Yes those are the prices. You have the option to pay for the chips now and the assembly later, or pay for both now. You can pay via BTC to the address on the page and fill in the email form so i can track your payment, or you can pay via paypal at http://drillbitsystem.com

Cheers.

Yes,

The Drillbit Thumbs are just like the Block Erupter USBs but with a Bitfury chip at ~2Gh/s. Yes your current hub will run them if it happily runs the ASICminer ones.

I have just added a PAYPAL button for the thumbs so feel free to jump on there and order.

Cheers.

Barntech

Nice idea Lajz. Maybe we will. 

I am aware that the reels are no longer on the Megabigpower site. There are changes going on over there that is their information to tell, not mine.

We are looking good for our chips though. I am in communication with Dave from Megabigpower and will be making a deposit soon to lock the reel down. I'll keep you all updated on the progress of this.

Barntech

Julz is going to come visit us once we have a prototype to show off. I also extend the invite to anyone else in the Sydney area who wants to come by and say hello / check out what were up to. 

Barntech

2 X 8 = 16

A basic stable rate of 16 GH/s with potential overclocking up to 21.6 GH/s

Edit: Thanks Philwoo. Beat me to it. 

Can't give you definites until we get to the proper testing phase, but yes basically the chips will run very hot when cranked up that high, so we're looking at fans, heatsinks, even liquid cooling if you want to get really serious about overclocking. Will let you know hoe it all looks as we do our tests.

Got it. 

I'll get the preorder option up for the Drillbit thumbs tonight for paypal. And if anyone wants to order thumbs now via BTC, go right ahead. 

Firstly, really hoping this doesn't happen. That said, if a bunch of people request refunds close to the time of the order going in, leaving us incapable of placing the order, then yes, everyone else's money will be refunded.

There will come a point of no return, when all of the money collected gets handed over to make the chip purchase. From that point, refunds will no longer be available as we will no longer have the money to refund. I will announce when this is going to happen and give people the opportunity to pull out if they want to. But i think if we stay on target and get things happening as quickly as we can, we should still be able to get things going before the difficulty gets super crazy, that said, we did just hit 50000000. Crazy times. Anyways, hopefully we wont have a mad rush of last minute pull outs. See how we go.

Cheers.

Barntech

No, seeing as the paypal transaction contains your email address, shipping address and details of the order. Thats pretty much all i need. I will also be needing shipping details once i get that side of things sorted. I will add shipping details into the paypal order once its sorted. For all those who have already paid, we will have to sort out another payment for shipping down the track. Will get that sorted soon.

Barntech

Spot on Nexus. It is the address your sent your BTC from. It helps me track all the incoming payments and know which one came from which person. With sending address, TX ID, and exact amount sent, it is nice and clear which payments come from which people.  

General apologies guys on getting shipping details up on the page. Things have been pretty hectic on this end. It is on my list and i'll get to it as soon as i can. Probably this weekend or early next week. I'll make up a table of available shipping options.


Yes i did get your payment armed. All good.

Shipping cost worldwide will be in the general range of $50 - $100 depending on how many units you are having shipped and the shipping type chosen. Shipping types will range from normal shipping, registered post, expedited delivery etc, each costing a different price. Full details on shipping options coming soon. Thanks for your patience on this.

Glad you appreciate it Ben. Having had many experiences myself dealing with kind of shady distant types here in bitcoin land, it's a big priority for me to be present, open and honest with this project.

Cheers man.

Barntech

Yeah man for sure. If you come in a week or two you can check out the prototype. 

Hey Ben.

Firstly, we are getting our chips from Megabigpower. We are not in competition with them. We are their customers. By all means go ahead and buy their products, they are good products at good prices.

Our project is a group buy of chips along with an offer of assembly into the Drillbit Sytem, an alternate mining solution to the one offered by Bitfury and Megabigpower. We are a bunch of people chucking in together to buy some chips. We have designed a board to make use of those chips and we are offering it to people.

Both the Drillbit and the Bitfury systems have their advantages. The main difference is that our system is more friendly for smaller scale mining enthusiasts to start small and build it up from there. The Drillbit board runs standalone so all you need to pay to get started is $300, for an 8 chip board, or $99 for a one chip thumb. Starting cost for a bitfury kit is $1300. For that you get the M board (equivalent of our backplane) + one H board (equivalent of two of our Drillbit boards). They say if you are a “real hacker” you can get the H boards functioning on their own. So i guess if you are a real hacker then an H Board for $500 is cheaper than two Drillbit boards for $600. Go for that if that is you. You don’t need to be a hacker to run the Drillbit boards however.

So, for those who don’t consider themselves real hackers, with Bitfury, an initial $1300 gets you 16 chips hashing. With Drillbit, an initial $600 gets you 16 chips hashing.

Our anticipated cost on the backplane is approximately $100 - $150. It is a neat way to stack your boards together, but not required. 16 boards can be put into a backplane, or can exist as 4 standalone stacks of 4. The Bitfury backplane is essential for their system, unless you’re a real hacker, whatever that means.

Bitfury backplane: $800 - required (hackers excluded)
Drillbit Backplane: $100 - $150 - not required

Startup cost:

Bitfury: $1300
Drillbit: $300

Cost to have 32 chips hashing:

Bitfury: $1800
Drillbit: $1200

Cost to have 128 chips hashing:

Bitfury: $4800
Drillbit: $4800 (or $4900 - $4950 with backplane)

In summary, the pricing is pretty much the same when you start getting big, cheaper when you are starting small. $500 is less and $600, so if you feel confident getting the H board running on its own, then that is probably your best bet.

On delivery times, yes they have the advantage of a headstart on prototyping. I have seen their photos and the rig looks impressive. I still haven’t seen a video of the whole thing working, but it may well be totally kicking arse and ready to go. Who knows.

When they get their chips, they will still have to put them into manufacture, which will take some time. At the end of the day, if we get the chips at approximately the same time, i don’t imagine we will be too far behind if at all. If we do end up getting the chips much later for whatever reason, the yes, we will be way behind. Unfortunately, i don’t have any control over that, though i am doing everything i can to lock down chip delivery details. Maybe ordering straight from Bitfurystrikes back or Megabigpower is a safer bet because they will get the chips before us. And as i said, go for it, order from them. Either way, we are going to go ahead with our project, and welcome anyone else who wants to be involved.

Cheers.

Barntech

Alexandria. You a Sydney sider too?

Correct. 

Prototypes on the way. Regarding shipping dates, and especially given the whole Avalon scenario, i honestly can't promise exact shipping dates because they are dependent on when we get the chips. Currently we are promised that the chips will be shipping in October. I am in the process on trying to nail this down with more specifics.

On our end, once we get the chips, it will be a two to four week turn around for manufacture and shipping. We will obviously be moving as fast as we can once those chips arrive.

So if the chips get to us in early October, then late Oct early November delivery is realistic. But given the scenario with BFL and Avalon, i totally understand how people don't trust stated delivery dates.

So yeah, what i can promise is two to four weeks after we get the chips for delivery.

Cheers

Barntech

We're not accepting reservations on this. Part of the thing with group buys is that it is understandably more assuring and exciting to jump on right at the end when the order is almost filled. Trouble is, if everyone did this, then the order would never be filled. For this reason, we're urging people to place an order if they're interested, that way the number at the top keeps going down and people get excited, jump on board as well and voila, we get the order completed. I also understand that its annoying having your money tied up while waiting for other people to chuck theirs in. Its a bit of a dilemma, but i say go for it, chuck in and lets get that order in! Also, if you do turn out to need the money for something else, or just decide you'd rather take your mother out to a fancy dinner instead of buy bitcoin mining gear, then you can always ask for a refund and we will happily give it you. 

The advantage of the backplane is that you plug one miner into your machine, rather than 4 or 16, less to set up. less cables, but yes, if you want to, you can just connect them all to a USB hub.

On the prototypes, no we don't have functioning prototypes yet. The board design is very close to finished and we are getting boards spun this week. Shouldn't be too much longer before we have a prototype up and running, but then being realistic, there is always the possibility of potential problems that will need to be ironed out. I will be keeping everyone updated with the progress of the prototype.

Cheers.

Barntech