Topic: Email from Avalon - page 2. (Read 6243 times)

I like building things under 500W. None of the major manufacturers have released a 500W miner in the last year or so. One of the design ideas I've had for over a year, if I had 1000 boards right now with even the same efficiency as S7 or Avalon6 I'd be shipping them all out tomorrow.

By only building miners in the 1KW+ range, mining manufacturers are alienating a lot of the customer base. They're focusing on the wealthy (or gambling) few and ignoring everyone else. From a pure profit standpoint it makes sense, since one lump sum is always more desirable than a thousand small payments; having one customer to deal with is better than a thousand customer; the guy willing to put in a million dollars will probably have more intelligent questions than the average consumer. But I'm an average consumer and I generally give very few rats-asses about what the wealthy are doing so if I'm going to build a miner, I'd just as soon build it for the guys like me.

That said, I am probably better equipped to build a miner than most, given six years at University with three undergrad degrees in computer and electrical engineering, plus I've spent the last two years building up a small electronics manufacturing facility. I agree, miner design and production are difficult; I know this because I've been doing it. The thing about my "competitive designs" are, they're not competing directly with what the big guys are producing. I'm aiming for entirely different market sectors that are, at present, left completely bare of options.
I'm not going into miner production for self-mining. I could, if I wanted to; I could clear all the customers out of my 100KW hosting and stock it with my own gear and probably make more money in the long run. But why should I, when I can sell the miners, make a satisfactory amount of money and help other folks stay in the game when nobody else seems to think they're worth the time of day?

At the end of the day, selling chips to guys like me still makes you more money because you're not going to sell fewer of your 1000W machines. You're going to be getting paid for the chips that go into the 100W or 400W machines we'd be selling to the people who wouldn't be buying your 1000W machines anyway.

So far, Bitmain's the only outfit that's actually gotten me chips. That was over a year ago. They were unwilling to even talk about BM1385, even after the S7 was released. To be honest, I'd rather not seek chips from Bitmain as I disagree with some of their business practices. They don't start selling anything until it's good and ready to ship, or at most about two weeks out. I respect that. But price gouging, profiteering, rampant self-mining, unreliable designs and selling obviously used gear as new I'm not so fond of. That pretty much leaves Bitfury and Avalon. Up until the A3218 generation, Avalon had a history of working well with independent developers and building pretty solid hardware so I'd rather work with them if I had a choice.

That should be an adequate summary of my different opinion.

If you sold him a7 chips with documentation he could build good gear.

One problem with the a6 vs the a4.1 was it was locked via software.

That works for many farms but for some of us an unlocked miner has more value.
The problem with just about all chip builders is they rather gear to bigger farms.

I did a lot of work to help sell a6s to the guy with limits to cheap power.

I am in a joint venture on a larger but not huge solar array.

The power is cheap actually cheaper then most can do.
If we mine 8-11kwatts  year round the net power cost would be under 2 cents.

But that is all the power we have on the 2.5 acre spot.
So an a7 with the downclock under lot option is better for us.

We could just buy a few more and down clock while the starting cost would be higher for us in the long run the better efficiency allows for more hash power.

10 at 10 th using 10 kwatts is 100 th
12 at 9 th using    10 kwatt is 108 th
Both bitmaintech and Avalon did not offer easy under clock down volt the last round.

I know side hack could build a more efficient miner with quality chips.

A lot of people are anti Asian when it comes to asics.

I personally do not care where gear is made or where chips are made.
But I do care that you won't sell chips to people that want them.
By you I mean every ASIC builder simply won't part with chips.

I understand you want to make money , but having your chips in other peoples designs would make you money not cost you money.

I also understand you can't tell us all the why of your selling tactics. There are restrictions. Set by your company I don't think help your company long term.

Just remember at least 75 percent of all ASIC gear is in China.
Not safe to have all your eggs in one basket.
Suppose USA elects Donald Trump and he decides to default on the debt.
We all know,he has done this time and time again.
With his businesses.

Since USA owes more to,China then any country it would rock your world.
It would be nice to know more of your gear was in another spot then China.
In case there is a lot turmoil due to the default.

Also multiple plants with chips and build gear protects you from earthquakes floods etc.

Sense miner design and production become a very difficult (mainly about cost, timing, supply chain, manufacture, software, etc...)job, I hardly believe any 3rd party can do a competitive design. I think anyone (who is not in present industry )should give up for self-miner-production-for-self-mining . Or you have different opinion?

Any way I can get any information from you guys about the A7 chip? Or even the A6 chip? Not a single one of my inquiries about anything have been responded to since last June so I gave up after about six months of trying.

I had set up a big sale of Avalon4 units between Canaan-Creative and a guy I was consulting for who was starting a farm. He ended up never paying for the order (a problem the guy had often, which is why I use the past tense in regard to my dealing with him; I was tired of facilitating his laziness screwing people) so I assume I've been officially spurned on my deadbeat client's behalf but I'd really like that to change.

Impossible.

A7 is a very different (much much more optimized ) design. In both ASIC and system side. So... like every time... 


Sooner or later. 

Yeah upgrade board could be awesome. I do think that home mining need to go in that way. Reuse old heatsink and braket.

Agreed, Phil.  That's why I asked .

I have 8 avalon 6's

It would be nice if the board could be set to the old heatsink and the case, fan, internal controller all were used along with the 2 heat sinks.

The savings on shipping would be huge.

It may have already been asked (that was sarcasm, by the way)... when are we going to see a working new miner that we can purchase?

Is there any consideration for upgrade path for existing mining hardware - i.e. board replacement?

When will it be available?

When will we see a 16nm Avalon miner? What is the target $/GH and W/GH?

 

Interesting thread. Any questions?

yeah  no matter how you phrase the language  Sp-Tech mining it sp20 at 3-5 cent power would have given them a real cushion in the game.

They were not able or willing to do this  which is why they lost out more then any other reason.


If I build my gear in Howell NJ   and drive it to my 40 acre solar farm in New Egypt, NJ
a short 7 miles from my house I have a huge edge over other builders.
(note this farm is not yet built or is even soon to be built it is merely possible to be built)


If I stay stealth   until my farm's capacity is maxed out> I can then sell my gear at the lowest price on the market.

Basically this is what bitmaintech does.
To further their edge they do not sell chips so that a guy like sidehack can build a  miner that is versatile.  Say .19 to .31 watts a gh


So far bitmaintech has pulled this off and made  $$$ .

Should be interesting to see what the ½ ing does to this.

So, Spondoolies lost because they decided to not openly screw over customers (from both a design/feature and service standpoint) in as many ways as possible and still retain customers? Sounds about right.

Spondoolies made a conscious decision not to self mine, even though they ended up building a sizeable farm. That's nothing to do with power cost, and if they had decided to self mine they could have created any number of global mines in the same locations Bitmain had access to.

Bitmaintech won over sp-tech because of power cost not gear cost.

If I build and mine at 2 to 5 cent power cost and you build and mine at 9 cent power cost you will be ground down over time and lose.

But wtf do,I know I know this at 1 cent power an s-3 still turns a profit.

Sp-tech was never able to self mine the way bitmaintech did.

In the long run they died off because of this more then any other reason.

I could make Avalon win over bitmaintech if I supply them with all the free power they want.

It is obvious bitmaintech has a huge source of cheap power for self mining which allows them to sell gear cheaper then anyone.  The current price of 433 for an s-7 after coupon is a fine example of how they leverage the low cost power to rule the world of Asian asic mining.

Avalon is content to be a distant second since it works for them.

I would not mind Avalon picking up their game a bit.

But I rather see some chips sales more then any other thing.

I would not consider it successful, no. The buyer has to pay for those frills, and unfortunately Spondoolies wasn't able to recoup those costs and still be able to sell units. As scyth3 suggested, no frills won over frills.

Well it was part in cost, as they tried to compete with bitmain and claim they sold them at a loss.  Which obviously does not work good.    I think it is true they just could not compete.

Now you could argue management to.  But price was a factor for sure to.

Spondoolies-tech died because of mismanagement, not because their miners were to costly.  Selling the company to BTCS is and will be their demise.

$/GH/s and W/GH/s matters to Bitcoin Miners. The fact that Bitmain is thriving and Spondoolies-tech died is confirmation.