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Ok, I received an update from Inno last night.  There is good, there is BAD, and there is UGLY to this whole mess.  I understand why there hasn't been any word from them now.  They are also trying to figure out how to do this, and the cost to make just 1 jig is CRAZY expensive.  So this is a HUGE mess.

So here are the basics in a nutshell.  Inno is going to send 1 jig to the US.  The cost to make one of the jigs is just insane so we will only get ONE jig to get this job done.  I offered to take the lead in working with US customers to try and get everyone some sort of arrangement to get your miners flashed.  I just don't know how this is going to get done otherwise.  There is no simple solution and this is going to take time and going to likely be messy.  So I ask for your patience up front as I know this isn't going to be easy.

So now we have to work out the details on how to best get everyone who needs the flash done.  I know some customers will be more technically inclined than others and will be willing to flash their own rigs.  For those customers I think the best solution will be to send the jig out to those customers.  Others who are not so comfortable doing this we will have to coordinate shipping rigs and having myself or another trusted member who has the jig flash the miners for you.  

For those who want to flash their own rigs, what we will have to do is setup a lottery where each member picks a number we put it in a hat and draw out the number.  That person will have the opportunity to get the jig first to do the flash.  Then we will do the lottery again and have the jig sent to the next person.  We will work through the list of customers until everyone has an opportunity to flash rigs who is willing and able to do so.

Now the bad part here is that due to the cost of the jig we have to ensure that the jig is passed along and not kept by a member when we still have members who need to be flashed.  So my suggestion here is that we setup an escrow.  In order to get the jig sent out to you once your number is drawn in the lottery we will need to collect a deposit that is held by an escrow.   The deposit will be returned to you as soon as the jig has been passed along to the next person who was picked in the lottery and has paid the deposit to have the jig sent.  This way we ensure that the jig gets passed around and ultimately returned in case we should have to go through this exercise again.  

There will need to be a time limit that any one member can keep the jig so that this process is not delayed for those waiting.  I would say 7 days with the jig should be ample time to make some time to open up the A4's and to do the flash, and then to get the jig sent off to the next person waiting.

Since there is only 1 jig this is going to take time, and a lot of patience on everyone's part.  It sounds like if we use DHL and keep the receipts and provide them to Inno that they may compensate you for the shipping costs for this.  I need to confirm this with them so don't hold me to that.  I will get the details and pass them along.
 
So I will open this up to the community here to discuss the plan and work out the details.  I want this to be as fair as possible for everyone and I will try to help anyone who is not comfortable flashing their rigs.  You will have to make your need known so we can try to figure out how to get your rigs fixed.  

I will be reaching out to other customers who are not members here on BCT and will give them the same information and suggest they join this discussion here on BCT to simplify communications for this juggling act with the 1 jig.  

Ok, that is the scoop.  Please feel free to offer suggestions and feedback so we can try to make this process work as smoothly as we can for everyone.  This is a community effort at this point and this is all volunteer work.  We have quite a few miners to get flashed so this is going to take a while. So please be gentle with me and we will work through this! LOL

I will let you know as soon as the jig arrives here and any additional details as I get them.  

As much as I don't want to ship my A4's around, this lottery system and physically shipping the jig increases the chances of damage from handling. So I say we completely rule this out. If the Jig gets damaged shipping between members, we are all fucked.

If Lightfoot is willing, my vote is just ship it to him and I'll have to bite the bullet to ship my A4's around.

Edit: This is assuming you don't want to take on the challenge of shipping/flashing everyones A4's

Honestly, if Inno is going to reimburse for shipping, I would be amazed, however it's highly unlikely IMO. Lets just all assume we are lucky to get the jig at this point.

Inno needs to include an empty case, a PI, and a couple of fans with this Jig.

If Inno can do this, we have the option of packing and ship our A4 Cards only instead of the entire miner to the person flashing/testing. Save money on round trip shipping costs.

How about we open a new thread for the jig/flashing activities.
Also, if we keep the jig at one location (which makes more sense than shipping it around and risking damage to the jig), I would suggest somewhere in the central US to minimize the "average" shipping costs for the A4's.
If we do decide to ship the jig, I would suggest 1 stop on the east coast and one stop on the west coast.
Im perfectly happy to ship my A4's to someone to flash for me, Although the process seems simple enough.
Also, what about pulling the blades out of the A4's and shipping those in groups, scheduling with the person who has the jig. That would help to reduce shipping slightly. I think it will be like $20-$30 to ship an individual cube somewhere in the US.
Im in Arizona, which is further west than central. Perhaps someone in Texas would want to do the flashing?
Also, if we have someone doing all the flashing, what would be the costs for that in addition to the shipping?
These are all questions we need to address, hence I suggested the separate thread.

How about we open a new thread for the jig/flashing activities.
Also, if we keep the jig at one location (which makes more sense than shipping it around and risking damage to the jig), I would suggest somewhere in the central US to minimize the "average" shipping costs for the A4's.
If we do decide to ship the jig, I would suggest 1 stop on the east coast and one stop on the west coast.
Im perfectly happy to ship my A4's to someone to flash for me, Although the process seems simple enough.
Also, what about pulling the blades out of the A4's and shipping those in groups, scheduling with the person who has the jig. That would help to reduce shipping slightly. I think it will be like $20-$30 to ship an individual cube somewhere in the US.
Im in Arizona, which is further west than central. Perhaps someone in Texas would want to do the flashing?
Also, if we have someone doing all the flashing, what would be the costs for that in addition to the shipping?
These are all questions we need to address, hence I suggested the separate thread.

Anyone have a photo of the jig? I found the test points for the St Link interface to reflash the chip I just need the firmware unless there is some goofy procedure to doing this, really building a simple pin setup just to pop open the back push it on and hit send shouldn't be to far outta reach really. I was able to connect to one blade of mine and pull what firmware was on there off just to test. I live in Virginia not to central there either.

Here's some pics: https://www.flickr.com/photos/vinylwasp/sets/72157677783247635/ (https://www.flickr.com/photos/vinylwasp/sets/72157677783247635/)

1. Unplug and Remove Fan
2. Remove the 2 screws that hold the cards into the chassis.
3. Slide out cards, and remove stickers covering contacts on each board (Batch 2 cards)
4. Move the mode selector switch on the Jig towards the Mini Downloader into the Up/Download position (see photos)
5. Plug both USB cables into the jig (they're powered from any standard USB socket). Both lights (red and blue) on the Mini Downloader should be flashing.
6. Place card (with heatsink on) onto the jig.
7. Lower the contacts onto the card using the handle
8. Push the button on the Mini Downloader. The Red light will flash a few times and then the Blue light locks on. This indicates that the firmware download was successful.
9. Flip the mode selector switch into the Down/Decode position away from the Mini-Downloader. Watch the card's LED. It should come on in a second and will stay lit for 5-7 seconds while the jig performs some diagnostics (my assumption, not documented).
10. Once the LED goes off, raise the pin assembly, remove the card, flip the mode selector back into the Up/Download position, and remove the USB cables.
11. Start process again.

That's it. The reflash process takes about 30 seconds per card. I struck a couple of mine where the LED began flashing like crazy at step 7, or step 9, but resetting the card in the jig and/or performing the process again from the start sorted it.

If you can get a Jig, anyone who can handle a screwdriver can do this job if you follow the documentation and keep your cool if LEDs start flashing.

Anyone have a photo of the jig? I found the test points for the St Link interface to reflash the chip I just need the firmware unless there is some goofy procedure to doing this, really building a simple pin setup just to pop open the back push it on and hit send shouldn't be to far outta reach really. I was able to connect to one blade of mine and pull what firmware was on there off just to test. I live in Virginia not to central there either.

That would be a very good idea. As someone who has repaired a bunch of reworks all at once awhile back time is critical. It takes time to pull the unit out, remove the screws, take off the fans, not lose the screws, pull the boards, and place on the preheater (or jig in this case). Then putting it together. The time spent doing that is miniscule to the user, but when you multiply it by 500 you're talking serious time.

People should pull out their blades, and send just those in. Make sure Inno is ok with this, if someone botches the removal then the boards should be replaced under warranty or something if Inno approves. (It's an exception case, document those).

It sounds like Inno wants to just do one jig, and to be honest the only skill I could offer with the jig is my kinda-good reputation :-). Anyone should be able to do the reprogramming, LS will do a great job on it I'm sure. If it required reflow/rework/fun skills then I'd put my hat in but for now it seems to be under control.

Oh you can pull the firmware???? Then they didn't set the write protect bit, *good*.

I wonder if you could find someone to send you one blade from a 3.0 unit, then try pulling that firmware and flashing it to your 1.0/2.0 board. Or ask Inno to send you the firmware. I was thinking actually of building a "hat" that would go on the chip with a Pi behind it to just flash away but it sounds like Inno has the jig.

C

Oh you can pull the firmware???? Then they didn't set the write protect bit, *good*.

I wonder if you could find someone to send you one blade from a 3.0 unit, then try pulling that firmware and flashing it to your 1.0/2.0 board. Or ask Inno to send you the firmware. I was thinking actually of building a "hat" that would go on the chip with a Pi behind it to just flash away but it sounds like Inno has the jig.

C

Thanks, well that is a nice jig for sure, other than the alignment part I don't see what all the extra stuff does, but I was powering the board with the normal setup this may do something different, plus that sticker over the test points that takes scraping to remove not just a peel off. I don't know I would almost be willing if I could get the software to try one board, really only needed 3 connections to read the chip, although this may do a more in depth sanity check.

For anyone that is interested I dismantled mine completely the other day and took photos, it survived the process. Pinned out all the cables to what they do and signals they are. One thing I found odd is I was curious what dc-dc regulators they were used to control the voltage but they lazered off the tops of them so you don't know what they are.

http://photos.mag-productions.com/Hobbies/A4-miner/n-skNV3f/ (http://photos.mag-productions.com/Hobbies/A4-miner/n-skNV3f/)


yea no protect bit, wasn't set on A2s either, already thought about getting a B3 card to get it from, as for asking Inno I was talking to someone there regular about this process and being able to help and I thought it was going well but they disappeared 3 or 4 days ago.

For anyone that is interested I dismantled mine completely the other day and took photos, it survived the process. Pinned out all the cables to what they do and signals they are. One thing I found odd is I was curious what dc-dc regulators they were used to control the voltage but they lazered off the tops of them so you don't know what they are.

yea no protect bit, wasn't set on A2s either, already thought about getting a B3 card to get it from, as for asking Inno I was talking to someone there regular about this process and being able to help and I thought it was going well but they disappeared 3 or 4 days ago.

Interesting, if I understand this correctly -- you can pull from the B3 card and make your own Jig to reflash B1/B2? ...or am I reading too much into this

My guess is they are 1850 type power controllers. I remember those on the Jalapeno and BFL 60gh units, they're actually not too bad but pretty simple. Two channel support, they watch dv/dt across the upper FETs to determine current but they drive both FETs from the same gate source. One mistake BFL did was to use three high side and 3 low side FETs. The high side FETs are on only a very small period of time, but need to start up and shut down *QUICKLY* which requires a low capacatance gate trench. By putting three of them on the high side they increased the gate capacitance and they ran much hotter than they would have with only two. Low side tends to be on a lot more so capacitance isn't an issue and running three is a good idea.

Sorry, technobabble :-)


Good. Milling down an 8 bit 1990's controller MCU was enough of a bitch. :-) They may be busy, but see if you can reflash it with a 3.0 code base. What's the worst that can happen?

C

According to some info shared previously, supposedly the Hardware from B1/B2/B3 is all the same but the chips are all flashed differently.

I'd have to dig to find the post.

That would not be unusual: KNC did this with the Neptunes, and when they made the Titans they followed the exact same design. Because if the previous design works in the field why change it?

Let's move these discussions back to the main thread though; this is for fixing the A4's.

If someone can send me some high res photos of both sides of the board, and some pics of the jig and where it interfaces on the board, im pretty sure I can whip up a flasher for you guys that would require about $30 bucks worth of parts. I pretty much did the same thing for the Alcheminer guys when their boards had a major firmware issue that needed reflashing.

I certainly don't mind handing the jig off to someone who has the time to do this.  I know I certainly don't have the time to do this for everyone.  

I can tell you that Inno knows of 44 units in the US that were sold through them directly, and there are others that were bought through other channels.  So I need to reach out to those customers and direct them where ever we decide as a group to send these.  

If someone can send me some high res photos of both sides of the board, and some pics of the jig and where it interfaces on the board, im pretty sure I can whip up a flasher for you guys that would require about $30 bucks worth of parts. I pretty much did the same thing for the Alcheminer guys when their boards had a major firmware issue that needed reflashing.

I certainly don't mind handing the jig off to someone who has the time to do this.  I know I certainly don't have the time to do this for everyone. 

I can tell you that Inno knows of 44 units in the US that were sold through them directly, and there are others that were bought through other channels.  So I need to reach out to those customers and direct them where ever we decide as a group to send these.   

If someone can send me some high res photos of both sides of the board, and some pics of the jig and where it interfaces on the board, im pretty sure I can whip up a flasher for you guys that would require about $30 bucks worth of parts. I pretty much did the same thing for the Alcheminer guys when their boards had a major firmware issue that needed reflashing.

Dude, you're a God. Next time I'm in VA I'll msg you for a beer (root beer or otherwise). That would be the way to do it.

As soon as I get the jig I will tear down the rigs and get you the pictures.  

I was wondering what state you are located.. I think its better to just have the Jig at one place and not ship it around and chance it getting damaged.. I am located in MO
OK just checked your profile..I see your in CO.. Any time frame when you will get it?

They told me they shipped it with DHL last night.  So I don't know the ETA yet for the jig to arrive.  If we can get these jigs cloned that would be the best of all worlds if we can do it at a reasonable cost.

They told me they shipped it with DHL last night.  So I don't know the ETA yet for the jig to arrive.  If we can get these jigs cloned that would be the best of all worlds if we can do it at a reasonable cost.

That would be great if it can be made cheap everyone could buy there own it maybe cheaper then shipping miners round trip?

If you don't want to ship around the jig and worry about every owner learning how to use it, I would be willing to set up a service at Prohashing (Located in Pennsylvania) to flash miners for others in North America.  If we can get the jig, then people can ship their miners to us and I can do the flashing.  We wouldn't be looking to make a profit from the service; we would just want users to cover the shipping cost of the miners both ways and a small fee for consumables.  If anyone's interested, then we can work this out in more detail.

If you don't want to ship around the jig and worry about every owner learning how to use it, I would be willing to set up a service at Prohashing (Located in Pennsylvania) to flash miners for others in North America.  If we can get the jig, then people can ship their miners to us and I can do the flashing.  We wouldn't be looking to make a profit from the service; we would just want users to cover the shipping cost of the miners both ways and a small fee for consumables.  If anyone's interested, then we can work this out in more detail.

If you don't want to ship around the jig and worry about every owner learning how to use it, I would be willing to set up a service at Prohashing (Located in Pennsylvania) to flash miners for others in North America.  If we can get the jig, then people can ship their miners to us and I can do the flashing.  We wouldn't be looking to make a profit from the service; we would just want users to cover the shipping cost of the miners both ways and a small fee for consumables.  If anyone's interested, then we can work this out in more detail.

They told me they shipped it with DHL last night.  So I don't know the ETA yet for the jig to arrive.  If we can get these jigs cloned that would be the best of all worlds if we can do it at a reasonable cost.

If you don't want to ship around the jig and worry about every owner learning how to use it, I would be willing to set up a service at Prohashing (Located in Pennsylvania) to flash miners for others in North America.  If we can get the jig, then people can ship their miners to us and I can do the flashing.  We wouldn't be looking to make a profit from the service; we would just want users to cover the shipping cost of the miners both ways and a small fee for consumables.  If anyone's interested, then we can work this out in more detail.

Are they still gonna 'open source' this stuff for you guys? Hell with these jigs and such..perhaps you'd have enough info someone could improve the firmware and the SD software too boot
..it's not like (imho) innsilicon is gonna put a lot of effort into this :) Just me watching this drama from the bleachers...don't have a unit...and at current LTC prices and their 1900 price
with shipping looking more unlikely :)

Innsilicon seems to be following KNC's scrypt and then adding some 'dread' to that process. Perhaps it is a front? KNC China.... :) All so very, very familiar. (BFL,KNC,A4's)

Are they still gonna 'open source' this stuff for you guys? Hell with these jigs and such..perhaps you'd have enough info someone could improve the firmware and the SD software too boot
..it's not like (imho) innsilicon is gonna put a lot of effort into this :) Just me watching this drama from the bleachers...don't have a unit...and at current LTC prices and their 1900 price
with shipping looking more unlikely :)

Innsilicon seems to be following KNC's scrypt and then adding some 'dread' to that process. Perhaps it is a front? KNC China.... :) All so very, very familiar. (BFL,KNC,A4's)

How i can get the flash file? ???

Yes, I am still waiting on the jig to show up. 

Also I am looking for a consensus on how we want to proceed.  So far I like the idea of having Prohashing flash the miners, but I want to leave this up to the group to agree.  If everyone is cool with that I will reach out to Chris and we can talk through the details and start to get this lined up.  I will also let Inno know what we want to do to get their agreement also.  Thoughts?

i still dont understand

To fix the A4 the 2 hashing boards must be Re-Flashed with a special Jig that re-programs the hashing boards. These Jigs are very expensive so Inno has shipped one Jig to forum member Longsnowfm. But there is only one Jig that needs to fix all of the A4 miners. So the group here is deciding what is the best way to get all miners fixed with just one Jig.. Hope that helps

It has been suggested we should have a vote regarding the flashing.  So let the voting begin.

Ballot issue:
Should we ship the A4 jig to Prohashing and have them flash and upgrade the A4 miners to address the Batch 1 and Batch 2 issues?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Other: Write in votes here

Vote early, vote often, you cannot vote if you are dead... Sorry Chicago... LOL

It has been suggested we should have a vote regarding the flashing.  So let the voting begin.

Ballot issue:
Should we ship the A4 jig to Prohashing and have them flash and upgrade the A4 miners to address the Batch 1 and Batch 2 issues?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Other: Write in votes here

Vote early, vote often, you cannot vote if you are dead... Sorry Chicago... LOL

It has been suggested we should have a vote regarding the flashing.  So let the voting begin.

Ballot issue:
Should we ship the A4 jig to Prohashing and have them flash and upgrade the A4 miners to address the Batch 1 and Batch 2 issues?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Other: Write in votes here

Vote early, vote often, you cannot vote if you are dead... Sorry Chicago... LOL

It has been suggested we should have a vote regarding the flashing.  So let the voting begin.

Ballot issue:
Should we ship the A4 jig to Prohashing and have them flash and upgrade the A4 miners to address the Batch 1 and Batch 2 issues?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Other: Write in votes here

Vote early, vote often, you cannot vote if you are dead... Sorry Chicago... LOL

I know Chris is listed as being in State College PA.  So you could probably use 16801 zipcode as a general idea of what shipping to Prohashing would cost.

I am trying to get some clarification from Inno about something right now regarding shipping.  I will keep you posted on that. 

Do we need to contact Chris regarding scheduling so that he's not dumped on with dozens of machines all at once?
If so, can you PM me a contact for him? Thanks.

My thoughts on the order of operations for this reflash timeline:

• Longsnowsm receives Jig
• Longsnowsm takes high res pictures of requested areas made by Mjgraham
• Mjgraham determines if a DIY reflasher can built
• If Yes > Jig may need to go to MjGraham first > Then on to Chris@PH
• If No > Jig goes to Chris@PH
• Chris@PH sets up timeline and scheduling for members/customers needing reflashing
• Fees? Costs? - TBD

If Mjgraham can make a DIY reflasher, I'd opt to go that route before sending to Chris@PH just because it saves time and costs overall.

A DIY re-flash is a great idea if it can be done. But I do not see how it would save time and cost overall as sending to Chris is now and DIY kit will take time and money then the kits will need to be shipped if they can even do it which is no guarrentee. Meanwhile we are waiting when cards could be getting flashed... Every day that the jig is not working is time waisted. My personal felling is it is better to get everyone re-flashed first. Then once there is no more demand for Prohash service I am sure he would be happy to ship the jig back to whoever for the purpose of studing the Jig and making a DIY kit.. But I think its more practical to get everyone fixed asap.

A DIY re-flash is a great idea if it can be done. But I do not see how it would save time and cost overall as sending to Chris is now and DIY kit will take time and money then the kits will need to be shipped if they can even do it which is no guarrentee. Meanwhile we are waiting when cards could be getting flashed... Every day that the jig is not working is time waisted. My personal felling is it is better to get everyone re-flashed first. Then once there is no more demand for Prohash service I am sure he would be happy to ship the jig back to whoever for the purpose of studing the Jig and making a DIY kit.. But I think its more practical to get everyone fixed asap.

My thoughts on the order of operations for this reflash timeline:

• Longsnowsm receives Jig
• Longsnowsm takes high res pictures of requested areas made by Mjgraham
• Mjgraham determines if a DIY reflasher can built
• If Yes > Jig may need to go to MjGraham first > Then on to Chris@PH
• If No > Jig goes to Chris@PH
• Chris@PH sets up timeline and scheduling for members/customers needing reflashing
• Fees? Costs? - TBD

If Mjgraham can make a DIY reflasher, I'd opt to go that route before sending to Chris@PH just because it saves time and costs overall.

Until we know the costs for either option it's hard to say.
However, if the turnaround time is 2 weeks (2-way shipping + flash time on site, lost mining) as well as multiple rigs (multiple shipping), then it could possibly be cheaper/faster with a DYI rig.
Additionally, if I had my own DYI rig, I would feel much more comfortable about buying extra rigs going forward as I know I would have a quick/easy way to flash them.
That said, if the Inno rig is so expensive, why do we think we could build a DYI rig for cheaper? Wouldn't they have done that already?

The jig arrived very late this afternoon.  It is even more flimsy in real life than in the pics.  I was frankly surprised it made it from China in one piece given it's construction.  It didn't come with instructions, but I was able to figure it out from previous posts.  Inno just emailed me the instructions, but I already had the miners flashed by the time I noticed they had already replied to my question about instructions.

The process to flash the boards themselves is very fast. Maybe 45 seconds per board.  Sometimes the board will give you an error rapid flashing from your board.  Don't freak out just repeat the process until the board checks out.  It took me more time to disconnect everything, find a place to work on them, download the latest v2.0.2, and disassemble the cubes than it did anything else.  I think if we get a bunch of these in at one time you could setup an assembly line and flash them all in a day or two pretty easy. 

Now for the bad news on the re-engineering this jig.  i don't think you can do it.  The bottom box that you see in the pictures actually contains an A4 hashing board.  It appears they copying the image from another board they already upgraded.  I took some pics that I hope will be close enough that you can see how it is connected.  I have my doubts that a cheaper alternative can be built based on what I can see.  But then again I am no electronics expert so I will let you guys be the judge. 

So my A4's have been flashed and they are up and pointed at Prohashing.  So far so good.  I have been in touch with Inno and Chris at Prohashing and we are getting things lined up for the jig and flashing.  We will keep you guys posted as more of this story develops. 

I just received an email from Inno asking me to hold off shipping the jig pending instructions from them.  They didn't state why or provide any details at the moment.  So I am in a holding pattern at the moment awaiting their instructions.   

Just want to inform you please keep the jig on your site now. Because we need some time to figure out what is the best solution for this upgrade with prohashing.

There is so many details during the upgrade.
But since we want to make it a easier for customers, just give us some time.

We will let you know the progress soon.

The box isn't huge, and it isn't heavy.  But the way this is setup you have all the wires exposed, pins are just hot glued and core components are exposed.  They protected the hashing board that comes with it in the box below which is good.  They really were just trying to get something out to us as quickly as possible from the looks of this.  

Here is what Inno had to say:

So it sounds like they may be working on a better solution.  It really does look like they are going out of their way to get this fixed.

Here are some pics of the jig:
https://i.imgur.com/eSwGKGm.jpg (https://i.imgur.com/eSwGKGm.jpg)
http://imgur.com/eSwGKGm.jpg (http://imgur.com/eSwGKGm.jpg)
http://imgur.com/yPIRn8s.jpg (http://imgur.com/yPIRn8s.jpg)
http://imgur.com/xuw7ANA.jpg (http://imgur.com/xuw7ANA.jpg)
http://imgur.com/2n8YQS5.jpg (http://imgur.com/2n8YQS5.jpg)
http://imgur.com/rsEZllP.jpg (http://imgur.com/rsEZllP.jpg)
http://imgur.com/UyByY94.jpg (http://imgur.com/UyByY94.jpg)
http://imgur.com/AgwvpZx.jpg (http://imgur.com/AgwvpZx.jpg)  

  

Well it is interesting for sure, I am guessing you just put the card in and hit a  button? how does it get power , does it even need any computer interaction other than maybe power? I wonder what is in the tape blob, at any rate I milled out a board to see if my test pins line up and will check that , spring pins are not to terrible to buy, only need 4 connections really don't know which ones they are hooked to under that big booger on top. But at least it exists and works so we have that.

Hi All,

We have solved the restart and reboot problem in batch 3. No update in hardware but the firmware in STM32 MCU and SD card both have updates. SD card update is easy, but the MCU update will need a special equipment.
 
For the customers who bought the Batch 1&2 A4 LTC miners from us, we have a jig for you to do a simple upgrade. If you need this service, please contact us at zhangq@innosilicon.com.cn and cc luojm@innosilicon.com.cn, we will arrange the delivery of jig to you one by one.
 
If you are not in our customer list, i.e. you purchased your miner from an agent, please go to your agent and let your agent contact us.

Thanks,
Innosilicon

I am cross posting this here from the pre-buy thread:

Ok, so I received an email from Inno.  If you are on the mailing list for Inno having bought miners directly from them it appears they are going to send you a jig directly.  

I replied back just to get clarification, but that appears to be what they are doing now.  It was a mass mailing and not directed at me specifically since I have already received a jig.  So if you received that email from Inno please reply back to it with the info they requested so that you can get a jig sent to you.  Plus it looks like they will offer a small discount on your next order.

The process with the jig isn't complicated and I think anyone can do it.  It is more time consuming to disconnect everything, pull apart the miners, and reassemble everything and connect it back up than the flashing is.  So this is good news if it is correct.    

I honestly think this says a lot that Inno is sending out jigs like this.  Looking at this jig it is clear it cost them some money, time, and effort to make these things.  My hat is off to Inno for putting together something like this to fix our miners, but this has turned out to be a costly mistake for them.

Since flashing my miners they have been stable, no restarts, no dropped boards.  However they still are not hashing anywhere near the advertised hash rate.  That still needs to be addressed. 

The other wild card in the back of my mind is the concern over how they are going to work this next summer during the heat.  These miners seem like they are very sensitive to the temps.  We have not had these miners during the warmer months so this is a question that still remains to be answered in my mind unless some of our friends in the southern hemisphere can chime in and tell us how their miners are doing in the summer heat there. 

 

I honestly think this says a lot that Inno is sending out jigs like this.  Looking at this jig it is clear it cost them some money, time, and effort to make these things.  My hat is off to Inno for putting together something like this to fix our miners, but this has turned out to be a costly mistake for them.

Since flashing my miners they have been stable, no restarts, no dropped boards.  However they still are not hashing anywhere near the advertised hash rate.  That still needs to be addressed.  

The other wild card in the back of my mind is the concern over how they are going to work this next summer during the heat.  These miners seem like they are very sensitive to the temps.  We have not had these miners during the warmer months so this is a question that still remains to be answered in my mind unless some of our friends in the southern hemisphere can chime in and tell us how their miners are doing in the summer heat there.