Hi guys,
Right after my previous post yesterday, I thought I'd get my Russian contact to make another call to confirm the info and also ask a pile of other questions. I had 13 questions lined up (see below) for him to ask, again we get barely any answers out of them. At this point, I'm a bit disappointed, because while before they had a good excuse not being able to answer them because the design wasn't finished and/or they hadn't confirmed a fully functioning prototype, supposedly (and I haven't been able to confirm this first hand), they now do, and as such, most of the technical questions should be answerable. I can try another call middle to end of next week and maybe by then the info will have trickled down to the front line staff answering the phones.
So we will definitely keep trying by making periodic calls on our end, but I think at this point if anybody can get answers out of them by whatever means (and I mean in a nice way of course ;-), I think it'd be good to have others also try by whatever network contacts you have to ask questions and share your answers. With this in mind, we will also try some alternate ways than just phone calls , and I will let you know in the next few days if and what info I was able to get.
Just so we're not all spamming the same people at the same time. Later today and over the weekend, I will try the following people (so please wait a few days yourself before you call/email/pm these same people, unless you are good friends or have been able to communicate with them before).
a) timur (via email), the head of the Metabank operation, we have his email address, but maybe 1 out of 6 times the guy replies back
b) "metabank.ru" user in this forum
c) bitfury
d) Mu3aHTP0n user in this forum who claims to have a direct contact with Timur, who is the head guy running the Metabank operation.
e) The 65nm Russian thread that Mu3aHTP0n participates in.
f) punin/tytus - although they are not involved directly with the metabank operation, I believe the Metabank chips were supplied by them and they speak Russian. I'd rather not bug these guys too much, as I know first hand that they have lots going on with their own operation, but will make at least 1 attempt.
Here's the little info I was able to get from our Metabank call yesterday... I will quote verbatim from my Russian contact's phone call the info he emailed me this morning....
- He (guy answering phones at Metabank) confirmed that the devices should be ready in the beginning of September.
- He didn't give me a definite address, just told me to call him again in the end of this month, when everything will be settled.
- Technical/packing questions he couldn't answer. I believe I was talking to the same sales non-tech-savvy guy. He said I can find those on forums (really? where?)
- I told him it'd be nice for us to know the location et al ahead of time, as we have to make various arrangements ahead of time. He said he can't provide more info at this time.
- 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"
The questions I had lined up....
1. We heard you guys have 5 boards hashing and chip hashing is at 2.9GH/s, can you please confirm this?
2. Will you be providing a case? What kind of case will the units have?
3. What is the current best case scenario ETA for when customers can go pickup the units from you? (Should be last week of August or 1st week of Sept, if longer than that ask why)
4. The units we will be picking up, are they going to be inside cardboard boxes that can be shipped long distance (i.e. will they have enough Styrofoam/sturdy box that can survive shipping?)
5. Can you please give me the exact address where I can go pickup the units from you?
6. Will there be a power supply capable of 110/220v?2
7. What is the targeted Watt power draw of the entire unit?
8. Will there be a box provided for the product that can be shipped internationally?
9. Will your device be CE, UL and RoHS certified?
10. Which software will come with your board? (i.e. cgminer?)
11. Which communication method(s) will the board have: Wifi, USB or Ethernet ?
12. How many chips will each unit have and what kind of cooling will be used on each chip because at 2.9GH the chips will be well above 80 degrees Celsius.
13. What are the dimensions and weight of each unit? Will it be a single board or a multi-board (i.e. avalon / H & M like c-scape setup)
Thanks in advance for any additional info people can provide.
Cheers,
Luis