Topic: Cointerra trip report (Read 8823 times)

 Looking at these photos I do not get any “warm and fuzzy feelings” that the hardware will ship in January
All I see is a case and a water-cooling block – these are not difficult to source.
I would have expected at least a proto PCB mounted in the case
I think I read that the 1st terraminer IV was supposed to ship in December
To me it looks more like late February shipping

its probably not going to happen any time soon!

I'm sure that the asic companies that are shipping from stock may be able to take paypal and credit cards, but the ones that take pre-orders just won't be able to do it.  its the same story for pretty much every asic company.  you have bfl screwing over customers to thank for paypal's policy.

and for those younger companies that haven't started production yet..  it defeats the main object of taking pre-orders.. which are to fund production costs (crowd funding).

Economics tells us that if the item is valuable then security measures simply raise the price until it is roughly in line with market price so de-badging does nothing.  Here is something similar I brought up about HF back in August.  Cointerra will be no different.  De-badged or not you are unlikely to receive a miner that will cost a lot less then market price at the time of receipt.  
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2948177

Awesome. I travel a lot, they are on my too visit list!

Would of liked to see a credit card machine in the pics... 

Make me feel nicer buying from them

If you don't mind, I'd like to start a new thread for this topic and move your post there.  I don't want to hijack this thread.

its not for me to sway you one way or another.  you need to make your own decisions.  I'm just reporting what I've seen and heard from cointerra.

like you, I've ordered from multiple asic providers to spread my risk.  i rate knc highly and i think you can't go wrong with them.  cointerra is also good (and cheaper).  I'm not so hot on bfl.

i personally think the neptunes will be wayy better than the monarchs.  i think the idea of putting monarchs into a pc, like a graphics card isn't a good solution.  they've left it to the user to figure out how to make the pc run in low power mode, and not suck down more wattage than the mining card itself will use.  and how to cool a pc that has one or more multi hundred watt cards inside is a lot harder, with all the bits and bays and cables its got.. than a dedicated miner.  i want to see how their cooling solution works out... as putting high powered cards into a pc each draw more than the pc.. right next to each other.. is a significant challenge to cool, and keep running.  and if they decide to go down the liquid cooling route that hashfast and cointerra have gone down (which is the only option that makes sense as i honestly don't think they can air cool something like that at the performance they're expecting) then they're making the user jump through hoops.  i mean, if you had to cram in 3 liquid cooling systems into the box, you'd need to buy a very big pc case that lets you mount three separate radiators, each with 120mm fans.  and cooling radiators are bigger than the fans, so they don't always co-exist nicely next to each other.  its going to be an awkward install for the customer, not to mention a high extra cost.

Ok, I have to admit that Cointerra is starting to excite me now the way KNC and Bitfury did months ago.

And because I'm very late to this preorder, just how dumb would it be for me to order an April batch TerraMinerIV?  Or if you still think it's a good idea, please tell me why.

I already have preorders for a Neptune and 2 Monarch 600's.  And I feel like now might be a good time to add another miner to my collection before BTC crashes back to $130... "Panic Buying!"  Lol.

John from cointerra says that all the miners will be packaged with the bits needed to turn them into rack mount (handles and screws?) or tower systems (rubber feet) so its up to each user how they want to use them.  apparently you can also buy rails from them as an extra cost item though i suspect you can buy those anywhere.

My personally opinion is that a lot of them will be used in rack mount mode, as this is a high power device that is going to warm up a home quite a bit so i think it best used in a data centre where you have adequate cooling and good power connections.

totally right, the system will need both of them to run.  although those power supplies could be used in a redundant server, those aren't eh way cointerra is using them

Still, those are things that are easy to make in small quantities and present difficulties when you try to mass produce. A custom radiator impresses you? Any radiator shop in your hometown can braze one together for you in an hour, and that would be 100x larger. A prototype board is easy to get. It's nice that they have something almost working, even though it doesn't have the key part that makes it a miner, but again those can be made in small quantities by a local fab place in a day or two. The holidays are coming up, suppliers won't be working for at least a few days, shipping delays will slow everything down. At this point in time to ship anything in december they need to have parts on hand and being assembled. They should have a container full of cases and power supplies already, boards off being tested and produced.

They have done a lot more, and shown a lot more than someone like hashfast, certainly terrahash.... But it doesn't inspire any confidence that units will be shipping before mid-late january in small quantities. Once they get into the cycle of being perpetually behind, it'll be difficult to catch up. I hope they start producing them, but right now it is just another preorder with no shipping date.

really?  you're not seeing any substance?  you didn't see photos of a prototype board... and a cooling system?  in fact, most of the bits that you need to make the system are already in prototype and nearly done and they're just missing the asic.

actually.. the power supplies may be off the shelf (though they're expensive and high end models compared to what I've seen in other people's system)...   but yet again, they're absolutely the best power supplies for what they needed to do.  they aren't running them at 100% load so they will get benefits in power efficiency which will make the miners cheaper to run... and they are very small and thin which gives them good airflow front to back inside the cases to help with cooling.  and the air goes the right way, and only one way.. which is perfect for datacentre deployment.

the cooling system isn't off the shelf.  that radiator was a custom hunk of metal... quite a big one at that and they've got two of them in the box.

i don't think they have many december orders... as the price for january was so attractive i think all the december customers switched their orders into january.

cointerra seems to have gone out of the way to use local suppliers... and although that may cost them more in the short term, the benefits probably outweigh the disadvantages.   for instance their asic was designed and architected in austin, and their board designer is in austin and their assembly and manufacturers are in austin.  actually, the only bit that wasn't done in austin was the bit that slowed them down (the tapeout delay).. so that kind of shows that their plan to have as close to 100% austin engineered and supplied project was probably a good idea...  and will help them achieve their time to market goals.   Had they gone for the cheapest suppliers or manufacturers around the world, they could've brought the manufacturing price down, but increased the timescales, logistics and risk factors.

HAR!!

I'm just not seeing any substance. Obviously they are working on it, but where are the key parts that they need to ship 2th miners by the end of the month? The cases aren't hard to make, any of us could get those made in bulk in china with a month lead. Power supplies and coolers are off the shelf. Where is the manufacturing facility ready to produce thousands of these? Where are production PCBs and Chips?  Sold out through the "march" batch, but will they be pulling a BFL and trying to ship december orders in april still?

Hmmm, I think it may be one per mining board (of which there are 2), not redundant PSU's at all. Overall power draw for a TerraMiner IV is estimated between 1250-1500W. Maybe the Mk. II could have a redundancy setup.

Rackmount is definitely a plus.

Redundant hotswap power supplies is very cool.

VP of Engineering runs Windows.  Not so cool.  At least the Customer Service guy runs OS X.

Well obviously the chip pictures aren't loading!   

It would be beneficial for Cointerra to tout they are US-based and their products are made in America (Made in the USA with a flag on their front page maybe).  It's not just a pride thing, but also a shipping cost/time and trust thing.  It's easier to trust a start-up when they are in the same country as you are.

I'm not about to fly overseas to check out a facility, but it's much easier to do so within the US (a couple hours flight for most, maybe just a road trip for others).

After all those pics and knowing they are here in the US, I want to buy from them - but an April batch?  Yikes...

Awesome effort Jez,

Never understood why more people don't just take these trips before spending significant time and/or money.

See you in Vegas.

Thank you, sir, for your time and efforts in reporting all this at CT. Looks like it was a fun visit. I'm jealous.

OK.. so i think thats all the photos worth uploading.  i took many more but they're duplicates and repetitions and don't add anything.  All pics taken on my iPhone!  they came out ok.. so who needs a real camera when your phone works almost as good!?  ok, some of the light metering was pretty sucky... ah well.

I'm looking forward to reading the next trip report that i see is going to be from Phinneas.   Actually.. I'm still in Austin so i guess i could go back and see him.

See you all in Vegas !