Admittedly I entered this thread thinking it was about something different.

Carry on.

source?

Because he's not going to. He originally made the bet with the intention of making people believe BFL would be a good investment, since he was risking his reputation on it. And people fell for it. It accomplished its mission, don't waste your time.

Sheesh you guys, let those GPUs breathe!

Might be a good idea to reseat the heatsinks with good thermal compound like Noctua or Arctic Silver. I've seen 4-5 degree differences in reviews which actually could make a difference when we're pushing them to the edge like this.

Clean the surfaces well with iso alcohol and use a 5mm dab on the center of the GPU.

looks like we took a punch, but the 130 wall holding.

Bitcoin leads to money, money leads to greed, greed leads to selfishness, selfishness leads to unhappiness...etc etc etc until you reach hate.

Insert Obi-Wan Kenobi quote where applicable.

1. Buy Avalon chips in group buy
2. Send chips to one of many builders, or build yourself
3. Profit

In reality it is much more complicated. The lead time for chips is ten weeks, which puts delivery into late June/July assuming no delays for the first orders. In the next month a whole bunch of DIY (or semi-DIY) solutions will be available for those with chips. Those with the know how will have the materials ready to go, or have people lined up to build them quickly. In the grand mining scheme, however, the DIY crowd constitutes a very small group, but it is likely they will be online first, barring any design problems.

Also to be considered are the large-scale ASIC miners, who will have ordered huge amounts of chips but will have larger startup costs and hurdles. As we have seen with Butterfly Labs, running a large operation while meeting expectations can be extraordinarily difficult and expensive. Designing, building and running a large ASIC farm will not be without its own set of challenges. Because of this reality, I believe that correlating difficulty increases with the number of chips sold, especially in a given timeframe, is speculation at best.
 
Also we have difficulty. Yesterday's difficulty increase was less than predicted on the forums, so it's possible future increases could be less as well. The massive ASIC farms mentioned above may not be online until autumn, AND it's reasonable to assume BFL's production will continue through the summer at a slow trickle. Therefore, I think it's reasonable that difficulty will increase, although not by ridiculous amounts until autumn, and even that depends on how many ASIC farms successfully power up on schedule.

Of course I could be totally wrong. But I do think there's a strong case to be made for the DIYer somewhere in here.

I think there are a few outspoken individuals who see themselves as vigilantes, seeking justice in the wild wild bitcoin west. I agree they come off a little strong when in realty they could wait patiently for BFL to dig their own grave.

Anyway, it's clear to me as a newcomer that BFL's business practices have been more than shady, failing to deliver time after time while actively collecting more money. Now backed into a corner, Josh's demeanor as CEO is laughable, and his contempt for his customers is disgusting. I'm very surprised to see that he would damage his own company's credibility in such a way.

Well you can always upgrade your existing Jalapeño order to overnight shipping for the bargain price of $100 each.

Seems like a desperate cash grab if you ask me.

I see they have a 4" wide option with 2" high fins for $12. Maybe that is large if we want to stack them close together.

They also have 3.5 and 4.2" inch sizes with .75" high fins for about $4 and $5 respectively. If 3.5x4" is big enough, $4.36 is pretty cheap.

Bkk correct me if I'm wrong but the sinks would simply be mounted to the back of the pcb, Avalon style.

A quick look at heatsinkusa.com shows a ~4x4" sink costing around $5, give or take a bit  depending on how high the fins need to be.

Awesome guys.

Info just sent.

You have my support as well. We are all adults here. John K and nebiz have done a great job in keeping things professional and friendly. I mean no offense to the OP, but we all have common interests here and there's no reason for this order not to happen.

And let wrenchmonkey send his coins for god's sake!

Thanks for the answer, and links. So soldering the ASICs to the board could be accomplished in a toaster oven, or a skillet. Nice. Not for mass production, obviously, but a beginner with a handful of chips and some soldering equipment could potentially do this.

Any idea of cooling requirements for these? The units BFL released into the wild seem to run very hot with large heatsinks. At the risk of getting ahead of myself, once we know the heatsink size needed, custom orders could be placed with a company like, say Heatsinks USA. I have dealt with them in the past when building LED lighting and they are inexpensive and cut custom widths.

Almost there guys! Lets get these ASICs ordered!!

Yet nothing changes. Donning my conspiracy hat for a moment, I like to think of Taiibi as controlled opposition.

Yeah I feel like I'm hanging out with a bunch of teenagers.

I remember when I had my first beer.

There is always Bitinstant payable directly to your bitcoin address. Higher fees but you'll have your coins within hours.

Thank you Bkk, man this design sounds really great. I will keep an eye on your github.

This being a sort of DIY project, how difficult would it be for an average Joe with a small amount of chips and some soldering experience to put together? Too risky?