I recently came across this thread on Butterfly Labs' own forums of growing discontent with the state of the project and company.
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https://forums.butterflylabs.com/minirig-sc-support/2513-mini-rig-concerns-open-letter-bfl.htmlFrom: backburn (Senior Member)
@ 05-07-2013, 02:56 PM
Join Date: Oct 2012
"I have had over 60 thousand dollars tied up with BFL's mini rigs since August 2012. It is saddening that Mini-Rig purchasers have been essentially been put to pasture. We take the largest risk and invest the most capital only to, seemingly, be shipped last. There has been next to no proactive personal communication from BFL. If there is an issue with our order we have to "search the website" everyday to be apprised. Car dealerships get a bad rap but they are saints compared to the customer handling by BFL. At least a car dealership will personally call you when they encounter a delay, hell they might even throw in free service. It is as if those who ordered a Mini-Rig are a liability to them instead of an asset.
While in Vegas for CES, several industry consultants including myself met with Josh and Dave at the Bitpay booth. We expressed concern about not only their power specifications but their density in the mini-rig chassis. We even offered to test and make recommendations on the mini-rig chassis and cooling systems for free. All of our concerns were brushed off by Josh and Dave and we were not contacted. (We are PAID to do this for Intel, nVidia, and ASUS. Many of they show systems you see at events are developed by us.) Maybe they were just tired from all that goes on at CES, maybe they thought we were just another group of nerds... I don't know. Mind you this was MONTHS before the wafers were manufactured. They were informed of these "new" issues months in advance.
a) The eVGA Classified 1500w power supplies they have already purchased were not proper for even their ORIGINAL board/rig specs. More than 80% continuous usage WILL cook consumer PSUs, not a matter of IF but WHEN. My car may be rated to go 120MPH, but if i leave it at full throttle how long will it last?
b) They pre-built daisy chain type usb cables: Bad idea. If one board goes tits up so does every properly functioning board behind it. Additionally, when you replace/remove the bad board you have to play usb cable musical chairs for the downstream devices. Each board should be home run. We're were told this was not an option because "they already made up the wires".
c) Even with the new boards it will take an extremely optimistic minimum of 3 Mini-Rig chassis. To add insult, each chassis will have be retrofit with an additional power supply, something we also pointed out at CES months and months ago.
Maybe they have addressed some of these issues. Who can know? I wont hold my breath, they have not given proper updates regarding Mini-Rigs for over half a year.
Originally Posted by stripykitteh
... to change their policy with regards to order of manufacture and shipping at this stage is tantamount to misleading and deceptive conduct. BFL need to act very carefully.
Agreed it could be misleading, it could be deceptive, but im banking on ignorance.
We've collectively paid to kick-start the company for them.
We've paid from them to learn how to operate as a proper business.
And now we've paid and are waiting for them to learn how to make proper ASICs.
Bottom line:
It is amazing how far a personal phone call to those that have made $30,000.00+ orders will go.
We should NOT have to email you and search through a forum every month to find out what the heck is going on.
Please do not skip mini-rig orders to ship loads of smaller units to pander to the masses. And if you do, at least provide demo singles or even jalapenos units free of charge to mini-rig customers.
Don't forget that those of us with min-rig pre-orders in August could have had near $750,000.00 with their $30,000 if they had just bought BTC and sold during the last bubble.
Help take some of the sting away from pre-ordering with your company and show that you care. Throw us a bone!"
