Bitmining idea

[lavaheadache]

I was just interweb surfing and came up with an idea and questions. Lets say I were to mine with my 7970 or a pair of them to buy solar panels and appropriate gear that would allow me to effectively mine for free. I see that a 250 watt panel costs about $260. I figure 3 panels would be plenty of power but I really don't know what the rest of the goodies I would need would come out to be.

I'm not seriously going to do this but might actually consider it if in a year or 2 I can get my computer to pay me. Even if mining dies off it would still be fun to have it FOLD or something like that without costing me money after the initial investment.

 

[blastingcap]

You aren't the first person to think of this idea, but if you're only getting an average of say 8 hours of daylight per day (12, minus 4 because sometimes it is cloudy), it's even less worthwhile. Proper installation costs a lot more than that, plus the sun only shines so often in MA and definitely not at night. When cloudy efficiency drops, too. Sometimes to zero. However if you're in Cape Cod you might look into installing a small windmill to supplement things.

 

[Hitman928]

You would also need a hefty battery as well as circuitry (inverter, transformer, or whatever other methods you choose) to take that DC solar panel output and turn it into 120V, 60Hz AC power to plug your batter/computer into. Placing the panels is also critical as you need a pretty clear 180 degree window to have sun all day (assuming it's a sunny day anyway), at which point how will you connect it to your computer (roof mounted solar? long [relative] transmission) and how will the panel track the sun throughout the day? Perhaps you could bypass a UPS AC input and charge it directly with solar, not sure how their front end is set up.

Anyway, I'm just rambling, just a few things to think about if you ever want to go through with it.

 

[lavaheadache]

You aren't the first person to think of this idea, but if you're only getting an average of say 8 hours of daylight per day (12, minus 4 because sometimes it is cloudy), it's even less worthwhile. Proper installation costs a lot more than that, plus the sun only shines so often in MA and definitely not at night. When cloudy efficiency drops, too. Sometimes to zero. However if you're in Cape Cod you might look into installing a small windmill to supplement things.

I live on the cape cod canal and it is pretty windy here. Not a bad idea too.

 

[jimhsu]

Might actually get reasonable efficiency if using ASICs. No chance at all for GPUs.

 

[philipma1957]

Might actually get reasonable efficiency if using ASICs. No chance at all for GPUs.

yeah 4x jalapeños use 20 watts and hash at 18Gh that is 30x 7970's .


you would need only 1 panel at 250 watts costing about 500 bucks with all your parts. charger battery regulator etc. if you got 80% charge 6 hours a day. that would be 1200 watts . your gear burns 20watts x 24 or 480 watts you need a low power pc (mac mini)

etc. say a grand total of 35 watts = mac mini plus 4x jalapeños .

a used mac mini is 400.

so 400 mini
500 solar
plus 640f or 4x jalapeños is 1540 .

you hash at 18Gh use 35 watts an hour total cost about 1540.

now 35 watts is only .84k- watt a day or about 15 cents that is 55 a year.

it would work but you may not need the solar or you may.

 

[3DVagabond]

Windmill is probably a better idea.

 

[notty22]

Solar has exploded in my counties, MA. Methuen, Haverhill. My neighbor is a retired electrician (MIT), that got me noticing, thinking of the possibilities of Solar. And then I realized it was booming around me, in Methuen.

Borders, NH , 30 miles from coast.

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/bl....html?page=all

http://www.mannorchards.com/2_28_Solar-Project.html
http://www.solren.com/?p=1616

Baddour, Dempsey team up with National Grid in support of Haverhill Solar Farm

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 540x358.

Solar farm expected to save Methuen $92,000


At old land fill, the Dump from when I was a kid. I would hope, the people on this street, who lived with the town dump there down the road from them, get free electricity for life.
http://www.sakenvironmental.com/news...gton-landfill/

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 2592x1936.

__________________

 

[Hitman928]

I live on the cape cod canal and it is pretty windy here. Not a bad idea too.

Just fyi, wind is typically much more troublesome (and has a larger land foot print) than solar. The difficulty comes from needing a specific wind speed window to produce 'good' energy. There are some things you can do to make that window wider, but it's a bit complex. Solar would probably be much easier as far as setup goes. Are there any 'at home' wind generators that are within a reasonable price? I'm more familiar with solar in that category.

 

[Deltaechoe]

Take into account the cost of the solar panel array, the gpu and the power that you use if you don't get decent daylight for longer periods of time when using 7970s and you really aren't making that great of an investment, especially with the wave of ASICs right around the corner. People are apparently going to be able to belt out 4.5 ghash/s using less than 5 watts and the devices are only going to cost around 150 dollars. These will raise the difficulty considerably and make it completely useless to farm with GPUs

 

[3DVagabond]

My ex brother in law had an old style windmill hooked up to a generator and a bunch of truck batteries. It generated more power than his house used. He had an electrical credit every year. This was 20+ years ago. He assembled it himself and it was pretty ghetto, but worked. He also had solar water heating tubes that augmented the water heater. Burned a lot of wood in the winter as well. So, it wasn't just wind power he was using.

 

[3DVagabond]

Solar has exploded in my counties, MA. Methuen, Haverhill. My neighbor is a retired electrician (MIT), that got me noticing, thinking of the possibilities of Solar. And then I realized it was booming around me, in Methuen.

Borders, NH , 30 miles from coast.

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/bl....html?page=all

http://www.mannorchards.com/2_28_Solar-Project.html
http://www.solren.com/?p=1616

Baddour, Dempsey team up with National Grid in support of Haverhill Solar Farm

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 540x358.

Solar farm expected to save Methuen $92,000


At old land fill, the Dump from when I was a kid. I would hope, the people on this street, who lived with the town dump there down the road from them, get free electricity for life.
http://www.sakenvironmental.com/news...gton-landfill/

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 2592x1936.

__________________

So, how much did it cost to build it? I don't see that in the article.

 

[notty22]

My ex brother in law had an old style windmill hooked up to a generator and a bunch of truck batteries. It generated more power than his house used. He had an electrical credit every year. This was 20+ years ago. He assembled it himself and it was pretty ghetto, but worked. He also had solar water heating tubes that augmented the water heater. Burned a lot of wood in the winter as well. So, it wasn't just wind power he was using.

Yes, your local electric company has to work with you, and buy back any electricity that you produce, above and beyond your own use. It's a legal instant where a meter can spin backwards!

 

[notty22]

So, how much did it cost to build it? I don't see that in the article.

I know, the Orchard, which is open year round and probably uses a great deal of power. For their investment, they are on track to pay off the investment within 2 years. That's on a big scale. A smaller scale, might be as efficient, might not.

 

[Yuriman]

Forget the coin mining, just buy solar panels and sell the power back to your power company. That power has value, you don't necessarily need to put that value into offsetting bitcoin mining costs.