Topic: [BitCentury] Metabank 120Gh 65nm Pre-Order Proxy [CLOSED] - page 7. (Read 79057 times)

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!

Hi stripykitteh,
Thanks for this, if true, then it would mean that the previous design image we posted from bitfury may not have been a final design, or maybe they have multiple designs going on. I really wish the info was easier to attain. Let's see what we can figure out, hopefully very soon they will be more forthcoming with updates/info so we're not all left guessing.

Cheers,
Luis

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....



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

Yeah, I've also been running google translate over everything that guy has been saying; he seems to know a lot and other posters in the thread pay a lot of respect to his reports.

It would be good to get an official update, of course.

I'm probably wrong but I thought I saw a reference somewhere to having 5 boards with 8 chips each and a single backplane per device. I can't find it now though. Anyway, if it is right they would be printing 5 pcbs per device, so the number of boards could be in the thousands even if the number of units is in the hundreds. Speculation on my part.

Hi guys,

It seems we may have another, but this time *unofficial* update, in the sense we didn't get the below info directly from Metabank ourselves, so it is at least second if not third hand information, but just thought I'd share it regardless.

A guy by the name of Mu3aHTP0n here on bitcointalk has posted the following today in regards to Metabank devices...
Source: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2890286


This supposedly translates to something like:

So, this still looks like last week of August / 1st week of Sept for them to *start* making units available for shipping/pickup. I will remind you guys right now that:
a) Metabank sold at least many hundreds of units (the above post makes reference to thousands). Perhaps they can get them all assembled within a week, but if it is really in the thousands, this is definitely questionable.
b) Metabank did not provide us with an order # for each of our units. The order# we provided you guys with is directly from us, so we could track which of our customers ordered first etc, but of course all of this also depends on when Metabank gives us their units.

Cheers,
Luis

Thanks Luis. It looks as though we will soon be at the stage where there will be more to report and updates will be more frequent, which is welcome.

Hi guys,
We've had some further communications with Metabank, and below is what we can share. Note: any references to "we", means 'Metabank'

(paraphrased...)


Cheers,
Luis

Thanks for the clarification. 

Hi guys,
Glad to see you are all on the ball. Yes that google translate is pretty confusing. I specifically got one of my Russian contacts to translate that second to last line, as I was confused myself.

Google's version: "Delivery is not urgent method is possible not earlier than October."
The real human translation: "Non-urgent delivery methods (i.e. ground courier) will not be possible before October"

So, aside from onsite pickup, which is likely what we'll be doing, it sounds like they will be offering direct non-priority courier services, but not until October - and if anything they've said in the past is any indication, it probably would be only within Russia. It's now approaching the end of the month, and we're looking to make another call to clarify this as well as any other details. As soon as we complete the call and get more info, we'll be sure to post it here. At the top of the list of course is estimated delivery, which their post wasn't that clear about.

Cheers,
Luis

So, I know it is a bad translation... but does this mean that October is out.

From Metabank:

Original e-mail:
Здравствуйте,
В понедельник 29 июля мы должны получить чипы в Москве, после чего запускаем срочное производство.
Сейчас вам нужно принять решение, согласны ли вы использовать ваши биткоины для расчетов с поставщиками. После этого  возврат будет уже невозможен.
По предварительной информации суммарная мощность сети осенью может достичь свыше 1 петахэша.
На данный момент мы имеем 4 варианта платы и списки комплектующих, некоторые из которых доступны только под заказ в необходимых нам количествах.
План производства  ~ 2 недели с момента поставки комплектующих.
Если вы готовы забрать чипы, это можно сделать начиная со вторника.
Если вы не согласны с этим условиями, вы можете сделать возврат прямо сейчас без задержек.
Поставка не срочным методом возможна не ранее октября.

Просьба дать ответ в течение 4-х дней.

Translation:
Hello
On Monday, July 29, we have to get the chips in Moscow, and then run the urgent production.
Now you need to decide if you agree to use your Bitcoins for payment to suppliers. After that refund will be no longer possible.
According to preliminary information, the total power of the network in the autumn could reach over 1 petahash.
At the moment we have 4 different boards and lists of components, some of which are only available to order in the quantities we need.
The production plan ~ 2 weeks from the date of delivery of components.
If you are ready to pick up the chips, you can do starting Tuesday.
If you do not agree with these terms, you can now make a return without delay.
Delivery is not urgent method is possible not earlier than October.
Please give a reply within 4 days.

Yeah, my impression was that Metabank is the first truly 'external' customer to Bitfury/Tytus, though they do seem to be close (hard to judge if you don't speak Russian ).

It does seem encouraging that 100TH have got some kit online, only a little behind schedule (weeks, not months).

100TH is the 1st priority customer that actually was involved in developing the reference design. Metabank could still take a little longer.

100TH now mining with bitfury device.  Shouldn't Metabank be on the same schedule?

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2811496

Not to be a spoil sport, but the pricing is high if you plan to deliver in october. this is a rough estimate and likely a bit undershooting even, but you still won't even profit if you use this tool http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/

Ladies and gentlemen,

We've just launched pre-orders for our brand new product... the LittleFury! The world's fastest usb powered bitcoin miner :-)

I'd like to keep this thread reserved for Metabank related orders, so for more details, please visit:
1) Our website: https://bitcentury.io  (watch the latest video in the blog and also visit the store)
2) Our bitcointalk thread related to the LittleFury: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcentury-littlefury-usb-bitcoin-miner-up-to-4ghs-closed-locked-258926

I'll also be sending out emails shortly to everyone with a brief update related to this
Cheers,
Luis

n1 update, thank you luis.

Hope that they answer the other questions too.

regards

Thank you for the update, digitalmagus!

I'm holding out hope that they ship two of those boards per unit and underclock them to 1.25GH/chip, like the cscape design, for future overclocking

Hello everyone,

We called Metabank again today, and had a long list of questions but didn't have much luck with the person answering the phone as they couldn't answer the vast majority of them, but we did manage to get *some* useful information.

Q1: At which stage of development is the Metabank mining equipment? Has the PCB design been completed? Are you testing final PCB yet? What can you share?

A1: I believe the PCB design is finished and sent off to various (PCB) factories, but not sure if agreement with one of them is finalized.

NOTE: If we look at Bitfury's recent post https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2717867, we see a brand new design for a Bitfury PCB. I have confirmation from a 3rd source that this is indeed MetaBank's PCB. I was told it is 8 layers. Below is a picture of it.  Given Metabank sold 120GH units, we can assume they will hopefully be targeting 2.5GH/chip as there are 48 chips on the board (2.5x48=120). We believe 2.5GH should be do-able so long as proper cooling is provided. Also, another guy in a forum post elsewhere here managed to achieve 3.4GH/s, but only with a huge heat sink connected to the chip.

Given each chip is 7mm x 7mm, if you slap a ruler to your computer monitor (as I did ), then you can see this image appears to be to scale. With this, we can easily measure the board dimensions being aprox: (23cm tall x 32.5 cm wide) or ( 9.1" x 12.8" )




So, assuming the design is finished, and assuming there are no design flaws, and assuming the PCB manufacturing process as well as the assembly process proceeds without flaws, and they have already picked out their external box CNC milling etc, etc. Also typically, you first print & assemble a prototype board, then test it extensively, if all goes well, you give the order to mass produce. So it does seem indeed that an end of August delivery date *may* be possible under best case scenario; however, when there are complex boards involved, it is not uncommon to experience delays for one reason or another, so I don't want to get everyone's hopes up, but it does appear at least to be within the realm of possibility. When we asked them directly, this is what we got:


Q2: Can you give us any more precise date on when the boards will be ready for customers?

A2: It is still too early to say the exact date, as there are many steps left, so we can still only say Aug-Oct; however, maybe if you call towards end of this month we might have a better idea.


That's about all we got out of them, all our other questions they couldn't answer, but suggested we write them via email. We are going to do that in Russian (real Russian, not google's comedic transliterate). As soon as we get a reply, I will post answers - that said, we have written them a few times before, and maybe 1/3 times we get a response.  Questions are mostly of technical nature, so you guys can prepare and know what to expect. Here's some of the questions we had prepared:

1.Will there be a power supply capable of 110/220v?
2. Will there be an external case?
3. What is the targeted Watt power draw of the entire unit?
4. Can you guys start providing status updates on your website so everyone doesnt have to call you?
5. Will there be a box provided for the product that can be shipped internationally?
6. Will your device be CE, UL and RoHS certified?
7. Which software will come with your board? (i.e. cgminer?), if not, will it have an English interface?
8. Which communication method(s) will the board have:  Wifi, USB or Ethernet ?

Lastly, if you guys have any other specific questions you want to ask, maybe list them here, and we can try to ask them for the next time we call them / email them.

Cheers!
Luis