Bitcoin Forum

Has there been any news out of BFL over the last week? I can't seem to find anything. You'd think they would have a development status blog or something.

They are pretty much in a hold pattern til mid-next week supposedly when the test rig debacle will hopefully get sorted out.

All those boxes of fans and only 1 test rig...

I don't understand why their problems with the "test rig" are blocking the entire project.

Why can't they have the assembly house put a few chips onto boards and test them that way?  Make up a Jalapeno board to test a single chip at a time.

Sure, they want to test all of the chips and bin them before placing them onto boards, but they should still be able to make progress in parallel by just slapping some on boards blindly and testing them that way...no?

They made such a big deal about "investing heavily in high speed production equipment" with their reflow oven purchase.  Time to put that investment to work?

Why can't they have the assembly house put a few chips onto boards and test them that way?  Make up a Jalapeno board to test a single chip at a time.

Well, at least Josh has stopped posting comically unrealistic schedules.

The question for me is: what will the difficulty be when people actually have BFL rigs in their hands? I'm guessing 10M+

"I would probably have to commit seppeku if we were delayed until April."


Does anyone remember this post from Josh on 01-04-2013 ?  I bet he regrets making that statment.

I have no idea where this ludicrous "ground plane issue" rumor got started, but whoever started it is out of touch with any sense of reality. There is no ground plane issue on the PCBs. The hold up right now is the test rig and debugging it... since that is what we are doing at the moment, there's nothing new to update. Once the test rig issue is resolved, we will resume the process going forward. I am loathe to detail the process at this point, it is just fuel for the trolls who like to pick apart every word type and analyze it for conspiracy theories. I will update when I have an update that's worth posting. Smaller updates I will post in the chat, and thanks to the magic of the grrnbrg they will make it to twitter. At this time, I wholeheartedly endorse grrnbrgs unofficial twitter feed.

Just as an unrelated side note, it would take approximately 24 hours to get new PCB's made if we had to redesign them for some reason. Depending on whatever would need to be done to the PCBs, the actual design work would take two or three days typically, unless it was a complete redesign and there would be basically no reason in the world to do that at this point. I don't know why anyone would think 4 - 6 weeks for a PCB redesign, that's just crazy. We have gone through many, many board redesigns since this process started, I've only pictured two or three of the 6 or 7 revisions we've had throughout the process. Basically, we could have a redesigned board ready to go by the time the chips arrived at the facility, that has never been a sticking point.

I haven't been posting much because I am very busy with other issues related to getting these chips out and making sure everything is ready once they arrive here in KC. I will make time to sit down and go through some of the threads here as soon as I can, but right now I am focusing on all the details for shipping. The daily DDoS doesn't help, but I've mostly gotten that automated at this point, so it's no longer that big of a concern or time suck thankfully.

I stand corrected, with the new 10 layer PCBs it takes 48 hours to make a new board from scratch. But I digress... as I said in the shoutbox, we think we've found the problem with the test rig and the ASIC team has managed to get the chips spinning with some hand modifications to the test rig and some of the engines were even running at 500 MHz. They are going to finish diagnosing and then get new hardware for the test rig, so we should have something demonstrable by early to mid next week. Should be pretty smooth sailing after that.

Should be pretty smooth sailing after that.

Here you go guys, took me a while since Josh can't properly spell.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/632-getting-ready-april.html

Cheers.

We should thank BFL for showing us all how NOT to make an ASIC bitcoin miner.

LOL....lesson learned for you suckers who put up money 9 months ago for vaporware? Also lesson learned for potential ASIC vendors?

I sure hope so. ;D

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/blogs/luke-jr/105-chips-finally-here.html  :P

Here you go guys, took me a while since Josh can't properly spell.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/632-getting-ready-april.html

We should thank BFL for showing us all how NOT to make an ASIC bitcoin miner.

LOL....lesson learned for you suckers who put up money 9 months ago for vaporware? Also lesson learned for potential ASIC vendors?

I sure hope so. ;D

Who ever set up that "production area" is a fucking idiot and does not really understand what they are doing, certainly as regards Anti-static procedures for handling  ASICS and PCB's at the level they claim they have.

Sorry but that is an epic FAIL.........

How many of these stupid anti-BFL posts do you need to write? We get it, you think everyone who ordered is stupid. No point in reading and posting every time someone posts in a BF related thread. There is still plenty of time for BF to delivery and still get high earning for customers. Go find some other way to get attention, maybe in real life. Instead of spending every day posting crap that no one wants to hear. If there's anyone opinion that shouldn't matter, its the person who wastes their life posting nothing but mindless garbage in forums all day.

Being "supposedly" this close to a definitive benchmark, I would almost expect hourly updates.

I hadn't looked closely before.

Are those really plastic mats covering the carpet, with wheeled chairs on top of them, and metal-framed desks?

Wow.  When I was young I once worked in an office that was set up like this.  I got "bit" many times a day by powerful discharges, and they messed with the Mac II on the desk whenever they struck. (they would cause the floppy drive to spontaneously eject.)

Does BFL uses batches, as Avalon? Can I order some unit now, like go to their website and pay? If yes, at what date I might get the unit?

As an Avalon Batch 1 and Batch 2 purchaser, I thank BFL for not sending network difficulty through the roof, which means more sweet mining for me.

As a prospective Avalon Batch 3 purchaser, I'm disappointed that BFL is not there with a product to compete with their high price point.

As a Bitcoiner, the reality of just one ASIC vendor left standing and holding a monopoly on the market worries me.

Has there been any news out of BFL over the last week? I can't seem to find anything. You'd think they would have a development status blog or something.

Who ever set up that "production area" is a fucking idiot and does not really understand what they are doing, certainly as regards Anti-static procedures for handling  ASICS and PCB's at the level they claim they have.

Sorry but that is an epic FAIL.........

How many of these stupid anti-BFL posts do you need to write? We get it, you think everyone who ordered is stupid. No point in reading and posting every time someone posts in a BF related thread. There is still plenty of time for BF to delivery and still get high earning for customers. Go find some other way to get attention, maybe in real life. Instead of spending every day posting crap that no one wants to hear. If there's anyone opinion that shouldn't matter, its the person who wastes their life posting nothing but mindless garbage in forums all day.

Really? I've never worked with ASICs but I had a part-time job for about a year or so assembling and soldering components on boards. This setup is identical. You are aware that those mats on the tables are anti-static, right?
In fact, that's practically the same setup I had.

Would you care to expand on what exactly is wrong with it?

"Are those really plastic mats covering the carpet, with wheeled chairs on top of them, and metal-framed desks?"

Look closer. The carpet ends before the production room. Looks like concrete to me.

I'm surprised to not see a door to the assembly room, and that it's located next to the break room. Doesn't the assembly room need to somewhat clean? Of course, I don't expect it be as clean as a FAB, but why no door?

I'm also surprised to see only 3-4 workstations, designed for one person each, if the chair count is any indication. Although I'm not sure what their output would be, it has been expressed on many occasions that more manpower will be hired to pump out product. The finish product assembly is predicated on how many parts are assembled at the workstations, of which you can't put 2-3 extra people at them.

Somebody else can shed some light on what I've stated above, letting me know if my assessment is off-base.

~Bruno K~