Mini Rig announcement by Butterfly Labs - 25gh/s

[newMeat1]

I think it's time somebody gave BFL a pat on the back. It's impressive that they put together a complete package for $600. Custom processors, custom enclosure, custom heatsink... that's a lot of engineering work. It sounds like everybody else is gonna have a very hard time matching the new BFL processors.

[BFL-Engineer]

Still I agree the airflow seems .... inefficient (I am trying to be more nice).

Hi D&T,

Can you arrange the boards within the enclosure to make the airflow more efficient and share it with BFL?

Thanks,
gigavps

BFL can the boards function removed from the rig box and connected to a host PC via USB just like the single's do?

The individual boards are fitted with functional USB & 5.5mm barrel Power jack.  However, the in box connectivity & power are provided by a proprietary link system connecting to the Motherboard.  If you remove a card, you can run it on it's own like a Single.  Singles can also be run inside the Mini Rig enclosure, but only via USB.  

This hasn't been mentioned yet but the Mini Rig comes with a Raspberry Pi mounting rack for self hosting capability.  This would also be used for running non Mini-Rig link enabled PCB's.  

Regarding the airflow, I appreciate your thoughts.  I think it's a good idea.  We came to a somewhat similar conclusion.  The arrangement illustration isn't an accurate representation of the final design, it's just an an illustration of the modular design.  The key difference is inverted trays with baffles to trap 2 levels of hot air in 2 powered air exhaust  channels.  

So will a linuxcoin or bamt run on a ras pi(or does it need to be ported for arm arch.) and then we can run the mini rig off that?  Is BFL going to release their own os for this including easy miner? This sounds awesome but i am curious.

The only thing required to run cgminer/ufasoft is a linux kernel and some third-partie libraries installed.
Since they are console applications, no special UI is needed. One can access it through SSH remotely.

Should anyone be interested in BAMT or other linux distros, then they must be recompiled for ARM architecture.
We haven't look into any of that yet, but we will at certain point in the future...


Good Luck,

[nedbert9]

This is a sore subject.  BFL's response to partial payment until delivery is that they use the entire funds to support production.  Whether this is true...who knows.

Seems they are very risk averse to fronting capital to run their operation.

I would think that BFL knows bitcoin mining is a rather risky venture. If they from $200k to build a bunch of mini rigs and the network goes south, all they have is deposits. They are putting the risk in the right place.

True, true.  I'm just spoiled.

[SkRRJyTC]

Id bet this had been asked before but...

Would this hardware be useful for anything else if the bitcoin network disappeared tomorrow?

[Gomeler]

Curious, are there any individuals going in as a group to purchase one of these?

[Epoch]

Curious, are there any individuals going in as a group to purchase one of these?

See 'gigamining' on GLBSE.

[Gomeler]

Curious, are there any individuals going in as a group to purchase one of these?

See 'gigamining' on GLBSE.

Yup, seen gigavps' operation. I want singles for myself though to add to my own farm. This is a hobby for me and I enjoy watching the machines hum away, blink lights at me and update charts.

[ice_chill]

Once I can cash in my Gold I am ready to order.

[legolouman]

Once I can cash in my Gold I am ready to order.

1 BTC for the small one. It's a great offer.

[bitcoindaddy]

Has anyone gotten a Rev3 unit yet? BFL said they would be shipping out and the end of March.

[jamesg]

Has anyone gotten a Rev3 unit yet? BFL said they would be shipping out and the end of March.

Rev3 units are shipping.

[Cablez]

How many rev3 units do you have giga?  



EDIT:  VVV  Officially off my chair laughing! bastard.  VVV

[rjk]

How many rev3 units do you have giga?   

Over 9000

[jamesg]

How many rev3 units do you have giga?  

EDIT:  VVV  Officially off my chair laughing! bastard.  VVV

You know me, I'll post more pics when the time is right. 

[bulanula]

Once I can cash in my Gold I am ready to order.

Good luck and pray that you will not find this inside : http://silverdoctors.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/tungsten-filled-1-kilo-gold-bar.html

Also, why not buy BTC directly using gold or after converting gold to USD if you believe in the cause of BTC and willing to invest $25k in something that is a paperweight outside of BTC ?

I think people are fooling themselves with these boxes in terms of ROI. I am quite sure that when all these 25 ghash/s rigs come online we will quickly get to difficulty above 2 million very quickly.

[Syke]

I am quite sure that when all these 25 ghash/s rigs come online we will quickly get to difficulty above 2 million very quickly.

Quite true. At 2 million difficulty these rigs are still exceptionally profitable. And when the block reward drops to 25 btc/block, they're still very profitable. If my btc wallet was bigger I would totally order one.

[Gomeler]

Once I can cash in my Gold I am ready to order.

Good luck and pray that you will not find this inside : http://silverdoctors.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/tungsten-filled-1-kilo-gold-bar.html

Also, why not buy BTC directly using gold or after converting gold to USD if you believe in the cause of BTC and willing to invest $25k in something that is a paperweight outside of BTC ?

I think people are fooling themselves with these boxes in terms of ROI. I am quite sure that when all these 25 ghash/s rigs come online we will quickly get to difficulty above 2 million very quickly.

I view mining as an escalating war. Right now GPUs are the method of choice for scratching out a few BTC/day. Soon however the big boys will be playing with massive FPGA setups and relegate GPUs to hobbyists and individuals who can't secure the capital to invest in FPGA. Luckily GPUs still have a competitive MH/$ but the profits earned are a fraction of FPGAs. In the end the mining market will stabilize with the new default platform of FPGA. I also don't doubt that the difficulty will spike with the introduction of more FPGAs. It'll get to the point where a number of GPU miners drop out due to negative income and things stabilize with a fraction of GPU miners on cheap/free power and a majority of FPGA miners.

[ice_chill]

Well currently the network is up to 15 Thash, most are probably GPUs, to replace it with Mini Rigs@25Ghash each it will take only 600 units. 600*15k = $9 000 000.

[JWU42]

Not quite 15 yet 

[ice_chill]

Once I can cash in my Gold I am ready to order.

Good luck and pray that you will not find this inside : http://silverdoctors.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/tungsten-filled-1-kilo-gold-bar.html

Also, why not buy BTC directly using gold or after converting gold to USD if you believe in the cause of BTC and willing to invest $25k in something that is a paperweight outside of BTC ?

I think people are fooling themselves with these boxes in terms of ROI. I am quite sure that when all these 25 ghash/s rigs come online we will quickly get to difficulty above 2 million very quickly.

I don't believe in BTC, only in mining it while it is worth something.

If I spend $15k on BTC and then it drops to $1/BTC then I have forever lost money. BUt with the mini rig at $1/BTC it will still bring $4000 USD per year. So it's a no brainer.