Topic: [CLOSED] - Stumptown Miners - Avalon PCB Assembly - West Coast USA - page 10. (Read 30763 times)

Good news! I just heard back from Colin. With the number of K16s we currently have ordered and paid for, he's willing to beat Tate's price by $3 and do batches in sizes as small as 10 miners per batch.

So if we go with Colin, the minimum batch size for group buys would be 10 (assuming I can get overnight shipping from Canada on 10 miners for $30 or less). We're way above that number already, so the deal is on! I will be calculating the cost of overnight shipping between Colin and myself to figure out the *real* cost and then I'll get back to you all about the possibility of partial refunds based on the price drop.

Thanks, everyone, for your support. I'm excited to get these chips on boards and hashing. :-)

Earlier I saw one of my customers had 4 extra chips they were looking to offload. I'll see if I can find them again and edit this post with their info if I do.

Thanks ryepdx. I'd like to get a K16 but only have 12 chips. Any suggestions? Should I try and find more chips?

Sounds  good. Looking forward to placing an order  for K64's this coming week.

Update!

After looking at the availability of alternative parts on the BOM, I'm much less worried about shortages now. The PICs are the scarcest component at present. I have 90 of those in hand and I've sent off for 166 more. They will get shipped to me on July 11th. We should be covered for at least 256 K16s now, PIC-wise. If orders start taking off and we need more, we can switch to the alternative design BkkCoins will be releasing and use the QFN version.

At present we are halfway to having a full batch of K16s, if we substitute them for the K64s. I've sent off an email to Colin to see if he can offer pricing that's competitive with Tate's at that batch size. If so, I will lower the minimum batch size on the K16s.

The username of the group buy organizer you bought chips from, which number group buy it was (if this was their first/only group buy, then it'd be batch 1), and the number of chips you will be forwarding to me from them.

I'd like to buy one K16, what is the group buy username / batch number / number of chips?
          Thanks--

He's right, skillet reflow is not advisable....but if you have a reflow ovan and air gun its doable...
You could do it with a v. fine soldering iron, but you need seriously steady hands....

Ill be reflowing the k1's myself, but I do have the oven etc

If anyone was having trouble ordering earlier, the server errors have been resolved and everything is functioning normally now.

I've got BitPay set up now, so the currency conversion will take place instantly. Because the currency conversion is taking place instantly, I've changed the listed prices to USD. However, you still must pay in bitcoin.

Let me know if any of you have any questions. Thanks!

Not sure it'd be practical! Most of the components are small enough that reflow is basically the only way to go, as I understand it. There have been people who've been talking about doing skillet reflows, but I personally wouldn't want to risk my Avalon chips like that.

QQ: Relatively speaking, how skilled would one need to be with standard soldering equipment to fit Avalon chips to a K1 board?  ...if it is even practical...

Shipping depends on how fast you want it, of course, and the shipper you prefer. But USPS can ship that up to Canada for $20, assuming the weight is lower than four pounds. (That's assuming about 1/4" of padding on all sides is sufficient, of course.)

I plan on ordering 2 k16 and 8 k1 (40 chips from ragingazn's group buy), but I'm going to wait until Monday or Tuesday when the btc price hopefully recovers. Weekends is not a good time to buy something with btc.

How much will shipping be to Canada?

The refund policy is to send you back the USD value of the BTC you sent as BTC. (I am converting the BTC I receive to USD for holding.) If we don't have enough orders for a batch by the time group buy chips start to go out, then this enterprise will be considered failed.

We need to move quickly now, though, because parts are already starting to go out of stock at various vendors, and I don't want to start ordering any parts en masse until we've got enough orders to fill a batch.

I plan on ordering 3 k16 boards.  What's the refund policy (chips + BTC) if this falls through and manufacturing/assembly never happen?

Thanks,
Dave

Yeah, it would require a slightly different board. BkkCoins plans on making that design available shortly after he's finished testing the current design. I'm hoping to have at least 128 of the original PICs available for a batch on the off-chance that the other design takes longer than expected to be released. I already have 90.

I haven't ordered a bunch of those yet mostly because I haven't even sold enough K16s at present to make a full batch of 128. I've added tables with number of chips pledged from each group buy and overall number of K1s, K16s, and K64s sold so you guys can keep track of that stuff too. I'll also be adding tables that show the number of K1s, K16s, and K64s from each group buy (with and without K16 substitution where its been requested) later on.

The biggest group buy using my service right now is ragingazn's, and that one has a potential 76 K16s after substituting the K64s with K16s. I have 1 order from zefir's group buy, and 1 order from SebastianJu's. 2 from steamboat's, if you count my own. We need more people on board as soon as possible.

Wouldn't a different mounting procedure require a different board?

edit:
Why not just order them?

http://www.microchipdirect.com/ProductSearch.aspx?Keywords=PIC16F1459

I just got back a quote on turnkey assembly of miners at larger batch sizes. I thought it would be interesting to share with you. Lead time on the K16s would be 10 to 12 weeks, though, so I'm not going this route unless they can reduce lead time.

Full turnkey assembly of a batch greater that 128 of K16s would run us $80.16, plus the cost of heatsinks, screws, PICs, and the 4UCONN 10987 and 11182s, per miner. Batch sizes of 256 would get us down to $72+, and batch sizes of 512 would get us to $64.62+. There are also one-time costs associated:

Solder Paste Stencil: $220.00
Programming (their machines, not the PICs): $330.00
Methodization: $182.00
PCB: $600.00

Full turnkey of a batch greater than 128 of K64s would run us $307.85, plus the cost of heatsinks, screws, PICs, and the 4UCONN 10987 and 11182s, per miner. Batches of 256 would run $277.95+, and batches of 512 would run $250.11. One time-costs:

Solder Paste Stencil: $220.00
Programming: $1,842.00
Methodization: $182.00
PCB: $600.00

And a batch of 128 K1s would run us $16.88 (plus cost of heatsinks) each, with 6 to 8 weeks turnaround. Batches of 256 would be $13.44+, batches of 512 would be $11.50+, and batches of 1,024 would be $10.25+.

I sent back an email and am seeing about getting the price of fabrication and assembly split off from the price they sent back, and I'm also seeing if they can reduce turnaround time. I suspect most of the lead time in their quote is due to parts acquisition. If that's the case, I'm going to see if I can get ahold of the parts any faster than them.

K16-sized heatsinks run about $6 each from steamboat's group buy. (So that's $24 added to the price of each K64.) I've got 256 arriving in the first batch. I'm also going to see if I can get a local plant to fabricate the heatsinks. If we get enough overall orders, that might push the price down further.

I've decided to drop my fee back down to the 5% I was talking about when I first started feeling this out. And once again, any difference in the price you paid in USD via BTC and the cost of the miners plus my 5% fee and shipping (if applicable) will be converted back to BTC and returned to you once everything's been bought and paid for.

Also, I've begun ordering PICs. I have 90 in hand already and will be sourcing more as soon as possible. I'll also be talking wtih BkkCoins about alternatives to the PIC on the parts list, since it's obviously in short supply. BkkCoins was talking about using another, more available chip requiring a different mounting procedure, so I'm going to see if I can get more information about that.

I believe I saved the payment address, but I can't be positive.  When I get home tonight I'll check, and if not I'll PM you.

Thanks!