I have been tinkering with my 3 sticks, and been using bfgminer on a couple of different Windows 7 boxes. I observed a kind of odd behavior that I thought folks might find useful/interesting..

I had assumed it would always be best to have the sticks plugged in prior to starting bfgminer. I have yet to have example where bfgminer discovers anything on it's initial pass at start up. I then have gone through the process of "adding" them after bfgminer was started. I hade to use the \\.\COMxx reference. They would usually add just fine, and they showed up as an AMU.

Without actually realizing what I was trying, I plugged in a 2nd stick while bfgminer was running. I noticed in a couple of seconds, the LED started to flash. I then looked back at the screen, and bfgminer had automagically added a new miner to it's list and started using it. In this case though, it was a "CBM" miner and not an AMU. I then hot-plugged the 3rd miner and it to was detected and added as a CBM.

I then shut it all down, and unplugged the sticks after letting them cool (no fan). I started bfgminer with no sticks and over the course of 10-15 seconds hot-plugged all 3 sticks and I now have 3 CBM miners running at about 10-11GH each.

It appears to me that hot-plugging is actually "better", which I found surprising.

I agree with the overall consensus that these are great little stick miners.

Thanks sidehack and novak!!!

It seems that you need to plan to sell your miner in the next 3-6 months, and hope that it's value hasn't declined too much. If for some reason a newer/different miner arrives, then that plan blows up big time. And also assume BTC price doesn't decline during those 3-6 months.

You really have to stretch your assumptions to make things work these days, particularly with new gear, expensive, gear.

A random thought on how upgrades might influence a loan.

If you are trying to get a loan for an S7, the financials look pretty sketchy to begin with, for most folks. Electricity prices, initial cost, difficulty jumps, BTC price changes all push out the "Time to Break Even" to several months in the future. In some cases more than a year. If you then throw in the possibility of an upgraded S7+ that diminishes the current value of your shiny new S7, it makes the whole thing look even shakier.

Think about buying a house. You finances aren't really strong, the price is high and so forth. Do you want to also tell your mortgage company that you expect the value of the house to decline by 10% in the next 6 months (or less)? It's silly to think you can hide this, but some folks might think they can get a loan by trying to hide pertinent info.

I wonder how much of this is "latent hashrate" that was off for the summer due to cooling costs, or perhaps higher electricity prices during the summer months. Also we are all assuming that Bitmain was putting in S7 hardware and selling off 100's of S5 miners. Those S5's were bought and are now being run by somebody. I think there is quite a lag (i.e. many months) for displaced gear to actually disappear from the network. How much BFL gear is still hashing? Original KNC hardware? At some point they become a sunk cost and they get run until they are seriously in the red in terms of electrical costs. As Phil has said, a lowered BTC price accelerates that process.

Just curious as to why you would want to own a pool? It isn't free to run a pool, and usually the income isn't all that high.

I am curious about what assumptions you make to "Break Even" after 4 months in terms of original costs, electricity costs, and difficulty changes. You assuming the same BTC price at the end of 4 months?

I am not tracking here. You are suggesting that a mining enterprise produces a 200% per year return? You buy a $2000 S7 today, and you'll have $6000 at the end of one year (i.e. a 200% return)? I don't think even a Ponzi scheme will produce those kinds of returns.

+200% per year is not possible. You can only hope for a +150% bump in BTC price. Even the long fabled "Free Electricity" will not produce a +200% return in a year.

Apparently you have a different way of controlling a light than I do. My way is with a physical switch that actually disconnects the electrical HOT line to the socket. No possible power available, for mining or lighting. Maybe you control your lights with App on your phone.

As for "decentralization", that's only true if you get to configure the mining pool, and aren't roped into the BitFury mining pool.

What I really want to see is how do they try and price this gadget. Is it going to be a $50 light bulb that mines? Which only adds a premium of $40+ for the mining feature? Best or luck with that approach......

If you are thinking about using the CPU or GPU on your laptop to do the mining of any coin, it's a bad fit. Generally mininh is considered a 24/7 operation running flat out. Laptops are not designed for that kinf usage. Their cooling system won't handle it long term, nor will the other components. Laptops work great for 5-10 second bursts of speed, and then lots of idle time.

I think we were all just so "shell shocked" by the difficulty increases during 2013 and 2014, a small increase of 1% we just shrug off. In any other industry, 1% growth every 2-weeks would be considered crazy. I agree the days of 1% are over for at least a few months. It might not be quite as a bad though if Bitmain is doing most of the increases. All of the other obvious names (e.g. KNC, Bitfury, Spondoolies, etc), are all pretty opaque these days.

And also come up with $2000 roughly to earn a bit more. The S3's are a sunk cost more or less. Phillip's specific situation is unusual, and putting in a "big money" machine will do nothing but blow whatever profit he already has.

As I understand it, the S3's may not all be in one location, though my memory may be faulty here.

Since this is a Bitcoin centric forum, and not altcoin related, I'll respond as such. It is no longer economical or useful to try and mine Bitcoins with anything but an ASIC. The electricity cost alone will exceed the value of the Bitcoins that you mine. If you wish to mine at a loss, then GPu's will work fine. Six GPU's will only mean that you lose more money than using just one.

You should probably sell most if not all of your GPU's, and buy a used ASIC miner to see if you like it.

Personally, I count 3.5 months. I agree it doesn't seem that BitFury is in any hurry to actually sell a "Mining Lightbulb".

Maybe they came to their senses? 

Many folks don't worry about trying to speed control a 2nd fan. They just wire it up to some 12V line on the power supply and let it run at it's normal (i.e. full) speed. Think of it as a case fan from a PC that isn't controlled. You probably don't want to choose an even louder fan if you go this route.

It would seem to me you could lash together two S7's with a single controller if you were to lay the miners on their sides, so that the "Top Side" were facing each other. Kind of awkward to wire up, but it shouldn't take any "long cables" to accomplish.

It would be interesting to know if the S7 cooling actually requires that the blades be vertical to work OK. While it's obvious what the "expected" orientation is, does it still behave well if it's laid on it's side?

I wouldn't be surprised if you are correct. Is that a surprise to you? If so, why?

I don't have any reason to believe that the pricing is set so that YOU can make profit in a year, if ever.

While it was a valiant effort on your part, it can't be a real surprise if they decline to sell BM 1385 parts for at least a couple of months. They need to supply all the S7's they can while the market is hot.

It's also worth noting that the command supplied is an EXAMPLE. As written, it will actually mine on behalf of sidehack/novak. While that isn't  a bad thing, you just should know.  

While I thinks it's valuable and important to get the 2nd fan operating correctly, I'd be stunned if it actually made it quieter. It might make it more tolerable, but I've yet to see a situation where a 2nd fan ever made anything quieter. The hot air and noise are to be expected when you have 1200W being generated inside an envelope that's roughly S5 in size. Bitmain can't alter the laws of thermodynamics it would appear.

 

A thought for Novak and sidehack: Should you guys add the Compac as a product on your website? I just noticed it isn't there.