Topic: BFL 5 GH/s Miner Demo - page 2. (Read 10036 times)

I believe the irate anti-bfl crowd is noting that they originally cited that the 5Gh model was going to be USB powered... which this demo clearly demonstrates it requires externally supplied power.  Frankly it is pretty obvious that the "new jalapeño" is just the original design for the Single, but with 1 ASIC chip rather than the usual 5.

That being said... I think most miners don't give a rats behind how much power their asic miner uses (within reason) as long as it gets the hash rate what they want.

The interesting thing to me is... assuming they ship all the orders for all the models... they aren't brining in new money with those shipments... those pre orders were paid a long time ago.  Assuming they have a crappy CFO (given), it seems like they probably really need new orders to keep a revenue stream.  I wonder if they raised prices because they were really having issues with their revenue stream.   I wonder if that strategy is working.

Which is why I'm thinking these possibly won't need it either. They use an external power supply which should already have the UL certification and FCC might be excluded as "commercial test equipment" (that may be a stretch). It seems hardly worth bothering to go for the certifications unless the FCC comes after them. I doubt it will even hit their radar.

EDIT: Of course, Phinnaeus Gage pointed out that Josh said something about getting it. I don't know if that means they need it BEFORE they ship, or if after is OK.

What was the power mark for the demonstrated 5GHs unit that it missed by a "huge factor"?

Typical noob. Don't care about power consumption just ship me my BFL magic box with lephrechauns gold and rainbows.

They missed their power mark by a huge factor and that doesn't phase you? Shit then they may as well have shipped gpu based mining equipment to satisfy your insatiable need to be fucked. Lol

That e-mail is just part of the scam.  Just another income stream for them that they have no intention of ever delivering on.

My FPGA Singles have no labels or markings whatsoever on their exterior.  I guess they aren't certified.

This link is actually rather interesting: https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/398

"What can I do to avoid expensive testing and still remain in compliance with the laws?"
"A digital device used exclusively as industrial, commercial, or medical test equipment."

But that doesn't make any sense. Why does my TV from China have to have that and UL? There has to be something more to it.

Unfortunately, I have no insight as to what Avalon may, or may not, be required to do to ship such wares to the US. But, BFL being Inc. in the US is a completely different issue, thus a host of regulations they must comply to, the FCC one being the main one.

I would doubt Avalon's are UL certified... but I think they enter the country as engineering samples... soooo  /shrug

What about the other mining devices? Do they have any of those certifications?

BTW I'm not being a troll. I seriously don't know the answer.

Clearly then, any FPGA miner that they shipped was in violation of US law if it didn't at least have an FCC tag in place. Any unit sent to a municipality in the US that requires a UL lag clearly puts them and the customer who received it in violation of the law.

Ergo, Sonny Vleisides is clearly breaking the law, coupled with having some of his clients break it as well, depending on which municipality they live in. Circumnavigating CE regulations is a completely different matter altogether.

The FCC requirement is a concern of BFL, otherwise they wouldn't have posted that they were in the process of obtaining approval.

You keep posting this without answering why they need that when the BFL FPGA did not? There are no CE, UL, or FCC tags anywhere on it, yet they shipped plenty of them. As far as I can tell, if it doesn't directly deal with AC, and doesn't directly deal with network, it shouldn't need any of that.

Does any custom miner out there now have any of those?

While I find the video to be nice progress, I also received an email today regarding (finally) upgrading shipping order options.

The consistent thing I've been told was that when this would happen and be allowed to be changed was when shipping would be soon underway. 

Hopefully not too much longer now.  I'd imagine they just need to have the higher power spec boards mass-produced, then assembly and ship-out.

Let us assume the video was not a total sham like other PR from BFL (pictures, ship dates, specifications, etc).

If the video showed a working prototype, they would manufacture to those specifications. They would certainly not say "when we get the new board our power problems should be fixed". The video purported to show a prototype that still needs more work. This is the admission of the BFL representative speaking in the video. They are still in the prototyping phase. They have been in this phase for 10 months. Until they actually manufacture product and ship it they will still be in the prototyping phase. Anyone can SHA-256 once, the challenge is doing it fast, cheaply, for long periods, in volume, and for a low price. They have not demonstrated a prototype of a product that can do this yet. When they show a video and say "ok, this is it, we don't have to make any more changes and our partners are doing a large volume chip run followed by a large volume PCB run" I will change my sig. Gladly as a matter of fact. This farce has gone on for far too long.

Now that previous paragraph involves almost no skepticism on my part. If I was being skeptical, I would ask for actual proof of mining. Not just numbers scrolling on a screen which could easily be spoofed. I would want to see the unit mining (with proof) for more than 20 seconds at a time. Running it in short bursts does nothing to reassure me that it can run for any length of time. I don't know how they would accomplish this other than to let an expert neutral observer with credibility (e.g. not Luke-jr logging in remotely) actually take physical possession of a unit, take it home and run it through the paces. BFL has so thoroughly poisoned their public relations well, they may only be able to prove this by actually shipping several hundred orders and have them operate successfully for 6 months or so in the marketplace.

Oh, and it would be nice if low post count sockpuppets didn't show up and tout BFL quite so often.

And any judge would agree with your assessment unless, of course, Judge Coin Jedi is presiding, then all bets are off.

upon further research, altera is probably categorized as computer board which seems to be exempt. I'd say the completed unit does legally need fcc compliance, although its less stringent for a "unintended emitter".

And even if his statement is true, which is 99.995 unlikely, once the new boards come in, they would all need to be tested again by the FCC according to their website, therefore adding a possible two more weeks to their scheduled delivery date, whenever that is.

The same true for CE approval and UL, of which is a given since the power has been greatly altered from the first design, e.g. the adding/deleting of components.