Topic: Who likes pod miners? - page 26. (Read 56097 times)

Oh hey guess what?

Chicken butt.

Also, an actual update.

I realized on Saturday, while sitting on my couch getting nothing accomplished, that the reason I haven't gotten much accomplished with design work lately is because I had been coming in on weekends for that and focusing on manufacturing Monday through Friday, but I've only had two or three weekends since about the first part of May that I've actually been in town and those days I was usually pretty darn beat and ended up staying home, or did come in for a while to dawdle on stuff.

So anyways we're a bit ahead of the game now that I have some decent help, so I took today to start working up Terminus pods. And the verdict is - it's gonna take a few more changes to the PCB to get 'em going proper.

So while I was laying out connections to the microcontroller I forgot a simple but non-obvious fact - one of the GPIO pins is pretty freakin' worthless. So I'm using an 8-pin micro, which means 6 pins of IO. I need 6 pins of IO - specifically, 2 I2C lines, 1 analog in and 3 outputs. So of the 6 IO pins, it turns out one can only be used as an input, not an output. So hey how about I use that as the input? Handy enough. Except oh wait I need ADC input and that's the only pin not tied into the ADC.

So I think I've figured up a half-decent workaround to the problem this causes, and I should be able to combine two of the outputs into a single output with a small additional circuit to handle the second function. But that means redesigning the PCB.

So now I'm left with about twenty Terminus boards whose internal controller won't fully function. It's supposed to handle fan speed and power shutdown off the temp sensor, reset the string when it detects a lockup, stuff like that. Power shutdown cannot work as it is. I started on simple problems first and haven't gotten to temp sensor interfacing yet but that could probably work for fan speed control, but without power shutdown it doesn't matter a whole lot anyways.

So, apparently I start every paragraph with the word "so". Additionally, I may populate one of these boards with the full miner (I started with just the power and base controls), lock the fans on full, wire up an RC reset, basically rolling back the advanced controller feature set to basic. We'd still have the better 5V onboard that can power a Pi, and the 6-pin power jack alongside the barrel, as improvements. And if it works I can have a dozen or so to sell on here as a "beta release" kind of thing if folks are interested, while I wait another two or three weeks on the revised PCBs to arrive.

These guys would be the final form factor, so I'll be doling a few out to resellers so they can get an idea of sizing and mounting requirements for enclosures or anything else.

This post very uuseful.. Thank you for the update and I look forward to the terminus miners.

We appreciate all that you do far more than you could know. Thank you.

Mostly I do it because I don't have anything else to do. All my friends skipped town, heck even my church closed its doors almost a year ago so I don't really have much else going on. Let's just say I haven't worked a 40-hour week since 2011, but it's okay because I actually like my job.

Hosting is mostly hands-off anyways, and I'm fortunate that customers are patient because sometimes it's a couple days before I can find time to troubleshoot or repair a miner with issues. That's one reason I won't take in GPU rigs, those things take way too much time to keep running stable. That and I don't give a rip about altcoins so BFD.

Depending how I'm feeling on Sunday, I may fetch a pizza and spend the day in the office catching up on design work. Last weekend I was back home helping my grandma run the food stand at the county fair (we were there until 1AM two nights, and the morning inbetween I got roped into pouring concrete at 7AM), and then this whole week has been literally a hundred degrees every day, so I might want to take some time off, but it's likely I'll be out there for at least a while.

The non-manufacture priorities right now are lighting up the BM1384 Terminus pod, which will require about a day's worth of coding after the basic hardware tests, and revamping a Bitfury test board to integrate some new signalling stuff VH and I conjured up. Office work probably means working on the Bitfury test board since that only means PCB layout; Terminus stuff is mostly workbench. Out where it's a hundred degrees. Which sucks. And is also pretty hard on the hosted machines, sorry about that.

Plus you run a kick ass hosting service as well. Don't know how you do it all man, but I hope you know it IS appreciated.

The best part about using stripped chips is they're all hand-mounted , so I'm manually lining up 0.5mm pitch QFN (no magnifier). Everything else is done on the robot, thank goodness, but I still have to spot-check every single part. I'm considering investing in a better one, 4 heads and a vision system, so it'd get everything done faster and with good accuracy.

My good screens are 17" 1920x1200, homemade; this laptop is 1920x1200 in 15.4". Nice and tidy.

I'm still backed up on 2Pac manufacture but having help is really nice and things are getting done quicker - though hours are limited this week because of the 100+F heatwave making conditions more miserable than usual. But hopefully before long I'll be able to take a day or two and get Terminus pods moving. And hopefully another day or two and get some Bitfury test boards out, sorry everything's way the heck behind schedule.

What ASICs were you running?

I worked as an electronics technician for 20 years, started at age 14 for maybe $3/hour, I've been there.  Now I can't see that tiny stuff anymore.  SMD is scary, a job for robots.  I can see my 24" computer screen but I need lighted binocular magnifiers to solder DIP packages even.

Got the electric bill, shut down my 2 ASICs.  Thinking about remounting my solar panels that were mounted on wood until it rotted out.  Maybe I could mine a few hours a day on solar.

Thanks for the update sidehack! Looking forward to it

Can't wait til you send me the bf16 POD. 

Thank you for the update and I look forward to the terminus miners. Your hard work is appreciated.

The new revision Terminus pod PCBs arrived yesterday. Hopefully I have some time soon to get one built, but I'll have to take a day or two to write some micro firmware before it's really workable. Once that's golden I'll be able to make and sell them as well.

I contracted out the main regulator for BF16 pods since that's the part of the Terminus that gave me the most trouble. So at least that won't cause delays.

Yeah, common slave, make us out money machines! you're supposed to be as fast as the big boys yo! /s

i wish i could just move over your way from aus and give you a hand as well. You really have more then enough on your plate to several people something to do.

You're frustrated? Try being the guy that works 70-hour weeks in a 95-degree shop (for what amounts to well under minimum wage) designing and building stuff for people who whine on the internet. Last week I got a full-time helper for manufacturing for the first time ever and I've been building miners for two years now. Only got a helper because my mom lost her job so we're helping each other out.

You want something, go make it. Can't make it? Don't complain. I got more skin in the small-miners game than anyone else in the world has had since 2014 and I'm working as hard as I can to fill that gap. I'll get it when I get it.

OK, I saw that, I thought maybe it moved to a different thread and I missed it or something.  Very frustrating to see time going into old technology that mostly can't break even while the 16 nm stuff that might is on a back burner.

This looks cool! Are there any still going?

Cheers

ima quote sidehack here..

Because:

What's happening with the BF16 pods?  The BF16 stuff is the only thing I'm interested in because it'll be obsolete fast enough.  I can't see sinking money into more BM1384 stuff.  I've got a 2Pac, it works, but it doesn't break even.  Turning the speed up or buying more isn't going to make it more profitable because the power consumption will just rise too.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1987503.new#new

Auction for four prototype Terminus pod miners.

Glad you are busy sidehack...I cant wait for the pod testing to start.  On a side note I have an idea about a miner retrofit, but not hardware...building a driver or whatever to run an existing design in a different way to utilize the ability of an older platform.

I am in way over my head...lol.  I will send you a PM with more details but its not something I want you to address right now. Just keep it in the back stack of you minds eye and we will maybe talk in a few months.

Sounds good! Better response than some other bigger miner manufacturing ompanies, I will definitely check in on the auction. Sounds like you're plenty busy right now, keep us updated with any important information!