Hehe. Ok.

Boards are in! Check out these bad boys! 

The Drillbit Boards power from a 4 pin molex. The miniplane from an ATX power connector. The overall draw on a fully stacked miniplane won't be all that high. We're moving into testing phase this week and will publish details as we have them. There have been some good suggestions for PSUs on this thread. We may recommend one, but in the end it will be up to everyone how they want to do it, how many boards they will be needing to power etc. A $60 PSU should be fine though. More on that stuff soon. 

Barntech

We have a few possibilities in the pipeline for our next project. Main priority of course is to get this one done first, but yes keep your eye out for upcoming Drillbit mega boards. Thinking seriously about Cointerra. What do you guys think? The main issue is that their stuff is huge so it won't be very well suited for small scale mining. Though there might be possibility to set up a few community based minifarms which everyone could chuck in for. Something like that.

Anyways, in the meantime, Bitfurys baby. One thing at a time. Got something special for you any minute now. 

Barntech

Hey.

Looks like these questions have been sufficiently answered by others but just to be totally clear, no they're not in stock, we are waiting on chips. Estimated delivery is late october / early november. I did get your payment. Sorry i didn't send you a confirmation. Things have been pretty hectic lately. If you feel like you have made a purchase based on false information i will happily refund you. Let me know. 

Barntech

Hello people.

Fantastic to see this thread thriving again. I jump on here and see a bunch of questions, then scroll down and see lots of them answered. Thank you everyone for answering all that stuff.

So yes, most things have been addressed. But just to make sure everything is clear. Nothing we have is "in stock". There are a few bits of wording on the new site that may be slightly misleading. I'll sort that out later today. Thankyou very much to Mrklye by the way for getting that done. Certainly looking much nicer than it did before.

We are waiting on chips from Bitfury which are set to arrive in October. As people have said, Bitfury are shipping on time, so so far we are looking good on that front. Out estimated turn around is roughly 20 days from when we receive the chips. This means that late october / early november delivery is looking good at this point.

Regarding a second batch, the basic story is that Bitfury raised the prices on chip reels so much as to make it not really viable anymore. A shame because i believe we could easily get a second and even a third reel happening. Now, Dave from Megabigpower has been working hard to negotiate some better prices, but as of yet i have heard nothing back. At current prices its not worth it, but if the prices do come back to something reasonable, then we will open up a second batch. Time is ticking away however, so that would need to happen pretty soon or it will be too late. At this stage we're operating on the assumption that this will be a single reel run.

With regards to ROI, the figures do come out favourable in some of the calculators out there. These boards we're making may actually make their money back. They also may not. If they don't though, they shouldn't be too far off. In the end it will depend on difficulty and BTC value when the miners arrive. I've written various times in this thread about all the other factors here that make us do this beyond the financial. Its about being part of something exciting, joining the network and building what may be a step towards an alternate money system. Etc etc. I think most of us are of the same feeling.

Will update again soon. The boards will be arriving any minute now.

Barntech

Yes, great to see them shipping on time. This is exciting news. Lets hope they can keep it up and all goes smoothly! 

Hey all.

Great to see this thread positive and exciting again! Even some nice productive stuff from you Voxelot  . Its great to see. Thank you all for your kind words. I really do appreciate it.

'It's all about sharing' put it really well in saying its exciting to be a part of one of the largest social experiments of our times, and potentially the beginning of a major upheaval of the corrupt money systems of the world today. It feels big and it feel exciting, and i think it will be very cool to look back at these times and tell our kids, friends, families that we were right there in the thick of it. Very well said IAS.

Loving all the heatsink porn. We're gonna play around with a bunch of options and see what gets the best results. We were also looking at these: http://www.tglobaltechnology.com/datasheets/XL-25.pdf . In the end, if you are desiring to crank these up into overclocking crazy mode, heatsinks and fans will be crucial. The boards are built to have heatsinks attached and when we find the ones we like the best, we'll make them available as an added extra.

Thankyou jlsminingcorp for the cost comparison. It's nice to see it all laid out like that.

And thankyou Voxelot for the offer of assistance with coding. If i can think of a way to put you to work i will. 

In terms of the open sourcing, once we have done our main board spin, everything will be open sourced and available to the community. On this topic, we will also be offering blank PCBs for a substantially reduced rate soon if anyone out there has chips of their own and wants blank boards. We have been getting some much better quotes on the boards lately, and if we do enough they will come out reasonably cheap.

Creatine, here's some answers to your questions:

You stated in your OP what the name of the dude was who designed your PCBs. Can we get some extra info on him?

The board designer is Dan Stocks. He is a highly skilled and experienced electrical engineer, and an awesome dude. He's been doing this stuff for a long time and really knows his shit. He currently works for Rode microphones. He has been a great guy to work with on this project; always calling me with new crazy ideas for things we can do with these boards. His enthusiasm is contagious. This project would be nothing without his skills and expertise. I know that's not really much more info than what is on the front page, but i'm not really sure what else to say. If you have specific questions, ask away. 

Who is responsible for writing/compiling/flashing the microcontroller ROM?

Our programmers name is James Nichols, who as it happens just handed in his Mathematics PHD today! As soon as i finish writing this post, i'm going to go meet him for celebrations. A fine occasion indeed. He is a great programmer, again, has been doing it for years and knows his shit. We will also be getting Kano, one of the Cgminer Devs to help us out with the Cgminer side of the coding. We've already been in touch and he is itching to get his hands on the proto.

Are you including JTAG on the PCB so that we can recompile/reflash the microcontroller?

This one i'm not sure about. I'll run it by Dan. I'm pretty sure you will be able to reflash the microcontroller if you want to.

Will the microcontroller Binaries have open source so we can have a look/fork our own versions?

Yes, it will be open source.

Who are you using to manufacture/mount the PCBs?

We are getting the PCBs manufactured in China. The assembly will most likely be done here in Sydney, but we are also looking at possibly getting the manufacture done in the U.S. We are getting various quotes and  still weighing up the different options.

Where geographically are you assembling/shipping from?

See above.

Hope those answers give you a bit more info. I know some of it is a bit vague, but we haven't got everything locked down yet. Getting there though. 

Now off to the pub.

 

Thanks IAS.

Much appreciated. Its nice to get some good feedack. I have appreciated your input from the beginning. Thank you. Its been an intense little period. Nice to get some kind words.

Now that the auction is done, i'll get the thumbs pumping again, and then we're basically onto the exciting part of the whole mission which is seeing the boards come to life. Can't wait to share it with you guys. The next couple weeks will be awesome.

Barntech

Hey Vox.

The best and easiest way for you to get your hands on reasonably priced chips would probably have been being friendly with me and not spazzing out all over my threads. 

Aside from that, Dave is selling them here: https://megabigpower.com/shop/index.php?route=product/category&path=33

Barntech

Cool perfect 

OK here are the final winners. Thank you everyone for participating. Can you all please PM me with your preferred payment method (BTC or PAYPAL) and we can sort out payment. If i don't hear from you soon, i'll be in touch.

Cheers 

alwayzgame	4 @ $400
bcollan	1 @ $400
ampu	1 @ $400
Datto	1 @ $400
thegoldbug	4 @ $400
Greeny	2 @ $390
Creatine One	1 @ $390
pkarc	7 @ $390
monkeynutts	2 @ $380
simon66	1 @ $380
stringer	2 @ $380
yunk3r	1 @ $380
beavertank	4 @ $380
picbb1	1 @ $380

Dude,

How did you become so disgruntled and spikey? I've been nothing but straight, honest and decent with you. I've answered all your questions and addressed every issue you have raised. Why do you insist on constantly giving me shit? If you don't like what i'm doing, then you don't have to be a part of it, but at least have the respect to not make snarky comments on forum threads that are otherwise decent and on the level.

Ok Auctions over. Thanks everyone for bidding. No more bids thanks. Will put up the final winners in a sec.

Is that on top of your other two?

Hey choadmeyer.

15 minutes left. I am currently taking your previous post as a cancelation of your bid, unless you speak up in the next 15 minutes.

Cheers

Just PM'd you. Yes been pretty flooded lately.

Yep.

Still going till the ticker runs out.

Hey.

I know its odd adding more boards into an auction half way through. It seemed that because people had already bid, validating their bids was fairer than making them lose and then bid again on another auction. I do see your point entirely though which is why i posted about not being exactly sure what the right thing to do was. I honestly wasn't trying to manipulate prices. Just made a call on the extra 16 boards and decided to validate other peoples already made bids. Given you made your bid before the extras were added though, you are welcome to retract your bid and make a new one if you like, or just pull out. Either way, it is still the same boards, and bidding still secures you the same thing. Let me know what you would like to do. Only 45 mins or so left.

Barntech

Thumbs will be up again later tonight or tomorrow. 

Winners above the line.

Choadmeyer	4 @ $410
alwayzgame	4 @ $400
bcollan	1 @ $400
ampu	1 @ $400
Datto	1 @ $400
thegoldbug	4 @ $400
Greeny	2 @ $390
monkeynutts	1 @ $380
simon66	1 @ $380
stringer	2 @ $380
monkeynutts	1 @ $380
yunk3r	1 @ $380
beavertank	4 @ $380
fhh	4 @ $370
r7970	1 @ $370

---

r7970	1 @ $370
picbb1	2 @ $370
pkarc	5 @ $370
realestone	2 @ $360
Polyatomic	1 @ $360
Warhawk187	4 @ $360
Hephaist0s	2 @ $360
voxelot	1 @ $350
BenTuras	4 @ $350
picbb1	1 @ $350
m5	1 @ $350