"Privy to the facts"... ROFL!

Hardly. All that those of us here working with AMT have is technical data and even getting that is like pulling teeth.

A few bits here and there about other things, NOTHING about business operations nor plans to address this mess. Which is as it should be. I for one do not want to know their inner-workings as it would raise serious legal implications for me. Noooo thank you!

The post in question about heatsinks was in response to my question on testing done by IMET https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=584891.msg7100933#msg7100933

Specifically the last sentence of 1st paragraph.

It in turn brought a response about testing for more than a few min. Anywho that usually means that sinks were used that could not handle extended running. Not uncommon for limited full power go/no-go test rigs - but - ONLY after longer testing proves that it is good enough and then they were removed. Sadly once again, no time was allowed for proveout. Was this the case? (test-only rig)

Given the nature of these beasties personally I would do only full power testing after the boards were attached to their real-use heatsinks... At least the big'uns on the back. For short ter-testing the chips would run topless so to speak. A lot less trouble/expense than mounting to test sinks & then removing them/cleaning up just for the real heatsinks to attached later on... However, that is not what IMET said, they only talked about heatsinks for testing and nothing beyond that.

Back to the show.

Once again, more Graduates from the Underpants Gnomes School of Business. To succeed follow thusly:

1) Steal Underpants (or other Great Idea)
2) ? ? ?
3) Profit!!!

What no Bitmine.ch on the list? tsk tsk tsk!

Might as well put a copy of this here as well so folks can refresh themselves on the A1's timeline..

Worth a try.  Send them an email demanding that working boards be sent.
I've said all along that if legal action is taken Bitmine.ch should be a part of it. All the rights & wrongs of the pre-order model aside it was the delays in Bitmine's A1 chip production itself not to mention Bitmine's wildly over optomistic production/delivery projections that upset the apple cart so badly. They set the stage for was was to follow for all players involved. AMT included.

From what little I've seen of the timeline from announcement/taking pre-orders for A1 systems from Bitmine much less AMT even if everything went 100% right with the A1's conception and birth process there is no way anyone could move a new design through GF fast enough to hit those targets. Get 1st spin chips made - yes. Characterize what was given birth to much less come up with an at least workable 8-chip board as well? Much less an entire system done right to deal with the unexpected power/thermal issues? Then source all the parts (that you just now determined the values of)? Say oh, high kw PSU's - that's gonna put a huge dent in the world's supply chain for a bit... So in short, anintagonna happen.

Bitmine *may* have had a very basic board designed to run it but it could have hardly been ready to take what the A1 would really put it through.

C'mon folks, how many times we gotta say read the A1 dev thread to know the timelines! https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=294235.0

It does not excuse what has happened but at least it gives a picture of just how screwed up the promised sales/delivery dates were. Dates were primarily set by Bitmine.ch. Not like AMT or other Authorized Distributors are gonna have miners before them.[/quote]

I've said all along that if legal action is taken Bitmine.ch should be a part of it. All the rights & wrongs of the pre-order model aside it was the delays in Bitmine's A1 chip production itself not to mention Bitmine's wildly over optomistic production/delivery projections that upset the apple cart so badly. They set the stage for what was to follow for all players involved. AMT included.

From what little I've seen of the timeline from announcement/taking pre-orders for A1 systems from Bitmine much less AMT even if everything went 100% right with the A1's conception and birth process there is no way anyone could move a new design through GF fast enough to hit those targets. Get 1st spin chips made - yes. Characterize what was given birth to much less come up with an at least workable 8-chip board as well? Much less an entire system done right to deal with the unexpected power/thermal issues? Then source all the parts (that you just now determined the values of)? Say oh, high kw PSU's - that's gonna put a huge dent in the world's supply chain for a bit... So in short, anintagonna happen.

Bitmine *may* have had a very basic board designed to run it but it could have hardly been ready to take what the A1 would really put it through.

C'mon folks, how many times we gotta say read the A1 dev thread to know the timelines! https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=294235.0

It does not excuse what has happened but at least it gives a picture of just how screwed up the promised sales/delivery dates were. Date primarily set by Bitmine.ch. Not like AMT or other Authorized Distributors are gonna have miners before them.

Good catch on the date though the diff is showing current... Hmm.
Just one or even a few working back then does not mean much. We are still talking only a couple weeks from when the chips first got into Zef's & others hands (early Jan.) to see if they even work at all and figure out how to talk to them.. I'd barely call that time frame Eng. prototype phase much ready to go out the door.

Nonetheless, good start there.

I like how they are stacked in a cube, what is supporting the boards? I've used Legos for test setups....
Default software & settings? Got a chip Vdd voltage & clock settings for us?

Once the legal proceedings started there is NOTHING that can or will be done outside of the courts permission. That specifically covers individual agreed settlements between AMT and its customers unless it is the result of a different suit. All we can do is wait until either a settlement or verdict comes down. Welcome to the world of class-actions.

The A1 uses SPI for on-board hashing data coms, the system uses i2c for initialization of settings and possibly more. Just got some of the design info so have not looked into it yet fully. Opium should know since it has to be programmed...

If we are going to delve into contract manufacturers... What exactly they do depends on exactly what they are contracted to do. To the letter. If they are given a print and BOM with pick'n-place data to follow then by god they will follow them to the nth degree. Now whether or not said design specs provided to them were correct is another story.

Were they asked to review the designs and make suggestions for improvement? I'm rather sad to say that only unless it presents a manufacturing problem most contract manufacturers will NOT make suggestions of any sort that result in design modifications. eg., odds are the 1oz copper spec came from the original 2/4 chip boards and was never changed for the 8 chippers even though there is 2x the current being pushed around over longer paths. Same with spec'ing thermal via density and their copper content. If spelled out on a print then that is what it is

It simply is not their job to do more than assembly/test unless existing design review & improvement is part of the contract. Many customers can get get downright testy if their design choices are questioned. Not how I run a business but that is how contract manufacturing goes.

That is one reason I'm usually brought in when our customers are meeting with their customer when new projects are started. It's 'safer' for a 3rd party to mediate between end customer wants/needs (not always the same thing) and explain to them what is possible. Later comes the fun of proving how to achieve it on our equipment.

From a technical standpoint I'm very curious to know how the chips were cooled during testing and how long the boards were tested. Specifically, if AMT was responsible for the thermal and heatsink design/assembly after IMET's end, were the boards tested bare? If so not for very long or they go poof. Top & bottom cold plates used in lieu of heatsinks? If those were used for full speed testing then some rather important data could/should have been collected per-chip that could have been used to address the thermal issues we've seen. We know the the A1's are hotter'n Jalapenos.

From a technical standpoint I'm very curious to know during testing how the chips were cooled and how long the boards were tested. Specifically, if AMT was responsible for the thermal and heatsink design/assembly after IMET's end, were the boards tested bare? Top & bottom cold plates used in lieu of heatsinks?

Ok, considering as per last published the A1 has a max current of 20a per chip, if you want to save real estate and a bit of over all cost look at these from Intersil for Vcore regulators http://www.intersil.com/content/dam/Intersil/documents/isl8/isl8240m.pdf

Combines the regulator chip, mosfets, diodes, & buck inductor all into one 17x17mm chip. 4 can power an 8 chip A1 board either feeding each chip individually or feeding 4 pairs of A1's.

Straightforward & simple 2 resistor voltage programing - no dpot/tpot i2c coms needed & much much more. Combine with a TLam pcb and you can have one very hash-dense lil' power block...

btw: That is one excellently done data sheet. Everything spelled out. Wonder how much stuff like that was followed on the older boards...

Techy enough?

Guess Bitmain got fed up with shippers playing football with miners. Seems most folks shipping large miners have ran into this issue albeit the Ants are packed par-excellence vs ahem, others we've seen.... Now the S2 is only as kit. No case, no psu. Bet it flat packs great.

+10 ^ ^
In short, ditto all around.

That is too damn cool! To date my 2 lil'10gh Jala's I got in early Feb. (at nutzy-cukoo high price compared to current hardware)  through TigerDirect are 3/4 paid off,   I know my Ant pharm is right on track.

Still not sure how to respond to that.
If it pertains to those few of us here with considerable professional technical expertise in our areas trying to help you salvage your 'hundreds' of AMT/Bitmine boards produced so far, for Gratis no less, then you've just lost at least one. Just for your reference when it comes to finding someone qualified to do what you need I am billed at >$200/hr when on the clock and our customers are very happy with that. Knowing that continuing any further entails detailed info on the systems it was obvious the Powers That Be who own rights to that IP would require an NDA so I brought it up along with other things pertaining to keeping things as AMT eyes-only if need be.

All just to maybe shine a little light into that dark hole you've dug and let you get *something* out there as a start. Given the serious need for outside help there is no reason your side needs over a week to come up with a NDA to present to us. Not even any PM's regarding it like, "We're looking into it with <insert name>".

Are you really as bad as this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg It's Marketing vs Engineer. At one time I got the point but still thought ' It can't be THAT bad...'. Not so sure now.

On liquid cooling, very doable but Frictionless nailed it perfectly. If 'your people' or Bitmine are involved in it - fuggitabuttit.
I will give you one last free tech tip though: research materials compatibility thoroughly.
-Cheers!

According to a couple folks on the Bitmine thread the site is legit and they received their miners in a couple days.
You seen the power needed for the Cointerra? (again they are in serious trouble...) 1.9kw for 1.6TH. Ouch. I'm sticking with the Ant s2 thank you...

Mine came with the crows foot plug as well.
Running with a 18ga cord not good idea. Max current for most 18ga cords is 10a which is why it is getting warm. Also means that to some extent the psu is not getting all your line can provide making the psu work harder/pull more current from the wall.

I got a couple of these 16ga cords from Mcmaster http://www.mcmaster.com/#71535K56 good for 13amps.