Topic: Board Designs for BlackArrow's Minion Chips (Read 9317 times)

Cgminer driver + tp_link images

*0.3.5 Minion release http://technobit.eu/0_3_5_Final_ok.rar 

Nice good luck man !
some group buys will be created without the BAS approval but I think they will not be against now

Assembly service in sale

http://technobit.eu/index.php?id_product=79&controller=product&id_lang=1

Bravo Martine...!!!

ZiG

What mounting socket do they use? I would love to see 4 chips under Corsair H50s or the like.

ROFL  
Hey led boy those videos are kicking ass:) They are blinking better that yours Led boy:)
Marto, I do strongly suggest to start sell Christmas trees immediately and kick the led boy out of the LED business ASAP

Epic.......

nice 

these are for 150 W heat dissipation each, and as far the chip is making about 100W it was the closest of the shelf solution @ reasonable price

Those are some serious coolers. Does the chip run super hot or are those extras you had laying around from another project?

Steve

Blinking LEDs
For Bick

http://youtu.be/f77YAriM9Uw

http://youtu.be/wXhMkG_r1_s

Photos and after a few hours

As far as i know they did.
There are some customers chips here already

Nice Marto.

I bet you are getting flooded with frustrated Black arrow customers.

can you PM me some more information? I invested 12k into black arrow and if they do offer exchange for chips i wonder how many I would be able to get.

Not bad!  Be better if you can have two boards per miner so it's in the 750 Gh/s area.  Similar to the Habenero and GoldRush.

4 chip minion board testing
@ about 400 W @ the wall


*greetings Bick

Very nice.

BA has got the chipset at March.
i don't know why they cannot produce miner.there must be something wrong.
Strongly suggest don't take chipset if you don't have factory to work together.it will waste your time and money.
welcome your guys join with lightingasic. we can help to design miner hw, sw. and produce it in Shenzhen China.
here is my head office, welcome your visit.
地址：中国深圳市福田区福华一路国际商会大厦 A座901(邮编:518048)
Address：Rm.901, Building A, International Chamber of Commerce Building, Futian District, Shenzhen,China (Zip Code:518048)

Marto what kind of wattage are you pulling on your test setup? That looks like it could be a very attractive option at the right spec and price of course.

Steve

WE are still on a single chip.
Will advice parameters and pricing as soon we run @ least 4 chip version

whats your efficientcy? W/GHs ?

Yes it is now

And you are not Technobit also. When you will do your first chip next year?
By the way I like your style always editing and moving same posts up and down in each topic
So here you are
No shit
Damn how many meetings I have missed? Marto schedule a meeting so we can discus the options  
Learn from Bick  

Does it work with CGMiner?

greetings Bick
Our very fist tests
Yes very first test 1 chip @ 78 GHs

Like I said if anyone does take the chips now or later and wants to work with us on a Minion variant of our designs please contact me directly. We have a meeting about 6 hours from this post all are welcome to attend just contact me if you are interested in listening in or asking question of our EE team on where we are on the Hammer Whiteface.

Done watching this thread as the WPC can't help with the immediate need and so I will leave it up others to help support you guys. Sorry we really wish we could help you today. Good luck everyone.

Bick ,
please stay on topic

p.s. and you again are twisting the facts with the GB

You are wrong, very wrong on all aspects about the WPC, and that board which is an A1 Wasp prototype and has nothing to do with Zefir or Bitmine. Go ask Zefir yourself on that and check the boards they are completely different configurations. Oh my are you really telling me you can't tell the difference?

This thread is about the Minion, nor is about you not paying people BTC you owe them from a group buy in 2013, and I was answering dropt direct question about the WPC Minion boards


and the development timeline, which you know nothing about so keep talking about your stuff and I will keep posting about our stuff.

The movie of the A1 Wasp blinking... shows the power is on and all the gremlins are worked out powerwise and clearly demonstrates a HUGE difference between the bitmine offering and our design. Completely different boards. How did you miss that? Really? I think you said that on purpose to give people the impression we are working off others designs. Why would you do that Marto?



vs.



March 21st, 2014 Email from the EE on the A1 Wasp.

1. 3.3V regulator working
2. JTAG interface to UC3C working
3. processor is initializing
4. ASF now working (took moving to Studio 6.2, since all UC3C was broken in 6.1)
5. 12MHz oscillator is working
6. can do one LED - all 3 colors are working

From this we will move to the Minion but not right now. I wish everyone luck on the Black Arrow stuff. I just hope they can get you a backplane so you don't spend 4 or 5 more weeks to get something from a 3rd party.

Our Hammer / Minion / Rockerbox / Pickaxe form factor for the Whiteface that goes into Novec 2 phase test system DataTank at Allied Control will look like this:



When we have that up in a Minion we will let you know but that is likely going to be in later 2014 unless you have a team of people that wants to share development from where we are now but even then we are looking at least few months end of summer.

testing ....

If you know anyone keen on working on our base design by using the Minion as base chip then please have them contact me and I will arrange a meeting without EE to see what is viable. My guess is that won't be necessary as BA is paying for or looking for a solution given what I read. Wish we had the resources to do 3 chips at the same time but we are not Spondoolies.

Sorry all
I edited all my off topic

Take it somewhere else guys.  Asking about 3rd party Minion designs is not a controversial question.

How about leave it to other threads, and we keep this thread to the OP?

OP
Please excuse me
Offtopic removed

We are not working on the re-design yet for the Minion. We had nearly finished an A1 board and had it blinking away and that has now been relegated to a test board, (as the blinking board was designed as a test board anyhow as a first prototype), and we did this because more chips became available and we were offered the Hammer chips and took that tact over the A1, BE200 and the Minion we look at the costs of the chips and the design requirements and made our decision based on the recommendations of the EE team. The WPC in meetings then set out a plan for moving on to other chips as the A1 is an odd ball chip to say the least with its unique cooling issues.



So, first we have to get our 1300 Hammer chips into a preliminary design either some as a Whiteface that will be Novec cooled or a Hornet which is an air cooled board. We could work with others if they want to take on parallel design for the Minion versions but we would have to look at some sort of agreement for that and the members who have invested in the boards (project) would have to agree. That is something that lead EE can talk more about. If anyone is keen on that please contact me and I will arrange for you to come to the meeting on the 31st of May. That meeting will give us the latest news on the development and where we will likely be by the 24th of June. Also we are looking at buying seats for a CAD program to make the redesign of the Minion and Rockerbox and future BGA type chips much easier and that will allow 2 or 3 EEs on the WPC to work in together on this. Currently we are constrained to a 1 seat OrdCad Cadence package which has limited functionality.

We have a limited number of people working on the project and I have personally been trying to engage more EEs to support this as members of the WPC. But again unlike those who have millions of dollars in reserve we are working on not as a full time gig for most of the members they have real world jobs and so we are functioning more or less on  3 to 4 people with one lead EE that does the majority of the pcb work. Those working on the project give time in lieu of shares in the project. Those who are not providing sweat equity are investing $ or BTC to help pay for the development costs and all this is kept in an open accounting system that all our members can see. We are also working on the WPC mining pool which is functional now as well as trying to set up our LLP/LLC soon. All of this is done by a number of people and I think I would guess that would be some 8 to10 people. We are transparent so if any member or any member of the public wants to come to a meeting to see what is happening feel free to contact me and poke your nose in and see what the EE has to say. Ask questions and get answers first hand.

Honestly we have had discussion very openly that we will definitely need to either grow membership and take on investors who are willing to support a more full-time approach that will cover the total development costs of these projects. As we are not building miners to sell we only need the raise just enough to get a reasonable number of boards out to prove and test that production for the DIYers or larger customers is scalable and profitable. There is a lot more beyond just the PCB design and that firmware plans we are always looking to add people willing to work and or invest time and money in our collective efforts. This is not a solo effort. I am not the only member. I do not handle money or BTC that is in the capable hands of others in the collective just so everyone is clear since there are countless lies being posted here and there in bitcointalk. Again if you want to check if I am telling the truth come to the meeting and ask.

The plan is from this point forward, and what we have funded to this point, is to build a prototype Hammer Whiteface to go into a test datatank system at Allied Control in June before the HK Inside Bitcoin conference. Those 1300 Hammers we have in hand will be put either into Whiteface or Hornet form factors and will remain in the WPC and not sold. The next step will be to go for a Rockerbox / Minion / Pickaxe in the Whiteface, Hornet and Wasp form factors.

At the point we have a working Rockerbox, Minion or Pickaxe then we will be licensing our designs out when that is ready to anyone.

-------

TLDR; Start Here.

Back on topic. I think your best bet is really waiting for BA to resolve their issue with the backplane. I have already asked our EE to look at BA's backplane problem if he has time but he is neck deep in our Hammer Whiteface board.

Design Priority

Hammer > BE200 > Minion > RockerBox > PickAxe

-------

More Ranting Below. Feel free to ignore it.

There are plenty of people cracking on about the WPC and what we haven't done. If you have the balls show up to our meeting on the 31st and challenge our EE's to answer your questions about the design and their level of commitment to the project, please come and get a CLEAR answer about the project and the WPC. I am getting a bit tired of the lies and innuendo from the peanut gallery given there are LIVE people pouring effort into this project based on their own decision. I might be a polarizing figure for the WPC because I stand up to people who have cheated others out of BTC, but let us be clear I am not the only person in the WPC and it seems like attacking something without backing it up with any evidence is the way some people play the game. If you have the guts, then come and talk to the WPC about your concerns in person. I bet you won't particularly those who have lied about the nature of the WPC and my own involvement.

If you think you know what is what then please feel free to come chat with our EE's. Otherwise you can drop the pretense you are somehow concerned about the "free" labour the EE's provide me the WPC. That is not how it works. We can invest our time or our money no one is forced or coerced to do it. I have invested a lot of free time and my own money into the WPC based on my belief that the EE team will deliver at some point.

The whole point of the WPC is to pool our resources and share in the risk and the reward. We all know the risks we are all big boys with our big boy pants and we know the risks so we don't need others telling us what those risks are. But again if you want to level lies and accusations then bring that to our meeting and voice it. I DARE you to bring it as I would be very keen to hear what the EE's has to say in response to the misconceptions and lies that some specific people love to spread here.

Bottomline we are working on a design. We pay for the work in sweat and money from the members who decide they want to invest in a given project and that is the risk we all understand. Where some of these assholes are pissed off with me is directly related to my stance on their thefts of BTC from members of this community, which by the way, is well documented and their only recourse is to lie about the nature of the WPC and my involvement. Come to the meeting and say that to our faces don't hide behind a wall of text it is either show up or shut up time for those detractors.

A 3rd party board for these chips would be very cool.

I have 20 of the chips in hand sealed in the US, any one who is interested in DIY board design is more than welcome to contact me to receive them.

Weren't you guys working on a universal system for all chips?  Didn't the WPC receive a variety of chips from a variety of manufacturers?  What happened to all of those and the cards WPC was working on to support them?  Are you going to follow through on the Hammer ASIC, or are you guys going to scrap that entirely as soon as another one comes along like you have for everything else?

OP
Please excuse me
Offtopic removed

We are not working on the Minion chips at this time. We are working with the Hammer SpondooliesTech trying to develop a board that goes into a DataTank test system at Allied Control hopefully in June when I am in HK for the Inside Bitcoin conference. Our Minion design board will only be starting later in 2014.

Best suggestion don't take the chips unless you have something already tested and working and fabricator you can trust. Such a small number of chips will be a fairly expensive build. You might be waiting a lot longer than just being patient for them to figure out their issues with the backplane. Or take the miner compensation and mine or sell them.

Any guesses on performance yet Marto?

HI,
we are working on our board.
The test board is already populated with 1 chip and we are testing.
I'll update as soon we have results

Due to BlackArrow delays, some of their customers are being offered 50 Minions in place of a miner.
Just wondering if anyone had done anything with these chips.  There could be a lot available soon.
WASP Collective was going to design something but I don't know if it materialized.
BlackArrow customers are wondering if it's worth it to get the chips or continue to wait.  Thoughts?