Topic: Who likes pod miners? - page 30. (Read 56097 times)

good to see some joint brain power here.

optimizer has made some good gear for me still works to perfection since December.

So, Optimizer has agreed to work on the main power for Bitfury stuff. That should have wide enough deployment to justify the cost of outsourcing, since he's a Real Engineer™ and deserves to be compensated accordingly.

In the meantime I'll be taking NotFuzzyWarm's advice and using a prebuilt power module for the BM1384 Terminus. I've found one that has decent specs and is also not super expensive, and several will be on a parts order sent out today so I can next week start experimenting with it. If it works as well as I hope, I'll take time to draw up a final-version PCB with that block integrated and send off for an order. Depending on how cleanly the module can be hacked onto existing version of the board, I may have some prototype models available for purchase.

Upon further thought, I do actually really like the Terminus name and general color scheme ideas better so I'm gonna keep that around for pod miners.

Well I do have that Intersil ISL8225MEVAL3Z 30A evaluation board I got a while back. Accepts 0V to 20V - yes it says zero - and delivers up to 30A with 0.6v to 6v output.

It is actually a dual 15A in one package - nice touch for multiple strings maybe? However, the eval board is setup as single paralleled output for the 30A.

Want it donated for ya to play with?

It'd be good for getting to market faster, but those things cost at least 3 times as much as building from discrete parts, pretty much equalling the cost of the entire rest of the device. Not sure I can justify that.

What range of string voltage/current are you looking at? You know those Intersil all-in-one modules will probably fit the bill. Also see that an Intel sub Altera is making same thing but geared more for feeding Intel's new line of FPGA's https://www.altera.com/b/enpirion-em21xx-digital-powersoc-family.html

Well, news. Not good news.

That first Terminus board I got working decided to give up the ghost.

I built a second one to test with and it never worked. So I built a third and it also never worked, exhibiting the exact same symptoms. Worked on both of 'em, couldn't get either to behave. So I went back to the first one, and suddenly IT started doing the same thing as well, after working just fine under extensive poking and prodding for about a week.

So, I don't know what's going on.

I'd previously asked Optimizer for advice, but now I've asked him if he wants to just design the buck himself. He'd expressed interest in the project's power integration in the past, and as that is his area of expertise, I'm hoping he'll be able to put together something good in not a lot of time and that the compensation I'm offering is acceptable.

If he's willing, that'll free me up to focus on a few other things in the meantime. Every part of the pod except the main regulator worked from the original design back around January, so ironing out that one piece has been a substantial delay that I no longer care to fiddle with. Maybe now I can work out some of the BF16 problems.

I agree. A quiet pod miner would be very nice.

I have a sidehack modded S7LN doing it's thing about 3 feet away from my desk and it's no problem at all noise-wise. I can watch TV and have normal volume conversations with no problems.

I have to keep my power consumption down as well. I recently shutdown my whole mining operation with the exception of my 2PAC miners due to a change in my power billing. I was going to be paying $0.23/kWh and that simply is not worth it. I effectively dropped from 3kW to 18W of power consumption.

Or... To keep things simpler, maybe follow BFL's Single (or is it 2x of them together?): keep with the cube Terminus design and offer a dual version: Gotta admit -- it does look good


As for Pi power, I agree header is best. Found that since regular micro usb cables use 2 data, 2 pwr setup and either my old RiPi-1 dinna know how to handle it or whatever but RiPi was not happy driving an Avalon dongle. Switched to a charger cable that I assume has all 4 wires tied to power at the standard USB-end and all is well. Using a wired-to header - possible issue solved.

Sounds like a good plan Sidehack. I certainly want the Amita as I need to keep on the lower side of power consumption.

I want the BF16 Miner for compensation.

Thanks for the hard work, I have 10 2pacs on ckpool.  oh well.

I'm really looking forward to picking up a few of these.

Keep up the good work Sidehack!

It sounds like things are working themselves out. The target wattage range sounds good.

Sounds like things are going full speed. Nice to hear 2pac production has been ironed out and the minions training finally paying off 

Cant comment on the naming of the products as I cant remember what they all come from (although i know its been mentioned somewhere 🤔).

So 2Pac assembly is going so fast now that tomorrow I'll be out of a job again until I get more chips (don't worry, they're already on the way) so I should be able to spend more time on Terminus R&D.

Now my original plan was to build a pod miner in the 50-100W range, and the Terminus was going to be a half-scale pod in the 30-60W range. But my current prototype is already good for more than 60W. Thing is, the full-size BF16 pod was intended to have 11 chips (I know that's a crazy number but there are reasons) and the recommended clock for 'em is at about 6W each, so an 11-chip pod would push around 75-80W at the top anyway. Shoot, the Terminus can handle that heat already.

So here's what I think I'll do.

I think I'll continue the Terminus formfactor as the defacto pod miner, with an expected power range 30-80 watts. However, it'll take the Amita product name that I've always intended for a pod miner. If you know the source material, it makes more sense for the Compac and Amita to be small and the Terminus and TypeZero (the S1-5 refit boards) to be big anyways.

So I'll look into the Amita pod having 11 chips, and a Terminus with 22 chips in more of a New R-Box type thing running up to 150W or thereabouts. The TypeZero boards will have 33 chips per board, so 66 per miner.

I don't know about y'all but that makes sense to me. Anyways I'll be spending most of this week ironing out the remaining kinks with the BM1384 pod, whatever it wants to be called.

I'm most certainly interested in one (or three!) I've already got a fan mount printed up to try out.

Id probably be interested in one as well. would be personally interested to see how far the chips could be pushed ignoring normal thermal constraints

Hi Sidehack, I'd love to be in this first test batch. Please save me one!

Regarding noise, it's definitely important but I like the previous recommendations you gave for the compac. If it's under X frequency probably no fan, if over X then probably need a fan. I'll be using a fan so noise is not important to me.

I am running my 2pac and my compac on a sff hp m700 it has an i7 in it and I am cpu mining XMR with it.  that turns a very small daily profit.  so it ends up being a little better then a rasp pi.

I make a few pennies a day   running the pc mining the cpu.  and I lose a few mining the sticks.

but the sticks are pointed at mmpool.org which gives the tx fees to the person thatchiest a block.  So basically I have a free chance on every block to win its tx fees.

adding a few pods would get me up to maybe 300gh  and still kind of be in the free shot at tx fees on every block made.

If I go solo i don''t earn on the hash.  but mmpool.org lets me earn some btc and the cpu lets me earn some xmr

Probably just a standard 4-pin header with 5V and ground, should be easy to make that work.