damnit knc, why did you have to remove ports 5 & 6 from the Nov Jups.
Some of the Oct Jupiters were shipped with only 4 ports as well. Not really fair for those that planned to upgrade them.
$2 in parts, a little soldering skills....
No soldering skills here, but can you link me to the parts?
+1 on that request.
I solder. It is not a simple as it sounds. The odds are higher that you'll make your controller board non-functional than succeed in adding sockets - unless you are an experienced technician with a lot of soldering time. Get an old motherboard, remove a connector with .1" spacing between the pins even if it has many more pins than the socket you wish to add to the controller board. Try putting one of those sockets into the motherboard. You'll see it's more difficult than you expect. Anyone who would tell a novice to try such a thing to a controller board is looking to reduce the net hashrate by killing your machine.
Saying "I solder" is like saying "I Drive" you can be good at it or bad.
With a $10 desoldering pump and a decent iron this is (on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being surface mount technology) a 3 at the worst.
Its 10 huge holes that need to be cleared and a socket installed.
If the thread weren't 1430 pages, I'd find the post with photos of a user who 'successfully' accomplished the feat.
I remember that photo, it was a scary job done by someone who did NOT know how to solder.
He didnt clear the holes first
If modules are only sold to those previous customers who purchased Mercs or Saturns and those customers are only sold a number of modules that when in addition to any previous modules they've purchase, will complete their machine to upgrade it to a Jupiter, no additional modules will appear on the market.
If modules are sold to all pre-existing customers, modules will immediately find their way to ebay, others will be added to Saturns and Mercs filling up the 4 positions, while even more will be sold to Jupiter owners upgrading to 6 or more modules. Of those trying to upgrade to more than 4 modules, some will destroy their controller boards. Of those with destroyed controller boards, most will send them back to KnC and ask for a replacement while agreeing that the replacement isn't under warranty because they mangled it and offering to pay. Others who destroy their controller boards will give up and offer the modules for auction, including the new ones they've obtained.
...but oh yes, controller boards aren't available. So, if you mangle a controller board you may have only the option to sell modules at auction.