Best products from r/BitcoinMining

To begin with:

Mining is done currently with specialized machines that use special chips called ASICs. There was a time when graphics cards were used for this but have long been overshadowed.

These machines are generally set up to run on what is called a mining pool, where many miners like yourself point your hashpower to try and find a block, which is just a set of transactions that are approved by the mining network to become part of Bitcoin's global ledger, which is the blockchain

For a raw beginner, don't break the bank on buying one of these machines. Anything less than a huge investment to get volume pricing on them is a waste of time if you intend to profit.

If you just want to give it a try, have a neat hobby, understand Bitcoin more, etc, then just buy something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Bitmain-AntMiner-U1-1-6GH-Bitcoin/dp/B00HNYDU4Y

Once comfortable, you can up your hashpower if you wish by getting the bigger ones. Bare in mind these things eat a crapload of power and put out a lot of heat depending, so if you are in a space with minimal power and ventilation be sure your mining space can handle it.

But again, at this level you will never profit, so it doesn't really matter how big or small your first ASIC is unless you are getting a ridiculous price on it. Its just good for education and tech nerd porn.

I have something similar to that setup but the fan wasn't enough to keep 4 7970's cool so I had to step it up a bit. I bought a fan that's used to dry floors and circulate air during home improvement projects. It works pretty slick and it's adjustable, not to mention it moves a boat load of air. I just have it blowing the heat out a window for the most part when it's not raining. Also got some risers of Amazon that work well.

Fan:
http://www.amazon.com/Lasko-Pro-Performance-Blower-4900/dp/B001DNGSCM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1369154904&sr=8-2&keywords=Lasko+Max+Performance+Pivoting+Utility+Fan

Risers:
http://www.amazon.com/Express-Adapter-Extender-Flexible-Extension/dp/B008BZBH80/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1369155222&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=PCI-E+PCI+Express+16X+to+8X+Riser+Card+Adapter+Extender+Flex+Flexible+Extension+Cable

^ Full disclosure, affiliate links

Thats expensive for 2.4 GH/s, thats exactly what im getting on the antminer U2 that I paid under 20 bucks for. I got mine used from amazon. Here is a link amazon I was going to grab a rock miner R-box amazon they go for 70.00 bucks new on amazon and youll get 32-37 GH/s im sure you might be able to find them cheaper, but I was also looking on craigslist and came across some good deals on the older antminer s1 for under 200.00 bucks and it will crank out 200 GH/s. Of course I also found a kcminer neptune, the guy wants 5000.00 for it, and it cranks out a minimum of 3 TH/s. Im just not brave enough nor do I know enough if that is a wise investment. Like you said 200.00 is more palatable, its not going to make or break you.

This answer hits all the right points. PC/GPU mining isn't what it once was. You'd probably start burning out components before hitting $100.

I would also recommend the Antminer U3. It's cheap, easy to use and I think it looks cool. If you're interested in learning about cryptocurrencies and want to start experimenting, this would be a great way to get a feel for mining. Related links below.

U3 @ Amazon

Setup guide from bitcointalk

That 700W power supply will be enough to power ~14 R-boxes, considering they only draw around 50W each. So you're good there.

As for USB Hubs, just find a cheap 7-10 port POWERED hub on amazon or ebay. I've seen these in a lot of different setups. It needs to be powered if you have more than two on the hub.

Hope that helps, and enjoy your miners!

(*mandatory disclaimer that they will probably never earn you a profit)

Wireless is pretty weak without an added antenna. I had mine like literally right next to my router and the signal was only 80% strong. I don't think it will be very good from 30 ft away without an added antenna. If your router has removable antennas you could pull one off and screw it onto the wireless port on the s1. Other wise you could probably find a cheap wireless antenna on amazon somewhere.

Edit: This should do the trick

http://www.amazon.com/antenna-Netgear-Buffalo-Routers-Adapters/dp/B005DCP280/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1405362461&sr=8-2&keywords=wifi+antenna

You'll need a router one way or another to connect multiple devices to a single internet connection, so no, you can't directly connect it to your PC.

I don't know what kind of setup you have, but here's mine in case it helps. I have a wifi router that I use for my home network. My miners connect to from the garage wirelessly, using a TP-Link N300 travel router (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00TQEX8BO/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1) in bridge mode connected to a TP-Link 5 port switch (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000FNFSPY/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1). If you have a wireless router and a single miner that is out of wired range, you can connect the N300 directly to the miner with an ethernet cable and put it in bridge mode to get the miner on the network wirelessly. If it's within wired range you'd just connect it directly to the router.

My setup was pretty much plug and play with DHCP, but YMMV.

A single S5 is going to be much more power efficient than running three S3s. If you have free/very cheap power then go with the S3s, otherwise get an S5.

Two 750w power supplies should work fine, just make sure that you have enough PCI-E ports, and that you don't connect the same blade to two separate power supplies.

You can run them off one Ethernet port from your router if you get a basic network switch like this or this.

Hope this helped!

With the raspberry pi you really have to be careful with USB 3 hubs, most of them don't work... especially the ones that are popular for bitcoin mining.

You'll see the anker 10 port ones all over the place (and some other ones that are exactly the same). Those don't work with the RPi!

Stick to well powered USB 2 hubs. Here are a couple that I own and think are the best for the RPi:

up to 7 miners ($25): http://amzn.com/B004F38WT4

up to 20 miners ($75): http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/270316963.html (Do NOT buy from "Mandela kore" he is a fraudster, I tried to buy one from him since he's the cheapest. Only buy from "SSGI" or "Hariyanto" -- I've bought a bunch from him and he's legit. He's very friendly if you want to open a chat if you have special requests... he found some other cool shit for me in a local market in china. Shipping takes about a week to the US if you get DHL)

The U2 went on sale on February 27th without announcement. I was one of the first to purchase them and received my batch of 500 on March 5th. Only a few batches sold before they closed sales and updated with a new release date.

I can confirm that they 'default' to 1.6gh/s, but are more than capable of reaching 2.2+gh/s without extra cooling.

If anyone is interested, I'm trying to be the cheapest seller of the U2s on Amazon under the name "Fund-A-Miner" here:

http://www.amazon.com/BITMAIN-ANTMINER-U2-Bitcoin-Overclockable/dp/B00ITD5NV6/ref=aag_m_pw_dp?ie=UTF8&m=A1LBZI6C51C6OJ

This is my previous step.

http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMining/comments/1izsj8/133ghs_4x_usb_erupters_now_i_can_use_my_gaming/

Flexible USB Fan - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003XN24GY

USB L Connector - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B5HS95A

7 Port Powered Rosewill USB Hub - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004BV7XQ8


The fan is quiet and does its job. 5 successful eruptors on one usb 2.0 hub.

This guy had return on his money

http://cryptomining-blog.com/tag/pb-mining-review/


Good words found on bitcoinewz and bitcoin talk

http://bitcoinewz.com/news/re-pb-mining-5-year-mining-contracts

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=418183.0

I bought 15Gh at about 0.11 BTC, will see how the 12 hour deposit verification goes, and will keep you updated :)

Edit: 3 days later, deposit went smooth, and have been in communication with them daily as they are actually sold out of Gh and I plan on buying more. First cash out will be this sunday. Will update again.

Also, if you look through their eBay history, they have been selling mining equipment since 2012, then all of a sudden, changed their approach and started selling mining contracts on eBay in January of this year. They are new to cloud mining, yes, but I think they will be here for a while. Also, check this out on Amazon. It costs $700 roughly, and is 180GH (on the low standard end, without overclock) 180 0.0075 = 1.35 BTC $570 (low rate right now) = $769.50

I bet they are getting the machines much cheaper than that on some place like aliexpress, but still, $69.50 profit per machine right away and I'm sure he will be keeping a small percentage of all mining, which at this rate will be some good residual income on 5 year contracts.

This is no scam.

http://www.amazon.com/BITMAIN-ANTMINER-U2-Bitcoin-Overclockable/dp/B00ITD5NV6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395810383&sr=8-1&keywords=antminer+u2 you're welcome :D

edit: I am not being payed to advertise/market any products nor am I affiliated with BITMAIN or Amazon. I just thought it was too good not to share.

If you're in the US, call an electrician. Tell him/her that you need a 240V (or 220V) 30A circuit installed that terminates into a L6-30R receptacle that you can plug one of these PDUs into:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007YG85A (or similar spec PDU)

Also, buy a few of these 14/3 AWG C14-to-C13 power cables - one for each T9:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0085CE9O8

... and use them to connect your T9's PSUs to the PDU. 1 in each bank.

You can run 4 T9s off of the above 30A 240V PDU and circuit, while still observing the 80% rule.

That's it! Good luck.

Yep. I'm actually using on of those long with an Anker 9-Port. That hub looks stylish as hell and it's got an extra "charge only" port. Perfect for the fan! Only thing you've gotta keep in mind is that if you use that same hub, do not have it plugged into a USB 3.0 port. You'll only get like <100 MHash/s. Keep it on a 2.0 port and you'll be a-ok!

Antminer U3 for $75 would be a good place to start. Or if you want a stand alone unit get an S1 or S3 used. Keep in mind that regardless of what you buy there is a 99% chance you will not earn enough to cover hardware+power costs. For example the $75 U3, will not earn you $75 worth of BTC.

With only one I wouldn't worry about, as long as there is some airflow around it, cooling it won't be a problem. If you have 5 spaced close together, you probably want to get a fan for them. A lot of people use this one: http://amzn.com/B003XN24GY but a $5 desk fan from Walmart would do the trick.

Are you sure we're speaking of the same machine? Never the less, I'm interested to hear about this machine that costs 1.8k.

http://www.amazon.com/Antminer-~4-73TH-25W-Bitcoin-Miner/dp/B014OGCP6W

I recently started with [one of these] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ITD5NV6/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). For $25 bucks or so you'll get 2 Ghps.

I'm personally mining using the pool BitMinter. They have their own software too so its super easy.

avoid like the plague. That is an old miner and a very high price. you can easily get one for less then that if you want: https://www.amazon.com/Antminer-4-73TH-25W-Bitcoin-Miner/dp/B014OGCP6W

I have the 9+1 port that is power off the wall from amazon. [This one] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005NGQWL2/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1).

Could it be the computer its self not be able to handling those ports?

Good thing to know, This is the other I was considering but its also a 3.0 HUB, I'll keep looking: http://www.amazon.com/Release-Anker%C2%AE-Uspeed-Charging-Adapter/dp/B005NGQWL2/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1374861578&sr=1-2&keywords=Usb+HUB

I was joking because everyone is posting pics with the same fan......

http://www.amazon.com/ARCTIC-USB-Powered-Portable-Cooling-Solution/dp/B003XN24GY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374753844&sr=8-1&keywords=usb+fan

not sure about the power supply. And easiest way to buy one is through amazon, but you're going to pay aftermarket surcharges.
http://www.amazon.com/Bitmain-AntMiner-S1-Blade-Bitcoin/dp/B00HL4MEG6
You can go check out the group buys in the bitcoin talk forums, but I don't know if they'll take cash. Probably have to check them out individually.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=137.0