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As many of you know I managed to make a working adapter-board to convert S1 controller work with S3 blades.I have now drawn PCB for it and actually ordered a little batch of these boards made by factory.Many of you can make your own adapter with information given in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=671128.800.
Anyway I wonder if there is anyone interested in ready made boards?And if so, do you want just plain PCB or whole board fully populated and with connectors? I'm asking this because I'll order connectors and regulators more if needed.
Pictures here are of my home-made PCB but factory-made will be double sided.So there are no jumper wires.But lay-out of the board is pretty much the same as in pics here.
Adapter board:
http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ynyb.jpg http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ynyE.jpghttp://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yny6.jpg

I'll have PCB's after 2-3 weeks and so there is still time to think this.Connectors come from Germany in a couple of days if needed.Here is schematic for those who haven't seen it (I think that I removed link to the original picture because I thought that there was an error -there wasn't).


http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ynye.jpghttp://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ynyc.jpg


I have made several prototypes and they work pretty well.I've kept that blade hashing for three days with no problems.

I'd be glad to hear opinions about this project.

Very nice job!  I love seeing the development from miners for miners. 

I wish you the best of luck with this if you decide to get some made.  Either way thanks for sharing.

Nice work! I would be interested in one adapter board, I have S1 control pcb at hand and cables.

Depending on your price point, I'd be interested in a few of these (populated or otherwise). Any guide on that?
Also, would be a good idea (if at all technically feasible) to be able to handle more than two boards .... 6 even 10 would not hurt.

Where did you get the PCB's done? OSH Park are dirt cheap (and I'd use them for shipping boards) but DirtyPCB's could beat them on both price and turnaround time (and I'd use them for protos)!

depending on price 1 fully populated and with connectors .

Very nice work, I am glad to see an alternative to buying refurbed S3 controllers.

About pricing: All depends on quantities and shipping.Connectors are biggest cost (5.12€ +shipping/board) if I buy them,let's say,10-30 boards.I can buy quantity of 200 connector (100 boards) and price would be about 1€/board. But I doubt that I would never sell more than 10 to 20 boards.And shipping from Finland is expensive.I think it will be just under 5€ economy shipped.Then add another 5€ for the rest of the parts including heat sink.Then it's close 15€ for one board and that doesn't even include my expences (shipping costs,PCBs).So I think I'll ask 20€ per board fully populated and tested.It won't give me profit but I should't lose either (except my time).

About controlling more than two boards: Yes that is my goal.As a matter of fact,I have one that controls four blades.But it's more complex since level-shifting is done with IC.It is also possible to do with additional components (and cheaper) but then drawing PCB would be much more difficult for me.I spent 3 nights drawing this! And there are only few components and connectors.If some-one with better capabilities could help with drawing PCB,I'd be happy to give schematics. Everything could be done better (adding step-down for 12V to 3V3 etc.) but this is designed to be easy to construct by any-one and cheap as possible.I'm planning to lift that PIC up from S1 ctrl-board to drive 4 boards.Kind of C1 controller.That's why I'm eager to buy C1 controller (to tweak it). Even broken one would help.But it's just for fun,it's not exactly DIY-project for every-one.Soldering and desoldering those PICs isn't done so easy.

I finally received more blades and my first original cables for S3.Here's couple of pics.As you can see, I have to bend the other cable. That's because I didn't have original cables and designing board without actual components is very challenging (for me atleast). And hashing here with PS3 wifi-antenna!

http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ynjO.jpg http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ynjj.jpg

I suppose it'd have to be one step at a time then .... when you get these off the PCB press then that would be a good time to go bigger (and count me in those interested ..). With regard to drawing / preparing the schematics, I am not expert either (electronics et al!) but using Eagle I've done a few in my time for personal use, as I am sure most people have.

Saying that, your price point, if you can pull it off for the dual blade controller, is a good one.

Well that price is for adapter-board driving one controller and two blades,if that's what you mean.Adapter that can handle two S1 ctrl-boards and four blades total,would need special cables.It's no problem if you can source cheap wires with right crimps (they cost 0.61€ each where I buy connectors from so wires for one miner would total 24.40€ without connector housings).Crimping 80 crimps for one miner is a job that I don't wanna do.I can if I have to,but it's one whole day job.I use wires pulled out of LG tv-sets.Different connectors but same crimps.I also bought some 20 pin connector housings.So these special adapters are maybe better to be just homemade stuff.

nice price I'll pay 30 to 35  US a board  i expected it to be more . but then again bitmain wants all most 80 or more  + shipping for a S3 controller so this will be well worth it .


but your price 22.36 US about is really good , I'm willing to go up to 35 US shipping would be another 10 to 15 US  ? .

I'm sorry if this is an ignorant question... Are there resources to purchase just the S3 blades? I picked up 4 of the original upgrade kits, but I still have a few S1's that could benefit from updating. I see more S1 blades for sale or S3's with 1 bad blade.

I'm little confused here.My english isn't so good.So,I'm selling only adapter without S1-controller.This is clear for every-one?That 35$ shipped worldwide sounds reasonable for me.I think it will cover my expences.I won't get rich but that wasn't my goal anyway.

I can't sleep (once again) and I started examining PIC32MX250F128D datasheet.I'll try to find a way to connect more than 2 blades to it.It is possible,I know,but does any firmware recognize more than two boards? C1 uses beagle-bone, I think.

Market-place here or ebay.I don't know any other good chances.C1 boards are basically the same but cables are different since connectors are kind of mirrored.I have now a few C1 blades and I will make some cables for them after I get some sleep.

I am ignorant here or what? I dont understand the need for this??

Am i to take this is really a custom controller for the S3 (Made from the idea of a S1 controller)

If so is the only benefit here is for S3 owners who have had the controller die & need a replacement? 

A while back on ebay some one was selling a few S3 boards i was able to pick up two, i had a S1 laying around but no way to use those boards power wise, i was going to buy two more boards before they sold out and maybe another S1, didn't buy them fast enough.  so all i need is a way to run those two boards, why i need it:) .Ive have been tiring to buy either a power converter card s1 to S3 at a reasonable price which this will do  or a S 3 controller at a reason able price, I'll make my own cables, if i have to.  it won't be hard.




but yea from time i come across parts i can use but need other parts  to run them that still have a lot of us left in them .

I watch ebay a lot and waiting for some one to post S5 and more S3 boards, i need two just had a S5  go up with 16 pin boards .i can sell off that broke S5 if want to and get 112 to 200 depends, what i want to hold out for . just sold one that needed two 18 pin boards for 112, if I held out and  re posted it, could have got more .

it does what the up grade did :) .the S1 to S3 upgrade came with that board + the cables needed .the two  heat sinks on each side are not really needed on the S3 . I'm running a S3 i upgraded I had enough parts for , running without the two heat sinks just the big ones you screw them on, it runs may be 1 to 2 degree hotter then the real S3 i have in a case . I'm thinking only reason it does is because it's not a case.  



he made  a working adapter-board to convert S1 controller work with S3 blades


and pretty much all you need is a controller and the hash boards and some way of cooling it . you got a cheap miner with some good use left still. depends what boards OFC .

My idea is to spend my spare-time doing something funny and make something useful out of those old S1's I have lying around.I have tried to buy S3 upgrade kits and even S3 controller from Bitmain. They have politely told me that they don't have spare-parts for S3 anymore (bs,they sell for others those controllers).I got pissed and decided to make my own upgrade kit.So I buy blades here or where-ever I get them from. Shipping costs for blades without heat-sinks is not so bad.I'm not over-clocking these blades,I have now two blades running with S1 heat-sinks connected with 5 screws,and only one fan! Temps are 45/46 and fan 2520.I don't need those extra heat sinks at all. And it's also possible to use C1 blades which I see been sold for parts from time to time.
Yes I have an idea to make my own controller to control more than 2 blades but that's a different story.I come up with that when I have something to show.

That is more than reasonable price! Everything between $20-$40 is ok, also you should cover your time at least with 5% of price. Keep up the good work and keep us updated.

Thanks for clearing things up guys...

I think my head was on another planet the day i commented on this....

I really had no idea!

If you make own adapter on a vero-board or similar,make sure that all connections are well made.If rx-line is not connected or faulty,controller will keep on sending work to hashing-board board and after a few minutes chips will over-heat and fry one-by one.And it's no fun to replace those chips (boards conduct heat pretty well).So if boards are not recognised in a  couple of minutes but chips get hot,cut off power instantly or blade will be lost.
PCBs I ordered have finally been shipped.Now I just have to wait them arrive.
I also made on adapter for 4 boards but firmware doesn't recognize more than two boards.At least any firmware that I know.Pic itself has io for  4 uarts.Ofcourse it can be done using just cgminer and cp2102s but there's no control for fans or temp control.
Maybe I start new project tweaking those altera based controllers.Those controllers look like also much better designed.And if they use same design in S7 it'll more useful project.

Great! Let us know when you got them ready :) I want to test them out :)

Woohoo!
PCBs finally arrived. Quickly measured and found no errors (I'm little surprised of that). Just missing mounting holes,mainly because I had no idea how I would assemble both controller and adapter.Now I have figured that out too and I'll post pics of my setups after I've soldered few of these adapters.

http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yD8S.jpg

And here is one adapter assembled with mounting brackets (home made ofcourse). It's happily hashing with 2 S3 hashboards. I've got another hashing with one c1 and one s3 board.

http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yDTm.jpg  http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yDTV.jpg http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yD8r.jpg

So if anyone is interested in buying these you can ask me.I have about 30 pcb's left.

Assembled price each + shipping to UK?

How much for 2 for Canada ?

Thanks :)

Price 0.16BTC each up to 4 pieces shipped priority to UK. Pretty much same shipping cost all over the world.Express shipping is also available but it has full tracking just to some countries (UK or US not included).And its much more expensive.

[edited:miscalculation in price]

PM me your BTC address - escrow (in PM) EDIT PayPal?

Paypal is fine with me.And certain members I can send items and they can pay when they receive and test merchandise.But this concerns only few which I trust.I send pm for those who want these things and we arrange comfortable deal.

PMed you let know how to pay and were to send it ,i pay first and  i  don't use escrow  unless it is in the 100 of Dollars . Don't send it first i don't go that way, Id rather pay first.

Okay,first ones built,tested and some even mailed.

To clarify few things: You do have to flash S3 firmware to controller.I use this:antMiner_S320150109.bin and then add Kano's cgminer. It boots with S1 firmware but won't work very well (what a surprise).Also I have two different type 3v3 regulators,other is four legged and other three-legged. Both work as well but they have different pinout.So there are two different looking versions:
http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yDhj.jpg http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yDhB.jpg

And if you look silkscreen closer you can see that transistors are added other way than silkscreen shows.That's because I had different transistor in my mind,when I designed the board.So they are fitted just right.I don't make hundreds of these, so I test every adapter before I send them.

I send adapters heatsink removed and regulator bend flatter.Just to make them fit to an envelope and to prevent breaking regulator during shipping.

If you want to drill mounting holes here are spots that I suggest (there are ground-planes at both sides):

http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yDhT.jpg

I'd like hear from you when you get them shipped.

can you point me in the right direction  link wise just what i need to make my own cables, I'm sure, I'll need them once the adapter is here .

JST PHDR-20VS MGR-20VS Housing , PHD Series Grid pitch: 2.0 mm Number of pins: 2 x 10 Nominal current: 3 A

JST BPHD-002T-P0.5 BPHD-002T-P0.5

And a crimping tool if you decide to make them yourself.It's pretty expensive though,I paid something like 40-50€.But I need it for other things too.They are pretty handy when you make your own cables for psu. I bought today some cheap (15€) crimping pliers from local shop but I haven't tested them yet. They are meant just for those very tiny crimps.
I think you find them googling.I bought all connector housings (and crimps) my supplier had,so they are out of stock (Conrad electronics,Germany).Digi-key should have them.And ready crimped wires too,but it's pretty expensive way to make those cables.Check your messages,I might have a solution for your problem.

TY   i have two Crimper ,have been making my own PCEI cables for some time just couldn't find the supply's to make these cables or know what to get.

Thanks for the instructions how to modify S1 control pcb. I cant wait to receive your board and test it on my device.

No worries mate. I think I'll drill mounting holes to the rest of the pcb:s, just to be sure that no-one drills them to power- or datalines. Or cuts any line.I have sablon made already so it's easy for me to drill them all.

By the way.Are you gonna use s3 or c1 boards? Just reminding that c1 boards need different cables.

Put me down for one kit, please.  Shipped to US.  PM with BTC payment address or PayPal.

I have the S1 controller board and the S3 hash boards. 
I have S1 cables too, so do I need new ones for this to work?

Also, has anyone ran the S3 boards without the chip-side heatsinks?
This will probably be ran at a lower clock/voltage/GHs so I'm hoping it can be ran without them.

Thanks for the help.

Hi,
you need s3 cables.I might have a spare set. You can run those blades without chip-side heatsinks as long as you don't overclock.I have my test set (which has 1 c1 board and 1 s3 board) without those little heatsinks and one fan only.I'll send you PM  :).

When you use these adapters,I strongly recommend to use some kind of mounting brackets.I made  a few with a hacksaw and powerdrill.Less than an hour spent.Duct-tape isn't a good choice here.Installed this way,fan cools also that 3v3 regulator's heatsink.And that reg has to get rid of  quite a lot heat since it drops voltage from 12v to 3v3.Step-down module was an option,but I decided not to use these modules because they take space and I wanted to keep costs as low as possible.And the fan cooling is already available so this is how I made it.

Adib uses step-down modules in his design (which is pretty neat as it's exact fit to original S3 mountings).I just am not a big fan of jumper wires... Here's a link to his design: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=671128.msg12416617#msg12416617

http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yDGv.jpg http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yDGU.jpg http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yDGs.jpg

This is pretty annoying. Every connector needed in this project is sold out according to my regular supplier. I think I'm not the only-one building these anymore.They had quite a lot of those connectors in stock when I made my first orders. Anyway, I've found cheaper supplier with a huge stock but shipping might take little longer.And no way I'm gonna tell,where I ordered those from  ;D.

I am running the device without chip-side heatsink also one C1 and one S3 hash board with two fans on stock S3 settings...

I'd like to know if there's any interest for 200mm cables for C1- and S3-blades? I'll order a few sets of both kind of cables for my experiments.I can easily have more of them made,if there is any interest.It's easier for me have them ready make than crimp myself a zillion crimps.

Depending on price id be interested in a set for both C1 and S3 blades only reason i make my own is i have to can't find them ready made .

Received adapter board from pinhead, working good so far. I have one V1.0 and V1.5 S3 hash boards. Procedure is simple just flash on S1 control pcb S3 fw and then Kano S3 cgminer. Keep up the good work!

Here is second and hopefully last version of my adapter. No more overheating regulator or trannys. This version should work with all S3 and C1 boards. Level shifting is done now with a schmitt-trigger buffer chip. It has same mounting holes than original S3-controller and mounting holes for S1-controller. Basically it's the same that came with BM's upgrade kit. This adapter has optional circuit to connect two more fans and control them with pwm from S1-controller or you can use external pwm signal. Test points provided also for TMP data signals. Those who bought original version of my adapter will get this one for free. And my thanks for testing them. Next project is already under construction. And I finally got some S5's so I'll tweak them a little.
http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yt6Z.jpg http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yt6L.jpg

Whoa dude nice work! I can say that first version is still working well ;) Keep up the good work!

nice can't say any of mine ever worked right but as we spoke in emails , i didn't care and went with what ever you wanted ")


big ty

Yes, the first adapter is unreliable. It works like a charm with some boards and some are not even recognized. Worst problem was that overheating regulator. My first tests were done without controller, only cp-2102 adapter and level shifting circuit. Hashboards don't suck current very much. There was no need for heat-sink. But that controller takes so much more power that I had to add heat-sink and still it runs very hot. Well, that problem is now in the past. The other problem was Tx circuit. I don't know why it works with some blades,and not with some. I'm not good at all designing pcb's, so it might be related with signal paths, I don't know the term in English, maybe "paracite capacitance" or something like that. In this new version, I kept signal-path as short as I could (read: copied from BM-controller).Here is little better picture of it.
http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ytRm.jpg

I'll solder and test this weekend these adapters and I'll send them at Monday.

You should connect it to irc and have it tweet when u mine a block :)

You are a great man. What will be pricing for new adapter boards?

Price will be the same. These cost me a little more but I can't measure everything in money. This has been fun for me. I also bought a lot of parts that I don't even use in the final version. A hundred chips which are used especially in ATM's. Man, they were hard to get: "Where do you need them, what are you going to build"? I had to sign some papers and can't tell where I got them. And I couldn't even use those parts in this project, they just don't work as I expected. Maybe I'll build my own ATM-machine later  ;D. Well there was a time when I programmed eproms for those machines.

This version is so simple that it was a "hit or miss". Well I'm glad to tell that it works ok. Takes about an hour while everything settles and stats show what they should. This screenshot is from miner that has one board which first version had troubles with. It has two dead chips and first version gave a lot of HW errors and sometimes lost that board. Here you can see how it shows now.
http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yt5e.jpg

My project got little out of hands. This one isn't adapter anymore, it's a full, stand-alone controller. I added two extra connectors as I hope that code in pic could be hacked to support them. My hands are little shaky right now, so the picture isn't best possible.

http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yv2P.jpg

Nice work man as usual. I received my adapter board but I am unable to test it out because I am out of country. Will test it when I come back. Does this mean that you will have full replacement control boards for S5 also? I know a lot of people need those...

No these are simply for S3 miners. I needed some kind of prototype board to test a few things. So I designed this. This works just like original (well,leds behave like S1) S3 controller, but I have added some connectors which I can use to connect little different things... This one works for me as a developement board, and if there's still need for S3 controllers, I can sell these populated to work as an ordinary controller.

Bad quality picture, but I think my leds are more "cool" than BM's. Wifi is really blue.
http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yvXB.jpg

Any way to make the board be able to equip more than one s3 and upgrade the firmware to say C1 so you would run 3 antminer s3 together instead of separate?

C1-controller is beagle-bone based. So it's not possible, totally different controllers.

Very nice indeed. Were you able to read the code from the Pic (not protected?) or was it available online somewhere? Have you sussed if it was written in assembler or a higher level language?


Rich

I read it straight from pic. It's not protected and it can be modified. But ar9331 (open-wrt) module can re-write that code. That's why you can update fw in S1 controller to S3 controller. I have no clue what language was used to program it. Now it looks like ar9331 module don't work with (usb) full-speed devices without passive usb-hub which converts signal to high-speed (12Mbps --> 480Mbps). That explains why BM used that painful Nec's usb-hub chip in their circuit and moved to BBB.
The design also gives me hints how they propably have done their newer controllers. I think BBB and it's software can update code in Altera-chip, which is used in lower pcb. That lower pcb with Altera is just one kind of uart-adapter board. So I believe that lower board can be used with any BBB rev. from BM. But I'm only guessing here.

Edited right units.

All very interesting i have spent time over the Years with other Pic based systems and have ICD / PicKit2 etc so may take a look sometime, however already have too many unfinished projects on the go.  :) I am sure you are right on being able to update the Altera code. I also agree with you on that lower board being common, albeit that they have changed the number of Hash Board connectors I think that you can load S5, S5+ or S7 Code into any of them?


Rich

This is exactly what I mean. I can't confirm this 'cause I don't have S5+ nor S7. I did some experimenting with pics but it was years ago and no usb back those days. I'm in the middle of reading a very long topic of this ar9331 usb problem. It looks like there's a bug in it, hw-level.

I have loaded and run the S7 code on my S5 and it runs on the S5 and it recognises the chips etc but does not hash. My guess is that this is because the codes sent to initialise the chips are different from BM1384 to BM1385? I think from what I have seen that the early S7 used an S5+ controller, also have definitely read of S5 & S5+ being interchangeable.

Rich

I think you're right about that initialising chips. And thanks for the information, it was pretty much what I expected. Now we "only" have to make our own Altera board to experiment more. I have too many projects...

And now I can confirm that this s3-controller needs an usb-hub chip to work. It doesn't matter what chip, but 12 to 480Mbps is needed. Works well with some tusb-chip.

any s5 control boards yet i want to try something but need a power board with 18 pins, for a s5 bb, i have laying around. if so 35 shipped same as the s3 was ? .

No news, it is much tougher project than this adapter. And I've been busy with some other things. But I still have some ideas, so don't lose your hope...

ok

Have you made a S3 board?
Or if possible i can send you mine and try to flash firmware on it.
Try to update and did not work.

I managed to get it working. I ordered a batch of pcb's with new modifications to the circuit. They left from China at Christmas eve, so I expect them to arrive next week. It works just like original controller though I use some different parts. Main changes are that this controller has different usb-hub chip and ar9331 module is from different manufacturer.

If you want, I can re-program your board too.

Would love to have it fixed. How much? Where would i be shipping to so i can find out cost.

Thanks :)

You got PM.

Got it.

Some update. I finally managed to build my own S3-controller. Same fw than original controller,ofcourse, but some different chips and module.

http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yUbK.jpg

nice i may get one lol

are you selling these as well?

Yes I am. You can send me pm, and I have these on eBay too.

@pinHead do you have any others or a listing for the S3+ ?