Bitcoin Forum

Introducing the DrillBit System

An affordable and expandable bitcoin mining system.

The DrillBit system is the most versatile Bitcoin mining system available. It will expand to suit your needs. You can start up with a small mining rig, similar to many entry level rigs on the market, or you can start bigger. As you decide to expand your hashing capabilities, the DrillBit system will expand to suit your requirements, easily and simply.

The basic module of the DrillBit system is a single DrillBit board; an 8 BITFURY ASIC card. With the basic hashrate of approximately 21.6 GH per card (based on BITFURY's published spec of 2.7Gh/s per ASIC), the board plugs into a standard USB socket. The power can be supplied by a normal ATX power supply. If you are only running a single board, it may also be powered from a spare disc drive connector, allowing you to install it out of sight, inside your computer, should you wish to. You can be hashing all the time, with no extra boxes to stash, no cords to trip over and accidentally unplug.

The ASIC board has 3 ports built in. The top port on the first board takes a data distribution board - like the FPGA board in the Avalon miner, only much, much simpler. It comes included with the initial purchase of a DrillBit board so you are ready to start mining as soon as you get it, nothing more required. But when you want to add more hashing power, this is where the DrillBit system really shows its advantages over other systems. If you want to double your hashrate to 43.2GH, just get another ASIC card and plug it into the bottom port of the first card. Its that simple. No big strings of USB hubs, no messy cables or setup changes. The data distribution card automatically registers the extra ASIC card and operates accordingly. Up to 4 cards can be stacked in this way. Simple, convenient, efficient. Just add more processing power when you want to. You can then be running at 86.4GH quite easily, expanded up from your initial investment of 21.6GH. Nothing to resell, nothing going unused.

If you wish to expand beyond 4 DrillBit boards to achieve even higher hashrates, the DrillBit system can accomodate this also with the backplane system. The backplane is a large distribution board that the ASIC cards plug into individually. So if you want to run much higher hashrates, you can get a backplane and fill it with ASIC cards as you decide to buy them.. The same principle applies. Simple and efficient. You just plug in extra cards, and the system configures to the extra power. All versions of the system run conveniently from a standard ATX power supply, so it is easy to operate. You could also just run a number of card stacks from a USB hub, in much the same way as other systems offer, if you so desire. Or you could run multiple backplane systems from the same setup. With 16 cards in a backplane, you will have up to 345.6GH/s of hashing power.

Thats more than any other single miner on the market at this time. But the beauty of the DrillBit system is that you don't have to outlay all that cash immediately. You can get started on a smaller system of whatever size you like, and build as you are ready.

** A note on the hashing power of BITFURY chips. The chips have been demonstrated to have performance up to 2.7 Gh/s. This is what you can get if you overclock and run them at very high temperatures. The sweetspot for efficiency of W/Gh is more somewhere around 2 GH/s. We will have more info on this once we get more testing done.

The Drillbit board is designed with overclocking capabilities built in, so you will have control over how hard you run the chips. We will provide specs for recommended stable running rate, but in the end if you want to squeeze every last hash out it it, you will be able to so.

We will also be offering a thumbdrive version of the Drillbit System comprised of 1 chip, giving you up to 2.7 Gh/s. These will be nice and cheap. Pricing soon.
 
The DrillBit system is designed by Dan Stocks, an electronics phd with 30+ years in electronic design, highly experienced PCB designer, currently doing it as a full time job for a well known electronics manufacturing company.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=266235.0

There is a Bitfury chip based Australian project in the group buy section you may not have read about because is a slightly unusual spot for a new hardware thread. See the above link.

Here is a short summary.

+1... I was looking for exactly this.. someone putting more than one bitfury ASIC on a PCB.. good find =D

The blades for this don't connect externally by usb right? I haven't gotten that clear enough since the site I found for this had small pictures.

I look at it this way ... I want a blade system with a usb touch , so I don't have to worry about lunky power supplies out in the open. Europuters are quiet and seemingly efficiant but I need a crapload to meet what these bitfury blades are intended to do.

Is the orange square supposed to be the USB? All I see on the backplane is what looks like a sata plug but I probably wouldn't do that unless there was a pass-through to the computer motherboard atx slot.

At least if they are only 20 watts a piece I could find a 250 nice watt power supply and hope the backplane has the right pin set to turn on when I turn on the supply.

The power can be supplied by a normal ATX power supply. If you are only running a single board, it may also be powered from a spare disc drive connector, allowing you to install it out of sight, inside your computer, should you wish to. You can be hashing all the time, with no extra boxes to stash, no cords to trip over and accidentally unplug.

My assumption is the atx plug covers the need since it said.
   
I don't see a usb connection on the backplane so my question from your question is do I use the plug from one of the cards to connect to the pc.

BTW I see the stick image on the right of the atx plug on the backplane so I'm hoping that's the power switch