I think you just have to ask yourself: Is being shunned by BFL a good thing or a bad thing?

I wonder if it's like when you have a "terrible girlfriend" say "I never want to speak to you again!"

Maybe you should feel releived rather than sad?

OK, a month later in Texas. What's the state of affairs on this shed? I am curious to see what the reality on the ground is on this. Has the heat overtaken the project, or is it still "full steam ahead" (no pun intended)?

These discussions usually devolve into this kind of argument. It all depends on your assumptions you make. And while you can claim to want to exclude the BTC/dollar (yes USA centric), you can entirely the reason you can't is that I am not aware of a single electric company that will quote you a stable rate in BTC, it's always in dollar. You then have to make assumptions about the difficulty increases, or decreases along the way. Finally you have to make an assumption about the residual value of the mining hardware. It quite easy to pick values that show a profit (in BTC), and those that show a loss (in BTC). All of you can be right, and all can be wrong, all at the same time.

If I assume 20% difficulty jumps, and pay $.50/Kwh, and zero residual value, then I lose for sure. If I assume 2% jumps, $.05/KWh, and 50% residual (in BTC), then profit is assured. Neither of these set of assumptions match my reality, and don't likely match your either. Both however are possible, although not likely.

That's the great thing about a cloud. Nothing to actually grab hold of, and almost no way to see what's inside, or on the other side. You just take it on faith! Clouds are so comforting and ephemeral.....

This is better than a soap opera!!! If it wasn't centered in Kansas City, I would be tempted to say it's the answer to "Who shot JR?"

I see the Rbox price as quoted in dollars. Without going through the process of trying to buy one on the website, what are actual payment methods? Something that converts to Bitcoin, or actual dollar transactions. It might be good to elaborate on payment methods and shipping cost, prior to actually getting too far into the order process.

While you may well be correct about "Too little, Too late" or it's poor efficiency, bad ROI, any other related items, I think your estimate of "No one wants this device" is off the mark. The Group Buys section, and even Amazon don't jive with a lack of interest. I am not trying to convince you to purchase one, or even be interested in what happens.  I just think your assesment of interest and enthusiasm don't match the reality.

It'll be interesting to see what the long term (i.e. 3+ months) interest on this box is.

Since this isn't a "Group Buy" thread, I thought I'd mention that I put "Rockminer" into Amazon, and got a few sellers, the most notable of which is "Jones Gear". I suspect somebody here is "Jones Gear". Anybody want to raise their hand?

If my post/reference to Amazon is inappropriate here, please let me know.

Just so I am clear, this a "Group Buy of a Pre-Order"? The hardware doesn't presently exist, so the Group Buy is to pool money for the Pre-Order?

The ultra-high-resolution images from Dogie are from the R-box. He took the fan off,
and removed the top heatsink to get those pictures. I haven't done the same to my single
R-box, but I am sure it's the same. I don't think there are any real images from the larger
rig yet.

Using a "no name generic" 12V 6A power brick, my Rbox is using 39 watts at the wall for the stock speed of 32GH/s (i.e. 270M for the frequency). Works quietly and seems reliable with the Raspberry Pi and cgminer for support.

A brief update. I have measured the power draw on this at the stock 270M speed (i.e. about 32GH/s). Uisng a handy 12V power brick it's reading 39 watts "at the wall", so the actual usage of the device is well under that. It seems to be ticking along nicely at the stock speed and not a huge power draw. I am using Raspberry Pi and cgminer for the support.

One small update from an "early user" of the Rbox (i.e. last Friday I started). I have put my old Kill-O-Watt P4400 device in to measure the power draw of the device. Right now I am running at the stock 270M speed, and getting about 32GH/s (as seen by Slush's pool). It appears to be drawing about 39 watts at the wall with a "nothing special" 12V 6A power supply. I have no idea of the efficiency of the power supply, it was just handy and I wanted to get started. I have yet to try a faster clock. I am using a Raspberry Pi, and the power draw for the RPi is NOT included in the 39 watts.

So far I have zero complaints about it's speed, power draw, it's construction, packaging , or reliability. Right now, It appears to be a roughly 100x BE100 USB Block Erupter in terms of performance. I expect the software inconvenience will get ironed out over time, and then it will be a pretty easy device to do whatever you might want with.

It might be a good idea to hear from Rockminer what the range of legitimate frequency values is. So far we've heard reference to 270 - 290. Presumably that's inclusive. Are all integer values between 270
and 290 going to work? What about values less than 270, to reduce power consumption? Right now
I am just letting it tick along at 270 and 32GH/s. With summer in Minnesota, and electricity costs,
I presently have little interest in overclocking, though I might consider it in 4-5 months.

While I had to re-learn some Linux, as well as some "git" stuff, I was able
to use the 4.3.3 cgminer in conjunction with the 3 changed files provided by
the Rockminer folks. I had a couple of false starts, but once I got into buiding
cgminer correctly, it was smooth sailing. I am now adding my miniscule 32GH/s
to the Bitcoin universe. All in all, a very satisfying outcome.

While my speed is not much, it's way better than having paid for a BFL
Monarch. My tiny rig is infinitely faster, at least  for a while.

How does the above comment from YipYip further the discussion of Bfl delivery dates?
What am I missing here?

I think I'll refrain from posting the feeble cell-phone pictures I took. The images from
Dogie are "almost like being there". That's exactly how mine looked. Of course he omitted
the ultra-highres pictures of the USB cable and power lead. 

Mine arrived today as well. My first impression is that it's quite well done. While it may well
be overpriced, and under-powered, it feels very solid and well built. I don't think folks
should compare this to the "last dying gasp" of the Erupter Cube. This is way better done
from what I can tell. Time to get busy with software and the 12V power supply.

I can absolutely confirm that they have shipped. I received mine today via thomas_s. My
first impression is that the packaging and so forth are quite solid. Nothing loose inside,
and left rattling around. While the original prototype looked like a Gridseed, this is
different though similar. There is a black heatsink on top with the fan, with the board
below thatn and then a heatsink below. No dusty heatsink here. This looks like a very
well designed piece of gear, all issues of it's cost, profitability, and speed aside.

More to come.

I think when the reward halves, it will be almost identical to a one day
difficuly increase of 100%. I don't want to be that guy that just bought
his shiny new 50 TH/s miner the day before and watch it depreciate 50%
overnight. Worse than buying a new car.