Well, you wouldn't be using the battery or battery connection cable... instead you'd be using a grid-tie box, and probably be needing to call in a licensed electrician to tie that into an auxiliary panel. You'd also need to get permit from your town to do grid tie, some small towns don't allow it under their code. The DC-USB converter would also go as well... you'd be plugging into normal power outlets.

Depending on your town codes, and power company, you might be selling any excess power generated at a set rate (usually less than the generation rate you pay for receiving generated power), ultimately reducing your bill while giving the power company cheaper power. OR, the electric company might have a pass from the town or state in which they do not have to pay for excess power from your grid tie (some do... which REALLY sucks, because then they're getting anything you generate in excess for free.)

Overall, the initial hardware outlay would be cheaper because of the lack of battery. Your maintenance over time would be less too, also because you wouldn't have to change the battery at end of life (approx 8-10 years.) However, your TOTAL cost over time using panel+battery would be less than using panel+grid tie, and that would be less than grid-only. The break even point between each is usually about 2-3 years. (Longer time to pay off if you live in an area that has a lower solar efficiency, and less amount of hours of sun in a day. Las Vegas gets more hours per day and more direct solar than Chicago, which gets more hours and more direct solar than Finland. Google Photovoltaic Map)

While this seems good in principle, there are some things to keep in mind when using outside air for cooling.

1) Just exhausting air to the outside and using the room as the supply means that the negative pressure you're creating draws the air from somewhere else in the house / building. Exhausting the air out your window means the air to make up for what you're exhausting is going to be coming into the house from somewhere else. You may not feel it but it's happening.

2) Using an inlet and an outlet will remove this but then you have to worry about air quality, humidity, and even potentially rain. If you have a long enough duct or have one of those dryer vent covers, you'll avoid rain but humidity (specifically condensation) is a more difficult challenge. The last thing you want to have happen is for the temperature to fall below dewpoint and you start getting condensation. Probably not going to be a huge issue since the temperature change across the device is going to be positive therefore producing exhaust air that is capable of holding more moisture than the intake air; but if it's enclosed and you're taking in cold air in the winter, it could potentially cause condensation on the exterior that could mess some things up. Additionally there's debris to worry about like dust, pollen, or whatever else. This can accumulate in the heat sinks or other airflow areas and either block airflow, foul heat transfer surfaces (meaning the internal temperature rises), or even accumulate and pose a fire risk.

3) In addition to humidity, electronics may experience damage or small cracks due to excessive rate of change of temperature (called heatup and cooldown rates). ASHRAE TC 9.9 (This is the 2011 version which was recently superseded by the 2012 version, though it's not publicly available from what I could find) is the industry standard for this type of thing. This is all to prolong life and prevent damage or danger to the environment. The point here is that if you have this running in the winter (presumably powered by an external fan) and the hash rate goes down (pool goes down, lose connection to internet, or any number of other reasons), if you continue to pump cold air through there, that could stress sensitive components and ultimately lead to premature failure.

There are some other considerations but these are the top things to keep in mind. It's not as simple as just rejecting heat to the outside. It can be done but if it was simply that easy, every data center would be doing it.

I drew this little diagram in another thread, but thought it might be applicable here.

If you're not in a datacenter, then sealing everything up and channeling your airflow is the best way to go. For proper cooling, you need a low ambient temp. If the miner is dumping 1000+W into your spare bedroom, then the ambient is going to skyrocket. You could throw an AC into the room to combat the increase in temp, or you could throw all the heat out the window, literally, and just keep a fresh supply of cooler air coming in.

This thread has some good ideas for properly insulating and exhausting your rigs. At that point, you don't need to worry about giant AC units, you would just need a steady stream of cool, outside air. I live in the NE USA, and even in the summer, it barely gets 25C, and hardly ever to 30C, even in the summer. In the winter, it's not uncommon to see below 0C. Fresh, cool air isn't a huge concern for me.

      COLD             HOT
       AIR               AIR
        |                      ^
          V                      |          OUTSIDE
----FAN-----------FAN---------------
        |                      ^           INSIDE 
        V                      |
         --> ASICs -->

Waiting for a little price discovery....

The fuck is ARG and ONC?

Damn. I stay away from teh forumz for a nigga minute and 28 new alts are created. Welcome to the int3rnetz.

Sorry - linux noob here.  Thanks for your help.  I did restart the pi - twice.   My cgminer command line starts with:

Sound like turtle83 speaks with a voice of experience...

Any better offers?

I'm cannot get my new BFL ASIC running on my RPi using cgminer 3.1.1.  It has been hashing fine with my BFL FPGA up to now (and it still works if I plug back it in).  

I tried these commands from the ASIC-README.  The second command was not required (it said the group already existed).



I'm running in the default "pi" account.  Can someone please give me some guidance where to look or what to do next?  Thanks.  

That's why I calculate in nONC or µONC ... no leading zeros ... and in the metric system, you are used to prefixes, espeacially if you have studied math ;P

I am using my own username; or do you have to use onecoinrpc?