Who likes pod miners? - page 28. | Bitcointalksearch.org

hurricandave

legendary

Activity: 966

Merit: 1003

The U3 was originally announced as having both 6pin PCIE and X-Box barrel jack. They left the 6-pin unpopulated and went with the barrel jack only. Those 12v/7a bricks were HOT to the touch. I don't mind if both options are there. Would be nice(convenient Wink

) to have the 6-pin in place.
Now as far as the COMs go, USB B is my preference. Much sturdier connection. I had a USB Mini pull off a Rockminer R-Box board when I was trying to pull the cable off to clean the fans. As much as that may have been my fault, the Mini is weak and difficult to repair if your like me and hadn't soldered anything smaller than 10gauge wire in years.

ab1jx

member

Activity: 79

Merit: 18

What size barrel jack? That's the only problem I have with those, there are at least half a dozen different sizes. But yeah, my Gridseed has USB minis and barrels. My MP3 players have all had minis. Phones, Kindles, Raspberry Pis all micro, very problematic.

USB B is fine, whatever it has it's going to need some cable. USB A/B cables come with lots of stuff, they reach almost throwaway proportions. Every printer and flatbed scanner I've got came with one. And then there were ones we were throwing away at work so I brought those home. I wouldn't mind screw terminals.

sidehack

legendary

Activity: 3374

Merit: 1859

Curmudgeonly hardware guy

Um, yeah. That's been the plan the whole time. The 2Pac and everything were just to build resources for that project. I've had Bitfury 16nm samples since last year.

spazzdla

legendary

Activity: 1722

Merit: 1000

Quote from: sidehack on May 18, 2017, 08:51:40 AM

I would much rather go with "sturdy" than "fancy" which is why I tend to like USB B. I've never liked Micro, that won't even be an option.

Anyone saying toss the barrel jack, y'all aren't thinking clearly. This is an entry-level device designed to be quiet and entertaining. The guy who wants one sitting on a shelf somewhere lottery-ticketing away isn't gonna want to strap an old ATX to it to get 50 watts of 12V when a cheap and silent brick will do.

I'm not building this for the pros. It's for the n00bs. I like that there's a learning curve for operating it, because I really like when people actually learn things. Folks these days really seem to hate thinking, and I despise that attitude. But I'm not interested in forcing newbies to deal with something ugly, jankety or loud just because people who can already hack it like it that way.

In any case, thanks for the input. USB-B is out, 6-pin is in.

I wanted input on this decision because the Terminus isn't planned to be a one-off product. I want to build a Bitfury in the same formfactor, so I'd like to keep things physically compatible wherever possible.

Build a Bitfury?? Like with their chips kind of thing?

Thanks for keeping the home mining alive!

sidehack

legendary

Activity: 3374

Merit: 1859

Curmudgeonly hardware guy

I would much rather go with "sturdy" than "fancy" which is why I tend to like USB B. I've never liked Micro, that won't even be an option.

Anyone saying toss the barrel jack, y'all aren't thinking clearly. This is an entry-level device designed to be quiet and entertaining. The guy who wants one sitting on a shelf somewhere lottery-ticketing away isn't gonna want to strap an old ATX to it to get 50 watts of 12V when a cheap and silent brick will do.

I'm not building this for the pros. It's for the n00bs. I like that there's a learning curve for operating it, because I really like when people actually learn things. Folks these days really seem to hate thinking, and I despise that attitude. But I'm not interested in forcing newbies to deal with something ugly, jankety or loud just because people who can already hack it like it that way.

In any case, thanks for the input. USB-B is out, 6-pin is in.

I wanted input on this decision because the Terminus isn't planned to be a one-off product. I want to build a Bitfury in the same formfactor, so I'd like to keep things physically compatible wherever possible.

philipma1957

legendary

Activity: 4256

Merit: 8551

'The right to privacy matters'

Quote from: sidehack on May 17, 2017, 03:49:14 PM

Okay, show of hands. What would people rather see - a 6-pin jack for power (in addition to 2.5mm barrel), or a USB-B for signal (in addition to USB mini)?

Recall the max power on this guy is about 75 watts.

6-pin for power as I have idle platinum and titanium psu's

this is a usb mini? just don't want the shitty micro

it should be good enough

btckess

newbie

Activity: 33

Merit: 0

Quote from: spazzdla on May 18, 2017, 08:05:22 AM

A terminal block.. LOL! (But really..)

you laugh but that's exactly what i plan on doing lol
https://www.adafruit.com/product/368

*edit*
also using this https://www.adafruit.com/product/2897

spazzdla

legendary

Activity: 1722

Merit: 1000

A terminal block.. LOL! (But really..)

leowonderful

legendary

Activity: 1624

Merit: 1130

Bitcoin FTW!

Quote from: QuintLeo on May 18, 2017, 05:58:15 AM

Quote from: sidehack on May 17, 2017, 03:49:14 PM

Okay, show of hands. What would people rather see - a 6-pin jack for power (in addition to 2.5mm barrel), or a USB-B for signal (in addition to USB mini)?

Recall the max power on this guy is about 75 watts.

I've no clue what a USB-B is, certainly don't have anything that plugs into one.

I'm also wary about the whole concept of running 75 watts through a 2.5mm barrel - gridseed "80" blades at 40-50 watts were marginal enough - but I still have a couple of 10A 12V bricks from those days.

6 pin should be definite.

It's the weird-shaped huge one, I only have one at my house and it was used on a DVD reader that broke a while ago(search on Google for a better idea, this is the best I can explain it). PCI seems to be the safer platform, agreed.

QuintLeo

legendary

Activity: 1498

Merit: 1030

Quote from: sidehack on May 17, 2017, 03:49:14 PM

Okay, show of hands. What would people rather see - a 6-pin jack for power (in addition to 2.5mm barrel), or a USB-B for signal (in addition to USB mini)?

Recall the max power on this guy is about 75 watts.

I've no clue what a USB-B is, certainly don't have anything that plugs into one.

I'm also wary about the whole concept of running 75 watts through a 2.5mm barrel - gridseed "80" blades at 40-50 watts were marginal enough - but I still have a couple of 10A 12V bricks from those days.

6 pin should be definite.

in2tactics

hero member

Activity: 578

Merit: 501

I vote for the 6-pin PCIE over the USB-B. I would suggest dumping the barrel connector altogether, but apparently it is quite popular. Is there a particular reason you are using USB-mini over USB-B?

sidehack

legendary

Activity: 3374

Merit: 1859

Curmudgeonly hardware guy

Well heck. I guess I'm the only one still uses them nice sturdy B jacks.

6-pin it is.

I'm working right now on prototyping a simple controller that'll handle fan throttling, overheat shutdown and string lockup recovery. If the string is running unstable, like the buck is at capacity and briefly trips for overcurrent or overheat, or the chips are cold-started at a threshold speed, the string risks a lockup so the micro will detect that condition and force a reset. Problem with a reset is, the chips default to 200MHz and there's a decent chance that's not the speed you want. VH has some recovery code I need to test out which will detect this condition and restore the user-set frequency. Should be pretty handy for long-term stability especially at threshold voltage/speed combinations, for those of you concerned about efficiency or pushing the peak overclock.

So if anyone's wondering, dev work for that is what's holding up the Terminus schedule, and dev work for that is delayed by 2Pac manufacture. But we're getting there. I've already got a test board set up.

Spill

jr. member

Activity: 94

Merit: 5

Would like the 6pin also. Cool

hurricandave

legendary

Activity: 966

Merit: 1003

I would like 6-pin for power, have lots of 350watt PSU's salvaged from old Dell OptiPlex's.

leowonderful

legendary

Activity: 1624

Merit: 1130

Bitcoin FTW!

6 pin! I have several server PSUs that run plenty quiet and I can spare plenty of PCIE connectors for a Terminus, whereas I have only one barrel adapter that runs at only 60 watts. Keep up the great work, I've been lurking for a while here and it looks like things are getting there

Morguk

hero member

Activity: 595

Merit: 506

6-PIN PCI-E over USB-B for me. Just make sure the barrel jack stays.

NotFuzzyWarm

legendary

Activity: 3822

Merit: 2703

Evil beware: We have waffles!

6-pin PCIE connector.

sidehack

legendary

Activity: 3374

Merit: 1859

Curmudgeonly hardware guy

Okay, show of hands. What would people rather see - a 6-pin jack for power (in addition to 2.5mm barrel), or a USB-B for signal (in addition to USB mini)?

Recall the max power on this guy is about 75 watts.

sidehack

legendary

Activity: 3374

Merit: 1859

Curmudgeonly hardware guy

My pick-and-place is pretty mediocre, but I've been working with it for almost two years so I've figured out how to make it behave. I do actually use a kitchen convection oven with one of those controller kits for all my reflowing. Started out with an IR oven that came with the robot; it's handy because it's big but it also realy sucks. Hot and cold spots everywhere, really bad regulation. I was looking for a basic convection reflow oven and found one I kinda liked, but it cost about four times what I thought it was worth. The one I got now cost $250 in parts plus one day of work and the boards come out beautiful, way better than that big IR oven on its best day.

Thinking about building another one. Pretty handy. Probably won't get another robot anytime soon. Got my eye on one I like, US-made, but the base model with some necessary extra feeders costs something like six times what I paid for my car. We're not there yet.

truckinusa

hero member

Activity: 534

Merit: 500

Quote from: sidehack on May 16, 2017, 09:11:55 PM

I do have my own pick-and-place. I farm out nothing. If I sell it, it was designed and manufactured in-house. Were this not the case, I wouldn't be talking about using up all my time with manufacturing.

That sounds cool. Wish I was that set up. I just assemble little kits now and then and limited surface mount stuff since its too small. I use a toaster oven. I try to keep up with stuff I learned in school as an instrumentation tech.

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