BFL there is 10% unemployment right now (20%+ for college age workers), labor is cheap.

Agreed. BFL has simply bit off more than they could chew.

Scale [a] up to a 25Ghps mini-rig and you have 1875 BTC ($8750) in lost revenue during that 4-month waiting period. Essentially your $15k mini-rig now costs you 55% more, or $23k (almost as much as the original 50.4Ghps full Rig Box). They really need to bring the delay between ORDER and DELIVERY way down.

Even on the Singles, they are still working to ship their December orders. 4-6 weeks isn't bad, if only it were true.

Thats assuming you already have a way to get an $8750 return on your $15,000's over the next 4 months. Those kinds of returns are very few and associated with their own risks no doubt.

$15K in GPUs? :)

As someone who was an outspoken (and loud) critic of BFL I am convinced they aren't a "scam".  They masively overestimated their specs and timelines.  They also seem ill equipped to handle the non-tech portions of the demand they are facing.

IMHO the only real risks dealing w/ BFL are:
a) time risk.  800 MH/s miner earns ~15 BTC per month.  4 month delay = 60 BTC in lost revenue.
b) warranty risk.  If new orders take 12-16 weeks then how long will RMA take.
c) solvency risk. If company had a huge financial setback (say 1000 singles died under warranty) could they absorb that and continue to operate

basically the risks are the same as dealing with any small business where demand way outstrips productive capacity.  It would be smart for BFL to hire an business student (for next to nothing) to handle non-tech tasks like emails, order processing, releasing company statements, etc.

Psst BFL there is 10% unemployment right now (20%+ for college age workers), labor is cheap.

My point is, to wait 8 weeks for two rig boxes does not bother me in the least because I am not delusional enough to think that BFL should be perfect or that it's a cake walk to get more GPUs running.

If we had faith in their lead times this would all be moot...

Singles are taking 14-16 weeks now.  They are saying NOTHING publicly about what has happened and why we SHOULD believe their current claims on delivery.  As D&T said, they need a PR person in the worst way.

Rig Box is 12-15 weeks per Sonny (according to e-mail this week).  I fear it is closer to 20...  :(

EDIT - Sent e-mail to Sonny on this topic and asking for confirmation on mini-rig.  Might as well ask these questions directly...

Thanks for rehashing the same old tired "reasons" that have been stated 100 times before and everyone is already aware of.  Welcome to November 2011!

you miss one thing:

same old reasons since Nov, right, but if I'd run that company, I would have learned something in the last 4 month - they didn't.

How is that missing anything?  It has nothing to do with the topic. The same old, tired arguments are trotted out.  Everyone is already aware of them.  OP is 6 months behind the times.  No one cares. End of story.

Is there any information how the mini rig or the rig bix will look like? I am wondering what will be their phisical dimension, are they going to be expandable, etc.

Is there any information how the mini rig or the rig bix will look like? I am wondering what will be their phisical dimension, are they going to be expandable, etc.

I've seen the Mini Rig CAD mockup and the dense board placement makes my sphincter tense up.  Which sphincter?  All of them.

I wonder that myself.  I wonder how large it will need to be not because the FPGA take up a lot of space but due to the fact that 2.5KW is a lot of energy and the smaller the pkg the harder it is to cool.  

A visual excercise:
A 4x5970 rig is ~1KW.  Open framed it requires good amount of airflow to cool.   In a closed case, forget about it. :)  Now 1.25KW would be 20% more thermal load so image a hypothetical 5x5970 rig (pretend no 8 GPU limit). The "full rig box" (if it ends up getting built) would be double that.   To get an idea of the thermal energy vs volume visualize a 4U server chassis w/ 5x5970s inside now stack two of them on top of each other to simulate 2.5KW of power draw.  That is a pretty big box (8U = 14" by 19" by 24").  Could you cool that with air?
 How noisy would it be?  We already have a pretty large "rigbox".  Going larger would make it somewhat easier to cool.

Before I get flamed:
I am not saying the rigbox isn't more efficient.  It is.  The same sized box with the same amount of electricity/heat would produce 50 GH/s vs ~7 GH/s (10x 5970s). Still the laws of thermodynamics don't care what (or how much) the 2.5KW produced.  50GH/s on 2.5KW or 7GH/s on 2.5KW is still 2.5KW either way.  

That is an interesting challenge.  In mining the difficulty in cooling 1KW+ heat loads is what has lead to open frame rigs, extenders, extra high rpm fans, etc.  Will be interesting to see how they intend to cool them and how noisy they will be.  Not saying high potential noise is a problem (it isn't as most will be in datacenters or semi-industrial locations).  It just may shock some people who think of FPGA as silent and cool but that is just because nobody has scaled FPGA up to tens of GH/s in a compact space yet.

So BFL come on at least give us some estimated dimensions and db specs. :)

I wish I could give you some info, but at this point please let us have our final unit in front of us before
giving out details. Regarding the dB, it will be virtually silent when compared to GPUs... In fact, it is
engineered that way...

Good Luck,

So share the images (the CAD ones not the sphincter ones).

Let's say, hypothetically, that I had this "friend."  Let's say this hypothetical friend had super powers much like a theoretical rainman-style, although mute, kid on a possibly terrible new Fox action-drama staring a one-style-fits-all actor, who coincidentally has a fellow actor father that possesses acting chops that far surpass his own with a last name of Sutherland.

So, hypothetically remember, this mute kid might leave an etch-a-sketch laying around with the words, "16 boards, vertical orientation, in a 10"x24" area."

All that trouble to describe a diagram. I would like to give nedbert9 an award, but I'm still trying to figure out which one is most appropriate.

The Golden Sphincter Award. You've earned it, nedbert9.

Why does BFL always wish me good luck?

Epic!

And here's the pic courtesy of Google:
http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/full/461193010.jpg?key=157360&Expires=1332789717&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIYVGSUJFNRFZBBTA&Signature=nnS02jNGZayfrIxgBTGlXJuip5mHukWlM-ffJqAFG0YcgdBwk8nqq4qN9UBMGGav2IcyAGTIt-TxmF09u~23sobcz-1ey4~xoVcmZM94zxxAgDeqkkr5rzfQiXf5jgCxxOFbTaCVbSIZgKs7NTw4nJ0MjCu9gLtugf8nWUdg3fg_ (http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/full/461193010.jpg?key=157360&Expires=1332789717&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIYVGSUJFNRFZBBTA&Signature=nnS02jNGZayfrIxgBTGlXJuip5mHukWlM-ffJqAFG0YcgdBwk8nqq4qN9UBMGGav2IcyAGTIt-TxmF09u~23sobcz-1ey4~xoVcmZM94zxxAgDeqkkr5rzfQiXf5jgCxxOFbTaCVbSIZgKs7NTw4nJ0MjCu9gLtugf8nWUdg3fg_)

All that trouble to describe a diagram. I would like to give nedbert9 an award, but I'm still trying to figure out which one is most appropriate.

For now I THINK they require a host PC - which could be something like Raspberry Pi  ;D

Your likely right but it would be awesome to have a device with "internal host" and possibly a web interface for control and monitoring. :)

+1

I do not see a need for this. Let's let BFL do what they are good at. Making FPGA chips hash like crazy.

Plugging in a rig box (or two mini rig boxes) to a host PC adds at most 100w draw.

You can use cgminer with BAMT or other monitoring tools to do this and they already exist. I can monitor all of my singles from the web, ssh, email and my phone. What more do you really need?

Your likely right but it would be awesome to have a device with "internal host" and possibly a web interface for control and monitoring. :)

and it just hashes away until it dies

The difference with BFL is that time risk isn't a matter of 'I WANT MY PONY!' - this isn't a puerile desire to have the latest cool kit before everyone else has. If BFL were the only players in the market for orders-of-magnitude-superior-to-GPUs mining kit, then everyone would be in the same boat (apart from those leet enough to design their own bitstreams and commission their own FPGA big-boxes). But they're not. And there's a time limit before the block reward halves, and we don't have an historical analogue of *this* event (re: money supply singularity) so we can't easily predict how the BTC economy will respond to it, whether by raising BTC/xxx FX rates or wiping out mining capacity.

The most I can say is those who gambled with BFL and ordered blindly, won that gamble.

gigavps,  did you actually call Sonny at the tail end of last year for info?  You seem to have been 'in the know' for quite a while.

OK I'll risk joining this discussion before it turns into a brawl... I was one of the northern Europe customers who ordered a Wicked Lasers Arctic when they announced them. Now Wicked Lasers are rather good at marketing, and the hype was great. The emails reached the right people, the right forums went viral, etc. and WL stood looking at a monstrous number of orders - a hell of a lot of them from the USA.

Of course, the original product was, IIRC, illegal in the USA for virtually any contrived reason. It looked like a light sabre toy but put out 1W of laser light - it was weapons grade and shipping with a nice set of goggles wasn't going to cut it. So a complete design respin was required to follow US weapons regs (which, for lasers, were being thought up on the fly). On top of that, the original production process (rip the diodes out of projectors and rebuild into fancy cases) wasn't scalable to the necessary level and the source of diodes wasn't enough.

Product didn't ship, customers got angry, WL themselves lost control of their own order management system (I received three Arctics for some reason - and yes, I offered to pay in full for all unexpected, unordered product). But product eventually shipped. I still have an Arctic and it works well. Product quality didn't disintegrate (at least in my tiny sample).

The difference with BFL is that time risk isn't a matter of 'I WANT MY PONY!' - this isn't a puerile desire to have the latest cool kit before everyone else has. If BFL were the only players in the market for orders-of-magnitude-superior-to-GPUs mining kit, then everyone would be in the same boat (apart from those leet enough to design their own bitstreams and commission their own FPGA big-boxes). But they're not. And there's a time limit before the block reward halves, and we don't have an historical analogue of *this* event (re: money supply singularity) so we can't easily predict how the BTC economy will respond to it, whether by raising BTC/xxx FX rates or wiping out mining capacity.

So most miners are looking to ensure their investments pay off *before* this event. And I'll admit I've got a dog in this fight, as I'm an FPGA miner too, but not in the USA so not a BFL customer. So call me biased, I don't mind. I like their 'plug and play' approach, but you can be sure that I'm hoping they take their time as *long* as possible to 'get the product right' ;) After all, if anyone with a few tens of thousands of dollars and a decent electrical supply can buy a box, plug it in and become a 'player' in the mining world, it removes the current technical barrier to entry, which is the only advantage people in high-power-cost locations (like both of mine) have right now. Mass mining centralisation to a few players with free power and unlimited capital is *not* good for the Bitcoin economy.


(and I would normally say, 'BFL - get an EU distributor for your products FFS', and then be polite and say 'please'... but it very much sounds like they're far too overstretched as it is to accept MORE customers and orders. This is a USA thing, and I desperately hope they don't revisit the Wicked Lasers scenario and get quagmired by US customs / export regs - after all, IIRC, the US is touchy about cryptographic equipment being exported without limitations and full disclosure... and will BFL tell the government *exactly* how it works if they're not telling us?)

I tend to agree with Inaba- hence "time is of the essence" and would love to see this be more real world with penalty clauses etc. for >12 week delivery (stick).  Or on the other side, a bonus for each week less than 12 week delivery (carrot).

And yes, you can game it, but you get the gist of it...

If 'time is of the essence' as you seem to suggest, you would be better off going down the street and buying up a whackload of GPUs (setting up a few mining rigs takes a week) rather than waiting 2, 3, 4 months for a BFL product. That 2,3,4 months of time can be earning you BTC, and the GPUs will break even sooner than a delayed Single or Rig/Mini if you start the clock now. Different story long-term, but if you are concerned with maximizing your profit before December than GPUs may be the best way of achieving that.

I have a different theory: when the reward is halved, I agree that it will have little impact on the BTC exchange rate. Most of that is buoyed by speculation, and speculators don't care (and/or are oblivious) about block reward or mining profitability. But miners are not; marginal miners (stealing DeathAndTaxes's terminology here) will become non-profitable and will stop mining. What we will see is not a BTC price increase, but rather a significant reduction in difficulty over the 2 or 3 months following the reward drop. Not a 50% reduction, but significant nonetheless. Marginal miners (those with inefficient GPU setups and/or high electricity costs) will be forced out, leaving the high-efficiency GPU miners and the FPGA crowd.

If 'time is of the essence' as you seem to suggest, you would be better off going down the street and buying up a whackload of GPUs (setting up a few mining rigs takes a week) rather than waiting 2, 3, 4 months for a BFL product. That 2,3,4 months of time can be earning you BTC, and the GPUs will break even sooner than a delayed Single or Rig/Mini if you start the clock now. Different story long-term, but if you are concerned with maximizing your profit before December than GPUs may be the best way of achieving that.

I have a different theory: when the reward is halved, I agree that it will have little impact on the BTC exchange rate. Most of that is buoyed by speculation, and speculators don't care (and/or are oblivious) about block reward or mining profitability. But miners are not; marginal miners (stealing DeathAndTaxes's terminology here) will become non-profitable and will stop mining. What we will see is not a BTC price increase, but rather a significant reduction in difficulty over the 2 or 3 months following the reward drop. Not a 50% reduction, but significant nonetheless. Marginal miners (those with inefficient GPU setups and/or high electricity costs) will be forced out, leaving the high-efficiency GPU miners and the FPGA crowd.

If 'time is of the essence' as you seem to suggest, you would be better off going down the street and buying up a whackload of GPUs (setting up a few mining rigs takes a week) rather than waiting 2, 3, 4 months for a BFL product. That 2,3,4 months of time can be earning you BTC, and the GPUs will break even sooner than a delayed Single or Rig/Mini if you start the clock now. Different story long-term, but if you are concerned with maximizing your profit before December then GPUs may be the best way of achieving that.

I have a different theory: when the reward is halved, I agree that it will have little impact on the BTC exchange rate. Most of that is buoyed by speculation, and speculators don't care (and/or are oblivious) about block reward or mining profitability. But miners are not; marginal miners (stealing DeathAndTaxes's terminology here) will become non-profitable and will stop mining. What we will see is not a BTC price increase, but rather a significant reduction in difficulty over the 2 or 3 months following the reward drop. Not a 50% reduction, but significant nonetheless. Marginal miners (those with inefficient GPU setups and/or high electricity costs) will be forced out, leaving the high-efficiency GPU miners and the FPGA crowd.

OK - I'll bite...
...
So by early October the 5970 is paid off and the single, with the 6 week additional leadtime (realistically like 12), wouldn't be paid off in 2012...

If you net out power costs assuming $.12 Kwh...

For the 5970, $2.16 a day is reduced by $.72 to net out $1.44 profit. 277 day payback (40 weeks) - so paid off by Week 2 of 2013
For the BFL single, $2.57 a day is reduced by $.23 to net out $2.34 profit.  256 day payback (36 weeks) - so paid off in week 4 in 2013.
...

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/excel/epmxlfile5_6_a.xls

This appears to be net of taxes so rates are slightly understated.  US Residential Jan 2012 average is $.1143

Epoch,  there will be an official announcement regarding the Mini-Rig next week.

Epoch,  there will be an official announcement regarding the Mini-Rig next week.

Epoch,  there will be an official announcement regarding the Mini-Rig next week.

Are your announcement 'weeks' the same as your shipping 'weeks'?

Are your announcement 'weeks' the same as your shipping 'weeks'?

You guys are like wounded elephants.

If you are serious about getting some BFL products, get your wallets out and call BFL. Their phone number is right on their site.

putting your money where your mouth is, is an agreeable statement, but what do wounded elephants have to do with anything?

Elephants never forget.

I keep seeing the same dribble posted on these threads because people just think doing business any other way beside being perfect is unacceptable.

Instead of reminding everyone what we already know, I am only suggesting to pick up the phone and do your own research.

You guys are like wounded elephants.

If you are serious about getting some BFL products, get your wallets out and call BFL. Their phone number is right on their site.

So what are the square blocks with the circle cut out over each board?  Is that going to be an additional fan over each?

The Mini Rig is now on BFL's product page; the Rig Box is gone.

The air flow kind of scares me with this setup. Could definitely be optimized, especially if those are fans over each board.

I see what looks like 24 singles. By my calculations that is just shy of 20GH/s. I wonder if they're planning on optimizing the Single firmware or designing new modules that gets a little over 1GH/s.

So if the Mini-Rig consists of 24 boards like in this drawing, each one has about 1GH/s and about 20MH/W, just like at some point proposed for the Singles.

Moderators are not it a little spam three threads to discuss the same topic?

Moderators are not it a little spam three threads to discuss the same topic?
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/538/spamlg.jpg

Quote from: aTg on April 07, 2012, 03:55:27 PM

rabble rabble

I think the Rig Box never existed and the same for the Mini.
Only pictures. 

They don't give any indication about the delivery terms for the Mini.
Probably they have issues cooling it, for that they are working on water blocks.
I guess it will be available next year with water blocks at an higher price and I will happy to order two.

Does anyone have ordered a Rig or Mini Box?
Do you get any indication about the delivery date?

Anyway I believe they are good guys and are doing a great job with limited financial resources.

So I don't blame them for delaying the delivery to use that money for R&D.

So how it's possible that you will get it next month?

So how it's possible that you will get it next month?
Also the Mini Box was announced in April 7.

I ordered 2 rig boxes two months ago. 2 rig boxes turned into 4 mini rig boxes.

Mystery solved.

though the mini-rig assembly looks like a herculean job.

Check this out guys. ::)
http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/9408/mrbuild1.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/839/mrbuild1.jpg/)

Wow, it's massive. Wonder how big the "rig box" would have been lol.

Check this out guys. ::)
http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/9408/mrbuild1.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/839/mrbuild1.jpg/)

Beautiful. Good job. What did you use as the enclosure?

its a mini-rig box, got these pics today from BFL. I guess they're going to ship first ones very soon. Mine are due in July

hehe, my mistake. I thought you had built it for a bunch of singles.

So, What are the dimensions of that I wonder?

So just the 42 fans then?

I count 35.

There are 42 :P

I count 35.

17 modules @ 1 each, 2 sides @ 9 each.... 17+(2*9) looks a lot like 35 to me too.

Looks like a great product to me. The only thing I dislike is the build quality :-\ hate this scratches on a 15k machine. Use some tape for protection ! I hope they're going to repaint the chassis before delivery. :'(

I heard painting strips make the mini rigs faster.

Seriously, I don't think any miner dedicated enough to spend $15k on mining hw cares about scratches on cases caused by manual assembly. Especially when there are many more legitimate concerns to have (underestimated delivery times, suboptimal cooling design, etc).

I would like to know the WEIGHT of the mini rig.
My mining office is on the 2nd floor of a 2-story office building - there is no elevator.   :'(

I would like to know the WEIGHT of the mini rig.
My mining office is on the 2nd floor of a 2-story office building - there is no elevator.   :'(

- BFL said a mini rig card mines at 1.5Gh/s, therefore it will have 17 cards for 25Gh/s total (even though mini rig prototype pictures show it may have more cards, they don't show all angles).
- Each card should weight at most 1kg (heatsinks...) -- this is an overestimation, for reference an HD 6990 weights 1.16kg.
- The 1400W ATX PSU will weight about 2-3kg.
- The case and fans will weight about 10-15kg.

Therefore I estimate a mini rig will weight 30kg +/- 5kg, still kind of transportable by an adult in average shape https://i.imgur.com/nzase.gif

I would like to know the WEIGHT of the mini rig.
My mining office is on the 2nd floor of a 2-story office building - there is no elevator.   :'(

Do you also have no friends ?  :D

You can't count :)

9 on each side = 18

4 layers of 6 = 24

18 + 24 = 42

And this one
 http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/5901/mrbuild.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/109/mrbuild.jpg/)

Does this butter fly ? (device is nice and big hamburger :-)

I mean power consumption measured on input with fans running, performance, etc....
As these fans seems to be hungry fans...

As these fans seems to be hungry fans...

- BFL said a mini rig card mines at 1.5Gh/s, therefore it will have 17 cards for 25Gh/s total (even though mini rig prototype pictures show it may have more cards, they don't show all angles).
- Each card should weight at most 1kg (heatsinks...) -- this is an overestimation, for reference an HD 6990 weights 1.16kg.
- The 1400W ATX PSU will weight about 2-3kg.
- The case and fans will weight about 10-15kg.

Therefore I estimate a mini rig will weight 30kg +/- 5kg, still kind of transportable by an adult in average shape https://i.imgur.com/nzase.gif