Community Miner Design Discussion - page 21.

2112

legendary

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Quote from: sidehack on February 23, 2016, 03:47:18 PM

Funny, because I have exactly the opposite experience. I've never had USB-B problems, but mini are decent (though sometimes the connector comes off the board) and micro tend to disconnect, or more likely break, all over. I will never deliberately put a micro USB connector on something I want to work for very long. My first preference is USB-B, followed by mini.

I'm not really sure if your experience is indicative.

The broad industry reliability statistics are:

Standard Type-A < Standard Type-B < Mini-B < Micro-B

The Mini-A and Micro-A weren't deployed widely enough.

sidehack

legendary

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Curmudgeonly hardware guy

Yeah that's great, since the micro has an I2C bus. Except it's already in use talking to sensors as specified in my post on the first page. So if you want to make sure to address around those sensors (which are going to be implementation-dependent of course) I guess it's possible. And then add that into the firmware. And then add it into the driver on whatever you're compiling cgminer on.

So, to be not sarcastic, yes it's possible. Also, I'm not gonna do it. Please read my post on the first page with a description of everything I am going to do. If you want to extend that further on your own you're welcome to it, but I'm not going to. One of the things mandated was no design-by-committee because exactly this kind of thing happens. Feature creep kills time-sensitive projects just as much as anything. So, no offense guys, but I'm probably going to ignore all suggestions for at least the next month or so since Novak and I already spent most of a year talking over and ironing things out to where they are now and I figure that's good enough.

Witrebel

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Just throwing a dart at a the dart board here, but how much complexity would be added if there was on option for USB and I2C connectivity?

Those folks not comfortable with lower level interfaces stick to the default USB setup.

If you want to use it as an I2C slave, you set a board level slave address via the USB, and then you can string up however many boards you want, up to 256 or whatever the max is.

I am not very familiar with writing drivers, but I would think the majority of the code body on both the boards MCU and the cgminer side wouldn't care if it was running on usb vs I2C, just a different physical layer, with maybe a slight difference in the addressing mechanisms?

Just playing devils advocate here, as I completely agree that USB makes the most sense if you have to pick only one option. Just curious if its possible to at least provision for the DIY guys to run it on I2C if they really wanted.

sidehack

legendary

Activity: 3416

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Curmudgeonly hardware guy

Funny, because I have exactly the opposite experience. I've never had USB-B problems, but mini are decent (though sometimes the connector comes off the board) and micro tend to disconnect, or more likely break, all over. I will never deliberately put a micro USB connector on something I want to work for very long. My first preference is USB-B, followed by mini.

2112

legendary

Activity: 2128

Merit: 1073

Quote from: alh on February 23, 2016, 03:35:22 PM

While I liked the Firewire disk devices that I had, it's day is long since over. The USB universe has completely run roughshod over Firewire. Hubs, ports, cables are way more available and less costly for USB than Firewire.

It would be nuts to have your hashing hardware require a Firewire port for correct operation.

Agreed.

The same can be told about daisy-chaining, no matter what is the actual connector and protocol. Even on-the-PCB daisy-chaining is going to be depreciated. I believe sidehack & friend have chosen an MCU with enough SPI or UART ports to have point-to-point connection to each hashing chip.

2112

legendary

Activity: 2128

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Quote from: philipma1957 on February 23, 2016, 03:13:14 PM

i had a lot of firewire 400 fire wire 800 they were a bit more reliable then usb2. but the cables are costly.

usb2 I have run 121 usb2 sticks off 1 pc. but truth be told it was a pita

but 40 usb sticks easy.

17 gridseed blades on 1 pc a pita but 12 blades on 1 pc was easy.

I have 4 or 5 pcs

so putting 1 on the side to mine a dozen pcbs in the solar array should be a piece of cake

I'll definitely agree to "bit more reliable". The most common standard USB Type-A is probably the worst and least reliable connector in the history of personal computing. A sneeze nearby can cause a disconnect. I haven't tried farting test, but I believe it would fail too. But it also the cheapest connector in the history of personal computing.

Mini-USB has orders of magnitude better reliability than standard-USB. Micro-USB is again orders of magnitude better than mini-USB.

But I guess that the part of mining hobby is glue-gunning the loose USB Type-A connections; swapping cables and hubs until "Eureka! it works!".

alh

legendary

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While I liked the Firewire disk devices that I had, it's day is long since over. The USB universe has completely run roughshod over Firewire. Hubs, ports, cables are way more available and less costly for USB than Firewire.

It would be nuts to have your hashing hardware require a Firewire port for correct operation.

philipma1957

legendary

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'The right to privacy matters'

Quote from: 2112 on February 23, 2016, 02:00:50 PM

Quote from: cavaliersrus on February 23, 2016, 01:47:08 PM

what about the ability to run them with a nic on each miner

or run 1 nic to a switch then the others would connect via usb to miner 1 and make a usb hub style where they could daisy chain down the line with less clutter of going mass into a switch with alot of cat 5 cables ? just a idea i had kinda like the old firewire days where you could keep chaining devices down the line till u needed another hub to boost the power

I would like to see the actual error statistics from those daisy-chained Firewires. I saw some stats from high-end MacIntoshes driving stacks of 5-6 external disks each through Firewire 400. This wasn't anything good and they did run in very clean offices not garages, like the mining farms.

i had a lot of firewire 400 fire wire 800 they were a bit more reliable then usb2. but the cables are costly.

usb2 I have run 121 usb2 sticks off 1 pc. but truth be told it was a pita

but 40 usb sticks easy.

17 gridseed blades on 1 pc a pita but 12 blades on 1 pc was easy.

I have 4 or 5 pcs

so putting 1 on the side to mine a dozen pcbs in the solar array should be a piece of cake

tvasbn

sr. member

Activity: 460

Merit: 500

Quote from: punin on February 20, 2016, 05:31:50 AM

Guys I'm super excited about this personally and want to help as much as I can!

I'll discuss internally if and how BitFury could contribute to this project. Our reference design PCB for 16nm is almost done and could be used as a starting point should BitFury's chip be selected.

Fantastic help will be providing gerber files of the boards . The low density air cooled ones will doo

Whit that and whit an 500K MOQ of chips, definitely some groups will put money together and make an PCB bord order. Sure must be some small PCB manufactures that take 100-200K orders.

A huge + will be for european costumers which in case of building the boards on a local manufacturer will avoid paing VAT.

sidehack

legendary

Activity: 3416

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Curmudgeonly hardware guy

Also as mentioned about an hour previous, that'd require building a hub chip onto each board - as well as a second jack. Same number of cables required, and also more complexity and cost. I'm not going to spec that into the "standard" also because it doesn't make sense for all use cases. Course someone else building his own boards around the framework can do whatever the heck he wants for daisychain.

2112

legendary

Activity: 2128

Merit: 1073

Quote from: cavaliersrus on February 23, 2016, 02:02:17 PM

i never ran them but i know my school used to and they hardly ever failed... i bet theres some info online about them though

I'm actually familiar with the broad error statistics for i.LInk & Firewire 400 and I call bullshit on "hardly ever failed". More likely "hardly ever used, so nobody noticed the failures or was scared to report the failures to the teachers". Coin mining is supposed to work 24*7.

cavaliersrus

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★YoBit.Net★ 350+ Coins Exchange & Dice

Quote from: 2112 on February 23, 2016, 02:00:50 PM

Quote from: cavaliersrus on February 23, 2016, 01:47:08 PM

what about the ability to run them with a nic on each miner

or run 1 nic to a switch then the others would connect via usb to miner 1 and make a usb hub style where they could daisy chain down the line with less clutter of going mass into a switch with alot of cat 5 cables ? just a idea i had kinda like the old firewire days where you could keep chaining devices down the line till u needed another hub to boost the power

I would like to see the actual error statistics from those daisy-chained Firewires. I saw some stats from high-end MacIntoshes driving stacks of 5-6 external disks each through Firewire 400. This wasn't anything good and they did run in very clean offices not garages, like the mining farms.

i never ran them but i know my school used to and they hardly ever failed... i bet theres some info online about them though

2112

legendary

Activity: 2128

Merit: 1073

Quote from: cavaliersrus on February 23, 2016, 01:47:08 PM

what about the ability to run them with a nic on each miner

or run 1 nic to a switch then the others would connect via usb to miner 1 and make a usb hub style where they could daisy chain down the line with less clutter of going mass into a switch with alot of cat 5 cables ? just a idea i had kinda like the old firewire days where you could keep chaining devices down the line till u needed another hub to boost the power

I would like to see the actual error statistics from those daisy-chained Firewires. I saw some stats from high-end MacIntoshes driving stacks of 5-6 external disks each through Firewire 400. This wasn't anything good and they did run in very clean offices not garages, like the mining farms.

HagssFIN

legendary

Activity: 2506

Merit: 1714

Electrical engineer. Mining since 2014.

So with USB it is going to be handy to control one or several units for example with Raspberry Pi?

Mitak

full member

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Merit: 100

Quote from: philipma1957 on February 23, 2016, 01:43:21 PM

Quote from: sidehack on February 23, 2016, 12:30:53 PM

But then you'd be building an ethernet controller or dual USB hub onto each board. Or some other setup requiring either an additional adapter or adaption built onto each board. The point is to do exactly not that. I know USB isn't great, but it's flexible and it's standard and it's freakin' everywhere. So if I want to use this framework to build a rack machine or a stickminer, I can.

Trust me on one thing - you're not going to change my mind. I've heard all the reasons for the last year.

So usb2 will be the standard correct?

Btw I would prefer it. Since I am pretty sure I can mange ten to thirty five boards via a pc

Depends

stack overflow , sound familiar

Mitak

full member

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Quote from: sidehack on February 23, 2016, 12:30:53 PM

But then you'd be building an ethernet controller or dual USB hub onto each board. Or some other setup requiring either an additional adapter or adaption built onto each board. The point is to do exactly not that. I know USB isn't great, but it's flexible and it's standard and it's freakin' everywhere. So if I want to use this framework to build a rack machine or a stickminer, I can.

Trust me on one thing - you're not going to change my mind. I've heard all the reasons for the last year.

totally agree.
As much I hate USB downsides, this is the cheapest and flexible solution

cavaliersrus

hero member

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★YoBit.Net★ 350+ Coins Exchange & Dice

what about the ability to run them with a nic on each miner

or run 1 nic to a switch then the others would connect via usb to miner 1 and make a usb hub style where they could daisy chain down the line with less clutter of going mass into a switch with alot of cat 5 cables ? just a idea i had kinda like the old firewire days where you could keep chaining devices down the line till u needed another hub to boost the power

philipma1957

legendary

Activity: 4326

Merit: 8950

'The right to privacy matters'

Quote from: sidehack on February 23, 2016, 12:30:53 PM

But then you'd be building an ethernet controller or dual USB hub onto each board. Or some other setup requiring either an additional adapter or adaption built onto each board. The point is to do exactly not that. I know USB isn't great, but it's flexible and it's standard and it's freakin' everywhere. So if I want to use this framework to build a rack machine or a stickminer, I can.

Trust me on one thing - you're not going to change my mind. I've heard all the reasons for the last year.

So usb2 will be the standard correct?

Btw I would prefer it. Since I am pretty sure I can mange ten to thirty five boards via a pc

sidehack

legendary

Activity: 3416

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Curmudgeonly hardware guy

I don't know offhand but I'll look it up this afternoon. If it was a trade secret that'd make the "open source" part pretty difficult.

2112

legendary

Activity: 2128

Merit: 1073

Quote from: sidehack on February 23, 2016, 01:20:03 PM

I think the part Novak spec'd is an NXP chip.

Could you guys disclose the shortlist? I'm just curious, I hope this isn't some important trade secret. Could you just list say a few top parts that you've considered? If it is a trade secret then include some misleading parts and sort the list randomly.

Topic: Community Miner Design Discussion - page 21. (Read 34275 times)