I started mining bitcoins not too long ago and I realized that I should have done a little bit more research before I jumped in.
I was excited to get started so I bought a BFL 10GH/s unit off ebay for what seemed like a great price. But it wasn't till later that I figured out the this BFL miner consumed way too much electricity for the GH/s it produced. In effect, it cancelled out the profits.
I ended up writing a simple php script to evaluate how much profit I should expect given the hardware specs. Now I have a dozen AntMiner U2's and a new BFL 60GH/s miner. Even though the U2s are more efficient, I am still making a decent profit with the BFL 60GH/s.
The php script was originally for my own use, but I figured a lot of newbies probably could benefit from it as well. I was a newbie and I still consider myself new as I'm learning new things everyday. I could have saved a couple of hundred dollars had I bought the right kind of miner hardware.
For those who are just getting started, I suggest getting a Kill-A-Watt meter to find out how much power your system is using. And also the specs on whatever miner hardware you plan on using. Then plug in the numbers into the php script that I made on my new site:
www.bitcoineval.comMy next project is to put the entire mining system on solar power. To be continued...
Cheers!
JWC