FAQ

The instructions are located here for download:
https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showwiki.php?title=Manuals:BFL+Bitforce+SC+Product+Instructions

We accept PayPal, Bitcoins and Bank Transfer.

PayPal has transactions limits of $10,000 US.

Bitcoins are accepted by a third party vendor that handles the exchange. All of our machines are sold for US Dollars.

Bank Transfers can take 3 to 4 days to appear in our system. We ask that you send a copy of the receipt for the transfer to [email protected] and include your order number. This will help us match your payment with your order. Once we confirm the payment, we will send you a confirmation email. There is a $550 minimum on bank transfers. So a transaction for one 5 GH/s machine would not be eligible for Bank Transfer.

We currently do not have the ability to easily disclose the number of orders we currently have. Shipping of new units is expected to begin soon. It is unknown at this time when we will complete the shipping of our pre-orders. Even though we should start shipping soon, orders placed now will be shipped at a later time. Our orders date back to June, 2012. All of those orders and those placed since then will be shipped before new orders.

We try to answer phone calls as they come in, but sometimes we are on the phone with other customers at the time you call. We respond to voicemails as quickly as possible but it's often faster to write customer service at [email protected] where a response staff is in place during business hours. Our normal business hours are Monday - Friday, 9 am to 5 pm US Central Time. We are also available on Facebook and Twitter.

No. We can lose our ability to ship to a country if we falsify customs declarations. We declare all items as 'computer peripherals' for the actual price paid on the customs form.

Standard Shipping uses USPS - the United States Postal Service except for the Mini Rigs, which ship with FedEx Express Shipping uses FedEx by default.

We are not currently releasing power specs for the units.

Yes, the BitForce SHA256 processor is properly classified under the US Bureau of Industry and Security export control. Our export control restriction prohibits the export of our products to AT designated countries as specified by the US Department of Commerce. If you need clarification on your ability to purchase our products, please contact us for review.

It only speeds up the time it takes to deliver the machine(s) once it leaves our production facility.

For our FPGA customers the trade-in program is scheduled to last until 1 June 2013.

When ordering equipment from Butterfly Labs, you have the option of hosting your equipment locally with one of our affiliate data centers. While BFL does not host equipment directly, we do work with local providers to place your equipment.

Currently, we work with a company called J.Morgan and Associates, which will host your equipment at their facilities. The current cost structure for hosting is:

• MiniRig SC: $625 per month, per rig
• 50 GH/s and 60 GH/s $100 per month, per unit

Your hosted units will be added to a mining farm and you will be paid out regularly based on their collective output. Currently, the payout is approximately every two days, depending on luck. As difficulty increases, payout times may get longer or the payout threshold may be reduced to bring it back to every 2 days or so.

If you wish to have direct control over your units, you may provide a laptop or netbook computer (or one can be sourced locally at cost). Additionally, if you have more units than the provided computer has USB ports, you will need to provide enough USB hubs to support your equipment. That netbook or laptop, if provided by you, will need to be configured for remote access of your choice. Linux is the preferred loaded OS, but you may use Windows or OSX. Under any circumstance, however, if you choose to control your units yourself, you will be responsible for the network security, patching, updating and maintenance of the netbook or laptop. Remote hands will be provided to reboot the machine should it lock up, but configuration or maintenance assistance can not be provided, although it can be negotiated for an extra fee. Response times for remote hands requests are typically within an hour, but can be up to 12 hours depending on the time of day the request is made in GMT -6 (CST) timezone.

Your equipment will be housed in one of three data centers in the Kansas City area (With a 4th coming online in the next 6 months). Each center is guarded by multiple security procedures, including biometric identification, key card access, elevator lock outs and human verification. Fire suppression and notification are present in all datacenters. Redundant power is provided by a generator and for an additional fee can be provided by battery as a UPS.

Hosted units will be maintained by a BFL representative should a failure occur and replacement/repair is usually conducted the same day. There is no cost for repair/replacement of failed units that are under warranty.

If you wish to have your unit hosted locally, please contact Butterfly Labs customers service to be sure they also know the units will be hosted locally. Once your units are ready to be shipped (This is not way to jump the shipping queue, your units will be released in the order they would normally be released to the shipping department), they will be released to the local data center and installed the same or next day. Any shipping fees that you've already paid can be applied towards your monthly hosting charges. There is no taxes charged if you host locally, as the delivery will be to Missouri (from Kansas) and thus not subject to local sales tax. Once the hosting company takes possession of the machine(s), they will contact you regarding payment methods and wallet addresses for payouts.

In an effort to protect the original purchaser, Butterfly Labs will only ship orders to the person that is listed in the shipping information for the order. In other words, when the order was placed, there was a name entered in the Ship To: field. That is the person that we will be shipping the machine to.

Because of the potential for massive disruption that our ASIC units may cause to the mining ecosystem, we are instituting a 1/3 shipping method for our first shipment of products to individuals. So that no single person or handful of people are able to gain a material advantage over any other, we will ship all our available units at the same time to as many customers as we can. This means we will likely delay shipping on our first units until we have accumulated enough stock to satisfy a significant portion of our initial orders. This ensures that as many people as possible who are early adopters are equally and fairly treated when receiving our product. To that end we will be shipping our first orders as such: 1/3 of each product line (Jalapeno, Single SC and Minirig SC) will be shipping to new orders, 1/3 to upgrade orders and the final 1/3 will be shipped to a random selection of orders from the first two categories (both upgrade and new customers) received in the first month of orders (From 23 June 2012 to 22 July 2012).

Yes, our intellectual property is available for licensing to other chip manufacturers. In most cases we can also make our individual components available to you depending on your needs.

GH/s stands for gigahashes per second.

eBay and other online auctions for BFL products and pre-orders are not supported by BFL in any way. We will not answer any questions as to whether an auction is legitimate. You should be aware that some auctions on eBay and elsewhere have been reported as fraudulent.  Please use extreme caution when bidding on BFL product auctions, as BFL is not responsible for the actions of others on third party sites.