Yeah, just threw me for a loop for a minute there when something I had responded to disappeared. Still works but I couldn't find what I was expecting to.

Anyways, your questions brought up some good information. I'll get around to updating the first post with fresh data sometime today.

While I officially do not endorse nor participate in gambling... sure, thanks.

I added the daisychain PCIe by request, for folks who want to use a larger single PSU to run stacks at a time without octopus cabling. It's not a bad idea, so long as people keep track of the power limits a single cable can do.

I plan on using the same footprint and, ideally, the same connector layout on BF16 pods.

Also, editing posts after replies makes conversation confusing.

Estimates posted at least once in this thread already give you a power range from about 45W to upward of 100W depending on voltage and frequency setting. So yeah, you could run a BF16 pod off a 70W brick.

The BF16 pod will have input power monitoring integrated. It'll be on vh to build it into code, but that's intended to be used for power limiting at the cgminer level. You could feed cgminer your maximum allowable power draw and it'd limit [something, depends on implementation] to try and maximize hashing without going over that threshold. If nothing else, there should still be a power-draw readout somewhere in cgminer that you can use to manually tune it.

This is an advanced feature requiring ADCs on an onboard microcontroller communicating directly with the cgminer driver, and as such will not be implemented on the short-term project pod. That's specifically for the advanced controls set being designed for BF16 projects.

I have successfully tested both hardware and software for the 2-chip BM1384 stick. I will be testing what should be the final prototype as soon as PCBs arrive, and the first of the mass-production batch should be rolling out around the end of January. This is the only thing for which sales are in progress, or with any kind of delivery estimate.
Prototype PCBs of the BM1385 pod will arrive soon.

A prototype PCB of 2-chip Bitfury 16nm, heavily designed for piecewise testing, is in my hands and I will be playing with it shortly. Once this works, it will be a functional representation of a 2-chip stickminer. Only slight modification to controls and software will make an 11-chip pod functional, and further slight modifications to that will see a functional 33-chip S1 refit board. But this is still very much in design stage of development.

I will not take money in for any project that has not successfully demonstrated functional hardware and basic software in prototype.

Yep, power is 12V. Technically you could go down to around 6V and it'd probably still work, but your fan would not be spinning. It's designed for a 12V-nominal power input, hence the PCIe 6-pins as well. There is no power drawn from the USB connection to the controller.

So if your USB hub takes in 12V power, sure it'd still work. 12V5A bricks are super common so that's what I'm designing the "stock" power draw around, but since voltage and frequency are adjustable that power draw is by no means mandated.

The BF16 pod may have a higher-power stock setting, I'll know more once I start playing with the hardware directly.

Tuesday is sandwich day, and Friday night is burger night (so the only day I'm guaranteed to take off work by 5PM). Those are the only "days".

Currently, GekkoScience is a one-man operation. Novak got a real job as a rocket scientist so that's keeping him busy. VH is basically contracted, not an official employee. My last cable minion moved to another state so I'm doing all that as well, but I have better tooling now so that saves a buttload of time.

Bulk manufacture of stickminers is a huge timesink though, since there's a lot of testing and assembly and more testing once they come out of the oven. I'll definitely be bringing in some help when it's time to start batching so we can get these guys out quicker.

I'll get to it tomorrow, around when I do the Group Buys thread and whatnot. Probably after sandwiches.

Yeah for sure. I don't know how much time VH has put into this honestly, but it's been a lot. I've been feeding him raw HEX dumps and kernel logs and he's somehow making enough sense of it to have pretty much completely reverse-engineered how S5s handle chip communications, even some of the hairy particulars. None of the projects discussed in this thread would have gotten very far without his labors.

The 2Pac has always been BM1384 chips, since it would be quick and easy to bring to market and raise money for Bitfury development.

The pod I'm currently working on alongside it is using BM1385 chips from the S7. Whether or not it ends up getting mass-produced is a matter for another day. Hopefully once the prototype is assembled it'll be mostly a software thing.

I have a prototype PCB for a 2-chip Bitfury 16nm miner which is going to require a lot of firmware and driver code development to get working. Once it works I have most of what I need to build an 11-chip pod and a 33-chip S1 refit board.

Once I have news about that, I'll make it very obvious.

Most of the discussion from the last dozen-odd pages has been BM1384 2Pac stuff. The 2Pac has only ever been a BM1384 design, and anyone who told you otherwise was mistaken.

I enumerated everything clearly in this post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1651958.msg17065895#msg17065895

Pod ETA is an unknown at this time because the hardware hasn't been prototyped. I have a first draft PCB arriving at the same time as the 2Pac prototype PCBs. I have enough stuff around the shop that vh can probably get a head start on coding but until the actual PCB is in hand there's no guarantees. Hopefully he can build off the 2Pac driver pretty easily.

Regarding 2Pac purchases, go ahead and start sending. Make sure to PM me (or email sales at gekkoscience) with your forum handle, shipping address and the transaction ID. I'll start a list like I did for the original Compacs, and probably set up the same queueing structure for large and small orders.

Anyways, on to the news.

I just did some testing of vh's latest ramp code on a hardware mockup of the 2-chip BM1384 stick and it looks to be working. That's the second of two required software milestones before I was completely comfortable with the project.

So now we have tested and approved functionality of both the hardware and the software. I'm waiting for prototype PCBs of the actual stick form-factor to make sure that specific layout works as expected before sending off for a large batch, but the circuit itself (as well as the code to operate it) has been proven. Technically this is a preorder, but as stated - both the software and the hardware are proven. I wouldn't be saying anything otherwise.

So with that in mind, I'm going to go ahead and open up sales on the 2PAC 2-chip BM1384 stick miner. Total batch limit of 1500 sticks; once this is reached there will be no more. Sticks will be $30 apiece. I can't give a specific estimate for initial shipping because it'll depend on if the PCB layout works as expected or if I have to fix any problems. All I can say is, I hope to start moving them by the end of January.

Donations can still be sent to the 1BURGER address (1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr) and I'm adding a sales address to the lineup: 12PACBUYyFhRyhRB4qB9Z5Z8M6E3p8gpmt. I'm still vanity-genning a snazzy loan address, so that's pending.

I'll put up a thread in Group Buys today or tomorrow with all this info consolidated, including estimated specs of the stick.

I was asked how many pods and sticks I intended to produce, so I answered that question. Nothing to do with your power supply. Next time I'll remember to quote the post so folks don't get confused by things outside the immediate context.

I'm assuming at least a thousand of the 2pacs, possibly more like 1500. Pods, not so sure- 250 to 500.

Well, the numbers in your group buy look to be for the 16nm stuff still in early development.

The latest discussion on the thread is Bitmain Leftovers stuff being put together in the short term to help raise money for the 16nm projects. All the numbers are in the last few pages.

So, valkir, you likely to generate a list for the not-16nm stuff I'm rolling out in the much nearer future?

Yes. No.

If you use boards like mine, you don't need an optoisolator or relay to trip the supply - the external turnon takes an active-high signal (3-20VDC), so it'd work just fine on GPIO from a Pi.

I believe chigieureitor (or however the heck his name is spelled) rigged up a setup like that for his mine in Venezuela.

I'll probably talk to some of the same reviewers I talked to for the Compacs last year - people I trust whose opinions cover important aspects of a successful product. Phil is really good at understanding customer mindsets, guys like NotFuzzyWarm are well-rounded engineers, and CrazyGuy as a top reseller can comment on marketability.