That's what I'm looking for, thanks!  I actually did find that when searching, but then tried to order the same-looking thing off mouser and ended up with something 1/2 scale  Shipping time from the ebay vendor was the concern.

These are indeed Molex, at least the original design was.  I've heard a lot of plugs be called generally "molex connectors" which can mean the most common meaning 4 pin accessory cable, or some pretty exotic connectors made by them.  The original ATX motherboard connectors were described as 20 pin molex to me, but perhaps that isn't a common way to describe them.

Sort of like Kleenex, I guess.

What is the common parlance for these?  PCI Express power connector didn't get me much luck on the usual electronics parts sites.

Cool, yeah that's what I figured.  Since most of the weight is on the bottom bars, it shouldn't be a huge concern.  Might want to put a T-junction in there though in the middle for support, now that you point this out it makes a lot of sense.

Also.. Does anyone know where I can get 8 pin PCIe "blank" molex connectors, and the pins for them?  I ordered the wrong part from Mouser already, and I'd like to avoid a repeat.

The PSU's I got have PCIe 8 pin compatible modular plugs (seems most other manuf. use some custom keyed molex parts), and I'd like to just make my own cables with heavier gauge wire, and get rid of a lot of cable mess.

Thanks!  I just checked PVC pipe temp rating, and it looks like they are rated at 160 to 180 degree continuous use.  Melting temp (and I assume fire risk) is around 360.  Degrees in fahrenheit.

I think you'd likely be fine with these temp ranges from what I've seen, but if you can find better materials for cheap it can't hurt. I've been using similar PVC frames for my GPU boxes for the last 2 years, and they've held up well under hotter temps than these.

I got some 120mm cheapo fans from Microcenter I'll try out tomorrow strapped to the "fan rail".  They are not particularly powerful, 50cfm or so - but a quick test with one seems like they'll provide decent cooling.  If it works as proof of concept I'll then order some Delta ~150cfm fans since I won't care about noise where this is located   If noise is a concern I would design in a fan rail on both sides to push/pull air through with slower, but quieter fans.

Still can't find my IR probe, was hoping to report temps here but I guess that will have to wait.

Isn't this just another word for stealing from other miners?

Are any pools even still vulnerable to hopping?  That surprises me to be honest.  I haven't kept up on the topic.

Chances of a broken ethernet module taking down your whole network are nearly zero.

Out of curiosity, what is your default gateway set to on your network?

After buying the wrong part numbers on Mouser and blowing $30 I didn't have to, I was wondering if anyone has done this before.

I have a need to crimp my own PCIe power cables, but I need to find the "blank" plugs (and pins to go with them, but that looks easy).

The hard part is finding these 8 position molex connectors keyed the proper way for PCIe.  Anyone happen to know where to grab a bag of 20 or so of these?

I really miss local shops - I could just roll in, compare the connector with what I need, and roll out

Yes.  PCIe rails are the best bet.

Remember to use 4 conductors (pins) to hit the rated current specs (even de-rated for bundling, 10A is fine over two pair), and keep distances short.  I've found trailer hitch wire (4 conductor 16ga) to work well and is readily found and not messy if you need to go a bit further.  Also use both screwdown terminals on the blade, of course.

Glad you like it.  I actually made the slots by using a cheap miter box and hand saw.  These can be found at hardware stores for $20 or less, and are very useful just for making cuts to the pipe (keeps your ends straight).  It wasn't ideal, but we weren't going for good lucks or tight tolerances here   It took two cuts placed directly next to eachother to make a slot big enough for the PCB.

For the bottom, you won't be able to slot things due to the heatsink being in the way.  Here I personally used zip-ties to make "guides" but I'm sure there are better options.  I did see someone who made washer-clamps that wedged into the heatsink which looked to work very well.

One major change I'd propose to anyone making something similar - orientate the boards so the heatsink fins run top/bottom, and place fans underneath pushing cool air towards the top.  These appear to be have made with such cooling in mind, and if you for some reason do lose your fans you'll at least have more convection cooling to help them not burn up.  I'm actually running the rack of 10 w/ a box fan underneath them blowing up and it seems to work better even with the perpendicular heatsink to airflow orientation.



Ha.  I'm actually btc-poor now   Hopefully these make their coins back!  Since all my coins were made from GPU mining, it was hard to let the game pass me by, and I'll be quite pleased to break even on these.

And yep, the wires when running 2 blades per "molex run" were probably fine to run, but certainly not something I'd have felt very comfortable leaving unattended for days on end.

The blade has no (apparent) DHCP support, you must select a static IP.

If you get multiple boards, you must power up one at a time, change it's IP and restart, prior to moving onto the next.  Not a huge deal, the things boot in about 3 or 4 seconds.

edit: That is to say that yes, they all ship with the same (conflicting) IP of 192.168.1.254

I got mine in, and it it got here before some of the parts I'd wanted to use for power got here.  Doh!

So.. I hacked a bit.  Used a PVC pipe rail system, to keep them vertically straight and well separated.

I tried powering 2 off a single "accessory" cable bundle on a PSU, but the wires would get rather warm, uncomfortably so.

However, 1 blade per accessory bundle was no problem.  These, coupled with 2 PCIe (you can hack up a 6 or 8 pin PCIe extender similar to what is shown here) plugs each powering a blade and everything is up and stable - nothing running hot.

Cooling thus far has been a cinch - a box fan keeps them all running stable, and most just warm to the touch.  The two bookending the cluster though do get rather hot, and I have plans to pick up some high-cfm 120mm fans to act as blowers which should work well.

I will be interested to see how the rack they have works cooling wise, it appears to be bottom up cooling which would be difficult to make work inside a cabinet.  If there is an easy way to mount fans on the back though, pretty much everything is better with a few delta 200cfm fans chugging away


Pics

Initial testing - did 2 boards like this, this is the picture of the first successful mining run


Good photo of the power boards:


Initial try at the temporary rack


Completed and blades installed, starting to cable


Completed and mining away



phil21@topgun:~$ ./bestatus.pl
10.x.x.40 - Mhash: 13023 efficiency: 099.34% up: 0d,05h,42m,39s
10.x.x.41 - Mhash: 13115 efficiency: 099.99% up: 0d,05h,42m,41s
10.x.x.42 - Mhash: 13058 efficiency: 099.54% up: 0d,05h,42m,41s
10.x.x.43 - Mhash: 13042 efficiency: 099.46% up: 0d,05h,42m,41s
10.x.x.44 - Mhash: 13037 efficiency: 099.41% up: 0d,05h,42m,41s
10.x.x.45 - Mhash: 13138 efficiency: 100.17% up: 0d,05h,42m,25s
10.x.x.46 - Mhash: 13181 efficiency: 100.51% up: 0d,05h,42m,25s
10.x.x.47 - Mhash: 13074 efficiency: 099.75% up: 0d,05h,11m,54s
10.x.x.48 - Mhash: 13079 efficiency: 099.73% up: 0d,05h,11m,49s
10.x.x.49 - Mhash: 13035 efficiency: 099.42% up: 0d,05h,42m,25s
Total: 130782 (13078.2 avg) [Avg Effic: 99.73%]

(most) molex pins are rated at 5A, so for each blade you need minimally two conductors in parallel.

Ideal would be getting some 18ga (I think this is the largest that you can crimp connectors to) wire, some molex connectors, and running "home runs" back to a modular PSU's ports.  The PCIe ports have 3 12v pins on them, which gets you in the 80% rule for the connector itself while drawing 10A.

I imagine it's a pita to find the raw plugs that fit a particular power supply model though.

Chalk me up as interested, pending some firmer dates/plans/etc.

I'd be in at 250 chips

They are overpriced   But that's what the market is bearing, and they are the sole vendor shipping things out.  They also act professionally, or at least seem to so far, so they got my bitcoins.

In the end it was about "will these make money past the initial investment" and the math says yes.  120-160 day payback by my estimation, and then 3-6 months of making a healthy daily return before they get to be perhaps irrelevant to run.  Time will tell!

You should have payment for 10 total units to the addresses indicated, both John K and you have PMs with txid and mailing address.

Thanks again!

Pretty simple to me.  Bid and don't pay, be dealt with like any other auction bidder that doesn't pay.  I believe that earns you a scammer tag if I'm not mistaken.

Either more than 50 units will be available, or not.  You're bidding on your place in a (possible) line, and just like any other auction you have no idea if you won until the auction closes.

Very damned simple - don't bid unless you are prepared to take delivery.  Why is this confusing?

fwiw I consider my bid binding, until the scheduled auction end time.

I've read most of the other two threads, and have a couple questions I didn't see asked in those.

1) For the rackmount shelf - how are these cooled?  Is it possible to put a few big fans in the back and suck airflow through?  I figure this is what you use in your datacenter deployments, and a few high airflow flans are more efficient than a bunch of small ones.  The fin orientation on the heatsinks seems to be non-ideal for this sort of chassis-based cooling setup however.  Basically, can these be cooled like other chassis-based equipment (blade servers, large chassis based switches, etc.) or is the idea to cool each blade individually?

2) The ethernet controller - are these 10/100?  100/1000?  I only ask because some switches won't link at 10mbps and I would like to be prepared with the proper equipment should you decide to increase the number of units available.

Thanks!

Alright, I rescind my bid for 2 and am in for 10 if you open it up for more.

in case anyone drops out... (I think the earlier count was off by one)

2