Topic: GekkoScience BM1384 Project Development Discussion - page 107. (Read 146665 times)

I was actually thinking of going in that direction about 6 months ago. After playing tag with the guys from Spondoolies for several months I got one spreadsheet and not yet a fully executed NDA. And no chips availability or pricing information so far. No samples either. That's where I sort of gave up.

Investing in a new design is quite an enterprise. I've already been burned with a design for which there were no chips (or suddenly they became more expensive).

The Hammer one seemed on specs like an interesting idea for a simple USB hasher. But if you're gonna give that a shot I'd recommend that you at least have a promise to be given chips (at a reasonable price).

(...)
I'm also pretty sure we're gonna go ahead and try to build a USB stick miner. (...)

Also, and just because it's a thing we've been discussing for all of one day, would anyone buy a USB stick miner with a Spondoolies Hammer ASIC on it? I don't know that it'd get more than about 4GH from stock USB power, but it might still be interesting to play with. This one would take some extra dev time because the chips don't seem to use a standard protocol, and it'll require some NDAs to know exactly what that nonstandard protocol is, but if anyone wants more variety in non-garbaginous stick miners we can look into feasibility.

With regards to Hammer stickminers:

I got the datasheet for the Hammer ASIC.  It does not contain power info at 0.55V but indicates that the bottom end power efficiency is 0.55W/GH although that is also the rated power at 0.6V and 430MHz (this is at the typical corner).  This would be 3.5W which is too high, but even taking 0.55W/GH as your best power consumption estimate you could probably run off USB down at about 4GH or so including VRM losses.

Would anyone look at a Hammer stickminer (~2.5W, ~4GH) with interest or is that just too low of a hashrate?  You could clock it at double that easily (with sufficient USB power) assuming we build the power supply capable of handling that.  It would be a fair amount more work for us to do an additional board including serial protocol for the Hammer but it would keep us away from bitmain's (potential) price hikes.

Let me know if this is something you would consider worth picking up, the attraction for us is that we would likely be able to get some old Hammers a little cheaper than bitmain might sell us chips.  The downside is that the result would probably not compare particularly well to a BM1384 stickminer, which would not be much extra work for us to produce.

--
novak

I always replaced the power traces on my hubs with decent wire star'd to a Molex connector. Also had a decent prototype interface board for a 5V30A standalone supply to power one of those 49-port hubs but I really only made two of 'em.

Also, the cost of 10 of the USB sticks is probably going to be more than the cost of one TypeZero board, basic heatsinking and a quiet 120mm fan. And also about a third of the possible hashrate.

What type of spacing are you seeing on your hubs? If I can get an idea of possible thickness I can spec a heatsink better. The interesting thing is going to be that the BM1384 is a top-cooler so parts arrangement will have to be a bit particular unless we want a two-sided board with chips on the bottom, but for a USB miner that's probably more headache than it's worth.

#2 Spoondolies is not making a home miner ever again...they said so.

Sometimes I feel really stupid, for some reason I thought they were based in texas.

#1 Spoondolies is based in Israel,shipping is higher than from here in the US,not just for purchase but for RMA too..........

#2 Spoondolies is not making a home miner ever again...they said so.Just large datacenter miners sold in bulk only  

We MAY get to buy em thru a Group Buy,but don't count on it  

Not sure where Bitmain is going with their S6/S7 miners yet,gotta wait & see.

"Help me sidehack maybe you my only hope"  

What about spondoolies?
But it would be pretty awesome to have more choice for residential mining

Absolutely!!!!!!  No more dealing with China for RMA or technical issue's too 

Maybe the US can FINALLY have a decent miner company !!!!!!! 

It's going to depend heavily on chip prices from Bitmain. That'll be the dominant factor. If we end up in the same price neighborhood as an S5 it's still sort of a win because the top-end hashrate is actually higher and the bottom-end is actually attainable without rocket surgery and the shipping costs will be less.

It's going to depend heavily on chip prices from Bitmain. That'll be the dominant factor. If we end up in the same price neighborhood as an S5 it's still sort of a win because the top-end hashrate is actually higher and the bottom-end is actually attainable without rocket surgery and the shipping costs will be less.

So what you're saying is, you don't want a stick miner. You want a USB-tethered desk miner that runs off 12V power. You should probably wait until the TypeZero board is up and going then.

Yeah Phil, you know we like hacking hardware so if the thing isn't software-voltable it needs to be hardware-voltable.

I think you missed the entire point. Yes, the USB route won't be the focus. Making a USB stick is motivated both by market interest and because our initial testing will get us 80% of the way to a working USB stick miner anyway so there's no reason not to finish it out if people want them.
Also, we won't be building a <100GH device that costs almost $1/GH. We're hoping for a 300+GH board at around $75 would be nice.
We're also wanting to build something conducive to home mining. Which is very specifically NOT high-density rack-mounted gear. Repurposing existing chassis from retired miners is a lot better, in my opinion, than building another all-new mining skeleton to park alongside the several dozen other existing builds. So the focus will not be on USB stick miner, but it also won't be on that stuff you just said.

interesting project - hopefully the USB route will not be the focus, and instead the focus will be on creating large, semi-modular hashing boards similar to the SP10 design.

it doesnt make sense to run a little <100GH device that costs almost $1/GH. Building something with >2TH is the obvious way to go. If I could suggest an idea for one:
-Simple 2U or 4U metal shell (like an SP1x/Sp3x), with an easy way to stack modular hashing boards with 1", 2", or 4" risers (see heatsinks)
-External PCIe connectors, on the same 'front' face as the ethernet connector.
-1 controller can handle up to ~16 boards
- heatsinks are modular - someone with the ability could switch a 2" thick heatsink for a 1" heatsink (or no heatsink) based on the airflow and voltage settings.
- >in this way, a year or two down the road an owner could condensed 8U worth of equipment down to a single 2U or 4U enclosure
-Theres brackets/screw holes for users to provide thier own fans if desired. a lot of early adopters have dozens of old 120MM fans from scrapped miners or from previous fan upgrades.


The trick is doing all this in a way that you dont get lots or DOA complaints or exzchange requests for damage caused by owner assembly.

I personally have about 15x 120mm fans that are capable of >80cfm (about 7 of these are from antminer S1 units), plus lots of power supplies. It would be nice to have a very simplistic device that can be light for shipping and save some cost for me. Scheduling abilities for the voltage are a huge plus