Ordered 3 Prisma (Prismas? Prismi? Prismaux? Prismoxen?) and received 2 in the first batch; the third showed up yesterday. My experience with Canary was excellent -- considering I've never participated in a group buy before (only direct purchases from manufacturers, eg, Bitmain and the like), the process was smooth sailing the entire way.
Everything arrived on-time -- in fact, I had mine in hand before certain other GBs announced they'd received their first "batch." (No disrespect to any other GB intended -- just pointing out that Canary's "All mail comes here first, before anywhere else" claim seems to be pretty damned accurate. My current suspicion is that he's secretly like the Brother-in-Law of the Postmaster General or something. In fact, if you look closely at his user pic, it's *clearly* a photoshop job -- I don't think he's even a bird at all.) People were still debating in the main Prisma thread "whether or not any Prismas are in the wild yet" at least 2 days after I'd already received mine and placed 'em into service.
And all three sound like enormous "industrial hairdryers" (if such a thing existed) -- so yes, I can confirm they arrived undamaged, with absurdly loud fans functioning per the manufacturer's specs. What's that? NO, I SAID THAT THEY ARE FUNCTIONING PER MANUFAC-- oh nevermind. :)
It has been a pleasure doing business with you, Canary; I still might grab a couple more of these from you later on...if and when I'm able to adjust the exhaust setup in my spare room enough to lower the ambient temp a few degrees...anything cooler than the surface of the sun will do for now. :)
But back to my main point -- I highly recommend Mr Yellow Bird of Happiness to anyone out there (especially any GB-newbies like myself...unless I was the only one left, which could easily be the case): If you're in the market for an Avian-Managed Prismaux Group Buy, this one's your best bet.
[ Noted one more time for clarity: No disrespect to the other Prisma Group Buy, which AFAICT appears to be handled in an equally professional manner. ]
--- EDIT ---
I was asked to include some setup details, which I'm happy to do:
So, 3x Prismaux...currently supported by:
- 2x Delta/IBM DPS2000BB Server PSUs (in current-share/load-balance configuration)
- Not using the breakout boards -- I would have loved to, but they weren't in stock when I set these guys up; but Sidehack makes quality stuff so I'd recommend them to anybody even though I never used 'em.
- A previous poster earlier in the thread mentioned that he can be grumpy sometimes...I don't know him well enough to dispute that statement (although it's probably true about anybody, myself included, depending on when you happen to catch me), but the fact is he makes quality stuff, right here in the USA, and -- most importantly: if I could pay $50-60 today and get back all the hours it took me to solder those damned wires to those bastard PSUs a few weeks back ...I'm pretty sure I could just *sleep* for all those extra hours and still find the tradeoff well worth it. So definitely worth considering, IMO.
- BeagleBone Black (the development board, not the Porn Star -- and if there isn't a porn star by that name, I will *happily* eat a Prisma. Some things in life are just guaranteed.
- Running Debian 7.7 (image downloaded from the elinux.org site)
- cgminer version $whateverCurrentVersionIs with --enable-blockerupter
- Rosewill USB 2.0 Powered hub, take your pick they all seem to work great.
- Um, afaik that's it...?
- oops, almost forgot: A lovely heaping handful of Klondike_Bar's 16AWG PCI-E cables. Nice and friendly and conductive...all the things you look for in a bundle of wires... Made in Canada, which is almost the same thing as "Made in the USA" ... just much more polite. :)
Anyway I hope that helps...someone...somewhere.
