Quote from: Phosphorous on August 06, 2014, 07:57:07 PM

Quote from: jowaybea on August 06, 2014, 07:06:33 PM

Quote from: Phosphorous on August 06, 2014, 06:29:41 PM

As mentioned previously in this thread (although not quoted), those compose of perhaps 10% of the price, or approximately $40. Why wait around or hang your hopes on getting an upgrade kit to save $40? Not to mention an old S1 is worth about $150 or so on the open market, and you lose the ability to sell it if you upgrade.

That's your estimate. But why do you think that? Shipping alone must be non-negligible, as Bitmain ships super-fast from China. 4xS3 Blades, could easily fit in a single S3 sized box and weigh considerably less.

Regardless, the real evidence is, Bitmain keeps saying they are going to do it. What reason could they possibly have to tell potential customers that an upgrade is coming if it is not economical for them to do so. Surely they don't want to prevent people from ordering entire S3's if they aren't planning to sell the upgrade. Because it is very obvious that some people who would otherwise purchase S3's are waiting for upgrade kits.

Yes those are my estimates. What are yours? I know a little bit about manufacturing CCAs and production as that's what we do where I work. The bulk of the cost of the S1 or S3 is in the main boards. The controller cards are basically Raspberry Pis which can be bought retail for under $40, I'm sure Bitmains are less than that if sold separately. The aluminum frame is not pricey in mass production. You might have something with shipping. But here are the economic scenarios of where you'd be 2 months from now (ignore shipping times, assumed a wash for each scenario):

Scenario A: Order new S3, sell old S1. 0.66BTC ~= $383. Sell S1 for $150 after S3 arrives. Net result: -$233, with double or better mining efficiency at current difficulty level for 2 months.

Scenario B: Wait for an upgrade kit. Assume $250 cost w/ availability 1 month from now. No S1 salvage value. Net result: -$250, 1 month or longer using S1 at half the efficiency of S3. 1 month with S3 efficiency at future difficulty level(s).

So clearly to make an upgrade work, you'd probably need to have an upgrade kit sold at less than $200 and be made available within a month to even come close to breaking even vs ordering an S3 now and selling your S1 when the S3 gets here when factoring everything in.

I could be wrong, but I would be extremely surprised to see a $200 or even a $250 price on an upgrade kit in the near future when they are getting $383 for a full unit. Add in the headaches of support for helping some of us idiots tear apart our machines and do our own upgrades and the proposition doesn't seem to make much sense.

Bottom line, there really is no reason to wait for an upgrade kit. Make your life easy and order a new S3 and sell your S1 when it arrives.

Someone just bought S1 for $160 on ebay (0.27BTC, 0.25BTC after ebay fees!). I am surprised-it sells on ebay for almost the same as 1 month ago (maybe $10-20 $ less).
People were selling S1 on BitcoinTalk for 0.22-0.23 a month ago-they were selling too cheap, obviously. Probably, low diff jumps played a role.