And on much more exciting news. These are looking rather pretty.     

Hey all.

Apologies again for the larger gaps between updates. I don't mean to be leaving anyone hanging, or leaving questions left unanswered. I am flat out each day from waking to sleeping, finalizing orders, shipping, assembly fees, parts orders, assembly bookings etc etc, i am also on endless skype and hangout discussions trying to get things sorted for arrangements on our first and second reels of chips. Each day i respond to as many PMs and emails as i can, but there is a never ending flood constantly coming at me. All this has to be balanced with actually having a life also and i do have other commitments. I'm doing the best i can.

As i think some of you are aware but perhaps not all, we are a team of three people working on this, my job is organisation and it is keeping me well and truly busy. As well as myself, there is Dan on hardware and James on software and firmware. They are both well and truly busy also. Here are some updates on the various facets of our operation.

(edit) Regarding the chips, news just in is that we should be getting them next week or the week after. Apparently Dave's batch is next in line to ship from Europe, so things are moving on that front. Exciting times!

Regarding the hardware, the second round of proto boards are in, the miniplane and double scroll are assembled and ready to go (photos to follow), and the 8 chip board will be assembled today or tomorrow. We are ready to go on that front.

As for the firmware, it is still a work in progress. James is working around the clock to get it done (much to the detriment of his real job!). It is no small task, but it is coming together. We're getting code onto the chip and communication is happening. We're hoping to have some hashing to show you guys really soon. Currently, we're looking at streamlining our firmware to as much of an asynchronous architecture as possible, using USB interrupts and smart queues to save on time otherwise spent on polling routines or idle chips. Also we have some work making good use of the BitFury chips due to their architecture, in particular making up for corrupted nonce calculations. As we are about to receive chips and go in to production, we are going full time on finalizing the firmware, however as our chosen micro-controller (the ATMEL SAM4L) has an inbuilt boot-loader, end-users will be able to flash new updates of the firmware themselves, so we have have the ability of adding extra features to the functionality of the boards even after they have shipped (in particular your ability to control various key aspects of the circuit via software). The ability to release updates down the line will mean that our production won't need to be held up by the firmware, and the boards will get better and better over time.

As for the tying up of loose ends for batch 1, i still need shipping from quite a few of you and assembly from some also. I will update the order queue to indicate who has and hasn't paid.

I will also have a few more Batch one boards available for auction soon if anyone else is interested in picking up a few more.

Hope this answers most of the questions people have been posting. If there is anything else specific people would like to know, please feel free to post here and i will answer immediately.

We're almost there. It's exciting times. I personally can't wait to get these things out to all of you.

Cheers

Barntech

Hello all.

Can you please send me through the payments to 1AF1WmU9Ut2CMuMJWgeBiXb2LMCd6x1GYA, and send a follow up email to drillbitsystem[at]gmail.com with your transaction details. If you already have an order, then that is all i need and i will update your order. If this is a first order for you, please send me through your shipping details, names, email, phone number etc.

Thanks

Barntech

Hey all.

Thanks for bidding. Here are the results:

Realestone - 3 @ 3.2
Stringer - 2 @ 3.2
Swimmer63 - 2 @ 3.1
Rob143 - 1 @ 3.1
Goldshredder - 2 @ 3.1
Stinky Pete - 2 @ 3
Blitzwillie1 - 1 @ 3
Bobsag3 - 2 @ 3

Will be in touch soon for
payment.

 

Yes. Miniplanes included

Yes they will ship together. 

Yes. Increments of 0.1 thanks.

Just to be clear, bids are welcome on any quantity of miners. If you want to make a bid on just one, then write:

1 @ 3 BTC

If you want more, then write

4 @ 3 BTC each

 

Hello all.

I have just had a fairly large order pull out for Batch 1 so there are 15 Drillbit boards from batch 1 now available for auction here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=303320.new#new

If anyone who has placed an order in batch 2 wants to bid on these, i am happy to refund your batch 2 order or consider payments already made as credit against purchases on these boards.

Only accepting BTC bids on this one starting at 3 BTC each. Accepting bids on any number of miners. Happy bidding.

Barntech

This is an auction for 15 Drillbit boards with hashing power of up to 21.7 GH/s each.

For more information on the Drillbit System please go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=266235.0

Estimated delivery on these boards is late October / early November depending on when the Bitfury chips arrive. Could be earlier if we get them earlier.

For this auction, we are only accepting bids and payment in BTC. Starting bid is 3 BTC. All bids are considered binding. Happy bidding.

Timer removed. End time: 2013-09-29+07:11:00UTC

Correct

Definitely don't try to power 4 boards with one 4 pin molex. This will probably destroy your gear. The miniplane takes an ATX connector from the PSU. As for powering them individually, yes, you can use the 4 molex to power each individually. If they are plugged into the miniplane then the USB from the first one takes over and everything runs from that, the other USBs are inactive. If you want to use separate USBs then you have to not plug them in to the miniplane. So individual powering from the molex plugs and running from the one USB socket is a possible approach. The thing is that you must be careful not to let any of the molex plugs come out - if one comes unstuck then the power to that board will flow from the other ones. This isn't recommended.

No update as yet on chip shipment. I'm on it. Have sent Dave a few messages and waiting to hear back. Will let you know when i do.

According to Australia Post, Express is 2-4 days, regular is 5-7 days.

Looks great Spotwood. Love your work!

What are we looking at for pricing on these?

Batch 1 order queue is now up on the OP. It looks like this:

Batch 1 Order Queue

[/list]
If you're not on there and would like to be, write to me.

Hey all.

Sorry for not being available over the last couple of days. Things have been crazy getting all this drillbit stuff together AND i have had a few things come up in real life that have been requiring my attention. It's quite a feat juggling all this stuff and having a life, doing a job, keeping a girlfriend happy, and remembering to eat, and occasionally get a little sleep! I don't want anyone to feel that i am not available though. I am here. All questions shall be answered. I'm gonna go through everything now and get some updates to you shortly.

As for batch one shipping, yes it would be great to get that in soon so that we're all ready to go once we actually get to shipping time. BTC shipping payments can me be made to the batch one address: 1AF1WmU9Ut2CMuMJWgeBiXb2LMCd6x1GYA. Once you have made the payment, send me the transaction details so i can match it up to your order in my master document.

For those of you desiring to pay with paypal, please send through payments to jessericketson@gmail.com. That's my personal paypal address.

I'd like to explain why things have gotten tricky with regards to paypal. Basically they have frozen our account until we ship the goods. This is obviously quite crippling because it means that we don't have access to the funds until after we have done the manufacture. Because of this we are going to need to use our own money to fund this operation, which is a big ask, but thats whats happening. This is why i am encouraging everyone to use BTC from now on. This is why we are now doing PAYPAL for batch 2 through a third party. Also, sending me the shipping funds to my personal paypal will also avoid going through the frozen account. Now please not that none of this affects you guys; this group buy and manufacture is going ahead as planned, and we have things covered on this end. I'm just explaining why there has been changes in the payments procedures. Hope you guys understand.

I'm going to ulish an order queue based on the forum names of everyone that i have. If you would like to not be on there please let me know, and if you don't see your forum name there, it is because i don't have it matched to your real name. In this case, send me your name and i will add it to the queue.

More soon.

Barntech

So i was going to publish the order queue, but realised that for pretty everyone who paid via paypal, i don't have your forum names and your real names lined up. I figure some people might not want their real names published, so i won't be publishing the order queue right now. Can people please send me your real name and forum name together if you paid by paypal. In the meantime, if you are eager to know your place, write to me and i'll tell you.

Barntech

I will send boards to Luke Jr once we have them made. 

In general, trying to keep the two separate. For all batch one shipping payments, please pay though BTC to the batch one address, or send money via paypal to jessericketson@gmail.com.

Cheers

Barntech