Topic: [GROUP BUY WORLDWIDE]BTMine v1 Miner 200GH/s BTC 2.4 - page 13. (Read 97258 times)

Hello

To answer your questions
1. Capacitors can be purchased here
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Vishay-Sprague/94SVP337X0016F12/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMt2Q%252b%2fb08UWm56zY9XkptlP

2. The power supplies are auto switching 110v/220v.  I am using three with factory power supplies on 110v.  Just used regular pc power cords, I have purchased y cords 2 to 1 pc cords on ebay and saves plug in space.  They are finicky and weak, so I had to reduce my Mhz to 1100 for about 6 hours and they stabilized on fan speeds and stayed running, then I stepped up 100 mhz per hour and now have them all hashing at 1400 mhz with good fan speeds and temp control.

3. I have spoken with the several times by email successfully, but nothing on my last emails for two days, i suspect they are out for the Chinese New Year!  Two more of my units were badly damaged in shipping and I am awaiting replacement heat sinks and power/control boards.  

Check out or wiki on these units listed in my signature below.  I am working to add more information and you are welcome to contribute too.

mtnminer

Returns arent be accepted due factory being Closed for CNY everybody goes home China is shut down.
We will see in February when they get back to work. For now China is closed. Most companies dont open untill 10th February this is their only annual vacation.

I now have 4 Units hashing around 860 GH/s to Eligius. Some work had to be done to get them tuned up. I will buy more of these when i can get some supplier.

Hi guys, unfortunately i dont have one of these exact units, but i do have more than a dozen of other Chinese 200 GH/s and 400 GH/s units on the avalon module design, all of which have had their problems at one time or another which i had to fix myself. happy to say i have kept all mine running.

Anyways to the point, i dont want to say for sure, but i am fairly sure i could fix most anything that goes wrong with the BTmine units. I was wondering if anyone lived near Minneapolis MN, or within 6 hours of there that might have one, i would like to come take a look at it and see how much the same it is. After taking a look at one first hand, i can tell you if i can fix them for you guys. I am in the USA so it would be a USA only thing.

Please message me if you live in Minnesota or somewhere close to there and wouldnt mind if i drove out to check out your BTmine unit so i can maybe help the rest of everyone who is having issues, i have a bunch of spare parts for the typical avalon modules. 

probably no. better psu's should protect you from the existing ones shorting. both mine shorted out and unit was unrecoverable with new psu's.

Question.. I will have less hwerrors and more GHS, if i use better PSU-s?

yes have tried contacting them many times.

we expected a standard level of quality and honesty that wasnt and still isnt forthcoming. its been a complete lottery to get a working machine and the whole process will have cost me significant time and money. i wonder the failure rate of these once they have been running for a few days.

Hello all,

We ordered some of these miners and they came to our place in Canada severely beat up. We've tried to email BTMine and tried to Skype them, but so far nothing. There are 2 of our 8 units that require a few capacitors soldered back on, and 3 machines where the blades completely snapped off the bottom of the case and can't be re-attached.

So I have a few questions:

1. Where can I purchase some new capacitors that require re-soldering?
2. The units came with 220V power supplies, and EU plugs. Can I use the power supplies here in Canada? Or do I need to swap them out? Can anyone recommend one? We don't plan on over clocking these at all.
3. How does anyone contact these people now? I've read that returns aren't be accepted.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Did you talking to them first?

im just giving my opinion don't shoot me

we all knew these were cheap chinese knockoffs from the beginning

You might be a victim of the capacitors coming off - the good news is that if that's the problem, you'll have no problem identifying which board and which capacitor, since each board is a copy of the others and there are only a handful of the large electrolytic capacitors on each.  Miner 15 and 16 are on the bottom blade (farthest away from the PSUs), but I'm not sure which end of the blade they are on, sorry - still that narrows it down to a board at the end of the bottom blade.  Look for damage, and also inspect the fuse (or fuses if you have them in parallel) - there should be no resistance from one end of the fuse to the other if they're still good.

Seriously. Where are my ASIC's.

Ordered 1/9.  They sent me a non working tracking number.

This was the reply:

"sorry , that is the original number , only transport company can check it , we made mistake , later we can give you the right number , sorry "

Checked in again on 1/22

"we need your postal code , the information you gave us we can't check , please give us your  postal code "

Sent them my FULL CONFIRMED address again.  Was hoping they just had a typo in the tracking number or something.

Now its 1/28, one of my friends who ordered on the same day has already received his (broken but yeah).

Called DHL and they said no delivery or shipment is scheduled at ALL in the system for my address.

Who else hasn't received theirs, do you have working tracking?  These guys aren't replying to my emails and now I'm extremely worried (paid with BTC)

Finally got mine yesterday (Jan 27) from Jan 14 order/payment.  I did not get tracking info or any other acknowledgment of my order until late last week despite several skypes and a PM.  I skype'd to cancel my order last week (no response) and magically my DHL tracking suddenly appeared.  LOL.  I will try not to rehash what others have posted but like everyone I have the QC issues.  Mine are hashing at 150-160 Gh/s with a few dead workers.

Btmine, I have included some constructive criticism for you throughout my comments below.  Please review especially those items marked TO BTMINE.  Though the QC of this unit is, to put it mildly, terrible; but the unit has some strong positives and I think with a little more work you could get it right next time.  I do think you should find a way to make it right with those of us who are essentially rebuilding your units for you. 

I also ordered 2 Antminer S1's from Sushi's group buy on Jan 22 after hearing nothing from btmine for 8 days.  They came yesterday too (kudos to Sushi for fast shipping; thumbs down to btmine for slow shipping and no communication).  So now, I have 3 units where I really only needed one.  Oh well, the kids didn't need their 120vac outlets in the playroom anyway, so I have put that room and the electric circuit there to good use ;-) 

TO BTMINE:  Please communicate, even if its not good news.  No news is bad news.  If you absolutely cannot communicate with everyone, tell us that you are shutting down communications until a date certain (as Sushi did when he got too many orders at once).  If you took too many orders, offer refunds immediately instead of rushing to fill them all.  I didn't hear back from you and ended up ordering another unit from Sushi's buy but then I got yours too!!

MY BTMINE SUMMARY - GOOD, BAD AND UGLY

1.  (UGLY) ATTACHMENT OF HASHING BOARDS.  One of the boards was not attached at all to the case (screws in case and in box).  The other was held on by only one screw.  Some bent fins on the heat sinks as a result and a broken capacitor.  TO BTMINE:  Your method of attaching the boards to the case by using several short machine screws through the case and into the heat sink is fraught with problems that could have been avoided by better design.  The screws are too short, and there are no alignment pins to hold the board in place whilst your poor workers try to place and tighten the screws.  It takes two people to do this correctly absent alignment pins (which would have been very easy to add).  Further, the too short screws shake loose easily - try using a threadlocker and a slightly longer screw next time please!!  Also, even with all the screws in place attachment to only one side of the case is not very secure and certainly not secure enough to ship; you need to add a support on the sides and/or top at the least for shipping.  It would have been much better to package the boards separately and call it a "kit" than to attempt a shoddy assembly and then ship without proper support for these heavy boards.

2.  (BAD) One of my capacitors was broken off a hashing module.  I will attempt a resolder at some point but too busy now. 

3.  (BAD) Workers 2-6 are dead.  At least 2 of those workers are probably due to the broken off capacitor on one of the hashing modules.  I have not yet found the reason for the others.

4.  (GOOD) HARDWARE DESIGN.  Other than the issue of attaching the hashing cards, I like the overall design better than antminer.  First, the onboard power distribution board works with an ATX power supply without having to short pins 4-5; you just plug in the ATX 24 pin, CPU and 2x PCI-E connectors that are standard on each PS, and it works.  Second, the case is designed to hold the power supplies so my work area can look a lot more professional.  I don't need to have random ATX supplies with cables everywhere and a paperclip stuck in the otherwise unused 24 pin connector hanging off the edge of my shelves (like every other hasher I have).  The dual PSU case with power distribution board is a great space saving and convenience plus.  I added thumbscrews from microcenter to make it easier to remove the top.

5. (GOOD) SOFTWARE.  Seems like the Avalon clones are all using the same openWRT packages.  I like the interface, and I especially like that I can completely customize the hasher from the web interface (including overclocking, and adding crontab entries).  I did update to the December 29 2013 firmware (http://downloads.canaan-creative.com/software/avalon/latest/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr703n-v1-squashfs-factory.bin).  Strangely, my hashrate FELL when I updated firmware (I was at 159 - 165 Gh/s before the update, and now 145-150 Gh/s). 

6.  (BAD) LOUDNESS.  These things are as loud as my BFL SC 60s were before I opened them up and swapped out fans.  Better quality case fans are going to be my first upgrade.

7.  (BAD) Missing temp sensor.  One of my temperature sensors appears to be capped off with a clear plastic (and no sensor).  Therefore only one of the ASIC boards is being monitored (probably okay to assume both are the same, but strangely there is a wire for the sensor but no sensor at the end??
   

 

Units 2 and 3 arrived in perfect condition. Up and mining in about 3 mins.

Each one hashing away at 210-220. All 3 of mine are working 100% and zero hassles. Guess I got lucky 

Please don't shoot the messenger, here are the options I believe you have.

1.  Purchase a replacement PCB board from another source in China or on the internet
2.  Rig up a method to run each blade as a usb miner with a control board
3.  Sell the pieces to someone on this board that may need the parts and recoup some of your coin.

Mtnminer

Said it before - will say it again as I read the poor quality/shipping horror stories.. glad I stayed out of this one!  (power consumption was also a big factor)

Once the flood of orders starting coming in I imagined the QC and attention to detail would take a major hit, source more parts/cheap parts immediately.. slap it all together and ship ship ship.... hopefully they can save face and do everything they can to compensate/work with people having issues..

trustworthy?

they dont even package units properly or use any type of quality control? they dont reply to email with problems until a paypal case is opened and now they arent accepting returns?

id love to hear your definition of trustworthy. maybe you have had a half decent experience but there are plenty in this thread that have not, you can take the blinkers off now.

im stuck also as to if i pay 300+ to have it shipped back only to have it turned away. after over a week delay this is a shitty outcome for all of us.

I am in your boat, i am trying to get a hold of paypal to discuss what to do. Word is they aren't accepting/ or aren't at the address for returns.

Also, I think I now know why some of my Avalon modules are hashing at half speed.  In bridging the blown FUSE1's, I am almost certain that I probably fried/shorted/desoldered components on the adjacent modules.  This is likely completely a result of my own ham-fisted soldering skills.  Fortunately, I only messed up 3 of the 32 total modules between my two miners, so I'm still getting decent hash rate.

Just a warning to those dealing with blown FUSE1's - be very careful when you desolder and bridge those pads.  Make sure you don't desolder or leave excess solder or flux around any of the microscopic resistors/etc on the adjacent PCB. 

If I ever do something like this again, I will invest in a good magnifying glass...

I have had many dealings with BTMine, and I can say they are extremely trustworthy.

Yes, quality is not perfect, but it is from my experience it is acceptable considering the warranty and price. 99% of their issues come from the shitty screws / socket used for the heat sink connections to the case.

I have received several refunds for canceled orders, and damaged units.

Anyways, I look forward to them reopening business.

Awesome tip - I will definitely look at getting the latest firmware and possible setting up a scheduled reboot.  Again, this forum rocks!