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Topic: Hacking a BFL Jalapeno to 32GH and beyond....(???) - page 4. (Read 54341 times)

full member
Activity: 238
Merit: 100
This one that blew up had the older style chips. no 5v at the 5v test point.
Out of curiosity I checked my other Jally that has two of the new style of chip. That one has 5v present at the 5v test point.
Hm. I've seen that too. My weird jally didn't have 5 volts but it seems to be running well now. Maybe they put it in sometimes.
Quote
I think i'll just RMA it.

I have 5 ASIC chips on the way so i'll pop 3 on the replacement and two on my other one. (this is how i came accross this thread in the first place. I remembered the post with the blown u15 pics)
That sounds best. I've got 4 chips outside in the mailbox I think; I'll put one of them on my weird jally, taking it to 5 and the other on my other new jally taking it to six on an old-style heat sink. I think that might wind up being a problem, but my water block is not coming till Monday at the earliest.

And I get to look at another blown board. Fun!

Speaking of chip placements, put another one on a 2 chip jally for a friend, no problems. I'm actually waiting 5 minutes with preheat now, until I see the faint wisp of smoke/flux come up, then a count to 90 with the air tool at 450c. The hardest part is placing the chip perfectly on the balls, but I have had a 100% success rate since I started using a loupe to verify all the balls.

C

well dragging up an old post, I got my RMA replacements today. Pretty happy with BFL as they gave me two 10ghs 3 chip units with 1.2.9FW rather than two 5ghs! makes up for the stupid international prices Australia post charges.
Also regarding the power supply comments earlier on, i got one of the usual 13v 6 amp shit power supplies with one unit, but the other came with a massive 12v 10 amp supply that is about double the size of the other (and has an earth pin too)

And they show up as BAL's rather than BAJ's in cgminer.
Looks like BFL have been silently studying and taking notice of what this community is doing.

No doubt they are watching, this info is great stuff.
Since they are peeking in and being generous, I have a idea,,, Start reproducing these for the "little guys" and place them to compete in the USB asic market, at the right price.
$250 per 10GH would make alot of new friends, if they can/will do it.
We all gotta start somewhere, this thread gives me much hope Smiley
legendary
Activity: 3164
Merit: 2258
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
Really? Can you take a pic of the newer PS?

C
member
Activity: 79
Merit: 10
This one that blew up had the older style chips. no 5v at the 5v test point.
Out of curiosity I checked my other Jally that has two of the new style of chip. That one has 5v present at the 5v test point.
Hm. I've seen that too. My weird jally didn't have 5 volts but it seems to be running well now. Maybe they put it in sometimes.
Quote
I think i'll just RMA it.

I have 5 ASIC chips on the way so i'll pop 3 on the replacement and two on my other one. (this is how i came accross this thread in the first place. I remembered the post with the blown u15 pics)
That sounds best. I've got 4 chips outside in the mailbox I think; I'll put one of them on my weird jally, taking it to 5 and the other on my other new jally taking it to six on an old-style heat sink. I think that might wind up being a problem, but my water block is not coming till Monday at the earliest.

And I get to look at another blown board. Fun!

Speaking of chip placements, put another one on a 2 chip jally for a friend, no problems. I'm actually waiting 5 minutes with preheat now, until I see the faint wisp of smoke/flux come up, then a count to 90 with the air tool at 450c. The hardest part is placing the chip perfectly on the balls, but I have had a 100% success rate since I started using a loupe to verify all the balls.

C


well dragging up an old post, I got my RMA replacements today. Pretty happy with BFL as they gave me two 10ghs 3 chip units with 1.2.9FW rather than two 5ghs! makes up for the stupid international prices Australia post charges.
Also regarding the power supply comments earlier on, i got one of the usual 13v 6 amp shit power supplies with one unit, but the other came with a massive 12v 10 amp supply that is about double the size of the other (and has an earth pin too)

And they show up as BAL's rather than BAJ's in cgminer.
Looks like BFL have been silently studying and taking notice of what this community is doing.
legendary
Activity: 1288
Merit: 1004
IRS is chomping at the bit to either get crypto currency outlawed or taxed.
I hope they are able to do neither.

No one cares about pot anymore. Now my smart meter will rat me out for mining bitcoins to the IRS.....

All part of a plan. :-)
legendary
Activity: 3164
Merit: 2258
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
No one cares about pot anymore. Now my smart meter will rat me out for mining bitcoins to the IRS.....

All part of a plan. :-)
hero member
Activity: 658
Merit: 500
Wow. Something is different. Just got my BGE bill, I pulled 873kwhr in December on my top floor instead of the normal 200kwhr.

Ooops. Guess these rigs are pulling more power than I thought. Might explain why I haven't had to run heat up there. But it does mean I need to start selling some bitcoin to pay the power bill.

Welcome to the big time.

Yeah, you are going tog get raided by thew cops for growing pot, or something soon, lol.
legendary
Activity: 1288
Merit: 1004
That's like the old Athlon XP's cpu's that had that fragile, tiny core sitting up on top.  So many people would crack the chips not applying even presure when installing the heatsinks.  One slip and they killed the whole thing.
Have you had any that you could not resurrect?

That looks great.  It makes sense on the shutdown before it overheats the quickest. I would have never thought of doing that. 
Pretty much. For four chips you want the star pattern or one to the left for maximum stability. Six chips you populate the top and bottom left. Seven and eight you populate the right ones, but by then you better have bottom cooling or the Atmel/FTDI will be warm warm warm.

Three chips oddly enough is a pretty bad number. The heat sink can rock forward without a chip to support it and put a lot of strain on the two side ones. Which is why oddly enough I don't do 3 chip mods.

C
legendary
Activity: 3164
Merit: 2258
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
That looks great.  It makes sense on the shutdown before it overheats the quickest. I would have never thought of doing that. 
Pretty much. For four chips you want the star pattern or one to the left for maximum stability. Six chips you populate the top and bottom left. Seven and eight you populate the right ones, but by then you better have bottom cooling or the Atmel/FTDI will be warm warm warm.

Three chips oddly enough is a pretty bad number. The heat sink can rock forward without a chip to support it and put a lot of strain on the two side ones. Which is why oddly enough I don't do 3 chip mods.

C
legendary
Activity: 1288
Merit: 1004
That looks great.  It makes sense on the shutdown before it overheats the quickest. I would have never thought of doing that. 


Thanks! Here's a picture of the 20gh unit I just did:



Note the heat sinks on the FETs and the 1850's. And that I put chip 5 in the upper left; that puts it's heat load furthest from the FETs, and also furthest from the FT232 chip. And oddly enough closest to one of the temp sensors, so if you overheat it will shut down the unit before damaging the board.

Little things I have learned during this adventure. I wonder if I'll do similar stuff to the 300/600 boards.
legendary
Activity: 3164
Merit: 2258
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
Thanks! Here's a picture of the 20gh unit I just did:



Note the heat sinks on the FETs and the 1850's. And that I put chip 5 in the upper left; that puts it's heat load furthest from the FETs, and also furthest from the FT232 chip. And oddly enough closest to one of the temp sensors, so if you overheat it will shut down the unit before damaging the board.

Little things I have learned during this adventure. I wonder if I'll do similar stuff to the 300/600 boards.
legendary
Activity: 1288
Merit: 1004
Good to know. Once I get my 74gh/s setup next week I might be ready to send one to you for the upgrade.  Smiley

On a side note, I just finished upgrading jalapenos for two clients: One with 4 chips and the other with 5. Both went well, and are hashing away before I ship them out.

If you would like your jalapeno to be upgraded, please let me know. Just buy chips off Ebay, the guy LentBT sells excellent chips and I have not had a problem with one of them, and send me your unit. My current rates for labor and materials are:

.10 btc for 2 chips added (4 chip unit)
.12 btc for 3 chips added (5 chip unit)
.15 btc for 4 chips added (6 chip unit)

Note that +3 chips needs a better power supply (power it off an ATX or something like that) and +4 chips means you will be running with the lid off and the fan exposed. Going beyond 6 chips is really going to require serious water cooling. :-)

C
legendary
Activity: 3164
Merit: 2258
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
On a side note, I just finished upgrading jalapenos for two clients: One with 4 chips and the other with 5. Both went well, and are hashing away before I ship them out.

If you would like your jalapeno to be upgraded, please let me know. Just buy chips off Ebay, the guy LentBT sells excellent chips and I have not had a problem with one of them, and send me your unit. My current rates for labor and materials are:

.10 btc for 2 chips added (4 chip unit)
.12 btc for 3 chips added (5 chip unit)
.15 btc for 4 chips added (6 chip unit)

Note that +3 chips needs a better power supply (power it off an ATX or something like that) and +4 chips means you will be running with the lid off and the fan exposed. Going beyond 6 chips is really going to require serious water cooling. :-)

C
legendary
Activity: 3164
Merit: 2258
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
I'll try this on my five chip unit, need to place a small mouser order anyway. Maybe I'll give it a go on the 7 chip water cooled unit, we'll see.

C
full member
Activity: 139
Merit: 100
Just looking for opinions...

I have 3 6-chip jallys

cgminer stats...
#1@ 23.6gh @38-42C 1.3%HW
#2@ 23gh @42-47C 2%HW
#3@ 22gh @45-50C 3.5%HW

My hottest mosfets are at ~105F. They have heatsinks on top and bottom. Bottom of boards are actively cooled with cpu heatsinks (and fans).

I have 8.2k 0603 resistors and 2 new style chips that need to be re-balled and may or may not work...

Any opinions on what I can expect with installing the resistors?

Fire, smoke, damnation for all eternity? Shocked




Preliminary results are in... I decided to mod #3 (my worst one) for testing...installed 8.2k resistor in R11... old voltage (reported by cgminer) .98v-1v... new voltage 1.05v-1.07v

new stats (after about an hour)

#3@ 24.6 @55-61C 3.6%HW

So there was a pretty big improvement to the hashrate... I didn't have any appreciable change in HW error rate.

BE WARNED Shocked My mosfets went from about 105F to about 130F... they are now being actively cooled down to around 110-115F...

Hope this helps Grin
legendary
Activity: 3164
Merit: 2258
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
Wow. Something is different. Just got my BGE bill, I pulled 873kwhr in December on my top floor instead of the normal 200kwhr.

Ooops. Guess these rigs are pulling more power than I thought. Might explain why I haven't had to run heat up there. But it does mean I need to start selling some bitcoin to pay the power bill.

Welcome to the big time.
legendary
Activity: 3164
Merit: 2258
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
Just looking for opinions...

I have 3 6-chip jallys

cgminer stats...
#1@ 23.6gh @38-42C 1.3%HW
#2@ 23gh @42-47C 2%HW
#3@ 22gh @45-50C 3.5%HW

My hottest mosfets are at ~105F. They have heatsinks on top and bottom. Bottom of boards are actively cooled with cpu heatsinks (and fans).

I have 8.2k 0603 resistors and 2 new style chips that need to be re-balled and may or may not work...

Any opinions on what I can expect with installing the resistors?

Fire, smoke, damnation for all eternity? Shocked



You have so much cooling I would worry about a snowstorm. Go for it, see how it works.

C
full member
Activity: 123
Merit: 100
I agree I would like to see some more results on this resistor. Post up if you get any good data on those. All air cooled I think that's my final step before I start selling a miner or two. These are slowly becoming ever less profitable.

On that thought Alpha-t.net the first scrypt asic soon to be on the market. Batch 1 preorders are closed, but I'm seeing them being a lot better than BFL ever was.
full member
Activity: 139
Merit: 100
Just looking for opinions...

I have 3 6-chip jallys

cgminer stats...
#1@ 23.6gh @38-42C 1.3%HW
#2@ 23gh @42-47C 2%HW
#3@ 22gh @45-50C 3.5%HW

My hottest mosfets are at ~105F. They have heatsinks on top and bottom. Bottom of boards are actively cooled with cpu heatsinks (and fans).

I have 8.2k 0603 resistors and 2 new style chips that need to be re-balled and may or may not work...

Any opinions on what I can expect with installing the resistors?

Fire, smoke, damnation for all eternity? Shocked


legendary
Activity: 3164
Merit: 2258
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
On the other hand I have figured out how to mount them to the board after reballing:

1) Set the heat under the unit to as high as possible (370f)
2) Walk away for awhile
3) Turn off heat.

The bottom heat is enough to melt lead solder, slowly. However I would have to just touch the chip while it was cooling and squish a bit of solder out, which of course means it's shorted again and needs to be reballed.

I. Hate. This. Junk. Board.

(This is the "danger board" that I am trying to get working. Was a completely baked nightmare, I have been trying out junker chips with mixed success)

legendary
Activity: 3164
Merit: 2258
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
Possibly, however I have never had anything like this happen with the new chips (I have literally baked them at 450c and they still work); these can't take a few seconds before going "pop" and spitting solder out the side. Annoying.

Need to think about another method; I think I'm going to try just preheat for 10 minutes (I'm using lead solder on the reballs) and if that doesn't stick go to the microwave oven. Ok, the toaster oven. :-)

C
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