Bitcoin Forum

Hello! I have My own power source (solar and wind) should I start mining?
And if so what should my first purchase be?

Do you generate excess power?  If you do, take a look at how much you can earn by selling it back to the power company and compare it to profitability of mining.  If you don't, then you don't really have your own power source for mining since you'll need to obtain the excess power needed by the rigs from somewhere.

Hello I do generate excess power, I even have 8 panels in my garage that I'm not using.
 I'll take a look at what I would earn by selling power.
But I like to believe that the bitcoins will be worth a lot more one day then selling power.

Only if you want to.

You may be better off to take the earnings from selling excess power and buying Bitcoins.  Run the numbers both ways and see what comes out better for you.

It is good to provide hash rate and a Bitcoin node to the network.  But even with your own power source you could easily end up doing it at a loss.  So that's a decision you have to make for yourself.

It doesnt matter, it comes down to the cost per btc. If mining cost more than buying, what would you do?

I believe if you actually ask these questions, you're clueless about money management. I'm sure thats how mining rig sellers make money, selling gear to clueless ppl.

Frankly, it may be more profitable to try selling the electricity you generate for bitcoin.

You could probably get obsolete miners for free.  Might be an interesting hobby to see how much mining power you could get by using free devices and reinvesting the earnings into new equipment purchases.

Selling your power would be more profitable then using it to mine...

I would mine with some Antminer S3's if I were you.

Do you think that if i do buy some miners, let's say 1-2 TH/s t start off with, will i be able to pay them off with mining ?

No.  Did you notice that difficulty jumped 20% today?  That's 20% less earnings for the rest of the miners life since difficulty is probably not going down until 2016 when the 1/2ing occurs.  In 12 days there will be another increase.

If you like mining and are willing to lose money to do so then feel free to do it.  Unless you have free power it's not currently viable to make an ROI.

i have free power, that's why i'm asking if i should mine and if i would earn on it.

Free power - check.
Free space - unknown
Free cooling - only if you have fans, AC and venting ready
Free peripherals to support mining - ethernet cables, switches, router
Free miner - to be determined

If you're going to use 1 or 2 devices then you don't need to worry about infrastructure.  If you're going to have a mini farm then you need to spend money on the above unless you already have those items.  Please look at the ahrdware forum and the pics of my mining rigs thread to get ideas on what you need and how to do a setup.

If after than you're interested then go for the lowest priced miner/GH.

Try selling power to Power company, also you can buy mining hardware, you will get automated earnings.

Would this be worth it ? http://www.ebay.com/itm/111436947270  as a start

Unlimited power means unlimited coins[theory]

Invest in miners, you will never regret it. It will be automated money :)

Calculate for your self.
With this miners you will mine about 0.8 BTC each month (!!!current difficulty!!! every diff increase will reduce the amount x%) and burn about 3200 Watts (2 Watt for every GH/s)
Maybe you will earn 1.3 BTC or less within the next two month.
When you sale the power you earn more ore less for 3.200 Watts?

Thats the question...
And don't forget your 1,000+ USD invest, you need 8 x PSU about 500 Watts, cables etc...

Put everything on paper not on excel sheet and stare at numbers for few days you'll find the answer yourself...

How much "free" power are you generating? I see that nobody asked you about your power circuit capacity which is strange.

Enough to power more then 1000 Antminer S1 :)

Then start building yourself a room where you can have some kind of wind tunnel to evacuate the air as fast as possible with some big ass vents and start mining!

Do you have any suggestions on how to build a wind tunnel?

Really?

Big industrial fans blowing cool air from outside into the room and big industrial fans exhausting hot air from inside the room to the outside.

If you actually have the excess power that you say you do, then getting rid of the heat build-up is going to be your biggest challenge.

Is there a problem when more air is blowing out of the building than into the building?

Hell if I know. Maybe the walls or roof will collapse, lol.

There's no reason to reinvent the wheel.  We have pretty much every possible iteration of mining setup represented here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7216.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7216.0)

Yes it's a lot of reading and pics - but if you can't devote 2-3 hours to planning you should be allowed anywhere near 1000 S1s.

Okey, i'm going to start with 10x S1 Antminers for 1000USD and buy the upgrade kit as soon as possible.
Starting to build My mining rig inside a 5x5 meters industrial freezer with ventilation, that should keep the cooling on a steady level

Why not start with 10 S3 Antminers? No need to hassle with the upgrade kits afterwards.

If you are putting the miners in an industrial freezer, and using the freezer to do the cooling, you will need lots of cooling capacity.

It is not the size of the freezer that is important, rather the cooling capacity.  Ten S1 or S3 miners will require about 3,600W (one ton) of cooling. 100 S1 or S3 would require 10 ton of cooling.

It would be of interest to know the cooling capacity of your freezer if you intend using the freezer cooling capacity.  For example is it a 3 ton, 10 ton or 30 ton freezer.

If you intend using ambient air cooling you will need very good air flows, especially if you are likely to have high outside air temperatures.  A freezer is not the ideal location for ambient air cooling due to the insulation.  

Also S1 miners are almost obsolete even if electricity is free.  They are only rated at 180/200GHash and each S1 could only expect to return $100 to $200 over its remaining lifetime even with free electricity.  

You need 20 or so S1s miners to equal the hash rates of one Neptune or SP30 miner. The S1 miners would also draw far more power than the equivalent S3, Neptune or SP30 miners.

As mentioned earlier the S3 is to be preferred - or S1 to S3 upgrade applied.

i can't get my hands on S3 Antminers until 20 sep for some reason. :/

its a 40 Ton freezer, it was used to store lab results before, its a ''walk in freezer'' with lots of storage, i can go as low as -60• C.
i was thinking if getting some Neptune's first but i thought i'd take a look on how the S1 doing before i go for something bigger.

If you have access to an industrial freezer and you're going to put miners in there you're doing it all wrong.  Rent out the freezer, take the proceeds and buy BTC.  You'll end up with more BTC and won't be slaughtering the environment.  Putting 4KW of heat inside an enclosed shell is not the best idea - certainly not for energy efficiency.

It is not wrong to put inside the freezer electronic equipment like an ASIC  ??

Let assume that your ASICs will work properly into the freezer, you will not spend more energy with the freezer than with a wind tunnel ?

i don't think any1 would want to Rent my Freezer, i don' even think its Legal since its been used for lab resualts hehe.
if i produce my own Power (Which i do) then i won't be slaughtering the environment,.
the freezer won't have to be clossed, as i said there is a ventelation in it and lots of Holes which can be open/clossed (used for gas to burn the rom in case of an emergency) which i can put all my ventilation in. there's also a HUGE ''fan'' at the top of it which was used for sucking up the smoke afterwards, the fan is still there and working to (its a 1x1M fan). i could also use Liquid cooling if needed on the miners.

no i won't, even if the wind turbine would fail to produce enough energy then then i always have my Soal panals :)

40 tons of cooling is nice.  I guess you could support 100 to 150 Kilowatts of mining power.  That would give you a good mining setup.  You could possibly run up to 400 S1s or S3s or eventually 30 or 50 SP30s or Neptunes.

As you have free electricity you could be where old mining hardware goes to die.  Even S1s could be a viable choice if you can get them really cheaply - the main cost is likely to be the S1/S3 power supplies. 

With more modern mining systems you could have 100 Terahash or more.  Nice.

As he have already enough amount of power available he could mine out a huge amount of btc with a big profitability

More profitable to offer hosting service to other miners than do the mining yourself.

Remember there is price fluctuation risk.

That's gotta be one massive turbine!

Hi,

Can I see your solar panels?  Thanks.