Topic: The combined sidehack-novak usb stick review thread. AKA GekkoScience BM1384 - page 12. (Read 26365 times)

yeah but if the test one does go up in smoke you can see what went wrong and fix it before its too late.

I think as long as the heatsink is staying cool (which implies the chip is staying cool), there shouldn't be much problem. The buck on this guy is built for an upper limit of 800mV and about 20A which is a heck of a lot more power than any stickminer should ever use. The USB jack is rated for 1.5A.

Also if the new PCBs work he'll probably be getting a proper final design stick end of next week that can be babied.

But yeah, it'd be kinda lousy to see it catch on fire.

One random thought on this. You might want to consider performing the lower frequency (i.e. lower power) tests before you push onto the higher speed and higher power tests. I say this because I think there is zero risk to the hardware  at the low end, but the higher up the scale you go, somewhere along the line something could go POOF. Once it goes POOF, then you may not be able to test the low end. I am not saying don't ever push the high end, just that with the extremely limited number of these devices, it might make more sense to get the "low end" end data first, and then "go for the MAX".

I completely understand the urge to push the envelope, but it might make sense to adjust the sequence of tests.

Well hey, nifty. I'm pretty sure the new revision Compac PCBs and the barebones 18-boards have shipped, so I might be playing with those next week.

I wonder when the other three guys are gonna start reporting opinions?

starting  freq 218.75





notice power draw of .84 amps and volts of 4.84 that is 4.0656 watts and close to max  on many hubs

freq 212 results Hw 69  30912 shares  hash rate 11.73  power .81 amps 4.85 volts notice in photo I went to a single port since most of us can not bridge  our usb ports.

amazing that these are a bit high on Hw  but on power used this is 0.335 watts per gh!  


this is my setting where I get  0.335 watts per gh




errors good   since I am looking for best gh per watt

well  this stick is really nice ,but it needs care.  remember I am using:

 1) an intel i5 quad core pc with an ssd and 8gb ram it is all mining /btc nothing else
 2) a high quality usb hub
 3) and I am a long term miner with a lot of experience playing with gear testing gear etc.


If bitmain sold this as a u3 stick to the masses it would have had issues from people that don't know how to mine.

I think a lot of rookies would do below:

No cooling
underpowered hub
People unable to run cgminer

I love this gear from sidehack  my geek viewpoint like it a like. 
Also as an ebay seller I can sell these sticks in a kit.

I am looking forward to the 18 chip boards.   I think they will do under 75 watts and around 200gh

And this show us that bitmain just dont care to make a good miner. They want to make profit. Sidehack take time to work with the chip and the result is awesome! 

I am impressed by this gear. so far the 212.50  test is doing well.

Cant wait to see the board!  This is really nice 0.34 watt

will be nice to see if it will do .34 watts a gh at freq 206.25  with low errors.   and after 9000 shares or about an hour  it had only 1 hw



 if this could project to an 18 chip board  we would have  about 205gh at about 70 watts. pretty good if cooling is easy.

this stick is a nice piece of work.

now testing freq 212.50

 1) Note all HW are way under 0.5%
 2) Note to set new freq a full restart of my windows 7 pc is needed.



tested are in bold

   100           5.5  
   125           6.88  
   150           8.25    .                   .31             Hw under 0.5%
   175           9.63                        .31 to .32    Hw under 0.5%

   193.75         10.66  
   196.88         10.83
  
   200         11.00                         .33 to .35  Hw under 0.5%


   206.25      11.34                          .36      4.85 volts.  .84 amps    11.34 gh    0 HW    with 34820 good.
                                                        .35    4.87 volts   .81 amps    11.38 gh   0 Hw with  85,000+ good
                                                        .34    4.87 volts   .79 amps----11.37 gh   1 Hw  for 9,000+ good shares


                                            
   212.50         11.69                   just started

 
   218.75          12.03

  
   225.00         12.38  
   237.5         13.06  
   243.75      13.41  
   250           13.75  


make note that amps of .81 or .84  start to push  usb hubs

As soon as I exceed 0.40 watts per gh I will stop testing

freq 206.25 needs testing at lower amps.  it ran for  more then 4 hours and did about 34800 good shares with 0 Hw at the .84 amp level


these sticks need cooling at freq 175 and up

freq 150 seemed okay with no fan

I will test lower numbers last as  running them with no fan at freq 100 at .25 watts a gh would be really cool (pun intended )


I ran 206.25 at lower amps. of .81 and still had 0 HW after 80000 plus shares. see photos below
0.81 amps gave me 0 Hw


I also did 11.38gh which is better then sidehacks' prediction of 11.34gh!




so I dropped current and I am  running one more set of tests. it is nice to see the stick doing a little better then I hoped for.

My Shirt is on its own vacation!

 1) Note all HW are way under 0.5%
 2) Note to set new freq a full restart of my windows 7 pc is needed.



tested are in bold

   100           5.5  
   125           6.88  
   150           8.25    .                   .31             Hw under 0.5%
   175           9.63                        .31 to .32    Hw under 0.5%

   193.75         10.66  
   196.88         10.83
  
   200         11.00                         .33 to .35  Hw under 0.5%


   206.25      11.34                          .36  still testing    4.85 volts.  .84 amps    11.34 gh    0 HW    with 34820 good.
                                                        .35  started  test  4.87 volts   .81 amps    11.34 gh  
                                            
   212.50         11.69      
   218.75          12.03

  
   225.00         12.38  
   237.5         13.06  
   243.75      13.41  
   250           13.75  


make note that amps of .81 or .84  start to push  usb hubs

As soon as I exceed 0.40 watts per gh I will stop testing

freq 206.25 needs testing at lower amps.  it ran for  more then 4 hours and did about 34800 good shares with 0 Hw at the .84 amp level


these sticks need cooling at freq 175 and up

freq 150 seemed okay with no fan

I will test lower numbers last as  running them with no fan at freq 100 at .25 watts a gh would be really cool (pun intended )

Nice! 

errors are 30/224000 = 0.0001339


they were 26/12600 = 0.0020634

so when I bumped amps from .75 to .78

we did 4/211400 = 0.00001892


so I am pretty happy with this setting  on the pot.

.79 x 4.87 = 3.8473 watts

3.8473/10.95 = 0.35135 watts a gh  with next to  a 4/211400 hw rate

the setting with  .75 amps did   

.75 x 4.89 = 3.6675 watts/10.95 =  0.33493 watts a gh with a 26/12600 hw rate

both  settings    are really good.


looking forward to a higher freq test.

full size links

http://imageshack.com/a/img661/6564/wV1m5o.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img537/1056/HPPAwX.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img910/295/YxLwqa.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img540/7320/88S5fC.jpg

http://imageshack.com/a/img903/6558/fvr6rY.jpg

my shirt


Hw are 30 or 29  but we have done only 3 or 4 errors with current amp setting in about 20 hours



amps are .78 volts are 4.87-4.88  freq = 200 gh is about 10.93



 second hw shot


tomorrow I am going to try a higher freq

I did that. I also bumped up current from .75 to .78 amps

I had 6600   good 13 bad at .75 amp x 4.89 volts
I had 12800  good 26 bad at .75 amp x 4.89 volts

I now have 65000 good 29 bad at .78 amp x 4.88 volts

so the little bit higher power has resulted in  much better hw   gh is 10.91

3.8064 watts/ 10.91 gh  this is 0.3488 watts a gh

Great pictures and reporting so far, Phil.  I have one request/suggestion: for the cgminer screen caps hit d then i for widescreen reporting and it will show accepted/rejected/hw errors at the top to the right of WU.

Keep it up, great project to be following!