Topic: Butterfly Labs invests heavily in high speed production equipment - page 9. (Read 32321 times)

Well, you are free to question and berate them in my stead. Someone has to do it.

I and others will just simply post what we find and folks can decide whether the money is worth the risk or not.

There is that risk as you say. They can still make tons of mistakes or find that hardware problems crop up during final assembly. I am not necessarily disagreeing with you.

To me (at least IMO) they seem to have some kind of past experience in shipping equipment that people order. There was an idea being foisted on the forums that they weren't capable of such. So this is (for me at least) a notch in the right direction.

Like you say, they may eventually deliver a working ASIC machine just like any of the other 5 (4?) competitors. It is a major roll of the dice on who will get through the fabrication process without any costly mistakes. Like the other member I am looking for mining equipment and the truth behind the rumors.

I don't care if the mining equipment has BFL, Avalon or BASIC logos. I just don't want to lose money like anyone else.

Right now there are tons of FUD floating around and some of it seems baseless. The Ebay thing was one of the things that made me pause and reconsider. Do I doubt they purchased the equipment? Well, time will tell when they gloat about how many devices they can put together in-house or at their local .

If they don't gloat about their expensive purchase when/if it arrives, then I am sure more than *I* would be worried. Personally I would be more worried that they actually use it correctly than anything else. Perhaps you can put in a request to have Inaba pose for the camera? hehe

The only infrastructure shown in the content linked above would appear to be a couple guys assembling products on a table along with their brown-bag lunch, with some Nexel shelves in the background full of parts.  Not even so much as an ESD bracelet visible.

Certainly nothing like the facilities pictured in the link in the OP, which claims "These units are currently being installed in our new facility."  Then a couple days later, when called out on the origin of the photos, states "they're in transit".

Maybe that'll happen. But also remember that those Avalon units aren't all going to be $1300. The next ones will be $2000 if I remember correctly.

[Speculation]

I'd bet the only thing the Avalon company is happy about is that BFL just ate through some headroom in both Heat and Power consumption. Hopefully BFL overspec'ed their power and heat dissipation system to handle the unexpected increase. If they [Avalon] wait until BFL is done with the recent upgrades and announce some higher specs themselves....

That's got to cost BFL money and time with each upgrade...

How does that prove anything? BFL hasn't made anything in house yet, they just put the pieces together. Once their equipment is set up it will be the first time they can do in house board fab.

I have no doubt BFL will have a real product eventually. I just don't like the way the go about releasing information in a somewhat deceitful way. They need a serious lesson in public relations since that is the source of their bad reputation.

Luckily the community has been calling them out and being very vocal (asic main-net testing, ebay pictures) in order to ensure their transparency... but that community shouldn't have to do that, BFL should be up front about it from the getgo.

I also found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66KHMmbnQ_Y

Seems the idea that BFL doesn't have any infrastructure is not based on anything real.

And even Avalon have acknowledged that BFL's specs are very possible and that they see them as a serious competitor.

Before BFL's competition came along, the tin foil hat guys claimed that such specs are impossible and that the whole thing is a scam. Now they either find new reasons or I guess they assume that all of the competition and even forum moderators and other major people in the bitcoin community are all in the conspiracy together. Let's ignore the fact that these people have been accepting bank wires and paypal payments and that their full names have been disclosed to the public.

Being skeptical is one thing. Maybe they aren't as cool and collected as they seem. Maybe they are far behind schedule and won't ship the products until much later. Some people have some legitimate questions that I'm sure BFL will soon answer. But attacking them over every tiny little thing and accusing them of being major scammers with ZERO evidence and despite the fact that they have already proven themselves to be a legitimate business shipping real products... I just can't wrap my head around how people can be this stupid.

This same shit happened over at Open Pandora. People accused them of being scammers. People said their product would never ship. Yet thousands of people now own and love Pandoras. This same shit happened with Pier Solar. Oh, it's vaporware. They are just going to run with the money. But I now have a factory sealed copy of Pier Solar sitting on my shelf. This same shit happens everywhere. Do people get scammed with bitcoins? Sure. But the successful scammers always do it in a very smart way where they won't get caught. How on earth would BFL get away with this? Someone should make a documentary about this shit all Loose Change style. I'd watch it and eat popcorn while my shiny new BFL product is mining me some bitcoins.

Found this old photo of their "Production line" for the FPGA-based Mini Rigs:

http://www.butterflylabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/IMG_3122.jpg

I wish I could find the one again of the old QA lady with the soldering iron.

Edit: Also some customer photos here of the inside of an assembled one: http://imgur.com/a/Uanjr

I've been mining for 6 months with my gaming rig, as I don't have the capital to invest in a dedicated mining system. I slowly accrued fractions of a bitcoin mining a few hours a day with a 5670 before upgrading to a 6870. I've read through hundreds of pages on this forum about how the entire system works. I'm a college student studying electrical engineering, and I'm very good at electronics design and dabble in python coding. I read through the source for poclbm and figured that phoenix is more efficient and a better overall system. I have earned a couple of hundred dollars from mining, and if I'm going to put it into an ASIC, I'm going to be damn sure it's worth it. I'm a low risk trader. I'm not betting my hard earned money on anything less than 100%. I'm not a newbie, I just want a concrete answer.

No fan,as of now or when the rendering was released,it is passively cooled.

Look at the guys Inaba/BFL_Josh is arguing with,the SAME ONE'S over & over & over again.I get annoyed myself.He's actually being polite  

I have a BFL FPGA Single,I have been very happy with it,other than the 72F enviroment thing.But this has been addressed & will not be a problem with the ASIC I've been told.

Check this thread out : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/wait-list-bfl-singles-order-date-ship-date-77796

No one has released anything more that expected hashrates & possible power consumption & a possible delivery date...................to keep an advantage over the competition.

I'm assuming you don't do any mining or ever have,therefore nothing to use as a baseline for a decission.

You'll have to make up your own mind,I nor anyone else can do that for you,sorry.

Rumors are just that RUMORS  

+1



Seems about right for something that should roughly (speculation) consume only 4.5watts of power. The rendering doesn't give any hints that it is actively cooled. Perhaps this is why they could not "bump" the chip to the same degree as the 60Gh/s system.

Renderings are nice, but it's only a rendering. Making a model like that in solidworks takes about 2  minutes. I haven't really seen Inaba comment on the Jalapeno's status at all, anywhere on the forum. Maybe I've been in all the wrong threads? They all have titles like 'BFL HUGE SCAM' and 'OMGWTFBBQ BFL', but that's all there is. No balance to this discussion at all.

Yes a rendering of the Jalapeno,Inaba say's its pretty close at this moment.But who knows,it could change.

What pic is this?  You mean the rendering?

Pics of FPGA products don't count.

I know I say this at the risk of sounding butthurt, but Inaba just seems short tempered and quick to make rude comments. In anyone trying to convince me that they're legitimate, this makes me less trustful than ever. I understand that you guys are dealing with a truly huge mass of rumors about your product, but I just wanted to read up so I can form an educated opinion. The problem is that there seems to be almost no information whatsoever about your product or anything relating to it that I can use to form an opinion. There isn't much information from any of the other ASIC-offering companies, but they don't have tons of rumors flying about them, either. I was interested in a Jalapeno, because I could afford one, but all this vitriol and conspiracy business has really put me off. I don't know if I can trust BFL because of what I've seen here. I previously had no concerns at all, but Inaba always seems evasive or abusive, rather than explaining, or explaining why he cannot explain. All I want is a thread from BFL's point of view on the whole topic, but I'm not getting anything. Everything I've been linked to has been exceedingly useless. It makes me feel like I'm being sent on a wild goose chase, and then told to shut up because I'm in the same thread as more extreme people.

Aww did I insult you ?? I'm sorry 

You have no reasoning dude,that's the point.............

Yes "they" do,so does BFL,even a pic of one thier products (may change but a pic nonetheless).No one else has pic yet of any product.

Everyone is only letting enough info out,so as not to give the competition an advantage,is that so hard to understand (aimed at squid).

Bitminter is a mining pool.Heck,Deepbit's Tycho responds quickly & is very clear too,same for Slush's pool & EMC