Topic: FPGA development board "Icarus" - DisContinued/ important announcement - page 10. (Read 207285 times)

Just had some weird share spam incident: http://pastebin.com/hUF6FtJ8
Seems like it sent a repetitive garbage pattern for 5 seconds, for no apparent reason. Recovered by itself after that. Really odd.

i think a wrong polarity will burn up the fuse, but will not cause any further damage to the board.

So did mine but for another reason... i had to cut off the cord . For all those who do this: be careful with polarity. For most cables the one with white is (+) but not for the Icarus supply. Not that we hear about a bad board design again...

yeah, it's possible . so i recommend if you have a number of boards, you'd better use a mod ATX power to power them.
i test about 150~200 adapters, the failure rate is about 2% (4) during the burn-in test.

Just for the record..  I had one of the plug packs that came with the icarus die on me.

No big deal, I've got other suitable power packs - but thought I should mention it as a data point in case others experience failures.

I am using  Linux 3.0.0-14-generic #23-Ubuntu SMP x86_64, Ubuntu 11.10, the latest build is using  OpenWrt trunk 30834, you can find the .config file, VERSIONS here:
  http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/xiangfu/icarus/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-trunk-30834/

BTW: the MAX_DEVICES under miner.h define is 32. so if you want support more then 32 devices. just change that one. I changed MAX_DEVICES to 64 and connect 41 Icarus. works just fine.

I've been trying to get cgminer working on another TP-LINK device (TL-MR3420) but every time it submits a proof of work to the pool it segfaults. I haven't been able to properly debug it but it seems the json_rpc_call() is returning an empty string, so I'm pointing my quicker finger at libcurl. Can you give me a quick overview of your build env and process?

So epic. For those of you that can't figure it out, the little square white box on top of the computer tower with a single USB plugged into it is what is running the whole show.

Hi

I am surprised TP-LINK WR703N router performance, it can handle 31 Icarus. the cgminer status: http://downloads.openmobilefree.net/Icarus/, I updated my stuff on this wiki page: http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Icarus.

If you use cgminer with more Icarus, this little script file may helpful: (don't forget change the pool url and username  ).

#!/bin/sh
DEVS=`find /dev/ -type c -name "ttyUSB*"  | sed 's/^/-S/' |  sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/ /g'`
cgminer $@ --api-network --api-listen -o http://pool.ABCPool.co -O xiangfu.0:x -o http://pit.deepbit.net:8332/ -O [email protected]_0:1234 ${DEVS}

I also have to bug a ATX power. the power adapter needs a lot of space, checkout this picture: (the little blue device is 703N router)

If anyone is interested in joining our bulk order to get Icarus for a discounted price "469$", please join us here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/icarus-bulk-orders-whos-interested-71422

Thanks ngzhang for putting together an awesome fpga board (Icarus)!! I can't wait to see what your next project will be. Enjoy your time off - you deserve it!

Cheers!

Master. I tried testing but it did not display any average or total hash rate stats. It seemed as if it was mining with all boards but it wasn't really.

master or testing branch? If you have a log of boards and aren't using p2pool, I'd recommend the testing branch.
The testing branch supports X-Roll-NTime, so it shouldn't need to fetch anywhere as many jobs, which also helps avoiding these timeouts.

If you looks at the driver version info you'll see that the 1.5.0 package contains a newer version number. Kind of confusing.  So I'm wondering if anyone has tried 1.5.2 and noticed any difference.

For me MPBM still screws up the stats once in a while (negative hash rate, negative efficiency, unrealistic efficiency and hash rate, etc) plus I get a long string of timeouts when trying to retrieve work from the pool server (btcguild). Not sure if this is related to the pl2303 driver though. I have doubts.

i use 1.5 now, but please feel free to try any other version, some of them may more stable on your machine.

Which prolific PL2303 driver do I install? v1.5 or 1.52?
Could someone point me to an example using Icarus with cgminer?
Thanks

a 18AWG standard wire can pass up to 10A current, and 8A is enough for a safety margin. so i setup no more than 4 boards to one Molex plug.
but i doubt the power transfer cable's quality, so i use them in parallel, 1 wire 1 board, 2 board 1 connector.
and i really soldered them very well.
but they still burn up in a few days...

just because i buy them from 0.5~1 USD/ ea.  

last night after the fire, i find some about 5 USD/ ea, i think this time they will be ok.  

Very true, my previous post is working under the assumption that the manufacturer didn't cheap out and get sub-standard pins/housing. Or under-rate the wire gauge (which admittedly happens more often than not). And as I mentioned, Molex connectors are well known for causing arcing and such due to a poor design. The higher end ones aren't as bad, and that's also why it's important to give yourself a safety margin, and to ensure all connections are good.

Edit: You're right, I somehow missed that in the photo.

That looks like damage to the plug due to arcing (one of the pins not seated perfectly well and either causing high resistance, or actual electrical arcing, generating tons of excess heat).

The important thing will be to ensure you're not overloading any wires. The setup that ngzhang posted looked a little "ghetto" lol (I suspect he was rushing and just slapped it together, as I've done in the past myself once or twice ) It looked to be hand twisted wire with tape sealing it up (no offence ngzhang, and if I'm incorrect, let me know). This is prone to high resistance at the twisted connection, and will result in a lot of heat generated there (and risk of fire).

Your best bet is to make sure not to exceed the rating (4 pin molex connectors are rated for 11A at 12V or 132W) The Icarus draws about 20W. So that would mean if everything is perfect, you could run 6x Icarus boards. But all is rarely perfect. And Molex connectors are renowned for arcing and other problems (which can generate excess heat). Best to keep it to no more than 4. Also ensure a clean connection (well soldered joints, not just crimped) and so on. I'm making several "Molex to Barrel DC Jack" connectors, which I'm building to a fairly high standard. To allow me to run up to 4x Icarus per Molex. On that 700W supply I'll be using 2 Molex, (8 Icarus total). And I am building adapters from the PCI-E connectors in the same fashion (rated 150W each and designed to deliver high DC current) to power 8 Icarus each. That will give me a total of 24x Icarus boards off that PSU. (24x 20W = 480W roughly, and that supply sends nearly 600W to the 12V rails, so it should be able to handle that just fine)

Anyway, basically ensure clean connections, good joints, and always give yourself plenty of headroom from the rated spec on all your components (keep an eye on the weakest link).

Once you have the rig built, I would check all power lines for heat. If you have wires running hot to the touch that's probably bad.