Topic: Swedish ASIC miner company kncminer.com - page 1873. (Read 3050071 times)

A little off topic here. I just changed my home contents insurance company and it appears that items over a grand in value need to be declared separately, "attractive items" they call them. Apparently this falls into that category and if you don't tell them about it then it won't be covered.

It may be different for other companies, but it didn't occur to me at all until I was asked to list such things..so maybe worth checking.

BTC competitions? I like competitions and so do loads of my mates...never seen any except for the manufacturer raffles which I managed to miss

30 days from what?

Let me ask it then?

I dont think it is FUD  

Just massively ask for refunds, they must refund, EU rules !

EU rules say: If you did not recieve your product within 30 days you are lawfully entitled to get a refund!

Who are you? why are you spreading FUD? Why is this your first venture out if newbie forums where you've only ever entered competitions for BTC giveaways??

Refund policy is simple: "All sales are final!"

He's probably thinking about full miner prototypes containing the ASICs.

Actually the first batch of chips are often called prototypes. The vendor will package a smaller amount of chips of your first run. You will receive the packaged chips and you then have to do a prototype approval, which usually means to mount the chips on a PCB and start running SW etc. If everything is OK you will accept and the vendor will continue to package the remainder of your initial order. If you discover a problem you can stop the process and not package the current batch of dies and halt production.  Usually you will have to pay a fine (given in the contract) since the vendor/fab has allocated resources for you, but this will typically cost you less than a full inventory of packaged useless chips. 


Then you have to test the product containing the ASICs, especially pay attention to power and EMC issues. It's not uncommon that you will discover some problems which requires a new PCB update, better shielding of the enclosure, a metal fix for the ASIC, or even a full re-spin (fortunately a miner is a pretty simple design, there is no high speed serial interfaces like PCIe, or DDR3 memory interfaces, typically only a couple clock domains, etc so this might not be likely). Then you will have to take the compete unit to a certified lab to get approvals required by the country where you plan to export the devices.  This process takes several weeks and I would have expected KnC to have their ASICs in house by now (or even for several weeks) in order to be able to ship next month.

True.


Some of the stuff here reminds me a lot of Minority Report. Convicting KnC of future crimes

What delay? There's not been one.

worried about the delay.hope not.

Well you're pretty close with Hashfast now Gateway and you gotta agree Ytterbium nails it here;



I'd say as much as companies want to be open, now there is competition which hopefully leads to better value for equipment for us over the long term. All that matters for us though are the returns to be made, how soon we can get started, the protection of the network and the integrity of those involved...

So its been pretty quite on the KNC front, no newsletters as of late , a bit of info when pushed by several pages of posts about Tape-Out time.. but mums the word.. I'm sure they are waiting just as we are to get stuff to put together, but it would be nice to maybe have an official update that everything is on schedule still, no delays, blah went though this process, we are doing this etc.. it doesn't matter (unless they are going to be really late) if they let people know because they are supposed to ship next month...

anyhow, all this speculation about diff changes, company x cant do thing y.. etc.. KNC if your listing how about an update, instead of posting with pics with Josh sorry that last one was sorta a joke, kinda.

anyhow its late, starting to ramble.. but putting out some feelers..

Make that two.  I asked for a refund on one of my late order Jupiter's.  I applied part of the refund towards hosting and the rest was sent via international bank wire transfer.  They were very accommodating, however don't expect refund via btc or PP.

Ask for a refund and ye shall receive, up until they time they are shipping. One person has already asked for an received a full refund that we know of already.

Also, refund will be priced according to dollars, not BTC (ie, you receive refund say $6,000 in BTC or cash, w/e, not the original amount of BTC you put in, because they've already sold that original btc for cash to pay for the NRE and devices.)

They need to ship out before the network difficulty reach 120m.

Anyone know their refund policy in case of delay?

Okay, let's caaaaalm down, people.

Who, by worrying, can extend their life even a day, or make an ASIC ship any faster. You've chosen to trust KNC with your money, sit back and let them work.

The auction is at that thread.

Terms
* Minimum bid is 50 BTC
* Minimum increment is 0.5 BTC
* The auction will extend for six days and will end on Saturday at midnight board time (UTC)
* Winner is expected to send funds within 36 hours of auction end.
* Bid format: 1 @ XX BTC

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=268149.new#new

Tweaking the PCBs not the chips.

And yes, it was a problem for BFL and Avalon. But for both of them that that was the first ASIC project they'd ever done. ORSoC is an ASIC (and FPGA) design company.  Designing ASICs, and the boards for them to go on is all they do. 

I don't know what the problem with Avalon was - they sent out Batch 1's pretty early, before February, before B2 was even open for ordering. So their initial production did end up going out on time..  If you had placed a bet on their initial on-spec delivery, you would have won that bet!. 

Their later problems came about from their ability to build all 300 units and get them sent out in time, as well as a problem getting their SMT line up and running for the larger batch 2 and 3.

It was really only BFL that had problems with their initial PCB design and had to start over.
____

Also, look at Bitfury.  Their PCBs seem to work fine (they don't even seem to need heatsinks at all)

The big risk here seems to be production capacity.  KnC is outsourcing their physical production to a 3rd company, one we don't know anything about.  That is a potential point of failure.

However, when you look at the odds the probability of failure seems low the risk factors are -

1) Their chips will be delayed (out of their control)
2) The chips won't work, or won't work with their planned design
3) The PCB design won't work.  So far, only BFL has had a problem with this.
4) There will be a production problem

Regarding #4, Bitfury is only sending out "kits", final assembly has to be done by the customer.  KnC's systems are more fully built, but all they're sending is a big metal box with 1, 2 or 4 ASIC modules, plus a simple/cheap controller.  The customer is responsible for the PSU.

You seem to be most worried about #2 and #3.  For #2, it is a possibility, but for a company that has lots of experience designing ASICs this strikes me as unlikely. Same with #3.  And if there is a problem with #3 new PCBs can be designed and manufactured pretty quickly.  (From what I understand, BFL actually had to change the packaging on their chips, probably quite expensive)

The other thing to remember: Building ASICs and PCBs isn't some kind of black magic. Obviously things can go wrong if it's something you've never done before.  But keep in mind: this is something that happens all over the world all the time.  People build ASICs and PCBs and build products around them and ship them out. Every electronic product you own went through this same process. 

The idea that it invariably ends in tears and months of delays is just weird. BFL was especially incompetent, and Avalon's problems stemmed from their ability to physically build units not their chip or PCB design. (and now, mail boxes of chips).

Music to my ears...or eyes?..."Eye Candy"...  Either way, "you play a mean fiddle" (O'rama)... Lovn' it   I wish Retro would post more as well tho

YeeMartin....   Yeah, but they aren't new to this by any means.

I admit that i don't know ASIC. However I knew that both Avalon and BFL spend more than two months on tweaking their prototype after they received their first batch of chips. Putting chips to the PCB and making them to work per the design specs take time and effort, not something that just happens overnight.

Opendays were held at ORSoC's building around a table in a presentation room with robotic arms and other bits of previous work.

They said that unlike previous companies that contracted out work and had breakdowns in communication they weren't going to let that happen. This is their project, not a contract where win/lose it doesn't matter you get paid anyway.

The more recent companies you have seen appear are totally copying this approach. In house design team trying to make a product work first time. Only they need funding, are behind, have to promise more than the next for cheaper, and hopefully give you a return better than a company that aims to deliver a working product at a point when network hashrate is a lot lower two months earlier.

If KnC does succeed, and does deliver on time, ROI could well be on the way to being complete before the competing companies deliver and play catch-up. Their catch-up being their efficiency savings in the long term have to meet the short term gains KnC miner will have already made before these competing companies launch.

Only in a months time you may well be able to purchase a proven KnC miner Jupiter in hand at the point the other companies start to fundraise (if that all happens in the next month and KnC can prove a working chip in that time).