Free Electricity - What should I do? - What would you do?

[EasyD]

I haven't mined in about a year. I now have access to entirely free electricity. Is mining worth my time, from my calculations it seems like it will take about a year or more to pay off any equipment. What would you do?

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[notlist3d]

It depends what you mean by "free" is it parents or someone else paying?  Or is it included in rent?

Depending on your situation of how it is "free" would effect how I mine personally.

[notlist3d]

I have an office space with a flat monthly rate. Electricity included.

Well I would say your biggest issue will be noise.  The absolute most quiet is the Avalon 4.1.  But you pay a premium for this.

If you go S5, or SP20 you will need to under clock.  SP20 chances are will be to loud unless you just run at night.  S5 if you replace fan's and underclock you might be able to mine during day depending on your noise tolerance.

[Muhammed Zakir]

Are you sure it is completely free? Some "free" electricity will be capped. So try to confirm it isn't capped before mining.

I personally, will go with Antiminer S3+.

[mavericklm]

know how much kw u can pull out of the socket
know how loud is too loud for the neighbours
know how how you can deal with the summer heat

if you know some of the above, approximatively, then we can help you more!

[notlist3d]

@Muhammed Zakir: I pay a flat rate, that rate increases annually, no electricity caps mentioned in lease.

@mavericklm: This office suite is noisy already they wouldn't complain even if they heard it.

Not sure about the killowatts. Im in the US and this unit has standard 120v outlets I believe. I'd need to get with maintenance for more info.

This unit has no windows. In the winter they blast air conditioning, in the summer it gets hot. Anything wrong with using indoor A/C near the miners?



Another question. With noise and electric consumption not being an issue. Is S5 still the best choice for GH/$

Most likely yes.  Unless you get a deal on used gear.  The S5 price is hard to beat though.

I would suggest starting small with 1.  See how it goes with sound in your office.  If it is fine then think about expanding.  But your landlord with know something is up once  a few miners are running.

[adaseb]

You are better off buying old inefficient gear for next to nothing and get ROI faster then buying something more efficient if you are free electricity.

Get an S3 or a KNC Jupiter.

[alh]

Besides what you can actually safely pull from the wall outlets, you will find that there is actually some kind of "cap" on the electricity usage. It won't be stated directly, but if/when your electricity usage turns into 10x what the other tenants use, your landlord will find the clause in your lease and point it out. Stratobitz found this out when the property changed hands and the new owner did a "walk through". He is now selling all his S5's and S3's. One or two miners might be passed off as "office equipment". A dozen won't, regardless of power usage.

[alh]

You might want to take your cues from the other tenants. What do they do? What kind of equipment might they have in their space? What kind of power draw might they have? Once downside to mining in this kind of environment is that it's usually 24x7. Most small business offices would be more like five 10-hour days, maybe a bit more. Almost none would be a round-the-clock 7-day per week operation.

[notlist3d]

You are better off buying old inefficient gear for next to nothing and get ROI faster then buying something more efficient if you are free electricity.

Get an S3 or a KNC Jupiter.

Excellent advice thank you.


@notlist3d: The nature of the businesses around me is noisy. They also use much more electricity than I do right now. Hopefully everything can be stealth.


EDIT: Eventually I will need to focus on GH/watt. I only have 6 normal outlets in this unit.

As fare as what is more highly rated it would be S3 over KNC Jupiter.  Some have posted good things about the Jupiter, but S3 is much more popular then it.  It is also quite a bit less electricity and will let you set up smaller amounts at a time.

One thing you might check is the outlets, if they are on same breaker or different breakers.  It's not so many outlets you have but how many breakers and how many volt's and amps.

[alh]

I don't really know how you find out the wiring/breaker information without asking. Six outlets could easily be just one 15 Amp breaker. It might be two. It's almost certainly NOT 6, nor even 4. Besides electrical capacity, you might find that it's impractical temperature wise to have a 1000 watt heater in your office. While it may not seem obvious, a 1000 watt miner is virtually identical to a 1000 watt little heater in your office. Watts are watts, regardless if Bitcoin is produced as a byproduct.

[Amph]

I haven't mined in about a year. I now have access to entirely free electricity. Is mining worth my time, from my calculations it seems like it will take about a year or more to pay off any equipment. What would you do?

not a year, but about 5 months with free electricity, which is the same with cloud mining, this with a s5 miner which is the most efficient until s6-s7 will come out(s4 is less efficient, don llook at it)

[srgkrgkj]

If i had free electricity currently i might just sell it lol, however mining with free electricity is also an option but im pretty sure i wouldent go out and buy hundreds of terahashes as with the Bitcoin world anything can happen making free electrcity worthless if Bitcoin is worth nothing

[notlist3d]

If i had free electricity currently i might just sell it lol, however mining with free electricity is also an option but im pretty sure i wouldent go out and buy hundreds of terahashes as with the Bitcoin world anything can happen making free electrcity worthless if Bitcoin is worth nothing

The only thing is most office spaces it would be noticeable unless underclocked/quiet miner.  OP mentioned having six outlets.  If he really does have 6 seperate breakers to put them on even if 110, that's easily 6K + of watts.

It will be very easy for a landlord to see a jump of 6k + watts of mining gear.  And not to mention heat/sound in office.

[philipma1957]

I haven't mined in about a year. I now have access to entirely free electricity. Is mining worth my time, from my calculations it seems like it will take about a year or more to pay off any equipment. What would you do?

Okay you want 2 s-3's   and a good psu.

So do you have the psu ?  if you do find 2 s-3's cost should be about 200 for 2.

figure 850 gh with a freq 212 under clock.  keeps sound and power down less chance of discovery.

and this is what you get.  I used f2pool which has a 4% fee but is dead solid reliable

  I run 2 s-3's  in my friends place at 2.4 cents

[crazyivan]

I haven't mined in about a year. I now have access to entirely free electricity. Is mining worth my time, from my calculations it seems like it will take about a year or more to pay off any equipment. What would you do?

Always the same story. We re talking here about plugging in your radio. We are talking about much more more. If you try to plug this in, somebody s gonna figure out, I can guarantee you that.
All in all, it s not worth it, go cloud or try some staking.

[crazyearner]

Well if you got free energy id look at getting some miners  if you got free energy and got some pare cash to put towards some 2nd hand equipment might pay its self off.

[philipma1957]

I haven't mined in about a year. I now have access to entirely free electricity. Is mining worth my time, from my calculations it seems like it will take about a year or more to pay off any equipment. What would you do?

Always the same story. We re talking here about plugging in your radio. We are talking about much more more. If you try to plug this in, somebody s gonna figure out, I can guarantee you that.
All in all, it s not worth it, go cloud or try some staking.

well 2 s-3's a month  = 16kwatt x 30 or roughly 500 kwatts.

In a large place 500 kwatts could be missed at 10 cent a kwatt it is 50 usd a month

but in a high cost power place say 30 cents it is 150 usd a month.

I figure if his 500 kwatts is out of 20000 kwatts for the whole place no big deal

I figure if his 500 kwatts is out of 5000 kwatts for the whole place he will be found out.

[notlist3d]

Thanks everyone for the advice!

I have 4 used S3's on the way I paid under $500 for, going to see how it goes for 1 month. God willing, I'll get used PSU's here soon.


@alh: Thanks for all of the advice. I guess I'm going to have to find a way to keep the office cool.

@notlist3d: Thanks for the advice. I'm going to have to avoid asking maintenance about breakers and such to stay stealth.

@srgkrgkj: I understand Bitcoin could fall at any moment, it could also dramatically rise in price, again. How would you sell electricity though?

@philipma1957: Underclocking sounds like a good idea, thanks. I wonder if I can check with my local electricity provider to see how much electricity they're using. If I get caught I get caught, I'll cease to use the miners and take my loss. No biggie.

@crazyivan: What cloud service would you recommend. I'm more interested in mining myself, though.

@crazyearner: Thats what I'm thinking

The good news is PSU's are good for quite a long time.  You most likely will use them for multiple generations of miners assuming they are good quality.

I think stealth is a little odd if you have the right to be doing this I don't see why stealth is needed.  But if anyone sees it they most likely will think its computer equipment. 

Also good thing is with S3's I think you can run a underclock that will make them not horrible in a office.

[notlist3d]

@notlist3d: Stealth because I value my privacy and just to avoid any unnecessary encounters. I can compare it to encountering the police. Even though I am a law abiding citizen, I'd rather not encounter the police unless necessary.

I get what your saying bitcoin miners can cause unknown reactions.  I have never mined in a rented house/area so I have not dealt with landlord.

The worst reaction I have had was a electrician. He saw just a few of my miners, and it made him not want the electrical job.  It caused him to make a wrong quote, and not realize he was looking at sub panel and not main box.    I thought it was going decent but he sent a quote of 1K to put in a single 240 outlet.  Would have been like 15 minutes of work, and maybe 50 bucks of parts max.  But I almost fell over when I got a 1k quote.

[notlist3d]

I don't understand why an electrician wouldn't want a job/contract? Maybe I didn't follow you well.

He saw the a few miners in that room (I think at time 2 C1's, 2 SP20's, and a S4).   After seeing miners he wanted nothing to do with it.   I have no idea why.

Instead of writing a quote for putting in 1 240 breaker and 10 foot line with box, he did a quote to redo entire box (which was not needed it perfectly fine).  So less then 100 dollar job he sent a quote for over a thousand dollars.  I'm not sure why he did not want it so bad, he even suggested I get other quotes.   Needless to say he did not get the job.