Topic: Addicted to hardware? (Read 6011 times)

I am now at almost 800gh here. My top floor is 80 degrees when the outside temps are in the 20's. This is insane.

However I know how to throttle down the BFL singles to <50gh and very low power consumption so I will be running everything through the summer....

Just so you know, a lot of people middle of 2013 unplugged because month-over-month they were "in the red". Had they kept their miners plugged in the entire year though they would have had less regret. Unplug if you wish, but just remember nobody knows what BTC will be priced at 12 months from now, and those small payouts could be worth $bank$...

I am DONE!! (for now, at least).  I started mining on an ATI 5450 at 15mhs.  I then added 3 more video cards and a couple of jalapeno preorders, then I added a handful of BE and red furies, for a total of 50 ghs.
Now I am watching my daily total fall to under .01 per day.  It is depressing. Sometimes I feel like I need to go back to playing warcraft.  At least then when you got ganked you had someone to blame.  But all in all, it's been very educational, and I am happy with the bitcoins I have earned.  Sometimes I look at the hashing power I have now, and think if I had it 2 years ago, I would be a millionaire, but now it;s just sad to see the scraps I resign myself to making.  

All in all, I have broken about even (not counting any residual value of the miners themselves), maybe ahead 1/2 coin or so at best.  I think the learning was worth it, so I don;t feel cheated, just sad that there is no longer room for the little guys to be "productive"

I will probably get rid of my stuff before the summer, when the waste heat will be an added expense instead of a help to heat the house (I am in Michigan)


I can always come back in with more capable hardware at a later time, when the hash to $$$ ratio  and the difficulty rises are less steep

Your utility company is going to send you christmas cards. I'm at the point where I am running this stuff with the window open in the winter and a temp on the top floor of 75F. That's nuts.

Come spring this is all going away. Between difficulty and heat it's going to be over. Ah well, good run.

Awesome! I'm in the process of refurbishing my cellar under my apartment for the purpose of putting miners in there.  It's a damp nasty hole right now, plan is to waterproof it and line it to make a geeky mining-man- cave. Ultimately the only miners actually in my home will be small USB stick miners that take very little space and make no noise. I really hope I can get the cellar finished before my 2TH/s Bitmine Rig arrives... I'm not going to be popular running that beast in our home!

I am addicted to hardware aswell, buying, selling, mining, all this for fun and BTC

I spent the last three pages reading this but the major addicts aren't speaking up.

Lets just say I've maxed out my residence and I'm looking for a new place to live/mine.  I have stolen power from all circuits except the furnace the bathroom and the washer/dryer.  That means my equipment is hogging from the Microwave, the garbage disposal, the refrigerator on top of being maxed out everywhere else.  I don't think I could run a vacuum in my abode because of this.  I've added 14 S1s since my last post and I'm looking at putting together an 8-gpu card setup next week when a frame arrives. Don't hate on Alpha-T they are just doing what Avalon did and gridseed is doing.  I have two spartan x6500s which I haven't convinced myself to set back up yet because I'm still looking for a *super* new alt with single/double digit difficulty to mine on. 

Have you too maxed out your place of residence yet? 

You need some help if you are addicted to hardware..

Luckily most will work in non PCI16 slots.
Lucky for the rest of us you are addicted to fixing stuff.
Can't wait to see your results on the cards.

Bought another power supply. Now I'm starting to work on broken ATI video cards. I DON'T EVEN HAVE A PCI16 PC! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!!!!!!!!

Ahem. I think I'm addicted to fixing things.

Very cool.
I hope I can afford an Ant S1 too.  They seem to perform well and be easy to setup.

Added an Antminer last weekend, now up around ~430gh/s total... I promise, this must be it for a while, no more room to put any more gear!! My schedule is nuts right now too, so there's no time to mess around with new gear. This is it for a while, and so far it's all running really nice, getting around .013-.014 per round at Slush...

I would say I'm more addicted to reading posts about hardware. Numismatics is becoming an obsession, that's dangerous, but profitable?

Ouch!
I'm glad my wife does not do that.
She is actually happy I have something to focus on lately.  I lucked out a bit.
I just wish I was not so dam broke. 
My Jalapeno died the other day. (bad PSU)  I sent it to lightfoot for repairs and upgrading.
It's sucking the fun out of it.  I want moar GH/s!!

Seems to be a recurring theme. If I don't get my money back I get punched in the face with no defense.

That is a good thing.
Mine is good with it too as long as everything else is paid first.

Lol, naaa... She doesn't really care, just busts my ass about it all in good fun 

Hopefully she does not make you sell you gear to pay the power bill.
That would be ironic.

Cool shirt.
How much would they take to make?
Mind you I'm broke from buying equipment.  LOL

Had a relapse...

Went almost 20 days without buying any hardware, then blew all my mined BTC on a cube and an Antminer. Cube is in hand, Antminer will probably arrive after the next difficulty increase. I bought some BTC to cover some of the Antminer purchase, didn't want my wallet totally empty... Now I'm watching prices fall and the calculators are telling me that my daily payout will be less with the new cube than it was a week ago without it. Pushing over 250ghs right now, riding out 12+ hour blocks on Slush, guessing this is the guilty and depressing side of addiction- maybe went one purchase too far. Afraid of what the wife will say when the utility bill shows up lol.

So just saw the response and thought. I just might make this for myself. Anyone else interested?

Ah mannnn.  I have 3 miners now, wanted to order two more, but she was not having it.  So i talked up one, and will work on the other one later.  Then she said, the btcs we got, are going to buy another miner.  I told her, "I love you, but yes"

LOL quite appropriate. 
Now if the wives don't kill us first will we ever recover or just wallow in the addiction?

not AA, HA

Nice to meet you.  It looks like a tv show AA meeting in here.  LOL

Hello My name is Grumpy and I'm addicted to hardware. I started with a purchase of 16 USB block eruptors then purchased a blade for no freaking reason during the $500 a blade faze. Sold the USB sticks and went balls out on a AVALON clone from china 200GH/s. Then when I reached .9BTC I purchased 3 CUBES. Now trying to get rid of the clone to purchase antminers. I feel I am deep in the addiction.

Yep Fully agreed, I live in the UK so its not cost effective but it could have been a great idea
I already own one I was just merely doing a bit of math, If you had have been over here or me over there it would have been worth while, also it isnt cost effective to purchase the equipment to do it. your in a great situation.

I'm in the US, MD. If you don't already have a jalapeno it's not a good idea. Likewise if you need to ship internationally.

Mining right now is tricky. Adding chips to an existing jalapeno makes sense, but buying a new one to do it does not. Actually buying just about any miner now does not make sense; the issue is difficulty and power increases.

C

whoopsie my bad  (best start a new thread as this could open up a can of worms I hope it doesnt tho)

So according to my maths current conversion rate from USD to GBP for 5 chips it would cost £175 plus  the cost of a jalapeño say £350 give or take depending how lucky your are, that makes it £525 plus a H100 at £100 = £625 plus postage and your time.... my maths says its cheaper to purchase a pre built rig?? I am assuming this is something you do over time and add to when you have spare funds...

I just had a look at your thread on how you do it.... Gotta say its pretty bloody impressive 

Also are you in the US by any chance.... 

LOL Ok I was just not sure.
I am closer to have the BTC to get chips and send a Jalapeno to you. 

No. No no no no no no no.

It looks like one set is avalon 1 chips and the other is avalon 2.
Do either work in the Jalapenos?

No no no no no. Butterfly labs chips, Lentbt2 sells them on Ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BFL-Chips-IN-HAND-Not-credits-BTC-ASIC-Avalon-fpga-/201021115217?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ecdcacb51

ok just to clarify what avalon chips
this one : http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/16-x-Avalon-asic-chips-/321306668029?pt=UK_Computing_Other_Computing_Networking&hash=item4acf5eabfd

or

this one: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A3255-Q48-avalon2-avalon-asic-chip-Avalon-main-chip-bitcoin-mining-machine-/121264087148?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item1c3be7206c

If you want to drop me pm feel free.

Sure, it requires chips, a Corsair H100 water cooler, 300 watt power supply, bolts, lots of heat sinks, and time.

But if you would like something a bit more sane, I can do a 5 chip unit that will probably not push things past the edge. Grab some chips from Ebay and send them over. 5 seems to be the optimal number, 19gh-20gh based on your original chips.

Same here. Keeps me out of trouble. That's a good thing.

C

I have 3 of them.  They are very addictive.

I'm pretty new to it all but I am pretty addicted as well. I've done my fair share of research but everyday I seem to learn something new. After about a month of research and trying to decide if this was a hobby I wanted to pursue I mistakenly ordered a BFL 30 device. Luckily for me, it arrived within a week right after thanksgiving (I have no idea how!). That what got me cooking. After the purchase is when I learned about all the horror stories of BFL shipping and power supplies (knock on wood). I've since been able to acquire a Chili Miner and just ordered a Block Erupter Cube as well (first group buy), slowly just reinvesting my earnings as of now. That initial BFL purchase sucked compared to what I am getting hardware for now. Feel like I got raped on that deal, but at least I got the hardware so no complaints here. I would still consider myself a noob however, and just wish I got in earlier, but who doesn't?

More to the point how on earth did you squeeeeeze that much hashing power out of that little jalapeño, If you can make that again count me in and ill hand over some BTC  

After reading almost all this thread I agree that mining is definitely addictive, for me its more about squeezing as much as I can out of things, I originally started early last year on a HD7970 just to have a go. Im not made of money and dont have thousand to spare but I did manage to grab a little 5gh jalapeño and get it clocked to 8gh and then ended up buying a couple of the old 20 chip bitburner xx boards and got them running at around 8.4gh each so not huge amounts but I am always looking out for bargains and bits to add to it. 

Oh and my mrs thinks its great as she knows where im at 90% of the time      

One step at a time to be honest. Started with a 5gh jally, then flashed it, then started thinking about more chips, then one thing led to another....

And here, as they say, we are. Basically it requires a will to try new things and wonder what the worst that can happen is.

C

Cool, that sounds fun. How do you go about doing that?

Very cool.
If I tied to add chips I would burn the whole house down. LOL

Heh. I'm not going to Amtminers, this addiction has to stop with BFL stuff.

Speaking of which I managed to add a good 20gh of performance to my single/25 here. Now up to 48gh; I might add one more chip ust to bring it to a nice even 50gh. Yep, addict. :-)

C

"My name is activescott and I'm a haashahollic"

Reading this thread pushed me over the edge and I bid on that antminer S1 on ebay. So let me know when the next meeting is

Oddly enough I am bored after getting jallies to 8 chips. So I found a new challenge:

Get a BFL Single/25 to 60gh. This will be interesting... I'm keeping a thread over here:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.4624265

What's the worst that can happen?

C

LMAOOOOOOO that's funny and true.

So are girlfriends, until they are duly educated and indoctrinated. I had to laugh when I read this ^^^.

Oh boy. Self analysis is a bitch.

My name is RootDude and I, too am addicted to mining... Started out with a really cool purchase of a 30x BE setup (including all fans, hubs, etc. to get started)... GF saw all the action and wanted in once she saw the potential in BTC... and from there it became a full-blown clusterfuck of incoming and outgoing gear - trading up every time an opportunity presented itself. Racing home from work to meet the delivery guy and throwing the new rig on the USB hub and jumping back in the car to my real job. Sweating (literally) late deliveries in the face of rising difficulty... Can I get a hallelujah from those of you that have done this multiple times a week?

Once I tuned in to the rest of the world (pre-order anxiety and difficulty adjustments) I talked myself out of ASICs and straight BTC mining and am now awaiting my GPU gear to do alts and trading to satisfy my urges. I read 'Pics of your mining rig' posts before anything else in the forums getting ideas for how my next one should be set up... At least in the alt/GPU world, difficulties are relatively steady as opposed to BTC, and a new GPU can fend off a small dent in profitability. I curse Alpha-T and hope they are the frauds everyone thinks they are. I don't do pre-orders because it gives me hives and angina.

That is my testimony.

Oh, and money? Will my stuff ROI? Probably when I sell it after mining and trading a while. During all of my incoming and outgoing purchases I managed to 'bank' a couple of BTC which I'm hanging on to with sharp claws. I'd never spend BTC to mine BTC... seems counter intuitive to me. YMMV.

Peace,
RootDude

Yes they are.
Now if they thought of it like shoes we would have unlimited amounts of gear. LOL

It's also the coolest system I have running at 45c. That corsair is exceptionally good.

I have a write up with more pics over here.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=336782.0;topicseen

Well worth the read.

well said!

I still use my point and shoot camera from 2006 when I travel and my HTC Arrive for day-to-day stuff. Everyone assumes I have an SLR because of how my pictures come out, helps that know my way around all the manual settings and a bit about composition. My wife and her friends always say "You're phone takes the best pictures, wish mine did that!" lol, yeah "the phone" took a good picture, not the guy using it... Very good point though, I know so many people that dump big bucks on an SLR camera and they know dick about photography, kinda sad because the things I could do with a nice SLR someday...

Forget the ROI...  well, maybe not completely.  Let's face it, mining satisfies the geek part of us that wants to tinker with technology and it also satisfies the speculative (gambling) part of us that's trying to earn income (in btc).

How much did I spend building building PC's with premium parts 20 years ago? (oops, just dated myself).  How much did I spend on fishing gear and fishing trips?  I have 2 friends from work that just did a custom-build on a PC for over a thousand $.  I have FOUR friends from work that bought this Mark 5D camera or something like that for over $2K!!   My camera is a point and shoot Samsung and the Nexus 4 so I can't understand that.  My brother and brother-in-law have spent thousands on golf.

So...  when people say we're stupid or dumb because we didn't calculate not getting our ROI...  Just say the truth!  This is a hobby.  and hobbies cost money.  If this hobby turns out to be profitable, well, we can turn around and say to them see!  I told you so!!!   

That's sick!! Can you post more pics?

My final blade should arrive tomorrow, and thus my backplane will be maxed out. Scored it for .25btc on a group buy, bringing my avg cost down further. I'm all out of power outlets and now my only choice is to let it run a while. My total speed will be around 225-230gh/s.

Someone is selling a backplane with PSU and 10 blades for $2k on eBay. I'm not gonna buy it, and I know the blades are one foot out the door, but it's almost tempting... Like any good addict, "I'm not a quitter!!"- but I will be doing my best to make no changes for the next 2 months.

This is the worse addiction, to date.  I started with an upgraded cube and some eruptor cubes.  After I got an idea of the process, I convinced my wife to purchase our first Antminer 180.  I'm waiting for it in the mail.  I even got her to agree to another antminer, but we just had an unexpected expense pop up, so it's been put on hold.  We will see what happens next month. 

Well, in the "utter orgasm of performance", I now have a Jalapeno that has gone from 5gh to 32gh. :-)



Just hit the 200gh club, I think at this point I'm going to stop doing things and let this stuff cycle down....

C

if you look at btcguild rankings, you'll see stats that attribute 80 TH to one single Usergroup.  Where's THAT guy? I used to think I was hot shit with my paultry 620 GH until I saw those rankings.  Still growing up to a TH soon.  I'm not out of btc yet either which is nice.  I've found it more addictive to lurk btc-e and cryptsy instead.  I absolutely love trading and viewing the swings and will occasionally check my hashrate based on both audible noise of the avalon, the solid lights of my BE array, and the occasional check of stats at the pool.  I didn't buy my hardware at once, it came gradually. 

KNC mercury
Bitfury Full kit
Block Erupters
Avalon 80 GH unit

Soon to add some Antminers.  Yes brothers, I too am a Haashaholic.  On the plus, you can get your GF/Wife to buy In...just explain it clearly....and cite the examples of the man who dropped 24 dollars in 2010 as well as the other guy who lost his HDD in UK...that helped me.  Also to those being misogynistic, you just got me in trouble you dicks!  Stock acting like the majority you MINORITIES!      GF quoted - "bring home something nice that was purchased from mining cryptocurrency (yes her words, she knows about altcoins too!)  She'll be more open to it because its a visual example"

I hear you there buddy!
Try living with someone who won't leave the house unless every single plug socket is turned off at the wall (apart from the fridge of course, because that's perfectly safe!!!)

Wives are the single biggest drag on the global hash speed.

Bwahahaha ... I feel your pain 

Dam...thought this thread was offering up hardware @ good price point.

I'm trying really hard to keep my level of participation in this whole BTC thing at the "dabbling" or "hobby" level. It's so very tempting to jump on some of the larger 200+ G/s units, and pre-orders, and so on... but I know the wife-aggro would be immense. Still, I'm already spending more on hardware than I set out to, and do indeed have a pre-order waiting.

God stuff. Is it just me or is the idea of possibly making money just as addictive? I got into the game late and got burnt by bad choices. Nothing to crazy but still got burnt. I was able to recoup some monies. Then came along a 210 GH/s rig priced at 2050 and it was over. The part of my brain that likes the idea of possibly making mony took over. Now at the moment have only 10GH\s blade making me .01 btc every 3 days. But the idea of making money with the rig that will be here in 4 days keeps me optimistic. I know I will not get rich but at least I dabbled in it. O and spend your coins and be a BITCOIN avangilist the more people that know the bigger it will grow.

You have a good point here: The mining bug is really seductive.

I started mining with a 5gh Jalapeno on 1-September, mined a bitcoin, then started tweaking it and such to get to bitcoin 2. After that the price of bitcoin exploded, and I started really fiddling.

How I have been slaking this thirst is by only buying new miners with Bitcoin, and trying to only buy things that will give a positive return from mining.thegenesisblock.com. The big thing has been BFL chips; I can get a 100% return on investment by buying them for .05btc, installing them, and I will get .1btc back per chip.

And I bought a pair of jalapenos from BFL for $400, then promptly upgraded them to 28gh units with extra chips. They will easily ROI, even at current levels.

It's resulting in my mining area looking like a web of wires, but it is keeping me interested in mining. But man I have serious temptations to buy stuff on Ebay. Just got to keep reminding myself that the right way to do it is to use one's brains and not just toss money into the hole.

C

Currently hashing 160gh with two 28gh jallies, two 20gh jallies, two 16gh jallies, a 35gh chili, and a block erupter. Fun stuff.

LOL I totally woulda bought one too if you hadn't said that.

Could be taken totally the wrong way... 

Would you guys want a shirt that said HAASHAHOLICS ANONYMOUS? I'm trying to get into the game and all I have to offer is to make you guys some cool shirts hahah.

No worries.   lol

Touché, must've missed that... Meanwhile, the entire rest of this board molests the term on a daily basis lol...

Yes, that's why I said "positive ROI" when I brought it up. I'm not expecting my hardware to pay for itself in dollars anytime soon.

Hello Hashaholics Anonymous,

My name is CDogster and I am addicted to hashing hardware.  It has been less than 1 second since my last hash and I will likely be hashing again in the next second.  I am currently hashing at 50 GH/s and the bitcoin gateway currency has led me to begin hashing in litecoin.  With merged mining of namecoin, I expect no end to my addiction and will likely dabble in the other cyrpto currencies.

How much is the fee for Hashaholics Anonymous and can I pay in bitcoin?

Sincerely,
CDogster

I mean traditionally, ROI is not a metric used for projections, only on these forums, and it's incorrect. ROI happens the moment you plug in, it is measured as a ratio, and is negative when you are not profitable. Even if negative, it's still considered the level of "ROI". Also, many of us are buying only the initial investment in USD, and subsequent purchases are made with BTC. At that point, to achieve positive ROI on units bought with BTC we are trying to clear the number of BTC spent, exchange is important but not necessary for ROI calculations. "ROI" and academics can be discussed endlessly here, but what we ultimately all can agree on is that we are seeking profits as the reward for our strategic decisions.

I think I am realizing that addiction is starting to set in for me... Split a cube with a buddy a few weeks ago.. Then bought 1 solo... Then another. Looked at ants a thousand times... More cubes... Every preorder available. I am trying to pull myself back. I am starting to get the feeling that I can't keep up with the difficulty. I know this should be treated as a hobby... For now... But it is hard to stop this bug. I check on the cubes more than my kids. I really enjoy it but where does it stop? I feel way behind the curve at only 115ghash. I've been back an forth on multiple preorders for Th/s. I'm right there with u. I'm at work and thinking about mining won't let me focus on my actual job!

I'm pretty new to mining in general, but can definitely see myself joining a local HA chapter someday soon!

For me it's more the gadget factor/tinkering side of things that I love - I've got a Pi mining away at the moment with 3 Antminer U1s, and will have a go at soldering an LCD display for it later (if you don't see any future posts from me, it probably went horribly wrong!!!)
To be honest, I'd probably invest a hell of a lot more than I already have, but my GF insists on turning every switch in the house off at the wall before we leave every morning (borderline OCD!), so I'd only really get 12 hours a day mining time from any hardware, which would obviously kill any potential ROI...

It's not "a future date" it's whenever you happen to cash out. If you never cash out then you'll never know if you have any returns. If you happen to cash out the day before it all crashes to $0 your ROI is going to be a lot better than the next guy who doesn't. The Bitcoin market is so unstable it's really impossible to know what's going to happen. Never paying back your expenses is a real possiblity, as is making a tidy profit. The whole thing is crazy, which is why I'm just sticking my toe in for fun and not diving in.

Your thinking of ROI is flawed, it is a trailing measure, not something to be used for projections of profit. I believe for all of us the deciding factor will be the underlying valuation of BTC at a future date, regardless of when you started mining if it goes to $10k we all will be winners, and $0, well you get the point...

I too wish I looked into all of this a year ago, or even 6 months ago. I just started in December, and it's too late. I know I'll never get a positive ROI on the gear I'm picking up. So I'm treating it like a flat-out expenditure on computer hardware.



I'm getting that "look" too. So I'm watching my spending. Heh.

It's crazy but this venture into mining helped me score an A in my MBA Econ class. Basically, whenever short on examples from my career, I would just use BTC mining for applying concepts, and it worked out great! Over 14 years investing in stocks and it was never "fun" the way this is, and the people are fun to chat with, and I learned a ton about hardware and networking. Not to mention, the mining equip is always a good conversation piece when friends stop over.


I've got one friend who wanted to be infected, but his wife was too skeptical lol... I could just tell she ain't gonna let him go there with the dollars. He'd ask a question, she'd give him "the look"

My guess is that the original post probably summed up things for a lot of people. I too am addicted to hardware and have infected 3 other people. Now I get instant messages all day from them 'how do I do this? 'whats this mean?' they are friends so its fun.

Nope, I have definitely NOT made the money back.

But, I have been enjoying the tinkering, keeping the miners going, learning a lot, communicating with some knowledgeable people here.

But, I did get the wife on board when I told her to go do her Christmas shopping with computer generated cash. That was a mistake. LOL. 

I haven't made all my money back, but that will ride entirely on the shoulders of where BTC is trading at on a future date unknown. I've also got some units in the mail, paid for but not in use. I know what you mean, the cost of inputs has been rising, but don't forget that has also been offset by appreciation in BTC valuation; basic supply/demand theory makes this predictable where increasing inputs shift the supply curve left, result in shortage, and thus a higher priced output as buyers bid it up.

I think it was the idea that you are pretty much printing money. It seems like you guys made all your money back on the Initial investment and is just riding the waive. Nice to hear that I just wish I jumped in at the same time you guys did. Now you need like 10000 just to make a dent. Shoulda woulda coulda.

We think a lot alike... My plan is to hit 3-4btc before I do anything drastic, for many of the same reasons you indicate. Also agree on the preorder avoidance strategy.

I just got my Antminer S1 and it now comes with the 6 pin PCI-E plug so you can just plug in your psi wires.  The setup is pretty easy.  It's also really quiet.  Compared to my BFL Singles, I can barely tell it's on.

Heh, we should start a club.

HAASHAHOLICS ANONYMOUS !

HAAA !!  

But, I really know where you are coming from.

Started getting into BTC in May, got some graphics cards, got some block erupters way back in the day (even one on ebay for an insane amount of money, it's still hashing).

Then went into a group buy and went overboard on units, group buy got all messed up, eventually got all my K16 units (that was a pain). In the meantime, my Jalepenos arrived from BFL (another fucked up situation there), but not before I got some hashing stuff on E-bay (which was a good decision, actually, hashpower in hand, relatively early in the difficulty numbers game).

BTC went to $1000 so that was nice. Helped ROI a great deal.

Now, I had some BTC lying around still, and recently got my first Antminer on January 2nd from Christmas group buy. It is hashing nicely. I'm getting my hashing kicks now re-using the old graphics cards for LTC. That is fun.

Ebay is nice, but it was a royal pain to sell some of my older units, ship them, deal with paypal (one buyer refunded), and but, it helped put funds back in the old wallet.

I hear your pain. My advice. Let it build up to 3 BTC or so, mine for month or two, wait for some developments. Don't go crazy buying stuff like I did. It is fun, but it is a pain in the butt sometimes too. I'm running out of power in my "authorized hashing rooms" by the wife. LOL.

My standard policy now is not to do preorders, at all, ever. I don't care how good the numbers sound, or what the price per gh is. If it does not ship when my money clears and not on my doorstep in 3-4 days, I'm not buying it. End of story.

 The Antminer S1 180GHs units are fairly easy to set up, IMO.

Oh man, I could've written this post myself!
In November I got 2 Jalapeno's, 7GH/s and 8GH/s.
Since then I added 2 Little SC (60GH/s each) 3 Cubes, plus a handful of Block Erupters and Antminer U1 USB sticks (they just look cool!)

Sitting at about 220GH/s total (a little less right now, one of the PSU's died so I'm down a cube until Monday)
Oh and I have a few shares of Round 17 and 22 of DZMinerCoop's group buys... (another ~100GH/s though not yet online)

The problem is the constant desire for MORE HASHRATE
Looking at Antminer S1s next...but trying hard to hold off.

I was all proud of my blades up until I saw the Antminer! Eh, someone was saying they are tricky to setup though, I dunno, guess I gotta talk myself out of it somehow for the time being... My schedule gets crazy in 3 weeks so my window to act is probably too short anyways. Agree though, they are tempting...

I'm actually not mining on anything right now, unless you count the pair (yes, 2) BEs that I use for testing. I literally sold all my other miners and bought a whole ton of Monarch Pre-orders. Shhhh, don't tell anyone, they'll jump all over your ass if they find out you bought from BFL. It'll be our little secret.

It kinda bothers me not hashing at all. But hopefully it'll be worth it in a few months. We shall see.

But yes, those AntMiners are very tempting. I ALMOST bought a ton of them, but the Monarchs went on sale, so I went with those instead. If anyone was looking at buying hashrate and wanted it in-hand ASAP (no pre-orders), I'd say those AntMiners are right at the top of the list.

Out of curiosity, what are you mining with?

I feel like although these Antminer units are nice looking, not many newbies will touch them due to price. Feeling as if I worked my way into a system that I could technically dump for an Antminer seems tempting, but two months ago I never would have even glanced at something that expensive. Once this bug bites it's hard to shake the desire to constantly upgrade...

I hate feeling like the network is growing without me. If the network increases by 30% and I've only grown by 25%, I feel squirmy. When I grow by 65% and the network's only grown by 45%, I feel like I could fuck anything with two legs.

I'm constantly looking at buying/selling. I buy when I see a good deal, and I sell when I'm looking to upgrade and I need the funds. Pretty simple.

Have you looked at any group buys?

I feel you just phishing. I'm a deal hunter but get your hustle on bro.

I just revisited my cost sheets and it looks like my average cost was $324 per blade. However, 3 of them were bought with BTC that I mined, but I did a price conversion to find cost at the time of purchase on them. Anyways, I'd expect Ebay would work out better if I do decide to do it, obviously I'd be looking to maximize my return to offset the downtime associated with turning over the rig for a new one. It's weird, I really like the blade setup, it allowed me to expand at a reasonable pace that I could handle. I'm hoping, although they aren't the most efficient thing out anymore, that maybe they are still useful for at least a few more weeks.

Lately I've been assuming 2%/day hashrate growth, which is actually low compared to what we've seen over the last 6 months.

If you wanna dump some blades let me know. I would be interested.

I'm seeing that some things look like they will pass into profitable range but it might take months, and yes I understand difficulty. I mean, power costs aside for this, but it seems like a cube can and will mine back .75 over 4 months or more, obviously after the first month it covers less ground. But, I know what you are saying, and the margin does look rather thin even if there is room for profitability, but it's still close enough that throwing coins at the group buys keeps pulling me in. Either way, I'm at a stopping point for now, time will tell. Thing that sucks is I'm still wrestling with the decision of flipping gear on eBay...

It's easier once you do the math and realize that at current prices most devices for sale are very likely to produce less BTC than they cost.

If you're looking to walk away with fewer BTC than you started with, I'm pretty sure I could sell you a little box with fans and blinkenlights for an amazing price.

So I have found myself at an interesting crossroads... I have built up my rig a bit, most recently through using group buys and spending BTC. I started out in early November with a BFL Jalapeño 7.5gh/s ($260 via eBay, back in November this seemed unheard of). After that I was enamored with how cool a Raspberry Pi with erupters looked, so I got myself 9 erupters at $11 each; it's got an LCD ticker display and is more of a desk ornament and conversation piece than anything. As time went I got into blades, eventually working my way up to 10, with an average cost of $300 each. Lowest was $220 and highest was $415, also bought some with BTC. My most foolish purchase was a cube at $1,100 right when they came out, but the unit has been a good performer so I recently got another one on a group buy .75 BTC, it's arriving any day. Now I've got almost another .75 ready to dump on one more cube, .5 of which was bought when BTC dipped to $500, and then I really just want to let these things mine uninterrupted for a few months. Getting cubes on the group buy helps to lower my average cost on the one I rushed into when they first came out. But, there's a problem...

I am seeing the blade demand dry up rather quickly, as expected. With the amount of network traffic and space they occupy I'm beginning to wonder if the hidden costs of running blades is more apparent with more self-contained units available. I could probably eBay my blades and count on breaking even or turning a small profit, but the frenzy seems to be over, that is unless BTC breaks $1,000 again sometime soon. Selling the blades would leave me with enough cash to buy BTC and get an Antminer 180gh/s, but I'd also have downtime due to sales and shipping, along with the pain in the ass factor of tearing apart my backplane that I spent a few weeks building up.

I guess what I am wondering, how many others here struggle with the constant pressure to reinvest BTC? And how often do you consider dumping equipment to purchase something newer? This is almost like a personal question, with no right or wrong answer. I'm just surprised that the psychological pull mining has is more than I expected. Initially I got into mining because I didn't want to be saddled with the psychological baggage of a cost basis, certainly if I bought BTC on the exchange at $250 I probably would have closed my position around $500. With mining I never felt anxiety during price appreciation, and even the 30+% pullback on China news didn't affect me, just kept mining and having fun. What has been tricky is this addictive feeling, almost impulsiveness to spend my BTC on more equipment, partially because it's fun, and partially because the group buys have better deals than retail.

Fwiw, my total gh/s right now is around 150 when everything is hot and my cube is oc'd. New cube arrives and then one more shortly after, that will push me up to around ~210gh/s, assuming my router doesn't choke on all the traffic. I just keep thinking about this idea to dump a bunch of equipment and hop on an Antminer, but on the other hand I'm really thinking I owe it to myself to just let this equipment mine for at least a few months without any downtime. I tend not to get hung up on profit just yet because much of that really lies in the underlying value of the output, Bitcoin, and on that I am still bullish. I have recently considered switching to other coins as a hedge, but there's an added layer of risk in trying to leverage other coins versus just mining BTC directly. This still is, and always was, just a hobby for me; I'm happily employed and am not looking to dump all my earnings from my day job into mining, but I am an Econ nerd and love this stuff (but not much of a gadget guy and don't enjoy hardware tinkering much). It's just funny how when I started I was so excited about one .05btc weekly payout, and now like an addict I'm aiming for 1 or 2 per day, continually spending what I mine to acquire more equipment. The cold hard fact is after my next cubes I'm out of electrical plugs on my rack, so it seems like a reasonable stopping point for that alone, if nothing more.