Topic: Four Gekkoscience 60W/110GH prototype pod miners, for a good cause (Read 3280 times)

pod miner looks awesome...can't believe I missed this
hope you raise enough money for your friend btw.

 I didn't but I took one to show it off



 Personally I think the "tacked on" buck adds character.  It gives it that homemade look   Also, it appears you used high-quality parts.

I posted an update in my Pod Miners hardware thread regarding the most recent revision of the Terminus PCB. Long story short, the support controller doesn't work how I'd like so it's going to take another slight revision to get all the features implemented. To explain how slight, know that I redid it all in the PCB layout program in about 15 minutes.

The end result being, depending on whether or not all the mining parts (which were almost wholly unchanged from the board revision sold in this auction) work as expected, I might have another dozen or so of these pods going out if I can get 'em all to work.

If I do, I'll probably open up another auction thread once I have the final head count, with a more traditional quantity@price bidding, and split the final take with Laura's donation.

The new revision won't be quite as jankety as these, since it integrates the tacked-on buck module by design. The fan mounting will also be better.

Got a pix of the setup?

 I can't measure the output of the brick but based on the specs here for the 2-Pac I was thinking it should be around 4 X 10.11 watts @ 250MHz plus the two little fans on the heatsink (probably 2.5 watts for the two of those) - I was thinking 45 watts.  Just powering up the pod, I'm seeing about 8 watts at the wall then when the hashing starts it ramps up to 62.5 watts at the wall.  I know sidehack said it should run 110 GH/s on the 5A brick but when I saw the draw at the wall, I got a little concerned... maybe you're right and it's just an efficiency issue.  Guess I'll tune it down a bit until I get a better brick.  Thanks!

Keep a fire extinguisher handy.

Measure the actual output to calculate how loaded the brick actually is. I'm sure that you probably already know this, but as a general rule of thumb running something long-term over 80% of it's rated output is not recommended. Consumer grade stuff even more so.

That you are pulling 65W at the wall may just be an inefficient power supply.

I've been playing with my proto-pod and 2-pacs for a couple of days now.  Lots of fun and no profit! (I knew that - going for a lottery win)
I was using a 12V 4000mA power brick with the 5.5mm barrel to alternately power my USB hub and the pod but I never pushed it above 175 MHz for any length of time because I didn't want to brick the brick
Eventually, I dug through my big old box of electronics that I never use anymore^tm and I was able to find a 12V 5000mA brick with the right sized barrel plug!  Now I'm able to push the proto-pod to 250 MHz but I'm pulling a little over 65W at-the-wall.  I'm just wondering if the 12V 5000mA brick can handle that type of input power continuously.  I'm unable to find the specs for efficiency on it - it's a FlyPower model PS60IBCAY5000S if that helps (and I already did the google search but found nothing about efficiency).  I plan to order a better brick since they are impossible to find at electronics shops around me but meanwhile I would prefer not to melt anything



 

I will take three (x3) at $25 each if still available, & will also include an extra $10 to help your friend (0.0395 BTC total, currently $85.95)

worked like a charm!  thanks

0: GSE 10010010: COMPAC-8 250.00MHz HW:0 | 123.0G / 114.9Gh/s WU:1204.4/m

By the way, I forgot to mention but these pods work with VH's cgminer. You'll want --gekko-terminus-freq to set the speed. It runs 0.44GH/MHz so 250MHz gets 110GH.

Actually you PMed me a question barely peripherally related to this whose answer could be found with about five seconds' use of the search function and I tend not to answer questions like that. I don't like doing other people's homework.

PMed you about this, have yet to receive a reply.

The four Terminus miners will be shipped out today. ooeygooeygold never got in touch so his bid was cancelled, which shifted the fourth pod back to xhomerx10 who paid promptly.

Seconds 2Pacs are still available. I'd like to get at least $25 from them, since they're fully functional and passed all the same tests, albeit at a bit higher core voltage (typically 1.3-1.35V versus 1.25V) which can change the efficiency a bit. $25 covers materials and labor and puts about $10 in the donation.

Thanks, sending PM

"My mama always used to tell me: 'If you can't find somethin' to live for, you best find somethin' to die for"
Tupac

Sure. PM me with your info.

What about 4 @ .012 = .046?

Before offering $12 apiece, consider that the material and labor costs for these are exactly the same as the ones I sell for $30 (that everyone else sells for $70) and the goal is not just to recoup the material and labor costs but also to have some left over to toss in the donor pot.

Also consider that I raised the new batch to $33 because material and labor costs have gone up.

That said, $12 apiece is the higher offer I've gotten today.

Y'all seriously underestimate what it takes to make these things, and seriously overestimate my profit margins.

Long story short - offer declined.

Sorry - just realized offers should be made for the factory-second 2PACS (rather than a traditional style auction).

In which case (and because it's for a good cause & I support the maker), I will make my Offer: 0.025BTC for x5 (five sticks)

I will bid .003BTC each for five (x5) of the factory-second 2PACS, for a total of 0.015BTC.

So, bid is .003 BTC per stick, & quantity I'm bidding on is five (5)

NotFuzzyWarm has paid up, quantumbit and SchOfMines are communicating. If I don't hear from ooeygooeygold within about 30 hours that fourth pod will default to xhomerx10.

Got about 40 factory-seconds 2Pacs up for grabs too, make an offer if you want some. On those I'll be pocketing material costs and everything else will go to Laura. These sticks have passed all the same tests as the regular stock sticks, but at a higher voltage - anywhere from 1.28 to 1.37V instead of 1.24-1.26V - required for stability or keeping HW errors reasonable.

Payment of 0.1BTC made and PM with the usual address and tx id sent.
Cheers!

Wow.  I can't believe I got outbid in the 11th hour!  I thought I had a lock on this.  Guess I learned a valuable lesson about when not to grocery shop.

Alrighty, looks like that's how it panned out.

You four good folks, I'll need the bid total sent to 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr

PM me with the transaction ID and your shipping address and I'll get the pod miners out. Ideally payments should be made within 72 hours. Anything not paid up by Friday afternoon will default to the previous best bid to steal. As soon as all four are paid up I'll drop the USD value in the GoFundMe account linked to in the first, along with anything else that's come in.

Right now we're looking at just shy of $1200, which is pretty awesome thanks y'all very much.

There's still 2Pacs up for grabs as well.

About twelve minutes left, here's the standings:

NotFuzzyWarm - 0.1
ooeygooeygold - 0.11
SchOfMines - 0.123
quantumbit - 0.124

.124btc.

It's for a good cause

.123BTC

Are you going to stay on topic, or continue to be the most annoying person I've ever dealt with?

Are you sending me a replacement 2pac of the one I sent back?

Auction ends in 10 hours.

Also let me know if you're interested in some of the "seconds" 2Pacs available.

It's not an auction, I just have some to sell off.

Current standings for the Pod Miners:

1.) ooeygooeygold - 0.11BTC
2.) NotFuzzyWarm - 0.1BTC
3.) xhomerx10 - 0.1BTC
4.) nuanicaj - 0.1BTC

jekecoin - 0.1BTC has been outbid

---

Will the auction for the 2PACS be held in this same thread? Also, (even though I'm sure you've already thought of this), it would be a good idea to somehow mark these 2PACS in a way that prevents people from trying to get these particular sticks covered under warranty, knowing they will not be perfect! Unfortunately, those people exist.. 

I mean .11

I'll bid .011

For my is ok

I'm gonna assume that means you up your bid to 0.1BTC

Which means, correct me if I'm wrong, but here's the standings:

NotFuzzyWarm - 0.1BTC
xhomerx10 - 0.1BTC
nuanicaj - 0.1BTC
jekecoin - 0.1BTC

If that's not correct, mwin58747 takes the fourth spot with 0.06BTC

No!, my bid was 0.1 and now is 0,04

i think what he meant was, he wants to remove his bid, but would still want to help out

I don't understand what you said.

I don't know how changed my bid, but I'm inteested in colaborate in the project

How about a date on when those of us that won the last auction will receive all our purchased items.  Still waiting on the bitfury pods. 

BR

i bid 0.06 btc

its for a great cause!

I won't sell it just run it.

Okay but you're not allowed to turn around and sell it on eBay for an extreme markup and then not support it when the buyer has issues.

since it is for a good cause I bid .1 BTC

I'll probably put up some discounted 2Pacs too. Fully functional but either not stable, or too many HW errors, at stock voltage for me to be comfortable sending them out proper.

For a curmudgeonly hardware guy^tm, you're pretty decent.

 0.1BTC

The question is irrelevant. Read the rules.

Is that "each" or for all 4?

I'll bid BTC0.04

I'll bid BTC0.0325

Great idea Sidehack!

i bid BTC0.03

A bit low but I may need some of my Bitcoin to help out family so I can't bid as much as I'd like- but still, BTC0.03.

Waddayaknow -- 1st bid in Since for a good cause I'll start at BTC0.1

Oh, hey guys. So a couple of things going on here.

One, I've been working on a pod miner for a while. Final-version prototype PCBs are on order, but I've got some of a previous version functional. Four, to be specific. These guys are packing eight BM1384 miners and operate off the same driver as the 2Pac 2-chip stickminer. The voltage is fixed but they're tested to 250MHz (110GH) and should be able to do that handily off a 12V 5A brick (not included, I don't really have any extras).

Aside from a very few mediocre models sent out to resellers and VH who wrote the driver, these would be the first fully functional GekkoScience Terminus pod miners in the wild.

So, here's the scoop. I've got a friend, a girl I've known and respected for eleven years and a piece, currently in treatment for an eating disorder. Her dad set up a GoFundMe page at https://www.gofundme.com/lauras-eating-disorder-recovery and all the proceeds from the auction of these miners will go to that end. Anyone just feeling altruistic can donate directly, I guess.

I will cover shipping for any winning bidders within the US. Outside the US, we'll work something out.

Here's how this will work - there are four miners, so the top four bids will get one miner each. I'll let it run a full seven days, so bidding ends 7PM US Central time on Monday, July 3rd.

Bidding starts at 0.03BTC