Topic: [BitCentury] Metabank 120Gh 65nm Pre-Order Proxy [CLOSED] - page 6. (Read 79057 times)
Thank you for the continued communication, digitalmagus! It is much appreciated.
Metabank, DDN & MaRSe.
Moscow.
Moscow.
??
Are those chips you guys (DDN?) ordered? I see a living room with food and tea, so I guess this is not metabanks facility..
this is russian pizza.
Metabank, DDN & MaRSe.
Moscow.
Moscow.
??
Are those chips you guys (DDN?) ordered? I see a living room with food and tea, so I guess this is not metabanks facility..
Hello again,
We called Metabank and a little information is below, but first some ...
Comments to our questions from the 65nm Metabank Russian thread (paraphrased):
- It seems at least a few people in the 65nm Russian thread liked our questions.
- One said, come on Timur, answer the questions, don't wait around for Vasily (Mu3) to do it
- A few sarcastic remarks: "yeah, let's hope they will certify the devices everywhere possible, it'd take time exactly till october"; "otherwise "an uncle vasya the local electrician" [russian fig. of speech, like "average joe the electrician"] can show up like: "hey, you're mining without a certificate!"
- SectorZero is expecting the system to be 'frying' like the avalon his friend has in the basement.
My observation:
- If the chips really are clocked at 2.9GH, expect these systems to produce a *LOT* of heat (If 5 blades * 8 chips = 40 chips, producing ~100 degrees Celsius worth of heat). Whatever cooling they provide is going to be critical to keeping the system stable. In any case, be prepared for dealing with all the heat these boxes will generate.
Metabank Call Aug 24, 2013:
- The devices will NOT have any certifications (i.e. UL, CE, RoHS, etc) because this would delay device availability by at least 1 month. We can try to label them as 'computer engineering prototypes' or something of the sort - if you have some good advice for this, we're listening. If they ship with standard PC power supplies, we won't have to worry about UL certification as they should already be certified. As for RoHS, that's an option you select when you get PCBs printed. Typically costs about 15-20% more, but ensures there is no lead in the product. They still allow non-RoHS PCBs to be printed even in North America, but only for prototypes. For consumer products it is required to have RoHS compliance, although not all PCB manufacturers really enforce that. The CE certification would be much trickier. Just to be clear, this will not be our responsibility if customs doesn't clear it because of lack of certifications. On the flip side, Avalon's boxes were not CE certified, and the vast majority of them cleared customs without issues, we think primarily because they looked like computer boxes.
- They are on target to start "unloading" at the end of this month or first week of September. (I will have to get clarification on what "unloading" is meant here exactly, but I assume it means unloading into customer's hands).
- Not all devices at once, but first orders get devices first. (Note that we didn't start offering our service until Metabank was selling units for several days, I'd have to go back and check, but the bulk of our orders were even several days after that).
- The device box is made of plastic, not plexiglass
- There will most likely not be any packaging provided for people picking up the boxes. (FYI, we {BitCentury} have already started discussions on how to provide proper packaging, boxes etc for our customers, so we'll do what we can here to try to make sure the units arrive in one piece to you. The good news is that both Tom and I have experience with properly packing and shipping expensive circuit boards from past jobs).
- As for the technical questions the guy answering the phone could not answer them, but we mentioned that others want information too and to please post technical information in the forum. He said they will do, but who knows. They also asked us to email our technical questions to them before (we've done it at least 2 or 3 times) and never get a reply - both in English or Russian.
That's all we have for now folks.
Cheers :-)
Luis
We called Metabank and a little information is below, but first some ...
Comments to our questions from the 65nm Metabank Russian thread (paraphrased):
- It seems at least a few people in the 65nm Russian thread liked our questions.
- One said, come on Timur, answer the questions, don't wait around for Vasily (Mu3) to do it
- A few sarcastic remarks: "yeah, let's hope they will certify the devices everywhere possible, it'd take time exactly till october"; "otherwise "an uncle vasya the local electrician" [russian fig. of speech, like "average joe the electrician"] can show up like: "hey, you're mining without a certificate!"
- SectorZero is expecting the system to be 'frying' like the avalon his friend has in the basement.
My observation:
- If the chips really are clocked at 2.9GH, expect these systems to produce a *LOT* of heat (If 5 blades * 8 chips = 40 chips, producing ~100 degrees Celsius worth of heat). Whatever cooling they provide is going to be critical to keeping the system stable. In any case, be prepared for dealing with all the heat these boxes will generate.
Metabank Call Aug 24, 2013:
- The devices will NOT have any certifications (i.e. UL, CE, RoHS, etc) because this would delay device availability by at least 1 month. We can try to label them as 'computer engineering prototypes' or something of the sort - if you have some good advice for this, we're listening. If they ship with standard PC power supplies, we won't have to worry about UL certification as they should already be certified. As for RoHS, that's an option you select when you get PCBs printed. Typically costs about 15-20% more, but ensures there is no lead in the product. They still allow non-RoHS PCBs to be printed even in North America, but only for prototypes. For consumer products it is required to have RoHS compliance, although not all PCB manufacturers really enforce that. The CE certification would be much trickier. Just to be clear, this will not be our responsibility if customs doesn't clear it because of lack of certifications. On the flip side, Avalon's boxes were not CE certified, and the vast majority of them cleared customs without issues, we think primarily because they looked like computer boxes.
- They are on target to start "unloading" at the end of this month or first week of September. (I will have to get clarification on what "unloading" is meant here exactly, but I assume it means unloading into customer's hands).
- Not all devices at once, but first orders get devices first. (Note that we didn't start offering our service until Metabank was selling units for several days, I'd have to go back and check, but the bulk of our orders were even several days after that).
- The device box is made of plastic, not plexiglass
- There will most likely not be any packaging provided for people picking up the boxes. (FYI, we {BitCentury} have already started discussions on how to provide proper packaging, boxes etc for our customers, so we'll do what we can here to try to make sure the units arrive in one piece to you. The good news is that both Tom and I have experience with properly packing and shipping expensive circuit boards from past jobs).
- As for the technical questions the guy answering the phone could not answer them, but we mentioned that others want information too and to please post technical information in the forum. He said they will do, but who knows. They also asked us to email our technical questions to them before (we've done it at least 2 or 3 times) and never get a reply - both in English or Russian.
That's all we have for now folks.
Cheers :-)
Luis
Looking good fellas. Thanks for the constant updates and keeping everyone in the loop.
Thanks for the update. Hopefully we can get a shipping date within the next few weeks. Cheers.
In other news...
1. My plane ticket to Moscow has been purchased today. I will be there somewhere around late 1st week or up to mid 2nd week of Sept. I don't want to disclose exact dates for my personal security, but will post from Moscow to say that I am there, once I am there
. This is not guaranteed yet as the Visa approval process will take almost 2 full weeks and I won't know if Visa is approved until literally a few days just before I am supposed to leave.
2. We also looked at a Ukraine thread where they were talking about Metabank. See here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2954355
Specifically, they posted this picture:
Note that this is not necessarily what Metabank will be shipping. This thread is primarily related to Ukrainian people who bought Bitfury chips and are doing their own thing. Just wanted to clear that up. Getting back to the 65nm thread, the Mu3 guy (sorry not typing out his weird alias every time), said he'd be trying to get a picture of the finished units soon. Once we have those hopefully a lot of questions will be answered as well.
Have a great weekend everyone,
Luis
1. My plane ticket to Moscow has been purchased today. I will be there somewhere around late 1st week or up to mid 2nd week of Sept. I don't want to disclose exact dates for my personal security, but will post from Moscow to say that I am there, once I am there
. This is not guaranteed yet as the Visa approval process will take almost 2 full weeks and I won't know if Visa is approved until literally a few days just before I am supposed to leave. 2. We also looked at a Ukraine thread where they were talking about Metabank. See here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2954355
Specifically, they posted this picture:
Note that this is not necessarily what Metabank will be shipping. This thread is primarily related to Ukrainian people who bought Bitfury chips and are doing their own thing. Just wanted to clear that up. Getting back to the 65nm thread, the Mu3 guy (sorry not typing out his weird alias every time), said he'd be trying to get a picture of the finished units soon. Once we have those hopefully a lot of questions will be answered as well.
Have a great weekend everyone,
Luis
Hi guys,
As promised I've asked my translator to make a post in 65nm thread and ask Mu3HTP0n to ask Timur some questions. Here's his post:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2995610
Now let's see if we can actually get some answers. He will also try to call Metabank this weekend (assuming they answer phones on weekend) and then I'll let you guys know if they provided any answers to the below questions.
Here's the English version of the questions:
As promised I've asked my translator to make a post in 65nm thread and ask Mu3HTP0n to ask Timur some questions. Here's his post:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2995610
Now let's see if we can actually get some answers. He will also try to call Metabank this weekend (assuming they answer phones on weekend) and then I'll let you guys know if they provided any answers to the below questions.
Here's the English version of the questions:
Quote
Mu3aHTP0n, I would be grateful if you could ask a few questions to Timur and let us know, as calling Metabank has yielded no answers so far. I apologize if these questions have already been asked earlier in this thread, but it saves me from reading 200 pages.
0. Can I still will pick up by the device if so when and how will we get geographical address? Or if not, what are the other options?
1. As I understand it, the device will ship with the housing already. If so, what kind of casing is it? Plexiglass?
2. How many 8-chip (2.9GH/chip) boards will be in the device? 5 (116 GH max) or 6 (139 GH)?
3. The devices will be packaged in a box that can survive long-distance delivery? With styrofoam?
4. The power supply is 220V? Or dual-voltage 110/220V?
5. How many watts will consume the entire unit?
6. Whether the unit is certified in accordance with CE, UL and RoHS?
7. What software for mining will be supplied with the device? cgminer?
8. What methods of communication will be in the unit? Wifi, USB, Ethernet?
9. What is the weight and dimensions of the device?
10. When 2.9GH/sec the temperature will be about 100 degrees. What kind of cooling will the system have? Will it have heat sinks and fans for each blade?
11. Are all the necessary cables included to operate the machine (i.e power, ethernet, USB, etc) or not?
0. Can I still will pick up by the device if so when and how will we get geographical address? Or if not, what are the other options?
1. As I understand it, the device will ship with the housing already. If so, what kind of casing is it? Plexiglass?
2. How many 8-chip (2.9GH/chip) boards will be in the device? 5 (116 GH max) or 6 (139 GH)?
3. The devices will be packaged in a box that can survive long-distance delivery? With styrofoam?
4. The power supply is 220V? Or dual-voltage 110/220V?
5. How many watts will consume the entire unit?
6. Whether the unit is certified in accordance with CE, UL and RoHS?
7. What software for mining will be supplied with the device? cgminer?
8. What methods of communication will be in the unit? Wifi, USB, Ethernet?
9. What is the weight and dimensions of the device?
10. When 2.9GH/sec the temperature will be about 100 degrees. What kind of cooling will the system have? Will it have heat sinks and fans for each blade?
11. Are all the necessary cables included to operate the machine (i.e power, ethernet, USB, etc) or not?
Thanks for the update guys, I don't know how many outside russia ordered via metabank, but finding information is very hard, the russian thread is full of shit, insults etc. So any updates given are appreciated a lot - keep it up!
Thank you for the update!
Quote
Hey Luis,
pidobir mentioned something that shipping starts at 5 of september, can you check this info?
pidobir mentioned something that shipping starts at 5 of september, can you check this info?
Hi foofighter.
pidobir (his posts: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/pidobir-50909), is in a similar position to us, in that he is also waiting for orders from Metabank although on a smaller scale. My understanding is that he ran a group buy operation. In his posts he has claimed several times to have been in contact with Metabank. Obviously, I can't vouch for the statements he makes as I don't know him, but given Metabank's lack of public information announcements it doesn't hurt to keep an eye on another guy who claims to have info. When we make another call, I will try to get confirmation on dates.
Luis
Thanks guys. I am fine now, but my cold knocked me down in bed for several days.
Here's the updates I have so far:
1 - Email to Metabank from several days ago still no reply back
2 - Email to Timur from several days ago, still no reply back
3 - My main Russian friend in Moscow is ready to deal with orders, but obviously there's none yet.
4 - I've spoke with Bitfury. He has some portion of his own purchased chips being handled by Metabank, that said he is not in daily contact with them, but obviously has contacts high up, likely Timur directly. He said that as far as he knows, Metabank is still on track for a late August / early Sept delivery. Bitfury doesn't like to deal with customer relations as he'd rather spend his time heads down doing technical work. You may have noticed he hasn't made a bitcointalk post since late July. All he told me is that he is very busy "working".
5 - I've created a bitcointalk.org acct for my main Russian translator (not same guy as in Moscow). I will be asking him to start interacting in the 65nm Metabank threads later this week to ask our questions and get back to us here on generally what is going on. I'll also try to get him to talk to Mu3aHTP0n. This as opposed to me doing it in transliterated Russian and likely being the target of jokes/insults - as already goes on there daily.
6 - My goal for this week is to start my Russian Visa application form. I am *potentially* targeting a trip for around 1st or 2nd week of Sept, but this depends on various factors including: a) Getting holidays approved from work (this should not be a problem) b) Getting a visa timely approved (Russian Embassy in Canada states one can be obtain in as little as 3 business days {excluding processing time by visa agent companies that deal with embassy} for rushed requests, but no idea on approval rates ) c) Metabank actually announcing delivery/pickup dates or customers showing they actually received working units d) Booking an available flight.
While I fully trust my main Moscow friend as well as his more technical work associate, given the size of our orders and to ensure everything goes as smooth as possible we (bitcentury) have decided that if I am able to go to Moscow to oversee the delivery operation, that I should go. Again, I offer no guarantees on this part at this point, but am working towards this. If in the meantime Metabank delivers earlier, I still have my friend in Moscow ready to start working on our orders.
I'll keep posting more details as we get them. In the mean time, keep an eye in the usual places (65nm Metabank thread, and bitcointalk users: Mu3aHTP0n, Bitfury, Metabank.ru) and by all means, please keep sharing info on here and asking questions.
Cheers,
-Luis
Here's the updates I have so far:
1 - Email to Metabank from several days ago still no reply back
2 - Email to Timur from several days ago, still no reply back
3 - My main Russian friend in Moscow is ready to deal with orders, but obviously there's none yet.
4 - I've spoke with Bitfury. He has some portion of his own purchased chips being handled by Metabank, that said he is not in daily contact with them, but obviously has contacts high up, likely Timur directly. He said that as far as he knows, Metabank is still on track for a late August / early Sept delivery. Bitfury doesn't like to deal with customer relations as he'd rather spend his time heads down doing technical work. You may have noticed he hasn't made a bitcointalk post since late July. All he told me is that he is very busy "working".
5 - I've created a bitcointalk.org acct for my main Russian translator (not same guy as in Moscow). I will be asking him to start interacting in the 65nm Metabank threads later this week to ask our questions and get back to us here on generally what is going on. I'll also try to get him to talk to Mu3aHTP0n. This as opposed to me doing it in transliterated Russian and likely being the target of jokes/insults - as already goes on there daily.
6 - My goal for this week is to start my Russian Visa application form. I am *potentially* targeting a trip for around 1st or 2nd week of Sept, but this depends on various factors including: a) Getting holidays approved from work (this should not be a problem) b) Getting a visa timely approved (Russian Embassy in Canada states one can be obtain in as little as 3 business days {excluding processing time by visa agent companies that deal with embassy} for rushed requests, but no idea on approval rates ) c) Metabank actually announcing delivery/pickup dates or customers showing they actually received working units d) Booking an available flight.
While I fully trust my main Moscow friend as well as his more technical work associate, given the size of our orders and to ensure everything goes as smooth as possible we (bitcentury) have decided that if I am able to go to Moscow to oversee the delivery operation, that I should go. Again, I offer no guarantees on this part at this point, but am working towards this. If in the meantime Metabank delivers earlier, I still have my friend in Moscow ready to start working on our orders.
I'll keep posting more details as we get them. In the mean time, keep an eye in the usual places (65nm Metabank thread, and bitcointalk users: Mu3aHTP0n, Bitfury, Metabank.ru) and by all means, please keep sharing info on here and asking questions.
Cheers,
-Luis
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2964113
1. Cases will be made of plexiglass
2. MetaBank will receive 1400 boards in 8 days.
3 ATX PSU will be in the devices.
4 Photos will be tomorrow.
5 Devices will be testing before shipment
Hi guys,
My apologies for no posts in the past week. I was sick for several days and then inundated with backlog of work and other personal stuff. I will try to provide an update as soon as I am able to.
Thanks for your patience,
Luis
PS. Thanks foofighter for posting the prototype board pic.
My apologies for no posts in the past week. I was sick for several days and then inundated with backlog of work and other personal stuff. I will try to provide an update as soon as I am able to.
Thanks for your patience,
Luis
PS. Thanks foofighter for posting the prototype board pic.
Hey Luis,
pidobir mentioned something that shipping starts at 5 of september, can you check this info?
Hi guys,
My apologies for no posts in the past week. I was sick for several days and then inundated with backlog of work and other personal stuff. I will try to provide an update as soon as I am able to.
Thanks for your patience,
Luis
PS. Thanks foofighter for posting the prototype board pic.
My apologies for no posts in the past week. I was sick for several days and then inundated with backlog of work and other personal stuff. I will try to provide an update as soon as I am able to.
Thanks for your patience,
Luis
PS. Thanks foofighter for posting the prototype board pic.
Get well soon and hopefully you can give us a update on when we should start seeing the products ship. Thanks.
Hi guys,
My apologies for no posts in the past week. I was sick for several days and then inundated with backlog of work and other personal stuff. I will try to provide an update as soon as I am able to.
Thanks for your patience,
Luis
PS. Thanks foofighter for posting the prototype board pic.
My apologies for no posts in the past week. I was sick for several days and then inundated with backlog of work and other personal stuff. I will try to provide an update as soon as I am able to.
Thanks for your patience,
Luis
PS. Thanks foofighter for posting the prototype board pic.
Nice! Thanks for the cross-post Foofighter.
Anymore infos on those pictures in another thread? Those seem a lot of hardware errors, also ~1,9% rejected. anyone can tell what the "SHORT test 6s" parameters tell? 1st half? 2nd half?
Hi fpgaminer,
Well, assuming the "Mu3aHTP0n" guy really has direct access to Timur, and assuming the Russian text translation above isn't too mangled, I'd almost trust his info more than the front line guy answering phones at Metabank who can't seem to answer a single technical question (yet). So at this point we have 1 guy saying end of august/1st week of Sept, and another guy saying 3rd week of Sept.
As for c-scape boards. Yes the bare boards are ready and already at generation 3, which is pretty amazing actually. However, none are available until October now for US delivery as per MegaBigPower: https://megabigpower.com/shop/, although I think he sold a few (dozen?) August units, and probably likewise for the EU distributers (puinin/tytus) over at: http://www.bitfurystrikesback.com/shop/.
As far as I understand only initial investors like Metabank, punin/tytus and Dave of 100TH got July chips in any substancial volume, anybody else who wanted Bitfury July chips had to buy them at the very expensive price of $308,000 USD / 3,000 chips. I have a feeling they didn't sell too many of those reels if any at all, but maybe somebody did buy 1 or 2? I have no idea. More than likely people bought 3,000 chip reels in volume for the October delivery @ $60,000 USD, but this would mean no high volume chips hitting network until very late October or more realistically, some time in November from Bitfury perspective. This of course, excluding the 100TH project. I haven't kept a close eye on Dave's thread (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ann-usnorth-american-bitfury-sales-new-stock-now-shipping-251966) , but I believe earlier this week he mentioned that his units are in the process of being assembled, which means at least part of his 100TH by end of this month being up and running is not out of the question.
Luis
On the other hand, we paid less, so it's not all bad. I'll keep dreaming and hope Metabank can deliver early September.
Thank you for keeping us up-to-date, digitalmagus!
Well, assuming the "Mu3aHTP0n" guy really has direct access to Timur, and assuming the Russian text translation above isn't too mangled, I'd almost trust his info more than the front line guy answering phones at Metabank who can't seem to answer a single technical question (yet). So at this point we have 1 guy saying end of august/1st week of Sept, and another guy saying 3rd week of Sept.
As for c-scape boards. Yes the bare boards are ready and already at generation 3, which is pretty amazing actually. However, none are available until October now for US delivery as per MegaBigPower: https://megabigpower.com/shop/, although I think he sold a few (dozen?) August units, and probably likewise for the EU distributers (puinin/tytus) over at: http://www.bitfurystrikesback.com/shop/.
As far as I understand only initial investors like Metabank, punin/tytus and Dave of 100TH got July chips in any substancial volume, anybody else who wanted Bitfury July chips had to buy them at the very expensive price of $308,000 USD / 3,000 chips. I have a feeling they didn't sell too many of those reels if any at all, but maybe somebody did buy 1 or 2? I have no idea. More than likely people bought 3,000 chip reels in volume for the October delivery @ $60,000 USD, but this would mean no high volume chips hitting network until very late October or more realistically, some time in November from Bitfury perspective. This of course, excluding the 100TH project. I haven't kept a close eye on Dave's thread (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ann-usnorth-american-bitfury-sales-new-stock-now-shipping-251966) , but I believe earlier this week he mentioned that his units are in the process of being assembled, which means at least part of his 100TH by end of this month being up and running is not out of the question.
Luis
Quote
He confirmed that the devices should be ready in a month, I asked if September 15 is a safe bet to arrange our trip, he said "well, let's better say 20-ish
Well that's disappointing. Looks like the c-scape based boards will ship before Metabank's design ... and those are U.S. local and were bought much later. On the other hand, we paid less, so it's not all bad. I'll keep dreaming and hope Metabank can deliver early September.
Thank you for keeping us up-to-date, digitalmagus!
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