What sort of returns do you get? Are you mining other crypto's or directly on NH?
Looking into buying a L3+ and would like to know if it is worth it? Compared to normal GPU mining. Some people say it's too late to jump in, but if the ROI is better than normal GPU mining, why not?
Difficulty is going up on a regular basis. I'm glad that I had my L3+ up and running the same day it was delivered. I made 1 LTC in 6 days. Now, I am just hoping that I can make my next 1 LTC in 10 days.
I used to be faster than up to 60% of those in Litecoinpool. Now, I'm down to 37%. Lots of people are out there crunching away.
It's going to get tougher and tougher. Bitmain's next release of Antminer L3+'s aren't until March.
You should definitely get more hashrate from an ASIC miner like the L3+ than with a GPU rig, unless you have one beast of a GPU rig! :-)
Run the calculations and see what you think. Meanwhile, buying LTC right now is a very good idea. Buy it and lock it away.
I made kind of the mistake of going mostly in on mining. I have 5 TH/s of Bitcoin Cloud Mining on Genesis that went active on Halloween. It is doing well. And, you can switch mining to other cryptos like LTC. I am waiting for my next BTC payout, then I am going to test going 100% with LTC and see what kind of returns I get. Genesis rarely offers Cloud Mining contracts, and when they are offered, they go VERY fast. I was only on my fourth day of studying crypto, and was glad that I had the presence of mind to grab up what I did. Of course, I wish I had gotten more! But, with my limited knowledge at that time, I am glad that I went for the 5 TH/s.
But, buying crypto and locking it away should be part of your strategy.
I have carefully documented my experience with the L3+. I shot video of my unboxing and hooking up the Antminer to the PSU. I will post that when I get a chance, and put the link on here. I am also working on a written guide detailing my experiences and my personal advice. I will post that on my blog at the address you see below in my signature.
There is a lot to consider. Power requirements, noise, heat, and ventilation. L3+'s can be run on 120V. But, they should run more efficiently on 220V. That is my next step: Seeing if I can get a 220V outlet figured out.
I will try to post what I can when I can. With the holidays going on, I am quite busy at the moment!
Difficulty is going up, but so is coin value. Significantly. So while I am earning less on my L3+ in actual litecoin right now than I ever have, I am earning more in USD equivalent. It's all relative, unless it devalues significantly.
They will be more efficient on 220V, but do the math. I think it's something like 8-12% more efficient, so figure out how long you plan to run your L3+ (lifetime), the cost of your electricity, do the annual math on that, then subtract, say, 15% to be safe. Then do the math on what adding a 220V line and outlet will cost (if you're handy, then what the parts will cost; where I live, that worked out to around 1/3 the cost of hiring an electrician, your mileage [and homeowner's insurance or rental agreement] may vary), and figure out if it's ultimately worth it.
For example, my slightly overclocked L3+ on a 120v pulls around 850-900W (will retest that soon). So let's say for most expense, 900W. For me, actually, I can tap into the 60A 220 line running to my heater if I want (since my miners make my heater run rarely, and it runs well under the 10.5kW continuous safe rating, so my cost is basically an outlet box, outlet, and new cable for the PSU; I'd estimate that at maybe $100).
SO (and keep in mind that the voltage may be higher or lower than 220, but will be in that general neighborhood), roughly:
900*24*365/1000=7,884kWh
My electricity is .11/kWh, so:
$867.24/year, or $72.27/month
15% of that would be $130/year
So independent of coin value, if I plan to run my current L3+ for more than 10 months, it is potentially worth it for me to swap to the higher voltage (the bonus being I can actually test the exact difference by using one of my heater lines before I even do any work, all I need is an adapter to do so). HOWEVER, to do things with proper permitting to code by a licensed electrician would be significantly more expensive, and ultimately not worth it IMHO, unless I planned on building a farm large enough to require its own breaker box; then a series of 220 line would make sense, since the wiring was being done anyway. I do not currently plan to, so yeah. For my purposes, the small amount of difference is not worth doing it.
Now, if I plan to replace my L3+ with another ASIC miner in the future, which I may or may not do, the long term benefits may very well be worth it. But for now, I'm not planning to (especially since I use renewable energy and am having solar panels installed, so wasted electricity is becoming less of an issue for me, and I use the heat to heat my house anyway [my heater is also electric], so there's actually no loss of electricity in the winter).
Conclusion: if you will use the 220v line in the future, it is worth it. If it's only for the lifetime of this L3+, then the value is more about whether or not you want to be more efficient, not necessarily profit and loss based. My opinion only, and I'm neither an electrician or a math professor, so grain of salt and all that.
