did i make a mistake with BFL's

[robble]

The reason i felt they weren't scammers was due to a forum post on this site:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159700.0

The guy says he has 8 of them, and is selling them as he has better ones.

The question is how did he get 8 jalapeno units?

Due to paying with PayPal, and only spending 150$, its not a serious loss, and i have 45 days from yesterday to actually attempt to get a refund which is why i went through PayPal.

lol - he has 8 jalepenos on pre-order and he's trying to sell his pre-order pots.  huge difference.
NOBODY has a working BFL hasher yet - they said the one guy took delivery but it was a semi employee and a barely functioning protoype that he "left" at the bfl office.

[SerTomTheTall]

Note how many low postcounter guys are here

Us newbies do tend to need some help from time to time I plan to become a fully active member of the Bitcoin community because I can't believe how ridiculous the financial world has gotten and Bitcoin seems to be a very practical alternative.

I'm presently running an HD7850 @ ~270Mh/s and while it's been pretty good so far I wanted a better, more specialized machine to mine with...I just hope BFL delivers.

[Anillos]

This reminds me this picture: 
http://txantxi.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/tux-butterfly-large.jpg

[chowdan]

This reminds me this picture: 
http://txantxi.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/tux-butterfly-large.jpg

LOL! Thats an awesome photo!


Anyways, I purchased the jalapeno because my 6870 gives me a hash rate of about 260mhash and i want to be able to decrease the power consumption.

If you think about how this unit works and methods of decreasing your power consumption, the simple answer is a power timer and a laptop.

Regardless if you get a massive hash rate, the fact that you can drastically decrease your power consumption is all that really matters. Its not about how much you can get, its about how effective you are in mining. Precision IMO is everything.

Even if the unit comes late in the game, and the average hash rate is 200-300m/hash, the fact taht you no longer run a machine that hogs power is what really matters. Esp when you stick your laptop on a timer.

[chowdan]

Note how many low postcounter guys are here

Just because i've got a low post count, and a new account doesn't mean i'm new to the forums. I've lurked this board for years, but never had a reason to post.

[ChuckSteinmetz]

Just because i've got a low post count, and a new account doesn't mean i'm new to the forums. I've lurked this board for years, but never had a reason to post.

same here

[chowdan]

So I talked to a coworker of mine.

He's running three of BFL FGPA miners and has had them on for over 6 months and has yet to have an issue with them.

Their FPGA units were delayed as well so it gives me hope they will start shipping soon.

Anyone notice the price increase? If they are legit, im glad I got my order in before it went up!

If they are a scam, it makes me happy I got my order in before the price increase!

[tributetosn]

It seems that several folks don't have confidence about BFL. What about Avalon?

[bitconic]

The issue I think is that BFL is currently seen as the only competitor being able to deliver ASIC devices on a massive scale (500th+). Even if they end up shipping within the next few months they have proven to be utterly incompetent at this task, and considering the recent surge in attention given to bitcoin the probability is rising that a way more serious/ larger chip manufacturer might start working on their own ASIC with a faster technology, either for their own use or for resale. Making an ASIC from from development to production would probably take a matter of weeks for a larger industrial player. Your jalapeno will probably end up becoming just a luxury coffee warmer (boiler ?) before you even receive it ....

[chowdan]

The issue I think is that BFL is currently seen as the only competitor being able to deliver ASIC devices on a massive scale (500th+). Even if they end up shipping within the next few months they have proven to be utterly incompetent at this task, and considering the recent surge in attention given to bitcoin the probability is rising that a way more serious/ larger chip manufacturer might start working on their own ASIC with a faster technology, either for their own use or for resale. Making an ASIC from from development to production would probably take a matter of weeks for a larger industrial player. Your jalapeno will probably end up becoming just a luxury coffee warmer (boiler ?) before you even receive it ....

Yes true, however big companies like intel/amd wont really make a full push into mining because ASIC miners have one purpose and one purpose only. They wont risk spending money on the development of this just to find out that the market has crashed.

[Torrerre]

I have two 60GH/s singles on preorder.  It doesn't matter much to me when they get here because it's not for making money (unless I take some coin out during another bubble), but it's for developing the currency that I think will be viable in the 21st century.  Mining is an interesting hobby for a programmer like myself, so that's worth it to me.  For all those people who are buying ebay preorders thinking they're going to get rich quick, it's a fool's errand.

[BitSlut69]

Either it is a scam or it isn't a scam and they're completely incompetent 

Take your pick of reasons not to buy from BFL.

[drhobomanxxiii]

My take is that they're not experienced, they're understaffed, and they're unprepared for inevitable changes that must take place in the production process... But they're genuinely working on the chips and they will ship eventually.

I've spent some time trolling the BFL chat (within their forums) and Josh comes on rather regularly (usually Fridays,) to answer questions and explain some things. An explanation he gave for the many delays is that they changed manufacturing processes (from 120nm -> 65nm over a few steps, if I recall the nm sizes correctly,) because they realized they wouldn't be competitive if they didn't do that. That being said, the chip designs were originally for the bigger processes and a lot of changes had to be made that they didn't anticipate. He was also asked what he would do differently if he could do it again (this was an entirely separate question, at a different time,) and he explained that he would have sold some of the 120nm chips then made a redesign and sold the more competitive ones as a next product line.

Essentially, they're just a really immature company in the sense that they don't have very much experience... But what company dealing with Bitcoin *is* experienced these days? The issues with Mt. Gox over the past few days should shed some light on that question. Most every bitcoin company is faking it until they make it, except for, maybe, BitPay. It's just a part of the game right now.

[Dasuchin]

Essentially, they're just a really immature company in the sense that they don't have very much experience... But what company dealing with Bitcoin *is* experienced these days? The issues with Mt. Gox over the past few days should shed some light on that question. Most every bitcoin company is faking it until they make it, except for, maybe, BitPay. It's just a part of the game right now.

Very well said...

[SerTomTheTall]

My take is that they're not experienced, they're understaffed, and they're unprepared for inevitable changes that must take place in the production process... But they're genuinely working on the chips and they will ship eventually.

I've spent some time trolling the BFL chat (within their forums) and Josh comes on rather regularly (usually Fridays,) to answer questions and explain some things. An explanation he gave for the many delays is that they changed manufacturing processes (from 120nm -> 65nm over a few steps, if I recall the nm sizes correctly,) because they realized they wouldn't be competitive if they didn't do that. That being said, the chip designs were originally for the bigger processes and a lot of changes had to be made that they didn't anticipate. He was also asked what he would do differently if he could do it again (this was an entirely separate question, at a different time,) and he explained that he would have sold some of the 120nm chips then made a redesign and sold the more competitive ones as a next product line.

Essentially, they're just a really immature company in the sense that they don't have very much experience... But what company dealing with Bitcoin *is* experienced these days? The issues with Mt. Gox over the past few days should shed some light on that question. Most every bitcoin company is faking it until they make it, except for, maybe, BitPay. It's just a part of the game right now.

This is exactly the information I was looking for, and I didn't even know it was what I wanted to know. Thank you!

[8bitcoin]

it's just a very long wait... I ordered on august 1, I have order number 4943. I have any GPU's and FPGA, all obsolete as soon as I receive my order... when and if...

[GPU Rigs]

Essentially, they're just a really immature company in the sense that they don't have very much experience... But what company dealing with Bitcoin *is* experienced these days? The issues with Mt. Gox over the past few days should shed some light on that question. Most every bitcoin company is faking it until they make it, except for, maybe, BitPay. It's just a part of the game right now.

I would tend to agree, especially on the ASIC front. On the GPU side of things there are some companies that have built, utilized themselves and are ready to share that equipment with other miners, both old and newcomers to mining.

As a company we are currently in the development phase for some ASIC rigs as a manufacturer but we're running into issues getting the chipsets from our provider (US Based supplier with over 40 yrs) if a semiconductor company with 40 yrs experience with ASICs has issues delivering, im certain a company in China will definitely have teething problems too, especially on technology that, for all intents and purposes is *new*.

[Sharky444]

They have recently increased prices by almost 50% out of nowhere.

[BIGMERVE]

They have recently increased prices by almost 50% out of nowhere.

Because they realize how much money people will be making mining. They know people will still be buying if the raise the prices.

[chowdan]

I honestly don't believe that they raised the "prices cause they know how much people will be making".

The reason I don't believe it is because as more of the basically miners come online, the higher the difficulty. It will autobalance itself.

I think they increased to make more money(people will buy regardless of the price if they think they will get rich), also if I ran bfl , I would not have the preorder price the same as your retail price. The preorder price would be a discount to get people in on the unit. I hope this means they are getting ready to ship!

Also it could be that production cost have increased, inturn costing us more.