Everything here is credited to BkkCoins (I'm merely trying to get a bulk order with him to ship ready made units out of the USA). Keep in mind if you are looking for efficiency, I highly suggest you check out his other threads about bigger boards that hold multiple chips efficiently at a much better cost. This is supposed to be a cute little hobbyist miner to get people into mining as a gift or as a small little accessory. Buying many of these to mine by yourself is probably not as good as just going with the Klondike-16.Probably Isn't happening soon [july?] We'll try to get this done as it comes along though!Since a lot of people have asked, price estimates (Absolutey no guarantees!):
1 - $90 each*
10 - $75 each*
50 - $ 70 each*
100 - $60 each*
*Add BTC 0.1 to price for the chipA group buy via Canaryinthemine seems to be the best way.
Still rough estimates. still don't know what they'll cost to manufacture. I got in on a relatively early avalon order and hope they are done fast. If they cost less to make or there is little demand by the time they come in, the price will go lower. Same is true for the opposite.
If you think it is expensive, I know, and am trying to find a group seller to reship them and make it approximately the group buy rate for everyone since I'm not set up for mass shipping at the time.
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I wanted to use this thread to gather interest on a mini asic usb miner with avalon chips, equivalent to the asicminer version that cost 2 btc. 3d model:
If/when this is done, I'll pay for several hundred/thousand units for retail with the chip included. Everything else would probably be done by BKKCoins
updates~
I think this is a pretty sweet idea. How feasible is it though? Is this more at the 'hey this a good idea stage' or the 'hey I think I can actually make this it wouldn't be that tough' stage?
I've done the schematic and I'm partially through the board layout now. Maybe tomorrow will have something concrete. But still pending on Avalon docs forthcoming.
Here's my first pass on the Klondike 1 PCB layout.
Prettied up with designer colours.
Board is 1" wide and 1.5" long with USB tab sticking out about 0.5". I just realized I'll need to flip over the USB tabs so that the heat sink is on top. No worries, always stuff to fix up, but lots of time before any chips show up. This will run the same firmware as I'm developing for the Klondike 16 and 64.
Also noticed I lost some thermal vias during the copy over from 16 chip board. Ha ha, I was going to redo them anyway. It's just a quickie to see how it'll fit together.
I've been tinkering with the 3D rendering in Kicad this morning so people can see what this could look like.
My current projection for retail price is $16 for a kit, and $25 for assembled - both
NOT including the ASIC.
A kit would include a plastic stencil (1 per order only) and heat sink, and you'd need a skillet or toaster oven, and some skillz to put it together. I still have to source a suitable heat sink - something 1" x 1.5" would be ideal. I'm looking for something awesome but cheap.
Assembled ones would be ready to use - you'd send me an ASIC, I'd assemble and ship back.
This is upside down. The bottom will have something covering it like compound or a plastic wafer of some sort. The top would be a heat sink - no 3D model for that.
You won't see these until
at least July but if I have a sample ASIC then I'll make a prototype and take pre-orders when I know it's functional, pending only ASICs then. Check out my Klondike 16 board if you need more than 1 ASIC per board. I'm expecting the K16 won't need to be fully filled, and at $35/kit would be better for multiple chips.
Here's an update of the 3D render for the K1 based on recent Avalon docs release. This is a final pre-prototype board. Will be checking it over for a bit before ordering a batch of boards for testing.
I've updated the parts list and added Gerbers on github for those interested in seeing the board close up. This is untested - do not order boards based on these Gerbers as there are likely some errors. Hopefully I'll catch them before my first prototypes.
I'm working on firmware now for both K16 and K1 (same code).
I know, looks the same, but it's not.
Added a chip and inner layers have the data signals now. ASIC also has thermal vias.
Enjoy.
First test board ready to send off to the factory.
Here is a render of it 2up, 5cm x 5cm. This is the under side.
2 LEDs on other side (top): Green - Power, Red - Activity. (position marked near left edge)
Heat sink will cover from 5mm left side to near the USB connector.
The small connector at left edge is for daisy chaining or connecting to K16. (It's an I2C bus.)
Although my test boards will be green, I'm really thinking of using
white for the final product (because white and LEDs are just so bling - I just need a blue anodized heat sink).
First batch of 20 test boards just ordered.
Expect to see them here in 10-12 days if all goes well.
Any updates?
Maybe we should organize a group buy for avalon chips here and send them to Klondike?
Latest status - waiting for K1 test boards to arrive. They were shipped on May 30th. so should be here in a few days. I'm setting up a prototype board to test firmware while waiting for the K1s. Until today I was waiting on PIC chips to come in. Some of the firmware code has been tested and scoped by choaztc and is working but even if I get fully functional firmware I'm still going to be waiting on Avalon samples to test/verify against, and those appear to be a couple-few weeks out.
I don't have spare Avalon chips ordered to make K1 sales with. I know of a few forum members who have chips and are waiting on final boards to produce a ready-to-use product, either on their own or with me providing boards or assembly (K1 only). So I think by the time chips begin arriving there will be options for those who want a plug n play K1 experience. At some point, when more certainty is available, pre-orders will be opened and jumping on that will be best bet for early on product.
Just a cross post for those not following the K16 thread.
K1 test boards are here and I'll be working on assembling a few for testing next. The firmware is mostly done and I'm expecting by the time the ASIC samples arrive the kinks will be worked out and I can focus on just the ASIC data signal issues.
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