Project Update

[Dingo]

I almost bought an Bitmain AntMiner S3+453Gh/s @ 0.78 J/Gh Digital miner today at Amazon.com but luckily I looked at the list and the project does not support it.  There were two, second hand, one for $49.99 and the other for $69.02 which is not bad as they are $450 new.

Keep my eye out for one that works, if you see any let me know...

[JugNut]

Welcome aboard Daniel  

Yea more variety is whats needed.  Still there is talk of changes coming but for now all we can do is just wait & see what happens.

@Dingo: Yea there are some good bargains to be had on the Antminer s1 - s7 range. It's a pity there of no use for us with boinc. The most powerful miner know to work at BU is the Avalon 6 at 3.5 TH but there at around +/-800 bucks.(more after the purchase of the needed 1000-1100 watt power supply + Raspberry Pi)
Because there still relatively new there are not many(if any) second hand units to be had at cheaper prices yet. But if your willing to pay the entry price you'd be an instant daily multi billionaire. Oh and don't forget that at somewhere around 900 watts to 1100 watts a day it would chew up almost as much power as two regular OC'd PC's with 2 mid range GPU's in each.(give or take a few watts) :(

EDIT: Found this one with a power supply at ebay for AU $733.45 + AU $228.77 delivery.  http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Avalon6-3-5-Th-s-A3218-28nm-ASIC-Bitcoin-Miner-w-1200w-HP-Power-Supply-Kit-/252434702174?hash=item3ac647df5e:g:1DUAAOSwv9hW6J2w

[chooka03]

I like helping BU but I'd never spend that sort if money for this hobby.... Especially with how erratic Henry is and the lack of projects.
I'm bidding on a Bitfury Red on EBay at the moment but I won't be paying more than $65 for it and I think I'm going to get outbid.
I'd rather a U3.
There's also a few U1s on EBay at the moment but again people are going to pay over $60 for one  
Personally I think that's too much money. The USB ASIC miners are popular though. Someone is selling U2's on Gumtree for $40 each.  
I think I'd rather a second hand GPU for a second machine.

[Daniel]

Hi Chooka,

I've been watching those Antminer U1s on eBay as well.
I bid on them early on, but I've long since been outbid.
I payed $25 for the one I have now and I was hoping to get some more for around the same price.
As I type this, one of them has reached $70.50.
I wonder how much they cost when they were new ?

[chooka03]

Hi Dan,

Well as expected whoever l***a is, he wanted that hex fury more than me.
Hopefully it's no one here but I've done my best to make him pay top $$.
I'm not paying $70 for that!
The Y1's are a CRAZY price!! I picked up 2 recently for $20 but haven't had time to play with then. I should just sell them again for that stupid price!
Anyhoo.... Back to dinner with the wife.

[Dataman]

I bought a used RockMiner R-Box 2.0 like JN's but I will not get it for a couple of weeks (if at all). The seller is new and has no history on Amazon so I will just have to wait and see. At least with Amazon I will get a refund if it does not ship. I paid WAY too much for it but it seemed to be the last one for sale on the planet.  
Today I will briefly be in the top 100 in world position ( ) but will get passed tomorrow back to 101.
I got one of the machines fixed yesterday and prep'ed it for the R-Box. It had a corrupted BIOS but I removed the battery and rebooted it a couple of times and it successfully reloaded it. Then it took over a hour for Win10 updates ( :furious: ) Nice to have two more GTX970's running again. I hope it works for the R-Box as it has a 1000 W PSU but is running 2 GTX970's and an 8 thread processor.
The "monsoon" continues here with rain every day and forecasted for the next 10 days too. It does give me time to play with machines though.  biggrin

[JugNut]

Hey DM good luck with your r-box. Have you got a spare PCI-E lead on that PC?  It needs a six pin PCI-E plug to power it, it's the same as GPU's use.  I've got mine sitting next to my PC with the side panel left off and then just run the PCI-E lead out the box from the Power supply.   

IF you were to ever get any more of them it might be best to just run them from a separate PC power supply. Buying a new power supply for just one seems a waste,  but if you get any more it may be the way to go.  They draw around 100 watt each.

@ Daniel & Chooka:  Yea the prices of those older USB sticks is ridiculous isn't it?

[chooka03]

Hi Jugnuts.
I think it was a BiFury that I bid on yesterday on EBay but I made someone pay $70 for it. (Bitfury red)
Was yours $33 $USD or AUD?
I hear Bitcoins is now over $1000 so maybe that sparked a bit of interest from noobs.

[Dataman]

Hey DM good luck with your r-box. Have you got a spare PCI-E lead on that PC?  It needs a six pin PCI-E plug to power it, it's the same as a GPU uses.  I've got mine sitting next to a PC with the side panel left off and then just use a PCI-E lead comming out from the Power supply.  Buying a new power supply for just one seems a waste,  but if you get any more might be the way to go.  They draw around 100 watt.  

Yep that's what I was doing. First I had to fix it. Then blew about a kg of dust out of it so I could find the PSU  biggrin then attached another PCI-E plug to the PSU and dangled it outside the case. I considered an Avalon 6 but that is a lot of money. I could find only one R-Box on Amazon. If you see any more of them let me know. I would like to decommission the Gecko's as they are a royal pain in the backside!   My ants work fine and rarely need attention.
EDIT: BTW I found this post yesterday on how to jumper a PSU to run them with an external PSU. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=820214

[JugNut]

@ Chooka: Yea if I remember correctly my Bifury was about AU $35 with delivery. The little bugga has been as reliable as a rock too, unlike some little green Gekko's that I can think of.

Yea Bitcoins may be a lot dearer now but there also twice as hard to come by as well.

@ DM:

I would like to decommission the Gecko's as they are a royal pain in the backside!  My ants work fine and rarely need attention.

Amen to that brother...

Yea at this stage the Avalon 6 is way out of my league too maybe when they come up second hand perhaps?

PS: LOL I'm going to have to start editing my posts I little quicker in the future me thinks,  you quoted me mid edit again & quoted the old version instead of the new.(even though there's not much difference between the two:)) Oh well what ya gonna do?

[JugNut]

Yea that link is the cheapest way to get your PSU jump started.  Or you can buy theses for next to nothing on Ebay & Amazon or even better one with a switch down the page a bit.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dcomputers&field-keywords=PSU+Jumper

Or you can go the rolls royce route & get one of theses. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/301264637169?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT There cheaper on amazon though.

[chooka03]

Well we all know of my Gekko issues... Only 2/5 survived a couple of months. They are still trucking on.
I did try plugging a U1 into my powered hub the other day but found that when the U1 got stuck, it caused the Gekkos to stop also  ???
Unplug the U1 and the Gekkos started again. Strange.
Honest, I'd be tempted to sell the U1's if some fools going to pay over $60 for one.
I bought it for $20.

Clouds have finally cleared here on the Gold Coast. Enjoying a couple of days with the wife and no 3yr old.

[Dataman]

Swan Dive!
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets-bitcoin-idUSKBN14P1ID?il=0
http://www.coindesk.com/price/

[Dingo]

Still wouldn't mind a few hundred  biggrin

[Dataman]

BU has started a campaign for SETI 
Bitcoins have fallen another 12%