BlightyCoin: UK Mining Hardware [BTC & GBP]

[gigitrix]

It's 1:30AM but we finally have something to show for our painstaking hard work over the last few days, and I'm not going to wait any longer

Announcing BlightyCoin - Bringing Quality Bitcoin Mining Hardware to the UK!


The site has a lack of spec information etc. but I assure you we have spreadsheets coming out of our ears. Prototypes have been built (we're 'eating our own dogfood' hashing right now as we speak!). You can pay us in pounds or bitcoins, and you can choose to have your mining hardware deployed inside a case, or mounted to a block of wood for stability. All purchases come with instructions so even if you are a PC noob you can sleep next to those blazing fans safe in the knowledge that our GPUs are earning you your slice of the BTC pie! Just pick up your new baby from Newcastle UK: you'll even save on shipping!

We want to add photos, live statistics, in-system enquiries and purchasing, additional builds etc. but for now we are ready to go.



EDIT: Moved manually from Economics forum because mods shouldn't have to put up with my dopiness!
EDIT2: New Domain! Old one still works though, and always will.

[gigitrix]

We just had an interesting inquiry on the Reddit thread related to our service. I'd just like to assure you all that the "wood mounting" will not in any way cause increased fire risk: see the attached thread for details. I'm working on a F.A.Q page as well as trying to source some images of our prototype builds: the text may be informative but I'm sure you'll be very interested in seeing your potential purchases beforehand to know what you are getting!

[Tunes0710]

Also, you can point out the environmental bonuses of using wood - being a renewable source as well.
You could even carbon footprint one of your rigs versus a.n.other rig, showing you are using 80+ components where possible etc...
Happy to point you in the direction if you want to find out more about the 'eco' side of things

[gigitrix]

You know, that's not a bad point. We're certainly emphasizing power usage: we want to ship these units to less technically adept people, and it would make no sense for them to get better initial performance but have to keep calculating power specs to see if it is sustainable. Much better to use parts that are more profitable in the long haul than waste a ton of power for those last few megashashes (that you can get if you tune the miner software anyway!)

I'm not 100% convinced any Bitcoin Mining Operation can be perceived as environmentally friendly though: our angle there is that it is adding stability to the network, and giving the consumer the chance to "vote with their megahashes" if pools start getting unruly. We'll set it up with a given pool, but we will always show the consumer how this is changed in future (should they plug a monitor in!)

[Tunes0710]

Yup.. I definitely wouldn't suggest marketing it as 'eco friendly'... just pointing out to the consumer that it is 'eco friendlier' than other rigs out there :-)
So if they are going to be mining 24/7, they may as well mine with your rigs and have better power consumption etc...

[gigitrix]

We'll I'm happy to report that there's been a good market reaction!

We've added an FAQ section, and most notably we're allowing shipping for our cased machines, as these are safe to transport.

[Harri]

How much would shipping to Germany be?

[PhoenixUK]

Wooden case without proper grounding might screw up your parts.
It will also run more hot in non ventilated case.
Also I was wondering, what PSUs do u use in those builds?

[Reikoku]

What are the actual hardware specs of the machines?

Are you using decent quality PSUs, cooling in cases etc?

[gigitrix]

How much would shipping to Germany be?

Unfortunately this appears to be prohibitively expensive: it's looking like it's not going to be any less than £50. In the unlikely event that you are still interested though we'll do some more thorough research into shipping and get back to you with a more exact price.

Wooden case without proper grounding might screw up your parts.
It will also run more hot in non ventilated case.
Also I was wondering, what PSUs do u use in those builds?

We aren't using wooden cases: we mount the motherboard and PSU onto a piece of sheet wood (i.e. it's 'open'). Our actual case models are, of course, ventilated sufficiently. Photos will be added to the site soon, so you can see what you are getting for your money.

The 'Lite' model has a 500W power supply, and the 'Duo' model has a 600W supply. We've used these power supplies in our prototype build with absolutely no trouble.

[gigitrix]

What are the actual hardware specs of the machines?

Are you using decent quality PSUs, cooling in cases etc?

PSUs are one area you can't economise on, and our cooling is adequate. We'll be testing the miner in house for at least 24 hours to monitor temperature at our overclocked settings, making sure it's rock solid for stability and stays cool.

Our GPUs are ATI Radeon HD 5850s, if there's any other specifics you want info on just let me know. We really want to push images to the site as soon as possible so you can see them mounted on wood in all their glory!

[Reikoku]

What CPUs are they using and are you booting from HDD or USB?

[PhoenixUK]

Can you give me an actual spec of the 320gbp model? Is there any warranty on those rigs?
And I don't mean something like 1gb ram, 500w psu and 5850 1gb. An actual make and model of each part used, I think people would like to know what they're paying for.
Who knows if it looks good I might buy a few.

[gigitrix]

I'll get my business partner to respond to this in more detail: he is the designer of the system specs and will be able to more accurately describe the miners in detail.

[antz123]

Hi guys, I'd just like to first of all introduce myself as the developer of the BlightyCoin miners. Just want to respond to a couple of questioned raised recently.

First of all just to backup what my associate was saying earlier about the PSU. The power supply for the single card machine (lite) is a 500W OCZ PSU, where as the dual card machine (duo) is 600W. Both more more than enough to handle the system and are designed to be very efficient for the system. I have personally tested the dual card machine for a month or so running all the time, and so far have ran into no issues.

I'd also like to clarify the hardware going into these machines.

Both machines contain:
AMD Sempron 140 CPU. (2.7ghz)
1GB DDR3 1066mhz RAM
160GB generic SATA hard drive

A USB storage medium was suggested, however as discovered in early prototyping it was not practical to have a system constantly booting from USB. USB devices can fail over time especially if they are continually accessed on a 24 hour basis. Also there was a very long boot up time which was deemed unacceptable for the machine.

Also suggested in early prototyping was using an SSD as these use hardly any power at all. This is very true, however it would take you a very very long time to make your money back in electric costs so this to me seems a bit of waste of money. Though this is up to your own interpretation, but its not worth it in my opinion.

The 'lite' edition includes these extra components:
Asus M4A78LT-M motherboard - a efficient, low power motherboard designed for one card only. Just to note, it will not be possible to upgrade from a 'lite' edition to a 'duo' edition machine.
1 Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GPU - Best watt per m/hash card on the market today.

The 'duo' edition includes these extra components:
Asus M4A88T-V EVO motherboard - a 'step up' from the lite edition motherboard but fully compatible with two GPUs.
2 Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GPU - These will not be running in crossfire. Early testing showed that crossfiring the cards resulted in some system instability and some loss in performance. Also noticed was occasionally miners would crash, stop responding or simply not work at all.

The 'cased' option for both our systems uses a Cooler Master Elite 370 case. This has more than adequate cooling, however to ensure optional performance in 'warm' conditions, the duo edition will include an extra high performance fan on the front on the case.

If anyone else has any questions, just let us know. Thanks!

[gigitrix]

Well, our first orders are coming through and I thought it would be cool to "liveblog" their assembly somewhat. So I present to you the wooden bases that we'll be using to mount the 'open' models with.



Most of our parts will be arriving tomorrow (well, it's 2am, technically this morning) so we hope to show you a bit more of the meat of the miners, since the MDF itself contributes little to your overall hashing rate 

I've not included any photos of our prototype on there since it's motherboard is very different, but the rest of our prototype is functionality identical to the 'Duo' machine. We'd feel dishonest if we showed you anything that you weren't going to get, so you'll have to keep an eye on this thread (and a soon-to-be-added website section with pictures and video) to see the Mining rigs as assembled through the next couple of days...

[gigitrix]

Most of our components have arrived now for the first order, so we're just waiting on power supply and graphics cards. We were very pleased with the mounting: it turned out quite nice indeed.

Here's a couple of photos of it so far.

[gigitrix]

Now running off of our brand spanking new domain name: www.blightycoin.com! It'll take time to transition our official links to the new domain, but don't worry: both will always take you to the same server.

[gigitrix]

We still can't believe the level of demand we are experiencing! I've noticed we are in particular getting a lot of international interest, which is a shame because shipping units is extremely expensive. That's just one of the reasons why were are investigating possible hosted mining opportunities: we would host a BlightyCoin miner for you at our secure facility, and we'd manage everything for you, from pool reconfiguration to restarting the miners if they fail. You would pay a monthly fee that covers rent and power usage for this service, and this fee would also contribute to our dedicated systems administrator, who would be responsible for only these machines.

In order to more effectively serve our customers with such a setup we need to hear what you guys want: if you wish to pre-register interest in this service please fill in our new Hosted Miner Pre-registration Form. If we can secure the necessary infrastructure to offer this service you'll be the first to know.

[gigitrix]

Dear BlightyCoin users and interested parties.

Important things are in the pipeline. To cut things short, BlightyCoin is about to become a full time endeavour. This is in no small part due to the high interest we've seen so far: it's been an exciting ride!

When we started BlightyCoin we were two people with an idea and relevent skills. We were expecting this to be a hobby: providing a couple of machines a month or thereabouts, and getting a little something for our time. However, we've had unprecidented levels of demand, almost to the point where we can't cope. It's not a bad problem to have of course, and it seems our existing customers are satisfied with the products we sell.

This change will mean more resources can be thrown at the business: you can expect higher levels of support, quicker turn-around times and possibly new and exciting offerings that we have planned (one of which being our potential hosted service in a new datacenter).

However, because of these changes we have had to reconsider our pricing. The older pricing is simply not sustainable for a truly commercial enterprise, as when we launched we were not expecting to devote so much time and resources into the project. Additionally, we're anticipating some changes in supplier that might unfortunately drive up cost, so we've had to anticipate this. Therefore, from the 26th of June onwards, new prices for each model have been drafted and are as such:

'Lite'	Mounted	£360
'Lite'	Cased	£410
'Duo'	Mounted	£540
'Duo'	Cased	£600

There is good news however: anyone who has contacted us via email, forum message, or on our order form will be locked into the older pricing model. We're not about to pull a bait and switch, and we're not trying some high pressure "buy it now" technique. This will extend to anyone who expresses interest or has comment before the 26th of June, so send us a little message now if you think you might be going with BlightyCoin in the future!

During this time of Flux, we have various legal and logistical issues to resolve, as well as one of us having a scheduled holiday coming up. As a result, we'll be taking a little break from building miners, from the 26th of June to the 11th of July. This will allow us to get our paperwork in order and get us set up fully set up for the future.

As a result of this, Thursday the 23rd of June is the latest date before the stated break that we can promise to deliver before we come back: so if you are interested in obtaining a miner within the month, you will unfortunately have to be quick!

Anyway, comments are welcome: we realise that price changes in this direction are never good, but it is good news: we'll be able to fulfil more orders than ever before, and we'll be branching out to some new and exciting markets. Who knows, we might even update the crappy website

All the best,
Toby and Anthony
BlightyCoin Team.