How long would it take for return on investment?

[Shaiwang]

For someone interested in mining, the initial investment can seem fairly daunting.

Rather you are paying for electricity or using solar panels or what not...
What are some peoples experiences with making any money back?

Like if someone invests under a couple thousand dollars(on mining rig(s), electricity and what not), when can they expect to see those red expenses turn green?

[SFR10]

Well as you seem to already know, it's main factor, going to be the electricity you pay and how efficient your miner is. Normally back in the days, I used to get ROI in about 4 months, but have this in mind that rewards is going to change in July and so the ROI is going to be a lot slower and until more efficient miners haven't come to the market, by then it could take double the time so (8 months I suppose, assuming no new miners come into play that are much more efficient). BTCitcoin value is another thing that has a saying as well, in case you keep track of everything (expenses), in fiat instead since BTCitcoin value changes a lot. Difficulty also is another factor which it changes from time to time as well so in short, I could tell you the range if I know what situation your in and what miner your planning to get.

[philipma1957]

Power cost is king.

You need to get the price of power under 10 USA cents to have a chance.

You need to be able to sell gear if needed.

Selling gear at the right time is complex.

Simple way to understand is if you have 9 cent power and the cost to run power is close to nine cents it is time to sell the gear.

So the lower your power cost is the longer you can hold your gear.


If you have five cent power you can hold the gear longer then if you have nine cent power.

Also this chance to mine one or two extra months gives you more time to sell the gear at a good time.


Selling gear during a price run up is good to do.


Most of us that are ahead thread water in low price times and then made a move during price runups.

[Herv12]

In fact it's pretty bad these days.
A good link to calculate the ROI of a machine: https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator

You have to enter all the parameters of your machines, electricity costs ... in the left column (mining settings and hardware infos). The only unknown is the rate of increase of the difficulty step. But this setting is critical in determining the ROI. It was hard raised in recent times, but I hope that it will calm down, below 5%, otherwise it will be very difficult for many people.

Be careful because I think this calculator ignores the halving effect.


 
I do not know how you do. In my case I bought my last S7 miner early February.  While it's fully operational, the income I draw not just compensates for the decline in purchasing prices, while I have my free electricity (hydropower)... For now, I would have done better not to buy it, I would have earned more by keeping my BTC ...



I do not think that solar panels are a good solution, unless you get it very cheap. The problem is that effective miners must run 24/24 hoped for profitable before they're obsolete. So you need to have your solar panels produce for less than the price of the mains network, otherwise it is not profitable. Knowing that a large part of the electricity will come anyway from mains, over one year, the solar panel will be between 5 and 30% depending on where you are (it has many) At my home in France, that would 12% one year average , only...