Is an S3+ at $50 worth buying?

[ab1jx]

No PSU.  It's on ebay about 200 miles away.  Don't know anything about the seller except 36 feedbacks at 100%.  He's got a few, I had just bid $10 (plus $20 shipping) on one and it went for $17.50 ($37).  It's not quite what I'm looking for, I'm more into Scrypt, I'd much rather have an L3.  But 453 Gh/s at 355 watts sounds good.   I don't know if the price is anything exceptional because I don't usually look at these.  I know it's old, 28 nm, BM1382, I looked at a manual PDF.  I like the fact that it's only 355 watts and I could unplug one board to cut that in half.  The buy it now is $30 + $20 shipping.

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[leowonderful]

No PSU.  It's on ebay about 200 miles away.  Don't know anything about the seller except 36 feedbacks at 100%.  He's got a few, I had just bid $10 (plus $20 shipping) on one and it went for $17.50 ($37).  It's not quite what I'm looking for, I'm more into Scrypt, I'd much rather have an L3.  But 453 Gh/s at 355 watts sounds good.   I don't know if the price is anything exceptional because I don't usually look at these.  I know it's old, 28 nm, BM1382, I looked at a manual PDF.  I like the fact that it's only 355 watts and I could unplug one board to cut that in half.  The buy it now is $30 + $20 shipping.

No. You will be losing money and then there'll be no point to running it. Even when they came out they weren't the best in terms of profit but they ARE silent if you want to run them as a hobby. For serious mining, consider the R4, S9, T9 or A7. GPU mining can be profitable for less money and makes about the same amount of money for you as some ASICs. For more info, check out the Altcoin Mining section further down.

[ab1jx]

Well, that's why I only bid $10 originally.  I had used the calculator at https://alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator and it said it would pay about $10/month.  It does more than my Gekko 2pac, but I'm waiting for him to get the 16 nm pods (BM1387?) out.

I haven't really looked into GPUs, I've got a couple little ASICs.  I like the fact that with GPUs you can switch algorithms easily, you aren't making a commitment to one when you  buy.  Ironic that the most computing power available to the common man is for playing games.  I don't have one, that's for sure.  I'll look, I've been building computers for about 30 years.

Wow, Home Depot has solar panels now, not much over a buck a watt.  That seriously affects my choice of miners.  Need some decent batteries, like Trojans, but Trojan willl deliver those free to most places with a loading dock.  I hadn't looked in about 8 years.

[jackg]

Well, that's why I only bid $10 originally.  I had used the calculator at https://alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator and it said it would pay about $10/month.  It does more than my Gekko 2pac, but I'm waiting for him to get the 16 nm pods (BM1387?) out.

I haven't really looked into GPUs, I've got a couple little ASICs.  I like the fact that with GPUs you can switch algorithms easily, you aren't making a commitment to one when you  buy.  Ironic that the most computing power available to the common man is for playing games.  I don't have one, that's for sure.  I'll look, I've been building computers for about 30 years.

You may want to look at this site and determine if it's profitable for you. If not there may be users you could look at for solutions.

[ab1jx]

Oh, I'll figure something out.  What I like about the altcoins is that they're easier.  The same calculator shows I'm breaking even with the old Gridseed G-Blade I've got.  And 100 watts I can sneak by on free power, not 1 KW or more.  https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/ltc?HashingPower=4.75&HashingUnit=MH%2Fs&PowerConsumption=100&CostPerkWh=0.12

[jackg]

Oh, I'll figure something out.  What I like about the altcoins is that they're easier.  The same calculator shows I'm breaking even with the old Gridseed G-Blade I've got.  And 100 watts I can sneak by on free power, not 1 KW or more.  https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/ltc?HashingPower=4.75&HashingUnit=MH%2Fs&PowerConsumption=100&CostPerkWh=0.12

That's the good thing about altcoins and the difference is that many altcoins use scrypt or algorithms similar that can have miners that adapt to them. If you buy a bitcoin miner it only does SHA256, but there are quite a few miners specifically designed to change depending on the algorithm (scrypt/x11...) So you can switch altcoins to mine easily if that one becomes unprofitable.

If you are doing it as a hobby, then your S3+ will be good for showinig you what to do. If you're doing it for profit and in a place with energy that isn't very cheap (and I think $0.12/KWh is considered on the upper end of energy fees), but you could look at a site for cloudmining such as hashnest.com (this is probably the only one that has chance of returning you your roi - but it won't be as interesting as mining for yourself, the others are mainly scams)