I am using a CX500 without problems. It has a 12v rail at 34a with 2xPCI-E connectors so that seems more than sufficient for one Cube. The benefit is that it is $10 less expensive than the CX600 on Amazon.



Note: The Corsair spec sheet seems to have substantial errors in it, an example is that both the CX500 and CX600 specs are identical--but I don't believe that.

Section 1:
"2xPCI-E 6 pin power connectors"
"At least 28A on each 12V rail"
This makes it seem that each PCI-E connector needs to be on a separate rail, each providing 28a. In contrast you have recommended the CX750 has a single 62a rail to supply two cubes. Consider clearing up the power requirements.

Section 2:
You you use the word "Antminer", perhaps change that to "Cube".

Section 5:
Consider a little more information about Android. Perhaps provide a work-around of putting the Android devices on a separate network--turning off WiFi on them generally is not a viable option.

You might mention that the relay is marginal and that there is a fix of bypassing it.

All-in-all a great guid! I like the short URLs on the links.

NP, email it to me (email is in my profile) I may be able to fix the color or just post it here.

Really great images! The one I really wanted to see was the bottom of the mother board, did you take one, if so I would really like to see it, especially the fuse and PCIE connector areas. (Yeah, I'm to lazy to take mine apart.)

Yep! But that is today, I am betting on BTC increasing vastly in value. If it doesn't it will have failed as a currency.

And it is a hobby at the moment, getting into Coin out of curiosity and preparing incase it is successful.

What are the addresses of your router and the computer you are running the proxy on?

Do you have any Android devices on the WiFi network?

Shouldn't need to supply a router or DNS address if all the IP addresses on the cube are in dotted numeric notation and are on the same network. But doesn't hurt.

Scary! In the old days I used to use analog power supplies (series regulated) and always bought the output crow-bar circuit. That basically shorted the output if the voltage exceeded the voltage spec. The power supply either went onto current fold-back, blew a fuse or self-destructed all without damaging the device it was powering. In your case it looks like the power supply failed by shorting input to output--really bad.

I have one of those and was using it on my Cube until another PS went side-ways and had to move things around. Personally I like that one best, simple one voltage, low cost. I see a lot of these being used with 3D printers. It is basically an industrial PS so should hold up well, The form factor leaves something to be desired but then an ATX style with lot's of extra cables and a hassle with the power-up number is also a mess. I would either go with this one or a modular ATX to avoid the extra cables (I cut my extra cables off).

Were you measuring across the fuse as in the photo below? If the fuse was not blown at that time, the cube was running, then I would suspect the digital multimeter auto-ranged to mili-volts. 50mv-60mv or 100mv would not be unreasonable.

I just measured mine and found 20mv, I found a spec on these kinds of fuses that indicate 60mv for 30a is to be expected Even at 100mv at 30a the heat generated would be 3w, that is enough to make it feel warm to hot. In my case it would be 20mv at 30a: 0.6w and the heat seems higher than that.

The outside event is the connector, it's contract resistance with the fuse and how well it is soldered to the circuit board. One good way to check this is to measure the voltage drop on the fuse and the voltage drop measured on the circuit board (yeah, running the Cube out of the enclosure). Any substantial discrepancy would point to a poor fuse connector connection.



For some good background information on fuses and wire sizing see: Littlefuse

For information specifically on Cure ATC Blade Fuses see: Bussmann

Suggestion: If you have a question about the fuse replace it with a good brand automotive fuse. Littlefuse and Bussmann are long established top end fuses.

What were the voltmeter probes touching, "at the fuse" is rather vague?

A high reading between negative and positive on the cube would indicate a power supply failure and that power supply should be trash-canned. A Power supply should never put out a voltage higher than it's rated output, if it does it has failed badly and you would be lucky the fuse saved the Cube.

What probably caused the heat was poor contact of the PCI-E connectors. There is general problem splitting a high current between multiple connector pins and is generally avoided in good designs. The connection resistance (there is always some small amount) is not the same for all the pins so some have to carry more current to make up for the pins with higher resistance. In the case of the cubes the current is split between six pins for the positive and six for the negative, and molex connectors are hardly the best, they are used because they are cheap. Can you post a photo of the burned wires and connector?

Some explanation of what and how you were measuring would help here because the load really can't increase the voltage. If the voltage was above 12v to 13v that was a power supply fault, not the cube.

The high currents are what caused the wires to heat up and that is an effect not the cause. The cause is probably a bad connector which was the cause of the heat. A photo of the damaged wire and connector(s) would be really great.

I was wondering about that. From the reports of "melting fuses" it would seem that the fuse connection might be the culprit adding resistance that would cause excessive heat. The actual fuse metal should melt at a reasonable temperature. They generally protect against sudden high surges from the thing they are protecting and because of the short duration should just melt the metal fast.

I just checked the temperature of the fuse in my Cube, it is to hot to keep my finger on for more than about two seconds, not sure if that is normal, can some otherreaders also check their fuse temperature and report their findings?

Can you or anyone upload a photo of the melted fuse?

Are you planning to fix the cube? Easy enough, jump the start relay and add a new fuse. Of course there may be a bigger problem that caused the fuse to "blow".

Or are you thinking of something else?

Yep! Corsair does not make it easy to get at the specs.

Looks great power-wise: Single rail 12v @ 62a but only two PCI-E connectors.

Specs at: http://www.corsair.com/~/media/Corsair/download-files/manuals/corsair-psu-spec-table-091813.pdf (page down toward the bottom).

Might look at one of these that have four PCI-E connectors: CX750M, AX750, RM750, TX750M.

Fuses: Actually they kind of do go to 11. Consider the fuses/circuit breakers in a typical US house are 15a, the Cube fuse is 30a, twice that. Automotive fuses are designed for high currents at low voltages, exactly what the cube needs. Additionally the connector the fuse plugs into is small, cheap and well tested in automotive usage.

Wire: As long as the coper does not melt the limiting factor is the insulation and the max temperature it can sustain. Many wires in close proximity such as in a cable or conduit reduces the dissipation of heat and the allowable current must be reduced. Warm wires do mean voltage loss but not necessarily a hazard. Personally I would up-size the wire gage if possible such that there was very little heating of the wires.

What does "2 4 pin molex" mean? The cube has two 6-pin power connectors. Each should have six wires.

No. The higher the resistance the lower the current. E=IR or transposed: I=E/R where I=current, E=voltage, R=resistance.

There are two main reasons a fuse will "blow".

1. The current is above the fuses limit, that is what fuses are designed to prevent. That would mean in this case that the Cube was drawing to much current, greater than 30a, and the fuse protected the Cube and/or power supply.

2. The fuse was defective.

The issue with Android is using IP addresses after the DHCP lease expires, not traffic. See ”DHCP client ignores lease time”: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=11236.

So, a good solution is to put the Android devices on a separate logical network. If the primary network is 192.168.1.x then create a second network such as 192.168.2.x (both with a net mask of 255.255.255.0). Unfortunately that means two routers.

Is this what you did with the second router?

Do you have any numbers on the hash rate increase?

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