That does not match my layout at all. Weird. C |
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Wait, that chip you blew up is a voltage regulator? I thought the six FETs were it, or is that some sort of LM317 for the fans?
And is that big box thing damaged as well?
C
Yes, notice the hole in the chip. The number on it was ST1S10, on mouser it comes up as a voltage reg. This particular jala is the one that took out the same power supply. When I used a good power supply it blew that chip.... doesn't necessarily mean that's the problem though.... The blown caps are on the blocks DC output side, everything else looks fine. I'm not sure what you mean by big box thing? If you mean the USB controller chip, I ordered a couple. I have 2 jala's that wont register in windows... trust me I researched it on two PC's and 3 different miner programs. Again everything is just to the best of my knowledge, I'm out on a string with some of this stuff. The 2 mouser chips I got ordered are ST1S10 (Voltage reg) FT232HQ (FTDI driver chip for USB) Yes I'm in the USA unfortunately. What the hell is that? U15 is the power supply from 12 volts to 3.3 volts. That's the control bus power for the chips (the hash engines run on the 1 volt supply). Wow. You had a cool failure. Swap the parts out, that chip first. And use a fuse inline with your power supply to keep blowing things to a min. Maybe a 4 amp fuse or something. C |
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Just did, takes a 16 gauge wire to really support the jally. Piggy power draw but mine has 5 chips.
Talking to two other people same problem. I hope I can get one of these to try fixing it.
C
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Oh and um, that cap damage took more than 72 watts to do. I think it shorted the mains to the output. Check the other side, see if any of the caps there are blown.
I just opened my supply, normal and somewhat stupid, nothing unusual there. I'll tear the one I have coming apart; are you in the US BTW?
C
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Wait, that chip you blew up is a voltage regulator? I thought the six FETs were it, or is that some sort of LM317 for the fans?
And is that big box thing damaged as well?
C
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Well, in the meantime I wired my Jally into my rather inexpensive (ie: cheap) ATX power supply.
I didn't want to play with the 12 volt 4 pin molex, so I took three of the yellow 12v wires (18 gauge each, blah!), cut them, spliced them together to the BFL cable (16 gauge, nicer, but blah), soldered, used shrink wrap to cover, and fired it up.
The power supply is reading 12 volts on the unloaded lines, but the Jally was reading 11.5 volts at idle. Which means a pretty hefty voltage drop, but most of it is in the BFL cable. I'll deal.
Up and hashing. I'll take a look inside my power supply in a few days to see what it can tell me. Man you do need a pretty beefy cable BTW.
Update: Ooops. Hit 80c, apparently lower voltage=lower noctura fan speed. Crud, I have the external fan back on it, we'll see what happens. Might have to take the sides off again, drat.
C
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You're referring to the barrel plug correct? I've got 4 power blocks just opened the dead one........ smells horrible, covered in soot and the 2 caps are blown. One of them has a sizable hole in it....... I'm so beyond pissed right not it's not funny..... I void my warranty so BFL can shock me to death after blowing up my miners with shitty hardware. Or the idea that 120V traveled up my usb onto my MOBO. So the point I'm at BFL may have caused my miner and PC take down with chinese power blocks. 3 greatest fears in one, dead PC, chinese products, power blocks. That order, I'm prolly venting at this point but I also have one power block that causes just the power LED to flash slowly.... I don't even understand anymore....  Can you post a pic? I'm sorry it went foom. Does the slow flasher work with a good supply? C |
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Generally, a device should either be safety earthed o the chassis can't be energized, or be double insulated. In this case, it would be a double insulated device. They are designed so that no single fault can cause the mains voltage to be exposed. A good power supply should not fail this way even if it does die, it should just stop working. There is obviously something very wrong with these ones as they appear to be able to provide significant mains current at the output, and still function otherwise normally. It will be interesting to see what you find, do you have much experience with mains powered SMPS designs?
Bit. My expertise is in PFC charging systems and the good old fashioned "Use the motor as a big coil" charging systems on electric cars with 50-80kw power drive systems. Thus I look at the 1 volt supply and think "If I replaced that with 500amp IGBTs, I would be in shape" then realize that would be insane. But these problems are not unusual. When charging on 240 US you have to watch for ground faults that can cause 120 to appear in odd places. My guess is they have the neutral connected to 12 volt negative with a capacitor to improve the power factor. The PF on these supplies sucks rocks regardless; I can see that on my P3. That's why they get hot, that whole reactive power thing. I just want to fix this so people will not send in their jallies for repair which will mean my jally will ship quicker. C |
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I don't have one of the failed ones here, but I'm not so sure they're failing in a safe way. A power supply that fails in such a way that gets a strong shock through their arm by touching it is extremely dangerous. BFL needs to stop shipping those supplies, the reports of Jalapenos tripping home circuit breakers is disturbingly numerous.
Hopefully (and some bitcoin later) I will be having one come in here for review. I think it is fail-destructive, which is not good. But I think any power supply could do this, the problem is the ground loop back to the computer which is grounded equals the usual boom. C |
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I'll have to read into that, I'm inn the US however. Just ordered off of mouser FT232HQ Which is the USB controller chip, and ST1S10 which appears to be the voltage reg I blew up. Lightfoot have you had no problems with your power block? I'm pretty convinced they're complete garbage. If I have luck changing out a few components I will let you'll know. Prolly start buying bad jalas then. I'm off to cry I believe my processor died in my main rig as well. Apparently 2 years at 4.7 Ghz can do that, now to get a 9590.
I think there may be another place we might want little sinks, I'll report back as I just got a new IR thermometer.
P.S. if anyone has a AM3+ CPU I could borrow to test my MOBO that would be cool. Not expecting anything but worth a try.
No problems yet but it's hot. I have a fan pointing at it, but I think I might be cutting it's cord tonight and hard-wiring it into the ATX. ATX had flimsy wires though, and I am concerned about voltage drop. Try swapping the USB chip. Unfortunately the problem with buying bad jallies is that people seem to think they are like little golden nuggets. Hey, do you see 120 volts on the ring to ground on your power supply? C |
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You people need help. So what happens when your cap blows a seal?
C
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So the PSU had a fault. ANY PSU can have a fault. I've had brand new, out-of-the-box Apple laptop chargers that have died, same with Dell, and HP.
But, my sentiment still stands, just because there's mains potential between the output ground and mains ground, doesn't mean there's a fault, or that there is a danger.
Indeed. The problem isn't faulting, shit happens. The problem is the impact; does the device fail safe or fail destructive. Fail safe would be if a fault shorts to a ground at the PSU, blowing a fuse (in the PSU) or a main breaker. If you have a grounded device and your wiring meets NEC (or whatever you use in your country that is not corrupt) your PSU dies and you get another one. Fail destructive would be if a fault shorts, there is no ground, and the case goes hot (deadly), an exposed connector goes hot (painful), or the fault goes to ground through another device (destructive). In the US, BFL supplies can't fail deadly. Those same power supplies on a 240 volt hot hot ground system would fail destructive. This thread is for information, not judgement. Given that bitcoin mining is on bitcoin time, and difficulty increases, it might be better to spend $40 on a power supply and not be down for a month than to risk failure and be down for a month on an RMA. As I like to say in Bitcoin world, do the math :-) C |
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Agreed. I just checked some threads at BFL, and there are a number of people with the same problem. All seem to be in the Europlug zones.
Now BFL is sending out RMAs and such, they're fine there and meeting their terms of support which is good. But if there is something that can prevent this from happening so you're not down for weeks, I would think some BFL buyers might be interested.
C
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Benny, question: Could you check voltages between your plug's power, neutral, and ground to ground? I'm wondering if it's 120/120/ground or 240/0/gnd? Also are you in the UK, Netherlands, on a ring circuit, and is your incoming power 3 phase or split phase 240?
Thanks!
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Does anyone care by the way?
No, because you're making a mountain out of an ant hill. Please stop spreading FUD. Really? If this is not an issue, I'll pull it. Actually, you can help: If you know how to do it, and can check voltages between each of your power legs to "ground", I would appreciate it. Do you see 120/120 on each leg, or is it 240/0? This image is what is bothering me:  I have at least one EU person who is seeing 120 volts on the ring of his jally power supply to ground. Either his picture is lying, or 120 volts is on the ground plane. If that were to happen, and the ground plane on a desktop attached via USB were to be grounded, then 120 volts would merrily go from the jally through the USB to ground. I think this would be tough on the Jally's USB chips. I think this is why EU laptop power supplies have 3 wires, hot and explicit ground. But I have heard that the power supplies shipped are US supplies with two wires. C |
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You don't need to do any of that crap. Just swap the supplied Whooflugdung PSU with something better, be it LiteOn or whatever, or run it off an ATX PSU like I do.
That was option 1. However I don't think most people understand what is going on. And it's not a "better" supply, it's one certified to run properly in your country. C |
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Update: I've been getting reports that the power supplies are the US supplies with US cords, and people are plugging them into local power plugs with adapters.
Note: I think that this is not a good idea. Your local power supplies probably have 3 pin grounds, they are there for a reason. If *I* were there, I would use an adapter that provided full and proper isolation.
More to follow. Does anyone care by the way?
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This is a ground fault.
A GFCI or related unit will NOT protect your device.
A USB isolator might. It does prevent a ground fault from happening.
Someone confirmed that a GFCI trip happened, and now his device will not recognize.
If your jally comes up with the front LED flashing fast, the power supply can't provide enough current to pass the diagnostics. Unit isn't bad, the problem is the stupid supply is bad.
Likewise I'll bet the reason that singles are coming up without chips is due to power problems. Get a real 500 watt power supply.
These have been confirmed by experiments here at danger labs. Flat facts.
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