[Announcement] Butterfly Labs

[Luke-Jr]

I may be in the minority but I do not relish thought of poking around with compiling software and tweaking ini files trying to get the ASIC's to mine.  I am hoping that you will ship a complete "turn-Key" setup.

Can't speak for EasyMiner's timeline, but BFGMiner should be ready for the ASIC launch. It may not have the prettiest interface, but it is pretty much turn-key.

[1714030427]

1714030427

[Rassah]

I'm thinking of buying the BitForce Mini Rig 'SC' ($30,000 one). Wondering if it will be worth it. For some reason, every bitcoin mining calculator says that it will pay for itself within a year, even after the block drops to 25, and if the difficulty jumps 10-fold (unless these things use something like 5,000W of power). Does anyone know if the specs (power, size, anything) for these things is out? My main concern, actually, is whether it will fit through my front door, and whether my home's power lines can handle it 

[WhitePhantom]

I'm thinking of buying the BitForce Mini Rig 'SC' ($30,000 one). Wondering if it will be worth it. For some reason, every bitcoin mining calculator says that it will pay for itself within a year, even after the block drops to 25, and if the difficulty jumps 10-fold (unless these things use something like 5,000W of power). Does anyone know if the specs (power, size, anything) for these things is out? My main concern, actually, is whether it will fit through my front door, and whether my home's power lines can handle it 

I don't recall where, but BFL has stated that (paraphrasing) SC generation devices will not use more power than their FPGA counterparts.

[Rassah]

I'm thinking of buying the BitForce Mini Rig 'SC' ($30,000 one). Wondering if it will be worth it. For some reason, every bitcoin mining calculator says that it will pay for itself within a year, even after the block drops to 25, and if the difficulty jumps 10-fold (unless these things use something like 5,000W of power). Does anyone know if the specs (power, size, anything) for these things is out? My main concern, actually, is whether it will fit through my front door, and whether my home's power lines can handle it 

I don't recall where, but BFL has stated that (paraphrasing) SC generation devices will not use more power than their FPGA counterparts.

So, estimated 1,250W for the Mining Rig 'SC' as opposed to, say, 12,500W?

[WhitePhantom]

I'm thinking of buying the BitForce Mini Rig 'SC' ($30,000 one). Wondering if it will be worth it. For some reason, every bitcoin mining calculator says that it will pay for itself within a year, even after the block drops to 25, and if the difficulty jumps 10-fold (unless these things use something like 5,000W of power). Does anyone know if the specs (power, size, anything) for these things is out? My main concern, actually, is whether it will fit through my front door, and whether my home's power lines can handle it  

I don't recall where, but BFL has stated that (paraphrasing) SC generation devices will not use more power than their FPGA counterparts.

So, estimated 1,250W for the Mining Rig 'SC' as opposed to, say, 12,500W?

That's my understanding, but perhaps a bit less.  My two mini-rigs each only use about 1,140W.  It's nice to know that I don't have to go through the same pain again of figuring out how to sufficiently cool the SC upgrades when I get them.  That was much more challenging than I expected with my current equipment.  In hind-sight, I feel stupid for not being prepared before I got them.

[jjiimm_64]

im thinkins put mine in a bucket of ice..that will kool them

[Rassah]

That's my understanding, but perhaps a bit less.  My two mini-rigs each only use about 1,140W.  It's nice to know that I don't have to go through the same pain again of figuring out how to sufficiently cool the SC upgrades when I get them.  That was much more challenging than I expected with my current equipment.  In hind-sight, I feel stupid for not being prepared before I got them.

If I may ask, how do you cool them?

[WhitePhantom]

That's my understanding, but perhaps a bit less.  My two mini-rigs each only use about 1,140W.  It's nice to know that I don't have to go through the same pain again of figuring out how to sufficiently cool the SC upgrades when I get them.  That was much more challenging than I expected with my current equipment.  In hind-sight, I feel stupid for not being prepared before I got them.

If I may ask, how do you cool them?

I rented an office with bars on the window, bought a good portable air conditioner, and used cardboard and whatever else I had lying around to duct the cold air directly at the intake side of the two mini-rigs.  Most of the office is about 80F, but the mini-rigs are nice and cool. 

I had to have an electrician install three dedicated circuits for the two mini-rigs and the air conditioner (the A/C uses 1200W!).  Otherwise I'd definitely be dealing with tripped circuit breakers and angry neighbors / building manager in the office complex.

The Whynter A/C linked above is actually the second model I decided on because it has an auto-restart feature in the event of a power failure.  I returned the first one (a DeLonghi unit) because it lacked this important feature.  The power went out once and the DeLonghi A/C didn't come back on.  My host PC stayed running on a battery backup and started mining when the power resumed and the mini-rigs came back up, but the DeLonghi A/C stayed off...Not cool!

[Inspector 2211]

whitephantom, I assume you are renting the office with utilities included ("full service") - didn't the landlord get suspicious when you had your extra power lines installed?

I have 25 singles and one miniRig spread out across (currently) three offices, and use approximately as much $$$ in included electricity as I pay in rent, but plan to shed one office when I receive my two ASIC-rigs.

[WhitePhantom]

whitephantom, I assume you are renting the office with utilities included ("full service") - didn't the landlord get suspicious when you had your extra power lines installed?

I have 25 singles and one miniRig spread out across (currently) three offices, and use approximately as much $$$ in included electricity as I pay in rent, but plan to shed one office when I receive my two ASIC-rigs.

Nah, I know the landlady and the office is right across the street from where I work, so that's worth something.  Electricity is normally included, but since I'm using almost as much as I pay her for rent, I agreed to monitor my power usage and to reimburse her for anything over the average of her other tenants.

[Michail1]

whitephantom, I assume you are renting the office with utilities included ("full service") - didn't the landlord get suspicious when you had your extra power lines installed?

I have 25 singles and one miniRig spread out across (currently) three offices, and use approximately as much $$$ in included electricity as I pay in rent, but plan to shed one office when I receive my two ASIC-rigs.

Nah, I know the landlady and the office is right across the street from where I work, so that's worth something.  Electricity is normally included, but since I'm using almost as much as I pay her for rent, I agreed to monitor my power usage and to reimburse her for anything over the average of her other tenants.

Why are you rending office space just for the mini rigs?  why not just have them at your house saving you the rent?

[Roy Badami]

I'm sorry, I haven't been following all the drama closely - so can I ask a simple question, please?

Is there any expectation that I will be able to mine with an SC Single on a Linux netbook that's not running X?  I know I can do that with an FPFA Single using cgminer, but is there now some suggestion that that solution won't work with the SC?  And Easyminer is Windows-only,  right?

Is BFGminer supporting the SC?  If not, what other Linux non-GUI miners are there that will/might support SC hardware?

Do I need to work on the basis of having a Window box available when my SC ships?

roy

[kano]

I'm sorry, I haven't been following all the drama closely - so can I ask a simple question, please?

Is there any expectation that I will be able to mine with an SC Single on a Linux netbook that's not running X?  I know I can do that with an FPFA Single using cgminer, but is there now some suggestion that that solution won't work with the SC?  And Easyminer is Windows-only,  right?

Is BFGminer supporting the SC?  If not, what other Linux non-GUI miners are there that will/might support SC hardware?

Do I need to work on the basis of having a Window box available when my SC ships?

roy

ckolivas 'owns' cgminer as much as it is possible to say someone 'owns' an opensource project, so as Josh said that ckolivas is in the list of developers that they want to support the SC line then I doubt you'll need to use anything but cgminer

If you are the non-windows-type and don't need a gui to operate a computer (like a lot of people around here) and also, since the SC will not have 'bitstreams', then as long as it mines, there will be no need for other utilities (e.g. for updating bitstreams or testing the devices performance etc)

Just an aside, I found I could get my BFL to mine with cgminer on a single FPGA when the bitstream/2nd FPGA crapped out for a few weeks - and I tried the EasyMiner program and it said my BFL was no good and couldn't mine - so EasyMiner may not really be needed at all with the SC line ...
(The fix back then ended up being updating the bitstream with EasyMiner to 880 - and it's been OK pretty much ever since - and now there is an opensource bitstream uploader on linux from Luke, I've no need to ever use EasyMiner again)

[WhitePhantom]

whitephantom, I assume you are renting the office with utilities included ("full service") - didn't the landlord get suspicious when you had your extra power lines installed?

I have 25 singles and one miniRig spread out across (currently) three offices, and use approximately as much $$$ in included electricity as I pay in rent, but plan to shed one office when I receive my two ASIC-rigs.

Nah, I know the landlady and the office is right across the street from where I work, so that's worth something.  Electricity is normally included, but since I'm using almost as much as I pay her for rent, I agreed to monitor my power usage and to reimburse her for anything over the average of her other tenants.

Why are you rending office space just for the mini rigs?  why not just have them at your house saving you the rent?

No room at the house.  I currently live in a single-wide manufactured home that's worth less than my mini-rigs.  I've been looking to buy a site-built home in the $250-$300k range for over a year, but none have come on the market that I really want, and I'm not in a rush.  When I get a real house, I'll move my mining equipment into it. 

[Luke-Jr]

Is there any expectation that I will be able to mine with an SC Single on a Linux netbook that's not running X?  I know I can do that with an FPFA Single using cgminer, but is there now some suggestion that that solution won't work with the SC?

There's no reason to expect ASICs would require X, and I highly doubt any ASIC vendor would make that mistake.

Is BFGminer supporting the SC?  If not, what other Linux non-GUI miners are there that will/might support SC hardware?

BFGMiner should support SC before they're delivered.

[Roy Badami]

There's no reason to expect ASICs would require X, and I highly doubt any ASIC vendor would make that mistake.

Yes - it's just that there seem to be a lot of people out there who seem to want/need a GUI

BFGMiner should support SC before they're delivered.

Great news - thanks for the info.

roy

[mrb]

There's no reason to expect ASICs would require X, and I highly doubt any ASIC vendor would make that mistake.

Yes - it's just that there seem to be a lot of people out there who seem to want/need a GUI

What Luke-Jr meant is that X should not be required. A GUI should be optional.

[Roy Badami]

What Luke-Jr meant is that X should not be required. A GUI should be optional.

Wow - bitcoin mining is obviously populated by far more sensible people than the rest of the IT industry :-)

I agree with you entirely - sadly I get the impression that far too much of the broader (non-bitcoin) world largely regards curses apps as 60's legacy technology...

Which is bizarre, given that curses is a UNIX technology and therefore didn't even exist in the 60's :-)

roy

[Roy Badami]

I'm sorry, I haven't been following all the drama closely - so can I ask a simple question, please?

Is there any expectation that I will be able to mine with an SC Single on a Linux netbook that's not running X?  I know I can do that with an FPFA Single using cgminer, but is there now some suggestion that that solution won't work with the SC? 

ckolivas 'owns' cgminer as much as it is possible to say someone 'owns' an opensource project, so as Josh said that ckolivas is in the list of developers that they want to support the SC line then I doubt you'll need to use anything but cgminer

Ah, cool, thanks, Kano - I skim read a bunch of Josh's posts and must have got the wrong end of the stick.

So, sounds like there will be a bunch of miners to choose from - no need for me to run Easyminer :-)

roy

[runeks]

Josh, I have a few questions for you, if you're up for it:

• 1. If I place an order for a BitForce Single SC now, when do you expect to ship it?
• 2. What is the expected power draw of this unit? Will I be eligible for a refund if it does not meet this expectation?
• What is the sound level of a running BitForce Single SC like? Will I be able to sleep well in the same room as an operating unit?

Thanks!