UPDATED INFO 2PAC 2xBM1384 USB STICKMINER SALES ARE ON check it out here.
Upcoming projects include:
20xBM1384 Pod
2xBF16 USB Stick
11xBF16 Pod
33xBF16 S1/3/5-compatible board
So, here’s a quick shoutout along with a basic update, which I'm sure will spark some conversation.
Like the title says, I've got my hands on some 16nm ASICs for new designs.
But, of course, development isn't free. Prototyping, materials, hiring help, all that jazz costs cash. To gather some funds, I'm planning to auction off leftovers from previous projects, like parts and prototypes from old Compac designs (A3218, BM1385, etc.), along with some test pieces and general "collectibles".
I’d love to keep some of this stuff for my records, but honestly, I don’t need a collection. What I really need is funding to keep projects moving. Especially to pay my programmer (forum user "vh") for his work on a cgminer driver for a 14nm Compac that I can't mass-produce now since the chip supplier won’t sell to third parties.
The cool part? vh is still pushing to make the new driver work even without mass production. The prototype is hashing, just not at full capacity yet, but I believe it’s just a minor issue. I’ve got three more sample chips, so as the highlight of the auction, I’ll be selling these three sticks.
Faboo! Glad to see that at least BitFury has started to open the door for 3rd party miners using their chip. In 1 respect it suggests that the chip should be at least reasonably stable.
I assume you are talking about BW's chip. In a way it doesn't surprise me that BW is keeping it to themselves or at best sharing with a very few select mega pharms. Given the problems that Bitmain has with their 16nm chips I'll bet ya BTC to beans that the 14nm chips are even more temperamental. At least this way BW gets to eat their own dog food -- and keep any issues the chips have out of the Press.
I assume you still have that pile of s1's I set out to pasture with ya? Makes for a nice stable supply of cores to use. Any of the VR parts to be used from them or just the frame & heatsinks?
Just the mechanical parts would be reused. There wasn't any control compatibility between S1, S3 and S5, and it's incredibly (and foolishly) limiting to use someone else's controls on a new project that's supposed to be actually good and useful and flexible, so there's no controller parts reused. The TypeZero boards should be designed around the same basic control set used on the Amita pod miner (and stripped down a bit for the Compac) which means USB connectivity, so you could use whatever controller you can compile the cgminer for.
Yeah I got your S1s, and a bunch I got elsewhere, and a bunch of S3 and S5 cores. I'm hoping that I can set up a core-exchange kind of thing for people who want to buy intact miners, where they can send in a retired S1/3/5 miner and I'll send back a model-match preassembled TypeZero with free shipping. I would really like the people who bought just the boards, but not everyone's really capable of handling that kind of thing.
I was thinking more of maybe reusing the buck inductors from the old miners more than anything. That is assuming they can the deliver the needed currents of course. Fairly easy to remove with near-zero chance of damage.
Und ja, I'm one of those who these days would prefer buying pre-built. I did 2 of the s1 > s3 upgrades and it was a surprising PITA... Mainly removing the old heatsink compound and re-pasting with new. Not mention having to wear armored gloves when doing it 'cause damn those fins are sharp! For your production I highly suggest making a frame/jig to hold the heatsinks for cleaning/re-pasting...These days, it's just not worth my time/effort/blood and I am happy to pay for someone else to do it.
Ah, now I understand VR parts. You meant cores more-or-less literally (inductive cores). No, I probably won't reuse those, but I will probably pull the TPS chips for other things.
Also, the auction is now live. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1652091.msg16598805
Sounds great sidehack!!!
BUT,how many chips will Bitfury let you buy?? A few hundred??
How much are the chips going for??
And how LONG before you will be able to get x amount of chips??
I love what you do,believe me,but Bitfury has been dragging their feet about any info on their chips & availability sooooooo
I don't have any answers to those questions, because I have not yet received answers to those questions. I'm encouraged because Punin came to me at the end of August to say he was shipping me samples and how many did I want, which is pretty great because I hadn't tried to chase him down in a couple months. He's given ballpark estimates for chip pricing but it' just ballpark because he said they were still lining out how they were gonna do sales and distribution and whatnot. They've already been more cooperative than anyone I've dealt with in the last 16 months, and he's done really good in the past with their 55nm chips, so I'm banking pretty heavily on this deal working out.
As far as Bitfury goes, I'm not really sure what (from the little I know) I'm officially authorised to say or not. Pretty much all I will say is they got me samples and datasheets and I'm already started working on new stuff. I figure that PR can't possibly hurt them within the community, because it's about the first real effort any major manufacturer has done proactively to help the community in about a year.
I agree 100% esp. about the PR. Truth be told, I'd leave current information to what you've released so far. Too many unknowns lie ahead for now
Ja for whatever reason(s) BitFury massively missed their mark on matching chip delivery with Bitmain but OTOH that has also given them time to see what problems Bitmain have with the 16nm node and then apply that information to BitFury's chip. Since I believe historically BitFury chips were mainly used for their own let-us-build-you-a Farm sales/projects they were the only ones really hurt by the delay.
It will be interesting to see how the chips work in the Real World.
I will say there was some delay getting me updated datasheets because the manufacture batch had been changed from the sample batch. I don't really know what the changes were but presumably they were improvements. So if Bitfury took an extra couple months stepping things up a notch I'm pretty sure that's a good thing.
Very nice!
Would be amazing to have some more hardware from people so involved in the mining community.
Its easy to tell just from a small device like the Gekko sticks how much work you guys put into these projects.
Best of luck to everyone involved!
No doubt. And since BitFury has their own massive private perfect test site, I'd think all the various iterations of the chips that they got from TSMC got a pretty decent amount of testing en-mass to work out the wrinkles