The stock 6A adapter gave out after the 4th chip, so I cut the plug off and wired it to a PCI-E cable right off my computer's power supply. No issues with power after the mod. Adding 4 chips had both Jalapenos up to over 60C. The 5th chip needed additional cooling (up to 78C) and the 6th chip put the temps off the map.
Yup. Some people have reported it blowing up at 4 chips, I ran mine with 5 for over a month before I got concerned about the ground plane faulting in it. A cheap-o PCX power supply (the $20 one on Ebay) with 18 gauge wires is a bit light for a 5 chip jally; I had to wire 3 of the 12 volt lines in series to make it work. Better supply should not have a problem. I found applying thermal compound between the aluminum heatsink plate and the Jalapeno board then placing an active cooler on top (running the Jalapeno upside down) provided exceptional results... Both are hashing over 23Gh/s
Yes. I literally was getting equal cooling running with the Al heatsink on the bottom, then the board upside-down, then a copper heat sink thermal pasted to the board, then the fan on that. Even now in the case, putting thermal compound between base and plate, then plate to board turns the whole unit into a heat sink. P.S Temps used: preheat the area with the wand for 10 seconds, then 90 seconds @ 460C with the wand 1/4 inch above the chip. The chip will float as the solder balls melt (DON"T FREAK OUT) as the remaining balls melt and adhere to one another the chip will realign itself. Patience was the key to my success. Sometimes it took a second heat blast to get the chip to recognize. Altogether I've placed 10 chips on Jalapenos this weekend
This was my biggest mistake initially, and cost me three chips total. You need a *lot* of heat, you need to keep it going, and the balls have to melt completely. I kept thinking I was going to burn the board, that led to pulling the heat early and winding up with an off-center chip by a micrometer. Then not enough heat again causes the chip pads to rip out on removal). I need to keep reminding myself "Insane heat", the chips can tolerate a max temp of 500F for 120 seconds or so. That's chip temp, not air temp; as an experiment I sat there for 2 minutes with heat at 450c and the chip was only at 400 or so F immediately after heat removal. Ah well, that's why we call it "learning" :-) |
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Unfortunately I doubt they care. Once they sell out the last of their 65nm chips that's the end of them, and the end of their "lifetime" warranty. Then we get to watch and see how many delays happen on the Monarch. I'm sitting back and watching this round  Probably not, but still it would be fun. I'm not buying a Monarch, but I will bet dollars to donuts that the techniques I have figured out for these systems will work the same on Monarchs. And possibly other miners, maybe I should become a repair depot for companies or something. You know, in retrospect that would have been a good idea: Have a troubleshooter or two identifying trends to minimize returns and such. RMA's are incredibly expensive and can tear down a company's profits in very short order. But given that bitcoin is powered by delusion and optimism, I can see why that is not done. Interesting :-) |
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We used to go to bed without supper and sleep in hole int ground, only to dream of luxuries like paper tape!
Paper? We just had the holes. Chad boxes. Man I remember cleaning those out on the PC01 punches. |
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I had an idea: Every Single owner should email BFL and ask that they send some wrecked units to Lightfoot for analysis. I'd be more than happy to figure this out once and for all.
I am working on the Jalapeno failure issue, but that only cost me .15btc+$50 shipping plus heck knows what else. Can't do that for single prices. :-)
C
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Not too difficult with the correct tools... though getting chips is now the main problem.
Is there a write-up for this somewhere? I have some chips laying around and would like to try this out. My posts. If you like it tip me a chip :-) If you want to see six chips on a jally, tip me two. |
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I thought that this was a post about the old DEC Operating System. heh.  VAX? You young pups don't know how good you have it. Why, I remember using a PDP-11. Uphill both ways. 6 feet of snow in the middle of summer. You pdp11/MACRO unit people had it so good. We had to run pdp-8/I's with OS/8 and papertape.... I wonder what the hash rate would be on an 8/S. C |
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Then again the guy who has been selling them just sold out his whole set. So location of chips is once again unknown.
Such is life.
C
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Most people are very, very bad at math.
Life like that. That said I really should sell my two erupters. They basically don't make enough bitcoin to keep them powered.
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All I know is that they are basically not worth plugging in anymore.
My Jala makes about 0.01 every >2 days before the last diff jump....I'm guessing it will be ~3 days for that payout now.
Edit: So basically ~0.1-0.15 per month right now...that's $100 right now, better than nothing and I guess more than the power cost. Especially if you consider the co-heating of my basement for free with all the mining equipment running.
Sounds like it's time to turbo-charge your jally :-) |
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I got offered 0.20BTC for it by someone else.
Yeah, right.
Maybe. I did buy a blown up Jally for .15 from a guy in the UK. But that was so I could finally figure out what the fuck has been blowing them up and how to fix it. His is at least hashing. Note: Jallies are not a bad investment, since you can buy 4gh chips for .05btc and stick a total of 6 on the unit, a system could make .662btc on an investment of .20+.20. Not too great, but better than Ebay prices. That said, I would offer .1btc for it. But think about it. 8 jallies+enough chips would be a formidable system. 200gh C |
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I'm trying to do what you're doing as well by adding more chips to the device ( eventually 6 ). I made my own adapters using 16 gauge wire, is there any reason you'd think that I wouldnt be able to power 4 chips per device?
The ATX power supply is 1200 watts, and the cables are 16 gauge. I will admit to have blowing a few breakers as well, but I cant see any reason it wouldnt be able to support 6 per device on a 16G cable.
The only issue is voltage drop; I noticed the wire gauge on the jally cable was 16 or so, and the wires from my cheap-o ATX were 18. Running it off 18g wire at 100 watt draw (it's hungry) caused a 1.5+ volt drop, and would shut down the PS. Tripling up the wires and shortening them dropped the voltage drop to .5 volts, which is much better. Running happily, but my noctura fan runs a bit slower, resulting in the bottom heat sink being back on the unit. Still looks good though. C |
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Nice picture; that solution should work for a normal jally.
C
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No problem. Meantime really look into a better power supply, esp if in 240 volt zones. They're more expensive/different design for a reason.
And for $50 bucks I have a Corsair 500 watt unit coming for my new units, that's not a bad deal.
C
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Note: This is my personal opinion, but I would NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT BYPASSING THE GROUND ON THE PC. EVER! That ground is keeping me from getting shocked, and keeping me alive, so I would *NEVER* try to bypass it, no matter WHAT.
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No. The problem isn't the plug, I think it's that the power supply can't blow the breaker by itself when it shorts. So instead it runs the power through the jalapeno to the PC which *then* blows the breaker. But by that time, proverbially all hell has broken loose.
I have a jally coming in from the UK which will allow me to test this, paid for and being shipped. I'll post the results on my other thread and update people here as well. Should have an answer within 2 weeks.
In the meantime? I agree that one should cut the cord and wire it into an ATX type power supply, 12 volt rail, yellow and black wires, jumper the green wire to ground to get the power supply to come on. I believe this strongly enough that I did this on my turbo-jally yesterday even though the power supply was working and I'm in the US.
C
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Hm, that's an interesting thought. I keep thinking about setting up a Wiki system on my home servers but just never get around to it.
I'd be happy to transfer the key points from this thread over so we can get this info out.
Thanks!
C
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It's a start. If I get my new jallies I will try for a bit more. My current one seems to be confused.
C
Just an fyi light.... when I had the one chip not working on my jally the reported hashrate was around 11gh after reflow about 15gh... simple enough. However, the temperature hasn't changed one bit with an addition of 4gh.... and... when it was hashing at reported rate of 11gh it was actually the same amount of shares ~100 as before any chips were added at 8.3gh. I ran it for 6 days that way btw... weird. Well, the rubber meet road question is how many bitcoin are you making? I am apparently doing about a penny a day now with the latest difficulty with 20gh, so as long as you're making the money it's all good. C |
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It's a start. If I get my new jallies I will try for a bit more. My current one seems to be confused.
C
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