Hmm ok, I'll have to do some reading then. Not sure about the credibility of alternatives.

I guess I could just get one, leave it running on solar and forget about it.
I'll take a look into some calculators to work out if it's worth me looking into it.

Thanks for the replies.

Is there anything that £/Watt/GH for up-to £300 that would actually be profitable at the moment?
I'm just looking to start into mining but would like to at least cover the electricity of running the thing!

Key thing is it has to be USB/self contained so it can run with a low powered netbook.
I am also considering using solar to run such a machine so ideally something that comes in under 50w would be best.

Hi all,

First post and have a question for those in the know. I've been reading about mining for some time now but been hesitant to invest real money but now feel I may be missing out...question is am I too late to the party?

I'm thinking about getting a Butterfly Labs Jalapeno.

From what I can gather the following is the rough specs of them (though I'm sure people here can correct me/be more specific):

* 5 GH/s
* ~45w
* Can be bought 2nd hand for around £250 ($411.75) (maybe a bit cheaper)

Now in my area electricity costs around £0.1261 ($0.21) /Kwh.

So based on the above, would I ever make the £250 investment back?

I would run it using an EEEPc 901 which draws about 10w on idle (assuming the miner does most of the work), so looking around:
45w+10w = 55w * 24 = 1320w / 1.320Kwh per day = £0.166452 per day on electricity.

Can anyone help?