Re: Black Arrow 28nm 100Ghash Bitcoin ASIC from $0.49/GH/s

[OleOle]

I just really wan't improved hash power in the x-1 or better asics sent to me to make up for this delay, we trusted black arrow and they totally screwed us over. They knew very well they would never make that Feb ship date and didn't say crap about it, now it looks like they won't make this very long delay ship date and are trying to make up for crappy cloud hashing. I want you to crank up the hashrate so im actually competitive where i would be if they shipped by the date you falsly claimed. BA im starting to really be frustrated by these tactics, if you don't make the may shipdate me and many others will be asking for our money back.

It's brutal, isn't it?

It's good to hear some customer honesty about how they really feel about BA screwing them over again and again. There's been too many apologists, fanbois and other render-lovers that have given the benefit of the doubt to BA when BA have done absolutely nothing to deserve positive consideration.

The month of May is fast approaching and I think it will take a helluva lot of luck for BA to deliver within that month.

There's some people with refunds who are sitting quite happily knowing their ordeal of dealing with BA's incompetence is behind them.

You know you want a refund, you know BA have failed to deliver in February, it's time to get your refunds and stop listening to the apologists.

 

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[Pentax]

I just really wan't improved hash power in the x-1 or better asics sent to me to make up for this delay, we trusted black arrow and they totally screwed us over. They knew very well they would never make that Feb ship date and didn't say crap about it, now it looks like they won't make this very long delay ship date and are trying to make up for crappy cloud hashing. I want you to crank up the hashrate so im actually competitive where i would be if they shipped by the date you falsly claimed. BA im starting to really be frustrated by these tactics, if you don't make the may shipdate me and many others will be asking for our money back.

It's brutal, isn't it?

It's good to hear some customer honesty about how they really feel about BA screwing them over again and again. There's been too many apologists, fanbois and other render-lovers that have given the benefit of the doubt to BA when BA have done absolutely nothing to deserve positive consideration.

The month of May is fast approaching and I think it will take a helluva lot of luck for BA to deliver within that month.

There's some people with refunds who are sitting quite happily knowing their ordeal of dealing with BA's incompetence is behind them.

You know you want a refund, you know BA have failed to deliver in February, it's time to get your refunds and stop listening to the apologists.

 

what do you mean WITHIN that month.  Dispatch of all batch 1 and batch 2 is April 30, so it's BY May, not WITHIN May.  

Just look at the store.  You can still order an X-3 for delivery on April 30.  Don't let a string of broken promises and obvious shuck and jive bother you.  Or the fact that the major components aren't built, some not even ordered apparently, and it's just over 30 days till delivery.

to make that May 1 dispatch date none of that ^^^^ could be true, unless lead times are 0 days in their world.

they fucked up.  if they fuck up again and are not on time it's game over.  Enough is enough.

[OleOle]

Dispatch of all batch 1 and batch 2 is April 30, so it's BY May, not WITHIN May.  

Oh well, if it's BY May, then they're finished, I just cannot see that happening, these guys don't seem to know the difference between a caramel wafer and a silicon wafer.

I somehow thought it was WITHIN May which gave them half a chance... well, it extends their window by four weeks, so they at least had time to take their hand off it and shove some miners into boxes before getting back to their self-flagellation.

I think now that time is moving on and mining difficulty is above 5 billion, people are now seeing things much clearer and can begin to appreciate that they've be subject to the long con, a cynical scam that takes advantage of people's good nature and filled wallets which affronts their sense of justice and lightens their wallets.

Maybe it'll turn into a cautionary bedtime story one day where parents can tell their children of the early years of bitcoin where 'evil men who promised riches tempted well-meaning folks into giving them money' before never being seen of again, or turning up months later with a lump of fool's gold which barely functions as a door stop.

'Remember kids, say no to pre-orders.'

 

[DebitMe]

Just sent in a refund request for my X-3, still holding my X-1's as it stands now, as I might like the 10% discount on future orders, but that could change with negative news.

EDIT:  Prompt email back about my refund.  I will have a check in the mail by Monday/Tuesday.  Thank you MinerSource for picking up the slack here.  that is appreciated and will ensure that I purchase "in stock" products from you in the future.

[Pentax]

Got a reply this morning:

Dear Ben,

We are sorry to hear that you do not wish to continue with your order. As your order has already been put in production it is difficult for us to issue you with a refund. However, we do not want to make anyone unhappy therefore we will do our best to refund your money by moving your order to a new customer.

We trust that Bitcoin mining will be profitable in May as well or all the Bitcoin mining will stop. The online profitability calculators are wrong just because nobody in the right mind will keep doubling the hashrate of the network every month if they are loosing money. The hashrate of the network will keep growing only if the bitcoin value goes up again. For this reason and because we provide the lowest prices possible we do not think that our miners will have a negative return of investment. However, we understand that you might not agree with us and we'll offer you the refund if you decide to go ahead with it.

I have responded and will update her when I recieve my refund.

Yup that's the same letter I've seen from others.

1.  We'll try to refund, but aren't obligated to do so.  We'll try to shift the order to someone else.
2.  The mining calculators are wrong.

1.  I doubt they have a line of customers forming to move orders to.  These things are not profitable at this point by any calculator but theirs, apparently.

2.  They've been saying this for months about the difficulty.  Yet the difficulty keeps going up.  People are not unplugging their miners, industrial centers are coming online and other manufacturers, such as Cointerra, are shipping.  I've got a Cointerra running myself, so I know they're shipping on time at this point.  Nice miner, easy setup.  A kid could plug this thing in, although it's louder than I expected.   I'm only mentioning it, as I'd expect these from BA to be similarly loud.  I had to stick this thing in a room and wall it off, as it's like a 747 sitting on a tarmac, so make sure you've got the ability to do that, in terms of your wiring and your data cabling.  When summer rolls in I'll have to do something in terms of ventilation although right now I'm blowing it out into the house and using it as some amount of heating for the upstairs.

Further to that, if they're so sure that these will continue to be profitable, they should be covering their batch 1 people with the expectation that they will continue to sell miners or make a killing mining on their own.  By their own logic, the more people that cancel their orders, the more money BA makes in the long term, as they keep those miners and profit from them.  

As has become typical to the point of predictable, their words do not in any way match their actions and you could drive a truck through the holes in the logic.  They tell us mining will continue to be profitable but are seemingly unwilling to shoulder that risk themselves.

they've failed to deliver, difficulty is through the roof, I don't see it likely that they're going to make this May 1 deadline either, and they're leaving their customers to twist in the wind while telling them that all is going to be just fine.  Meanwhile, they're marching merrily down the path spending our fucking money setting up their cloud/self-mining op and scrypt miner operation.  

These are not the actions of an ethical company, nor one that values it's customers.  The actions speak to a greed driven model with risk pushed off to their customers and the profit sucked up by pigs who couldn't give 2 shits that the people that made their enterprise possible are getting creamed.

They can do better.  They should do better.  Their business is going down the shitter unless they step up, as their name is up there with the other dirtbags in this industry at this point.  Will they?  doubt it.  they've shown no morals, and precious little vision.  a company run by lawyers and calculators that doesn't value goodwill one iota - and that's a huge fucking mistake.

[Pentax]

I dont know, but I can't get any response from Bobsag3, Matt or Thomson for about 1 week about refund. That really look suspicious for me now.

From what I understand, if you bought from BA directly there is currently no refund but they're working on it. If you bought from Minersource batch 1 you can get a refund, batch 2 no refund because it's not technically delayed yet. People have been getting refunds through MS but only batch 1.

Personally, I'm in batch 1 so I'm keeping my order. Once they get their first round of miners through and the process is streamlined, I'm gonna enjoy that 10% discount. No risk, no reward as they say.

seems to be pretty close to the way it is, likely due to consumer protection laws and the assumption, right or wrong, that people won't file in China to litigate.

the shell game of who is in charge makes it somewhat unclear as to where would be the best place to file until people start to probe those limits, which will likely happen if they blow through May 1.  At that point those balsa wood barriers of obfuscation will get blown through immediately and will prove worthless.  

[goozman96]

Does that mean people who ordered in November on BigCommerce will finally have their orders transferred?

[Pentax]

I am in batch 1 and they said they can only refund after may 1, after they ship their products. Can someone explain why?

This is so unprofessional.

"We received clarification from our management regarding bank transfer refunds in USD and other FIAT currencies.
The date for all FIAT refunds is after May 1st, we will be able to issue refunds after we ship our products.
Unfortunately we cannot provide refund in FIAT currencies at the earlier date.

We apologize for inconvenience it may cause to you.

Sincerely,
Sylvia"

That's assuming they ship on May 1.  She says they'll be able to issue refunds after they ship.  After watching these people split hairs and equivocate for months what I notice is there is no date by which they'll refund.  That's about as open ended as you can get, and par for the course with these people. 

Sometime after May 1.  Well, that just clears it right up.  It's not even an answer aside from saying it won't be sooner than that.

If they decide to bail and not ship, it's nada.  If they're not satisfied with their financial position or they're late again and May 1 brings nothing but more refund requests we'll see what they say at that point.  "We did not say May of what year, please check back in 2015"

[DebitMe]

About a week and a half ago I offered my assistance to BlackArrow.
I come from an IT environment as well as extensive Customer Support experience.
For about a week I have been talking back and forth with all the members of BlackArrow trying to grasp their business structure as well as their processes.
I currently do not have access to their ticketing system yet but it's being worked on.
My purpose in helping them is simple. I want my 2 X-3's in May, lol.
What I am going to try is offer constructive criticism, improve customer relations and will try to provide you with some answers.

Speaking of answers I have an important update. They are currently working on processing BTC refunds. Refunds will start to be paid by the end of this week. FIAT refunds are still being delayed until 1st batch gets shipped.

If you have any private questions you want me to look into, please PM me and I'll see what I can do.

Thanks.

Since they were supposed to convert the bitcoins into currency at the time of purchase in order to pay for the production of the miners, will refunds be for the amount of bitcoins paid or for the order?  Certainly they do not have any bitcoins since everything is being used to fund the production run...and as such we should receive the USD value back from a refund correct?

[DebitMe]

Hi guys ! Do you think a company will cash out every order they get ? It is time consuming, so they probably cashed out one / twice a week, wich seems much more logical to me.

Regardless, our funds were supposed to be used for the purpose of paying for development and operations costs to get these chips to fruition.  That means they would have to be turned into fiat somehow, and used to pay with.  The devices are also priced in USD, and the bitcoin amount changes with price fluctuations.  Essentially, I was not paying in btc, I was paying a set fiat amount.  I should be entitled to a set fiat return of the amount equal to the date I paid.

[thomashrev89]

Because sending a bank wire is a huge pain in the ass vs sending Bitcoins is probably the reason they are refunding in Bitcoins.  There are also fees involved in sending wires.  The one thing that makes sense is to send a refund in Bitcoin.  Not sure what the big deal is.  They may have used the money they originally had.  They do mine there with their existing hardware from what I understand, so they probably have some coins in a pool that they can distribute but it's probably not a lot.  And then they have people still paying for new orders from time to time.

Not that much of a mystery really.  Anyway, I could care less, I just want to see my miner ship by May 1st.  If it does not, I want to see added compensation or I'll request a refund as well. 

really? im still waiting for a BTC refund so this is mostly FUD

You are using "FUD" wrong.

[DebitMe]

Just for reference, will update when this is resolved...

I requested a refund from MinerSource last Friday, was immediately told it would get done and mailed on Monday or Tuesday of this week, and I would receive a tracking number.  I have still not received a tracking number and have emailed twice asking for a status update.  I have no idea if it is in the mail or not, or the status of my refund.  Bobsag, please look into my email inquiry.

Thanks,

DebitMe

[DebitMe]

We have just switched banks (you will notice if you check out with Bank Wire our account is no longer a Bank of America in St Louis, but a Local Wells Fargo), due to the many issues we had sending refund wires from our BoA account. We are currently finishing moving over the funds from BoA to Wells Fargo, and anyone who is still owed a refund check by mail will be getting a Wells Fargo business check refund via UPS within the next few days. Tracking numbers will be sent via the applicable zendesk tickets.

Ok thanks for passing that on, I will be watching my email/mail

[goozman96]

Bitcoin's price will go back up eventually - hopefully - and then ROI won't be too much of a problem... hopefully.

[Pentax]

   

• Completed the all X1 and X3 hashboards designs sent to factory, waiting for final prototypes to be manufactured
• Everything on the control board is working proplery, we're writing the software
• Approved the X3 PSU, mass production has started.
• The mold for mass production of the heatsink has been completed and we have received the first batch of heatsinks. See gallery.
• We have started sending the advance payments for components.
• Received X3 case prototype
• We are evaluating more than 20 fan types to determine which provides better airflow with lower noise; Now that we have all parts in place for X3 we have purchased a smoke machine and conducting tests on the fans.
• More work has been conducted on our website payment system.
• Pool design is continuing according to the plan.

Click here for pictures

Thanks for the update, so.. are you able to ship the X1's to your customers in May or can we expect another delay? Any chance for increased hashrate, is it still 100GHs for one X1?

This is the question.  The delivery date is supposedly May 1.  You can still order a batch 2 unit with availability showing as April 30.

How this May 1 date for completion of batches 1 and 2 can be possible when they haven't even gotten the prototypes for the hashboards I have no idea. 

In <30 days they need to receive prototypes, assess them, troubleshoot, order and receive hundreds/thousands of components as necessary to fulfill batches 1 and 2, train assembly personnel, get the assembly line running, assemble the units, and ship them. 

I'm going with no fucking way, although if BA thinks they're still on schedule for May 1 delivery it would be nice to hear, along with how all of that, and more, is going to happen in 27 days.  If they were ordering the hashboards TODAY, which they're not, I doubt this all happens in 27 days.  Just knowing the lead time on the mass production run of the boards, which they do know, would answer this question, and I have a feeling the answer is not a good one.

This is looking to me like 60 days, or June 1, would require running the table from here on out with actual shipping commencing somewhere between 60 and 90, with another month, likely 2, for production to catch up, and that's with no major screwups in designs, supply chain, or other logistics going forward. 

If you're in batch 2, or towards the tail end of batch 1, do the ROI math on that.

If it's not going happen, it would be nice to know what a realistic date is at this point so people can assess the situation with real information, which would be nice for a change.  Seeing the order queue and knowing where one is in it as it exists today would also be useful.  Neither of these things is likely to happen, however, if past behavior is any indicator.....

[Pentax]

I think they're lying to themselves and trying to say it's possible and they can make it, probably out of fear if they can't the huge backlash of Refund request, improved compensation request and the comapanies name becoming the new BFL.

I think they're lying, but not to themselves.  The truth, if they're going to be delayed further, increases the run on refunds, without a doubt, so they're simply not answering the question, which has been asked repeatedly at this point.

Last time around they claimed they didn't lie, because they didn't have the information, which was pure BS IMO, although it's irrelevant at this point.  We all know it was crap, whether they decided not to release the information and hang their PR people out to dry so they could continue spewing misinformation or not.  They knew long before they released the information.  

This time they're simply not answering  the question, which goes right along with how this has played out for months, so I expect that they would claim they haven't lied either, although it's a clear lie of omission if they know they're not going to hit that May 1 date.  The tap dancing and prevarications have become as predictable as they are pathetic.

If they're still on track for May 1 then it's easy enough to state.  The know whether or not they are, just as they did leading up to the last delay.  The fact that they haven't made any statement on this issue of delivery date, which is the most important one of all, and continue to ignore this simple yes or no question, coupled with their past behavior on this type of thing, tells me all I need to know.

[DebitMe]

Black Crap

You know, I was sitting here today and thinking.
What would complete my day and kick start my weekend.
Just then I got an email notifying me of a new post here, and what do you know.
This insightful and unbelievably awesome post made me realize that that is exactly what I've been missing.

So, I would like to thank you for such an unbelievable contribution to this thread.
May your wisdom bring our ASICs to us at a much faster rate then it was possible just a few short minutes ago.

I for one am inspired to call up BA and offer any accounting services...pro bono of course...that they may need in order to get this done faster.

Simply amazing!

[Pentax]

Black Crap

You know, I was sitting here today and thinking.
What would complete my day and kick start my weekend.
Just then I got an email notifying me of a new post here, and what do you know.
This insightful and unbelievably awesome post made me realize that that is exactly what I've been missing.

So, I would like to thank you for such an unbelievable contribution to this thread.
May your wisdom bring our ASICs to us at a much faster rate then it was possible just a few short minutes ago.

I for one am inspired to call up BA and offer any accounting services...pro bono of course...that they may need in order to get this done faster.

Simply amazing!

I'll be happy to take R&D and production engineering. 

as an added bonus, I'll spit out CAD renderings that will amaze and delight us all!  AutoCAD, Solidworks, whateva, whateva

[Pentax]

I skimmed through the recent discussion and did not see an update from Blackarrow. Can someone re-post the latest update from Blackarrow? I am hoping the April/May shipping is still a possibility (even if remote).

   
Re: Black Arrow 28nm 100Ghash Bitcoin ASIC from $1.99/GH/s, miners from $2.97/GH/s
April 03, 2014, 12:54:06 PM
Reply with quote  #3270
   
Completed the all X1 and X3 hashboards designs sent to factory, waiting for final prototypes to be manufactured
Everything on the control board is working proplery, we're writing the software
Approved the X3 PSU, mass production has started.
The mold for mass production of the heatsink has been completed and we have received the first batch of heatsinks. See gallery.
We have started sending the advance payments for components.
Received X3 case prototype
We are evaluating more than 20 fan types  otto determine which provides better airflow with lower noise; Now that we have all parts in place for X3 we have purchased a smoke machine and conducting tests on the fans.
More work has been conducted on our website payment system.
Pool design is continuing according to the plan.
Click here for pictures

[Pentax]

As per David105396 on the eCoin Talk forum:

"I am very confident that the deadline [of May 1st] will be made and shipping will start on time. I will personally vouch for this. "


I hope this is the case! But we heard everything was on time until the end of January the last time. We'll see...

when was this and do you have a link.  I could not fiind it.