Best Mining Setup with Free Electricity and $1500 Budget

[flying_pigs]

I have free electricity (well, mostly free - it's solar power - so extremely inexpensive most of the time) as well as a $1500 budget.

I'm interested in mining bitcoin or any other crypto currency.  What would be the most profitable way to do this?  I know the difficulty of bitcoin is continuing to rise, so would I be better off mining another type of coin and then converting to btc?

Any other thoughts? 

Thanks in advance. 

[philipma1957]

sure I have lots of ideas for you.

 A) what country?

B)  cheapest hash power you can get is what you want.

C)   can you provide 3000 watts ?  this means 2x 15 amp 120 volt circuits dedicated to mining

Asic miner tubes can be had for about 400 bucks.

I have 2 of them they do 1.65 th   for 2 of them

 contact crazy guy if you are usa based

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=612390.0


he has the units at 400 usd each.    buy 3 or 4   make it 3 if you do not have good psu's.

3 = 1200  usd  then you need good psu's

2 of these will be short  3 of these is more then enough

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-SuperNOVA-1300G2-ATX12V-120-G2-1300-XR/dp/B00COIZTZM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410567139&sr=8-1&keywords=evga+1300

say you get 2  cost is about 350 for 2.  this comes to   1550    and you run everything under clocked a bit .

 I think you can do  freq 250 and pull about 2300 watts and mine at 2100 gh not sure  ..

now do you math cost for gear  1200 + 350 = 1550 add 50 for extra shit cost is 1600 for 2100 hash power

what do you earn with 2100 hash power and dirt cheap power say 3 cents?

under 100 dollar and it takes many months.   Now if you have cheap quality psu's  on hand  you won't need to spend 300-400 bucks on power supplies.  there are some server options and you may get power at 150-200 if you need to buy psu's.

[generalt]

Good stuff, but wouldn't your start date be out like at least 7 days for the miners and the power supplies to get to you?

[philipma1957]

depends on his location.  the seller is in texas.  the gear is in stock  he may get it on tues. 


 Heck If he wants to come to my house in NJ I would sell him my 2 for  800 and toss in psu's so 1k  would give him 1.6 th.  Here are my two on cex.io

[generalt]

LOL Love the PSU clamp

[philipma1957]

LOL Love the PSU clamp

yeah that test bench sees so much gear. I have to be careful I do not knock the psu's over.  I have 3 clamped 2 seasonics and the evga.

I think I have had more then 200,000 worth of gear run on that bench since aug of 2012.
 At least 1000 usb sticks
35-45 gpus'
16 s'1's
8 s-3's
50  5 chip gridseed units
25 gridseed blades

6 small r-boxes
2 new r-boxes
some asic miner cubes
a few asic miner tubes

And quite a few mobo only pc's for the gpu rig's.
and with all that mining and turnover maybe  just maybe I made 10-15k since aug 2012

here are the 2 seasonics clamped with a fan on them .

[Finksy]

Much like miners, I would suggest going as value-driven as possible on PSU's.  I have 5 (and 4 more on the way) of the DPS 800 GB A PSU's, some using gigampz boards (you can also "hotwire" them by soldering a couple wires if you are so inclined to save the $40 for the breakout board).

If you have 240V service, you can get 1000 Watts out of them (vs 850 Watts on 120V), which allows you to run one of the AsicMiner Tubes on each, even clocked to 290 MHz and producing 875-900 GH/s (what I am running right now).  DPS 800 GB A's can be had for $20-25, the gigampz breakout boards are $40, and then some PCI cables gives you a 1000W PSU for about half price. Don't pay more than you have to, the extra few percent of power efficiency will never make up the difference in purchase price (I have read they are equivalent to 80 plus bronze ratings)

The AM tubes are the best value for equipment at this time as Phillip mentioned.  Another alternative if you have enough power to run quite a few of them, are the old Antminer S1's.  Their efficiency isn't great, but they are selling for ~$.25/GH/s. I know here in Canada even at my home with prices around $0.09/Kwh they will still produce a profit for the next few months, and offset some heating bills coming up.   Alternatively,  if power is your limiting factor The Antminer S3's are another good solution with better power/hash efficiency, but cost a bit more per GH/s than the Tubes (they use newer, more efficient 28nm chips)  Anything else on the market is essentially over-priced, under-performing, or more for status or data center hosting than for profitability.

As far as difficulty rising, IMO we have reached/passed the pinnacle in rate of growth from a hardware and network hashrate point of view.  The ASIC chips today are using very near the most current processing technology as in other devices, and the rate of hashing power should not increase proportionately to the cost of newer technology. Not to mention, many of the large farms that have decided to invest in mining have likely most all come online by now.  With the declining exchange it wouldn't make sense for many companies to decide to invest in farms in the near future.

Unlike many others on this board, I think now is a great time to be getting involved with mining.  Equipment is being priced with the expectation to ROI with high estimates of difficulty increases as has been historical, but I just don't see the difficulty increasing at the rate it has for this past year.  Anyone that tells you otherwise is trying to keep a bigger piece of the pie for themselves

[DrG]

Much like miners, I would suggest going as value-driven as possible on PSU's.  I have 5 (and 4 more on the way) of the DPS 800 GB A PSU's, some using gigampz boards (you can also "hotwire" them by soldering a couple wires if you are so inclined to save the $40 for the breakout board).

If you have 240V service, you can get 1000 Watts out of them (vs 850 Watts on 120V), which allows you to run one of the AsicMiner Tubes on each, even clocked to 290 MHz and producing 875-900 GH/s (what I am running right now).  DPS 800 GB A's can be had for $20-25, the gigampz breakout boards are $40, and then some PCI cables gives you a 1000W PSU for about half price. Don't pay more than you have to, the extra few percent of power efficiency will never make up the difference in purchase price (I have read they are equivalent to 80 plus bronze ratings)

The AM tubes are the best value for equipment at this time as Phillip mentioned.  Another alternative if you have enough power to run quite a few of them, are the old Antminer S1's.  Their efficiency isn't great, but they are selling for ~$.25/GH/s. I know here in Canada even at my home with prices around $0.09/Kwh they will still produce a profit for the next few months, and offset some heating bills coming up.   Alternatively,  if power is your limiting factor The Antminer S3's are another good solution with better power/hash efficiency, but cost a bit more per GH/s than the Tubes (they use newer, more efficient 28nm chips)  Anything else on the market is essentially over-priced, under-performing, or more for status or data center hosting than for profitability.

As far as difficulty rising, IMO we have reached/passed the pinnacle in rate of growth from a hardware and network hashrate point of view.  The ASIC chips today are using very near the most current processing technology as in other devices, and the rate of hashing power should not increase proportionately to the cost of newer technology. Not to mention, many of the large farms that have decided to invest in mining have likely most all come online by now.  With the declining exchange it wouldn't make sense for many companies to decide to invest in farms in the near future.

Unlike many others on this board, I think now is a great time to be getting involved with mining.  Equipment is being priced with the expectation to ROI with high estimates of difficulty increases as has been historical, but I just don't see the difficulty increasing at the rate it has for this past year.  Anyone that tells you otherwise is trying to keep a bigger piece of the pie for themselves

If you are running a small operation of have free cooling via use of fresh ambient air then more efficient GOLD PSUs may not be worth it.  For people mining with small farms in enclosed areas each watt of wasted electricity is another watt they not only need to pay for but also need to dissipate the heat for via AC/fans.  10% more efficiency on a 1200W PSU is 120W - that's 1/3 of an S3 right there.

[philipma1957]

Much like miners, I would suggest going as value-driven as possible on PSU's.  I have 5 (and 4 more on the way) of the DPS 800 GB A PSU's, some using gigampz boards (you can also "hotwire" them by soldering a couple wires if you are so inclined to save the $40 for the breakout board).

If you have 240V service, you can get 1000 Watts out of them (vs 850 Watts on 120V), which allows you to run one of the AsicMiner Tubes on each, even clocked to 290 MHz and producing 875-900 GH/s (what I am running right now).  DPS 800 GB A's can be had for $20-25, the gigampz breakout boards are $40, and then some PCI cables gives you a 1000W PSU for about half price. Don't pay more than you have to, the extra few percent of power efficiency will never make up the difference in purchase price (I have read they are equivalent to 80 plus bronze ratings)

The AM tubes are the best value for equipment at this time as Phillip mentioned.  Another alternative if you have enough power to run quite a few of them, are the old Antminer S1's.  Their efficiency isn't great, but they are selling for ~$.25/GH/s. I know here in Canada even at my home with prices around $0.09/Kwh they will still produce a profit for the next few months, and offset some heating bills coming up.   Alternatively,  if power is your limiting factor The Antminer S3's are another good solution with better power/hash efficiency, but cost a bit more per GH/s than the Tubes (they use newer, more efficient 28nm chips)  Anything else on the market is essentially over-priced, under-performing, or more for status or data center hosting than for profitability.

As far as difficulty rising, IMO we have reached/passed the pinnacle in rate of growth from a hardware and network hashrate point of view.  The ASIC chips today are using very near the most current processing technology as in other devices, and the rate of hashing power should not increase proportionately to the cost of newer technology. Not to mention, many of the large farms that have decided to invest in mining have likely most all come online by now.  With the declining exchange it wouldn't make sense for many companies to decide to invest in farms in the near future.

Unlike many others on this board, I think now is a great time to be getting involved with mining.  Equipment is being priced with the expectation to ROI with high estimates of difficulty increases as has been historical, but I just don't see the difficulty increasing at the rate it has for this past year.  Anyone that tells you otherwise is trying to keep a bigger piece of the pie for themselves

If you are running a small operation of have free cooling via use of fresh ambient air then more efficient GOLD PSUs may not be worth it.  For people mining with small farms in enclosed areas each watt of wasted electricity is another watt they not only need to pay for but also need to dissipate the heat for via AC/fans.  10% more efficiency on a 1200W PSU is 120W - that's 1/3 of an S3 right there.

Yeah getting plat or gold psu's  can be wrong in terms of money.  In my case I had a lot from running gpus in 2012.  I also hunt for bargain prices.  this evga 1300 can be found for 150  on a great sale once in a while.


http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-SuperNOVA-1300G2-ATX12V-120-G2-1300-XR/dp/B00COIZTZM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410614672&sr=8-1&keywords=evga+1300  right now it is 175 for one after rebate

at 150 and running 3 s-3's  it is a cost effective hi end psu with a 10 year warranty.  At 190 or 200 it is not so good.

this psu http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151120&cm_re=seasonic_platinum-_-17-151-120-_-Product   

on a good sale with rebate has been as low as 89.99! with a 7 year warranty.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151105&cm_re=seasonic_platinum-_-17-151-105-_-Product

 this was on sale yesterday for 169.99 after a rebate and a discount code . it is a 7 year warranty.

of course getting the server ones on ebay can be cheaper and cost effective.

[generalt]

LOL Love the PSU clamp

yeah that test bench sees so much gear. I have to be careful I do not knock the psu's over.  I have 3 clamped 2 seasonics and the evga.

I think I have had more then 200,000 worth of gear run on that bench since aug of 2012.
 At least 1000 usb sticks
35-45 gpus'
16 s'1's
8 s-3's
50  5 chip gridseed units
25 gridseed blades

6 small r-boxes
2 new r-boxes
some asic miner cubes
a few asic miner tubes

And quite a few mobo only pc's for the gpu rig's.
and with all that mining and turnover maybe  just maybe I made 10-15k since aug 2012

here are the 2 seasonics clamped with a fan on them .

Knowing me I would knock the crap out of the clamps as well.  I was thinking maybe some "L" brackets or something like that to hold them in place.

Glad to hear that you were able to make a profit out of all that but must've been a lot of work setting things up and moving them on.  That seems like the best option at this point for mining.  Order newly released items.  Mine with them for a week or two and then sell them right away while they are still close to their original value.  That or free electricity.  I'm thinking with free electricity The S1 would be better since they could be had for $50 each.  I saw a post with them for $50 shipped but I think that's over now.  At $50 each you could get 16 for $800 and pick up the server psu's and breakout boards as Finksy recommended.  I think each one could run 2 S1s.  So figure another $640 for 8 power supplies with breakout boards for 2.8 th hash or 3.2 th leaving $60 for wires but you need like 6000+ watts of electricity.  Then you repeat the process trashing all the S1s when S3s are down to a reasonable price and reuse the power supplies.

[LightningBlade]

I have free electricity (well, mostly free - it's solar power - so extremely inexpensive most of the time) as well as a $1500 budget.

I'm interested in mining bitcoin or any other crypto currency.  What would be the most profitable way to do this?  I know the difficulty of bitcoin is continuing to rise, so would I be better off mining another type of coin and then converting to btc?

Any other thoughts? 

Thanks in advance. 

You should try to sell your solar power instead of using it to for mining. profit is better..

[generalt]

This 1600W LEPA has a $60 rebate until 9/20/2014 bringing the price down to $240

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=34094

I've never ordered from these guys though.

[Finksy]

I have free electricity (well, mostly free - it's solar power - so extremely inexpensive most of the time) as well as a $1500 budget.

I'm interested in mining bitcoin or any other crypto currency.  What would be the most profitable way to do this?  I know the difficulty of bitcoin is continuing to rise, so would I be better off mining another type of coin and then converting to btc?

Any other thoughts? 

Thanks in advance. 

You should try to sell your solar power instead of using it to for mining. profit is better..

Sadly, this is the most accurate statement in this thread.  Especially if your government offers subsidy for green energy.  I know here in Ontario I was exploring this idea a few years ago, and the gov was offering up to $.70 or $.80/KWh to encourage independents to get into it. Wish I would've got my application in before the rates started dropping, they are now halved. 

[philipma1957]

This 1600W LEPA has a $60 rebate until 9/20/2014 bringing the price down to $240

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=34094

I've never ordered from these guys though.

that is a multiple rail pc tricky to set it up.  I have purchased from them before.

[DrG]

I have free electricity (well, mostly free - it's solar power - so extremely inexpensive most of the time) as well as a $1500 budget.

I'm interested in mining bitcoin or any other crypto currency.  What would be the most profitable way to do this?  I know the difficulty of bitcoin is continuing to rise, so would I be better off mining another type of coin and then converting to btc?

Any other thoughts? 

Thanks in advance. 

You should try to sell your solar power instead of using it to for mining. profit is better..

Sadly, this is the most accurate statement in this thread.  Especially if your government offers subsidy for green energy.  I know here in Ontario I was exploring this idea a few years ago, and the gov was offering up to $.70 or $.80/KWh to encourage independents to get into it. Wish I would've got my application in before the rates started dropping, they are now halved. 

That would be true if you're in an area where the utilities aren't all monopolies.  In Southern California the PUC has ruled that typical home customers cannot have a net income from energy generation.  If you make 5000KWH but only use 3000KWH during the year you get nothing - apparently it's illegal to compete with the monopolistic energy companies.

In such cases it would be better to run a colocation center or your own little cloud and sell that hash.

[philipma1957]

I have free electricity (well, mostly free - it's solar power - so extremely inexpensive most of the time) as well as a $1500 budget.

I'm interested in mining bitcoin or any other crypto currency.  What would be the most profitable way to do this?  I know the difficulty of bitcoin is continuing to rise, so would I be better off mining another type of coin and then converting to btc?

Any other thoughts? 

Thanks in advance. 

You should try to sell your solar power instead of using it to for mining. profit is better..

Sadly, this is the most accurate statement in this thread.  Especially if your government offers subsidy for green energy.  I know here in Ontario I was exploring this idea a few years ago, and the gov was offering up to $.70 or $.80/KWh to encourage independents to get into it. Wish I would've got my application in before the rates started dropping, they are now halved. 

That would be true if you're in an area where the utilities aren't all monopolies.  In Southern California the PUC has ruled that typical home customers cannot have a net income from energy generation.  If you make 5000KWH but only use 3000KWH during the year you get nothing - apparently it's illegal to compete with the monopolistic energy companies.

In such cases it would be better to run a colocation center or your own little cloud and sell that hash.

yeah many states are a little better .  you can sell your excess but at 2 or 3 cents a kwatt

[xstr8guy]

This 1600W LEPA has a $60 rebate until 9/20/2014 bringing the price down to $240

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=34094

I've never ordered from these guys though.

I have one and it's a little janky compared to the EVGA 1300G2. It has six 12v rails and you have to be careful how you hook things up so you don't overload a rail. Best to go with a single rail PSU.

[generalt]

This 1600W LEPA has a $60 rebate until 9/20/2014 bringing the price down to $240

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=34094

I've never ordered from these guys though.

that is a multiple rail pc tricky to set it up.  I have purchased from them before.

Ah I forgot about the multiple rail stuff.  Good catch and thanks for the info!

[Kimowa]

This 1600W LEPA has a $60 rebate until 9/20/2014 bringing the price down to $240

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=34094

I've never ordered from these guys though.

that is a multiple rail pc tricky to set it up.  I have purchased from them before.

Ah I forgot about the multiple rail stuff.  Good catch and thanks for the info!

I actually prefer multiple rail as they tends to be more efficient..

[BTCish]

Is new asicminer S4 already out ?