I visited BFL, any questions ?

[darkice]

I actually hopped a plane from Turkey and visited BFL office in Kansas City, everybody was great, if you have any doubts about about their operation or intentions you can relax, they are really working hard, trying to answer every question you ask from emails to forums, they value your opinions, and they are really trying hard to meet the deadlines they promised.

I'm buying some mini rigs from them, they have 12-15 weeks of lead time for them and I completely understand why they have that lead time.

I know I sound like an advertisement but thats what I saw while I was there so

If you have any questions about my visit I may answer them for you here.

[1715615864]

1715615864

[1715615864]

1715615864

[1715615864]

1715615864

[1715615864]

1715615864

[ice_chill]

Photos ?

[darkice]

sorry no photos  , but if you are asking them for confirmation , BFL guys can vouch for me

[antirack]

That was really a good idea. I thought about that myself but I don't have time to travel right now.

Here are a couple of questions:

What is their place of business (address) and what are their real names?

Why all the secrecy about who they are and where they are?

Which FPGA chip are they using? (they say we can use it for other purpose, but at the same time they do everything to hide what it is from customers).

Why do they keep telling 6-8 weeks while they must clearly know they can't pull it off by now? It's been 6 months they have been claiming 6-8 weeks.

Did you meet the main engineer with the funny accent or just Sonny?

Are they really building them there one by one in their office?

What's with all the fake information about making medical devices?

I suppose the "the lady" in the picture is an employee of their assembling/prototyping house, not their own employee. Do they actually have any employees?

Why did their company incorporator/registered agent deny any connection with these guys and resign in January?

Why are they coming up with products that only exist in their imagination (Rig Box, Mini Rig Box) and take payments for it? Only to find out later that what they thought was possible does already fail with the basics (powering 2500 Watt, cooling 2500 Watt, etc).

What are they doing different than others to come up with nearly twice the hashing power per chip?

Where do I go if I send them my $15k and they disappear overnight?

As you can see, my confidence is very low right now. But if anybody convinces me otherwise, sending money to BFL is back on the table. I have money and I want to buy mining hardware. My confidence in them was much higher before, that's when I sent them $17k cash (for singles that I would still be waiting for while the promised delivery time passed twice, and for a product that was cancelled, the Rig Box). Luckily I pulled the plug early enough and received my money back (I paid the majority via PayPal).

All the things surrounding BFL are like buying something off The Silk Road from a seller with very bad reputation. Maybe you'll get something, maybe not. Maybe you'll get it within the promised time frame, maybe not. Maybe you'll get good quality, maybe not. Maybe, if things go down hill, the seller will go offline with your Bitcoins and never come back.

Now one question for you personally:

What makes you think that you will be better off with a couple of Mini Rigs than your own FPGA cluster? Surely it must be possible to build your own FPGA cluster in the same time frame for a similar amount of money, without taking the risk of somebody screwing you over big time. A higher price might also be worth it, for the lower risk of the transaction. Did you speak to the other FPGA board vendors?

And since you are so willing to take a big risk, have you considered giving $2250 to an escrow agent (with virtually no risk) for a LargeCoin 20GH/s unit that will cost you $15k and will be delivered in July if everything goes smoothly? Even if you don't believe in LC, ordering a few virtually doesn't cost you anything except sending a relatively small amount of money to an escrow, which will send it back to you in case they are not holding up their promise. Doesn't this make more sense?

[darkice]

That was really a good idea. I thought about that myself but I don't have time to travel right now.

Here are a couple of questions:

What is their place of business (address) and what are their real names?

- You can ask them that, their identities or address is not secret , I just visited them

Why all the secrecy about who they are and where they are?

- what secrecy ?

Which FPGA chip are they using?

- They use their own chip, not any chip from the shelves

Why do they keep telling 6-8 weeks while they must clearly know they can't pull it off by now? It's been 6 months they have been claiming 6-8 weeks.

- I cannot answer this question, hell I am not sure if it is a question either.

Did you meet the main engineer with the funny accent or just Sonny?

- I met sonny and talked with the engineer

Are they really building them there one by one in their office?

- No comment on that but they are building them allright

What's with all the fake information about making medical devices?

- ?? I am buying the rigs for bitcoin I dont care about medical imaging or otherwise, that information can be real or fake I don't care

I suppose the "the lady" in the picture is an employee of their assembling/prototyping house, not their own employee. Do they actually have any employees?

- Yes they do

Why did their company incorporator/registered agent deny any connection with these guys and resign in January?

- I have no idea

Why are they coming up with products that only exist in their imagination (Rig Box, Mini Rig Box) and take payments for it? Only to find out later that what they thought was possible does already fail with the basics (powering 2500 Watt, cooling 2500 Watt, etc).

- Implementing a real life product and planning it on paper is two very different things, timeframe is very narrow here , they are trying to complete a 2 year design job in 6 months , I think they are doing just fine

What are they doing different than others to come up with nearly twice the hashing power per chip?

- I dont care , what they are doing to do it, but it does the job

Where do I go if I send them my $15k and they disappear overnight?

- I've already sent them way more than 15k they are still there

As you can see, my confidence is very low right now. But if anybody convinces me otherwise, sending money to BFL is back on the table.

- It is in my advantage if you do not buy rigboxes , I'll get more profit

Now one question for you personally:

What makes you think that you will be better off with a couple of Mini Rigs than your own FPGA cluster? Surely it must be possible to build your own FPGA cluster in the same time frame for the same amount of money. Did you speak to the other FPGA board vendors?

- Yes I did, I can actually build a FPGA cluster on my own, spending the same time and money, I cannot have a better result for the same amount of money so I'm going with them

[antirack]

Thanks for your reply. I take it you are also buying stuff on silk road from sellers with bad reputation, just because it's cheaper

(and sorry, I was still editing my post when you already replied)

[SgtSpike]

My question:  What is the shipping out timeframe for singles?  Are they currently "catching up" on their backordered items, or getting further behind, or simply keeping up?

[darkice]

My question:  What is the shipping out timeframe for singles?  Are they currently "catching up" on their backordered items, or getting further behind, or simply keeping up?

They were shipping tons of them, while I was there, but I wasn't interested in singles so I don't know, sorry

[darkice]

And since you are so willing to take a big risk, have you considered giving $2250 to an escrow agent (with virtually no risk) for a LargeCoin 20GH/s unit that will cost you $15k and will be delivered in July if everything goes smoothly? Even if you don't believe in LC, ordering a few virtually doesn't cost you anything except sending a relatively small amount of money to an escrow, which will send it back to you in case they are not holding up their promise. Doesn't this make more sense?

Yea bank escrow always makes sense, but I've seen BFL unit with my own eyes, touched it and saw it in operation, I never saw a Largecoin unit or not tested how it works, and the encryption thingy in largecoin units immediately made me look elsewhere , if everything goes smoothly I'll have my rigs in the same time frame. I cannot say anything good or bad about largecoin though I dont know anything about it except whats in the forum.

[JWU42]

You saw a mini rig in operation?

[darkice]

nope I saw the individual blocks, rig itself wasn't ready yet, but it be built from those singles so .

[rjk]

You don't have to answer it if you don't want to, but I'd be interested to know how many rigs/mini-rigs you ordered.

[ElectricMucus]

super cool story bro

[darkice]

You don't have to answer it if you don't want to, but I'd be interested to know how many rigs/mini-rigs you ordered.

not much half a dozen or so

[JWU42]

Gigavps has competition 

[antirack]

Gigavps has competition  

Sorry if I missed something, did gigavps place an order for a few units as well?

[NothinG]

Gigavps has competition  

Sorry if I missed something, did gigavps place an order for a few units as well?

He's currently got the most publicly known amount of singles.

[JWU42]

And 4 mini rigs ordered - this is all public info

[antirack]

nope I saw the individual blocks, rig itself wasn't ready yet, but it be built from those singles so .

You saw the current "individual blocks" aka 832 MH/s singles 80+ Watt, not the next generation ones?

If BFL is using their "own chip" not something off the self, whey do they need to sand off the top? That's just BS in my opinion. They are using a programmable device just like everybody else. It would be quite strange if they would have finances to make their own chips then end up with an 80 Watt device but don't have money to manufacture a couple of mini rigs without taking the customers money 3 months in advance. And how would "their own chip" be programmable with a new bitstream? Unless they are now in the business of competing with Xilinx and Altera and they make their own FPGA devices.

Did they really tell you that these are their own chips or did you mean to say something else?

There is just so much wrong with BFL's stories it makes my eyes roll. That's what I meant with "secrecy" in my original questions. Instead of asking why all the secrecy I could also be asking why all the BS.

[rjk]

nope I saw the individual blocks, rig itself wasn't ready yet, but it be built from those singles so .

You saw the current "individual blocks" aka 832 MH/s singles 80+ Watt, not the next generation ones?

If BFL is using their "own chip" not something off the self, whey do they need to sand off the top? That's just BS in my opinion. They are using a programmable device just like everybody else. It would be quite strange if they would have finances to make their own chips then end up with an 80 Watt device but don't have money to manufacture a couple of mini rigs without taking the customers money 3 months in advance. And how would "their own chip" be programmable with a new bitstream? Unless they are now in the business of competing with Xilinx and Altera and they make their own FPGA devices.

Did they really tell you that these are their own chips or did you mean to say something else?

There is just so much wrong with BFL's stories it makes my eyes roll. That's what I meant with "secrecy" in my original questions. Instead of asking why all the secrecy I could also be asking why all the BS.

Maybe it's cheaper to *not* stamp the logo and info into the packaging? And who knows, maybe they are the next xilinx or altera....