Chase Paymentech, or more formally JP Morgan Chase Paymentech has a vested interest in the status quo. You know, the easily hackable Equicracks status quo.

Had to sell a bit to cover Q3 taxes and equipment. I hate selling on a dip, drat....

Interesting. Can you ask them if it's possible to replace the MCU with an off the shelf replacement?

So what blew up, the Pi controller underneath or the chip itself?

Always keep in mind that during the age of the city-state, people were known as "serfs" and bound to the land. Not so much fun....

Anyway, Bitcoin continues to bounce around, never dull but not complaining...

Life is short, eat dessert first....


*nod* The early 70's air cooleds are going for silly amounts of money, I'd leave them alone. Plus they had rust as a factory installed option; they would spray the floorboards with salt water just to do it....

I don't really go for the 90-2000's Porsches. I prefer the 70's and 80's, the water cooled models like the 944S/944Turbo and the 85-87 928's are actually pretty good deals for the money. You could also pick up a 914 cheap, they're oddly fun little cars.

Tricky. I bought a Porsche 928S4 with a few coins at the 2500/coin mark, and while it is a perfectly fine little car I do look at it sometimes and wonder why the value hasn't doubled in the past few months. But it brings me mental stimulation and joy, which is good.

Key life lesson ahead:

Remember that the one thing in life you can never get more of is time. It's even rarer than bitcoins, and can't be created by any force in the universe faster than it unfolds (like um... bitcoin). So if you really want a 911 convertible, and it's something that will return you a serious investment in joy, buy it now and not later. Because next year you will have one less year in your life to enjoy it; a year you will never be able to get back.

I would recommend a pre 1969 Targa of course, but I like the short wheelbase models. Then again they can and will kill you, so you might be better off with the 69-72 models which have the delightful MFI system or (if you're cheap and buying a 69-71 T) carbs. The 72 911T might be the best; I think it's the one with MFI and that funny oil port that everyone mistook for a gas tank port with hilarious results....

C

I don't know, but even my dumb-ass litecoin is mooning. This is really one of those kinds of days I feel sad for buying towels a few years back for .25btc or so...

Hey can someone repost the Wil-e-y Coyote $480-$380-$280 gifs? Those really crack me up now.

Hopefully we will break 5k before the end of the month due to reasons...

C

Damn, sorry to hear that. Those miners cannot be fixed, but the last one might be fix-able. If you want to send the last one in let me know.

Good to hear from the vendor. Seems like the Orange Pi's have a habit of blowing up, would it be possible for you to post the following:

1) How one can reload the Atmel CPU on the miner in the event it needs to be replaced?
   (I have a miner here in the shop. The Pi blew up and took out everything on the SPI line which appears to be that component)
2) Exact model of orange Pi and firmware on SD card we should be loading.

Thanks!
C

Pin 10 is ground, as is the three top pins of the PCIe plug.

And oddly enough that could make sense; when you shorted it the current flowed through all the other cubes, but since that one did *not* have a ground it suffered a different kind of damage. Sucks, I know but check again.

C

That's normally not good. The way to be sure is to test the cube with an ohm-meter/VOM for resistance. Check the resistance between pin 4 and ground and pin 6 and ground (on the 10 pin connector where pin 2 is the top left one and pin 10 is the top right one). If 0 ohms on pin 4 then things are complex. If 0 ohms on pin 6 the board is shot.

Hm. I assume the first controller was blown out as well (no proper lights when you plug it in without the cubes?) At the very least you blew up the cube and controller, I wonder if it spread to the other drivers. I'd have to take a look at the controller, the cube you reversed, and one of the other cubes to make a determination.

This is also a problem with people who pull the plastic off the power connector and run the pins bare. Works, but if you ever put the plug on so that iit's only on the top three then you blow everything up. Have it fixed properly.

Or you could mail it over to me and I'll take a look at it. I'd like to see what a working one of these looks like if I can fix it.

Sure. Take it off and see if it boots. I think there is only one Orange Pi, so go for it.

What's the worst that could happen?

C

Interesting repairs came in today, 4 cube boards, all shorting the power supply. 3 of them turned out to have blown FETs, I'm getting better at finding those with the air heat and the pre-heater. Hook up your test leads and watch the resistance change as you move hot air over components. When the resistance changes quickly, you're near the source of the problem.

Last one had a blown die that was shorting out the SPI bus. Still have to find those with trial and error, but got it and board is now up on 2 of 4 dies. Not too bad...

These days, I would not trust John to park my car, so this is not a great endorsement....

The chips are hardly anything interesting, looks like Bitmain managed to put the dc-dc converters on-chip which is really smart, but nothing unusual. Their cooling system is basic but it works and they have settled on a frame/interface design that works well enough. Kind of like KNC, except they took the extra plunge to put power on the chips.

The problem is getting the foundry time and selling the product. Too many failures in that regard.

Is the Pi even working? Maybe get a new Orange Pi, the one I have here blew the Pi which also took out the Atmel CPU chip on the board. Blah.