Topic: Mining newbie. What would you do if you did not pay for electricity? (Read 2533 times)

You are mining sha 256 not litecoins with that kind of machine.   And no one can tell you what 2 years from now will be.   I think you are looking to far in future, mining technology changes in generations.   It's hard to tell what NM chip we will have in 1 year especially 2.

Philipma's numbers were very good on sharing correct info.  Run miner through bitcoin not scrypt and you will see numbers like he mentioned earlier.

Thanks everyone for the replies, well mostly. To answer one person, no one is footing the bill. I am not mooching off my parents. I probably have more grey hair then you do. I do see the problem about the heat though. I would have to incorporate some type of air conditioning in the summer time too. For now in winter I wont need to worry but I definitely will keep it in mind. I know it sounds like a newbie post, which it is and I have been on many boards as the vet. I did some reading on it. Browsing posts is very over whelming with technical lingo when you don't know any acronyms or nicknames. I don't mind there being miners in every room actually. If I put 3 in every room I would be a happy man.

So philipma1957, on top of that, my next question is how would I also weigh machines on longevity? Like say which machines would still be useful a year or 2 from now as hashes go up? Would you think that mining altcoins with these same machines would be practical over time? I know over time hashes get harder but it seems that more types of e-currency come out the better it is for those mining. Truthfully there isn't as much profit as it would seem from your numbers. Ok so what am I doing wrong

Here is what the calculator puts in for my estimates. I input litecoins



Hash Rate (GH/s): 4096
   Power (Watts): 2275
Power Cost ($/kWh): 0
   Pool Fees %: 0
Difficulty: 51,485
   Block Reward: 50
Exchange Rate (USD): 3.78
   Hardware Costs (USD) 3100
   
and it says i will make the money back in a day? how do i use this calcutor

In northern Wisconsin they don't say aboot, but they do say (ah-boat) and call wagons (way-guns). Drives me crazy..

LOL about.. I honestly don't know anyone that says aboot.. however we say Eh a lot.. like a lot LOL.  *shrugs* Niagara falls hooks me up.

Wasting electricity!!! You must be the most evil canadian I have ever heard of. Or is that: heard aboot?

True, I have an AC unit to cool the room in the summer.  I use power like it's going out of style.. money to burn so i'm gonna burn it!! MUHAHAH.

Winter is very... seasonal

Open the window.. it's winter.  The winter air is the perfect cooling tool up here in Canada!!

In case nobody mentioned it, you have to find a way cool those thousands of watts. If not your mom will notice when the glass of water on her nightstand starts to boil.

Ahh good point, I was just assuming unlimited free power.

My point with more modern ones was lets say he has 1k watts for mining he can get 2 S1's and get 360 GHz.   With 2 S3's + closer to 1TH, with SP 20 even under clocked around 1.3 T or so.

- I do not get free electricity

- I have two S3's mining

- I do not know how the op is getting "Free" electricy I was just saying what I would do if I was getting free power.  When power is free it comes down to GH/$ and that is it.

- The comment about me buying 3 and selling them later was off topic I was more so just pointing out how cheap you can get S1's right now.





I am personally just waiting for the S5's to come out.  I am more of a hobby miner (sub 1k, sub 2 kw of power) and bitmain has been solid for me.  I mine so I have a "vote" in bitcoin.  IMO any true bitcoiner should have an ASIC mining away so they can "vote".  The new R-box seems perfect for this purpose, been tempted to get one actually.

It cost more, but I would argue the SP20 or S3's or S4's would be best.   Will make more S1's are dated at this point.    

But be careful I'm guessing with your "free electricity" it is included in apartment or something.  Be careful not to get to many watt's assuming it's 110.  Don't want whole apartment to be miners .  

Don't get me wrong when I say I didn't get you... Were you talking as a miner or as a trader, I mean the one who buys from somewhere as u said u would have bought 3 gone for $100 and would have sold all for $100 each?

The S1's on kijiji offer the best $/gh on the market.

I've had them running for a year no issues, same hash rate.  Don't just throw in burnt machines to fear monger.

S1's are not good Gh/w but $/gh they cannot be beat.  I have even seen 3 going for $100, I was tempted to buy that just to gamble on the pricing going up and me being able to sell them at $100 each lol.


If electricity was free for me that would be 100% what I would do, else Bitmain or spondoolies.

You mean the used ones? And what's the guarantee that those burnt machines will give you the exact output they used to deliver to the seller? Instead, go for Spondoolies' SP20 Jackson for just $695 while you can still buy it at that rate, as the actual rate's $795... I had a discussion with Philip regarding the same and this one seems to be the best available hardware for mining currently.

I would go on kijiji and buy several S1's for $60.

I saw your method of explaining and am grateful we have such experienced players here... I would like to point you out towards my thread too, as I have such same question out there, so can you please take some pain and visit my thread too to answer whether I should do it or not?
Thanks in advance sir...

Here's the link to my thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/need-to-know-which-miner-is-good-to-mine-bitcoins-at-current-difficulty-879461

simple answer is 30 amps of 120 v or 240 v     ..

I will do you math for free:

 30 x 120 = 3600 watts    75 % of that = 2700 watts
 30 x 220 = 6600 watts    75% of that = 5400 watts


you want sp20's on sale at spondoolies-tech.

if you underclock   and have 120 volts power you can do 3 units  and pull 2300 watts hash 4th

if you underclock and have 220 volts power you can do 6 units and pull 4600 watts hash 8th


cost = 814 a unit to the usa that counts shipping  so    3 x 814 = about 2500  you need 3 psu's  good ones

 http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-SuperNOVA-1300G2-ATX12V-120-G2-1300-XR/dp/B00COIZTZM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417408332&sr=8-1&keywords=evga+1300+g2   3 psu's are about 550 some  wires a switch a router


so you are at 3050 make it 3100 and you run 3 units doing 4th

or you are at 6200  make it 6200 and you run 6 units doing 8th

 free power and the net for free and cooling free.  


if you do the smaller with your free power

3100 usd in by   dec 2015    you would be paid off and ahead around 1200 usd

6200 usd in by   dec 2015  you would be paid off and ahead around 2400 usd

  most likely the above is conservative .  but If I was to offer consulting advice I would have to say that is a lot of power to get for 'free'   so you better understand that if that power cost 10 cents a kwatt it would be:

  2000 usd  if you were doing the 3 sp20 method
 4000 usd if you were doing the 6 sp20 method

so after 1 year a new startup would lose 800 usd or 1600 usd if you have no parts to start with.

If you can't do the legwork (or are to lazy) to research answers to these questions yourself maybe reconsider investing altogether.

btw electricity is not free whether it's a parent or landlord someone receives a bill, and once that bill increases above x amount you will be the one paying.