Solar Powered Bitcoin Lottery

[Pyrojason]

Instead of calling it Solar Powered Bitcoin Mining it's more of a lottery as it will be mining solo with older hardware.
There are a few other projects like this but what I'm working on is pretty straightforward.

Before any details, I am not suggesting you will:

"Get rich quick" from this
"Get rich slowly" from this
Mine any profit
have any other logical end point inferring gains other than informational freedom from this project - at all.

This project is simply to put a use to old hardware that many miners have laying around the shop or office.

Early stages of the project will simply have a solar powered USB miner with controller mining in sunny parts of the day attached to a laptop. (Lottery - solo mining.)
Further progress will have a battery bank to supply 24/hr mining on solo pool - lottery style. A large enough panel and bank would also support laptop or controller power.
Eventually an entirely off-grid approach with 'miner', controller/computer/laptop wireless connected in a set-and-forget setup.

Cellular connection would be useful for solar lottery rigs which are too far for WiFi to reach. (The tricky and expensive bit - which will likely never break even, but sounds interesting nonetheless.)

Thanks for reading, and any input, thoughts or ideas are appreciated.  This is for learning and BTC entertainment purposes only.

[eternalgloom]

I mean, I know you state:

This is for learning and BTC entertainment purposes only.

But, what's the point? It's pretty much impossible to ever get anything out of it, making it a complete waste of money. (I know you've mentioned this)
What kind of hashing power are we even talking about here?

The solar aspect of it doesn't make it any more educational than just having a couple of those existing small USB miners.
Don't get me wrong, if you want to build something like this and sell it, definitely do it. I'm just not sure if there's still a market for this.

[stomachgrowls]

The solar aspect of it doesn't make it any more educational than just having a couple of those existing small USB miners.
Don't get me wrong, if you want to build something like this and sell it, definitely do it. I'm just not sure if there's still a market for this.

As he speak earlier this isnt intended for making profits so selling it isnt on his option and also im pretty sure that there were no market

for something like this.The question on my mind is on why he do make things complicated if he do just have sole purpose of educational or learning things?
A total waste of money and effort which you can actually done it on a simple & basic way.

[mehran8282]

I mean, I know you state:

This is for learning and BTC entertainment purposes only.

But, what's the point? It's pretty much impossible to ever get anything out of it, making it a complete waste of money. (I know you've mentioned this)
What kind of hashing power are we even talking about here?

The solar aspect of it doesn't make it any more educational than just having a couple of those existing small USB miners.
Don't get me wrong, if you want to build something like this and sell it, definitely do it. I'm just not sure if there's still a market for this.

He's definitely right!!...What's the point even in its educational or non-profit essence of such thing!

[thehun]

If you are able to generate solar energy and you use it for a fruitless mining endeavor, you are in fact losing money as you could be using that energy to reduce your electricity bill or selling it to the provider to make some cash.

[ranlo]

If you are able to generate solar energy and you use it for a fruitless mining endeavor, you are in fact losing money as you could be using that energy to reduce your electricity bill or selling it to the provider to make some cash.

The smaller USB miners require almost zero electricity, so they're likely using solar to power that little bit. It wouldn't be enough to power much else (so no selling excess back, no reducing usage elsewhere).

[Pyrojason]

If you are able to generate solar energy and you use it for a fruitless mining endeavor, you are in fact losing money as you could be using that energy to reduce your electricity bill or selling it to the provider to make some cash.

The smaller USB miners require almost zero electricity, so they're likely using solar to power that little bit. It wouldn't be enough to power much else (so no selling excess back, no reducing usage elsewhere).

This one.

Yes there are better uses for 'solar' but there is a minimum to useful grid-tie sort of setups which could cost a lot to get properly set up.
(Not to mention the potential legal ramifications depending on where you are.)

The purpose would be putting to use smaller miscellaneous hardware not currently being used in a more logical or profitable arrangement.

I've got the basics laid out for a simple and inexpensive experiment and If I can figure it out I'd like to post photos here later. Thanks for the comments and feel free to suggest complications. That makes it fun.

[seoincorporation]

The odds to find a block with a usb miner are really low, you will spend hardware and time for nothing... You have better odds to win the big prize with the local lottery than to find a block, so, better invest that money and time buying lottery tickets, if you get the big price then you could buy a true mining farm 

[Kemarit]

The odds to find a block with a usb miner are really low, you will spend hardware and time for nothing... You have better odds to win the big prize with the local lottery than to find a block, so, better invest that money and time buying lottery tickets, if you get the big price then you could buy a true mining farm 

And with the Bitcoin block halving, it makes it more difficult to say the least,  I guess with a lower cost and easy set with USB mining, it will be fun and at least you learn how everything works in the background. But if you are looking for profitability, I don't think that this is the way to go.

[Pyrojason]

I’ve been down with some medical stuff but when back on my feet I look forward to experimenting with some set-and-forget kind of rigs. Probably like as I first mentioned - in stages of part time operation and finally full time and unmanaged.

[Kakmakr]

Is your goal to create something that pays for it self by harnessing solar power and old outdated equipment and spreading the profit after expenses is paid, via a Lottery type system? I do not get the lottery connection to this project?  

It would be nice if something like this could be done, where people donate old miners and GPU's to a mining farm, powered with cheap renewable energy and that the proceeds be donated to some cause that pays for projects that helps to increase Bitcoin adoption. <Like Gavin's faucet, back in the day.>    <They will obviously have to mine Alt coins>

[eternalgloom]

The odds to find a block with a usb miner are really low, you will spend hardware and time for nothing... You have better odds to win the big prize with the local lottery than to find a block, so, better invest that money and time buying lottery tickets, if you get the big price then you could buy a true mining farm 

And with the Bitcoin block halving, it makes it more difficult to say the least,  I guess with a lower cost and easy set with USB mining, it will be fun and at least you learn how everything works in the background. But if you are looking for profitability, I don't think that this is the way to go.

The thing is though, is there really that much to learn from trying to solo mine with a miner like that?
I mean, you'll never get any results from it, even before the halving happens, the chances of finding a block are astronomically small.

Now, if you could hook up a bunch of these solar miners in an array to mine from a regular pool, you might be able to earn something at least.
So, you at least see some results.

[shield132]

Is your goal to create something that pays for it self by harnessing solar power and old outdated equipment and spreading the profit after expenses is paid, via a Lottery type system? I do not get the lottery connection to this project?  

It would be nice if something like this could be done, where people donate old miners and GPU's to a mining farm, powered with cheap renewable energy and that the proceeds be donated to some cause that pays for projects that helps to increase Bitcoin adoption. <Like Gavin's faucet, back in the day.>    <They will obviously have to mine Alt coins>

I thought I am the only one who didn't understand what's the connection between this project and word lottery.
I think it's lottery because your chance of catching/mining block is very low. On another hand it's a total waste of time and reward won't be much, how much time will you mine that way? Years? For what? Not a wise option op.

If you are able to generate solar energy and you use it for a fruitless mining endeavor, you are in fact losing money as you could be using that energy to reduce your electricity bill or selling it to the provider to make some cash.

To sell electricity energy, you have to produce massive energy, enough for 1000 and more people.