Hey guys.

So bobsag will be handling our U.S. distribution. He will receive one package straight from the factory for all U.S. orders and then send them out as soon as he gets them. This way we have to deal with customs once. This will be much better than 100 different packages having to face customs.

Also, for those of you who have not yet sorted out a PSU, bosag can help you in that regard. Send him a message.

Can the following people please make contact with me immediately. I still don't have shipping payments from you. We will be shipping these things out very soon. If i don't get payments soon, you will fall to the bottom of the queue. Thanks.

Shefflad
reedy10
RK
RM
SML
milkbottlec
EP
NSL
DK
Yunk3r
MT
doxavg
philramon
WC
TG
FB
unois
Pluto

Yes it should be. I can't guarantee that everything will get sent out this week, but the boards are being done right now so we should start seeing them flowing by wed / thurs. 

Shipping this week! 

Hey.

Yes, the thumbs will come with included heatsinks also, sexy blue ones.  These have also been included free of charge, so any thumb heatsink related donations are also appreciated.

Cheers

Hey Console.

Thanks for the kind words. And thanks for offering to contribute to the heatsink fund.  Paypal is to jessericketson@gmail.com. BTC is to 1AF1WmU9Ut2CMuMJWgeBiXb2LMCd6x1GYA

Cheers

Barntech

The heatsinks on the thumbs are pretty low profile so they should fit into a hub no worries. As for lying it on its side, i guess it depends on the hub whether they will stick out further or not. Hard to say. Out of interest, why do you lay it on its side?

 

Yes you are right. Sorry about the confusion. This is the old miniplane. Not getting enough sleep. 

Hey all.

Thumbs are getting made as we speak, other boards to follow soon after. Drillbit production full steam ahead. This will be an exciting week. I can't make guarantees on exact times from the factory but it should be quick. We have requested fastest possible turn around. I promise you the second that these things are ready they will be in the post. Very close now.

Also, on the topic of turning on your power supplies, the miniplane actually has a switch on it, so you won't need special external switches or paperclips unless you are only getting one board without the miniplane.

*** EDIT - My apologies, this feature no longer exists on the new miniplanes. This is a picture of the old one before the recent changes. Please disregard. Sorry about that.  

Interesting as always IAS.

We are indeed living through very exciting times. Who knows what's going to happen with BTC, but i hope you're right and Bitcoin grows large enough to potentially displace the corrupt money systems currently used to enslave huge swathes of the population for the benefit of the monied elite who created them. It is truly exciting to be here for the birth of this and be a part of it. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Though our chances of ROI are now pretty slim, for me it is more about the excitement of being part of it, and the fact that an explosion in price may also cause this whole thing to be an actually fruitful investment is kind of an awesome bonus. If IAS is right and we see BTC prices up around $1000, then we will be laughing.

As for the overclocking thing, and the general future of mining, yes it will be all about the electricty costs. Unfortunately here in Australia electricity is very expensive, so this will be a difficult struggle. As mentioned from the outset of this project, the sweet spot for power efficiency is around 2GH/s per chip. This will be the sensible setting if you are looking to balance mining profits and electricity costs. Personally i will probably overclock for a while and take the hit just because i find it exciting (this coming from someone who just turned off their GPUs about a month ago  ), but eventually i will bring it down to something more reasonable. Another thing i have been thinking a lot about is solar panels, because once you are no longer paying for power, then you can run your miner forever and it will always make you something, even if it is tiny, and at the end of the day, you have free power even when you decide to turn your miner off. We have actually talked about building a miner which comes built into a solar panel, communicates via wifi and just mines away forever. Would be pretty cool. 

I sat and watched today as Bitcoin hit a new all time high. I shivered a little. It does seem to be on an upwards rampage and i wish it all the best for the ascent. We will all have our miners soon and begin to feel the direct benefits of this rise. May it continue healthy and strong.

Barntech

Hey hey.

So yes a beefy power supply can potentially run up to 3 full double scrolls. I have a Seasonic X-1250 80Plus Gold 1250W whcih used to run my GPUs. It has 8 6+2 pcie connectors + you can convert 2x4 pin molex into more. Thats my plan. You could also get smaller ones per miniplane or doublescroll if you wanted to keep them separate.

As for the BTC rise, this is most excellent, and as IAS says, if it keeps going could well push us back into profitability territory on the drillbits, which is pretty damn cool. IAS, do you think we're in for a plunge any time soon, or is it up up up? Should we sell all our belongings and buy BTC? 

As for the fan thing, i can't really say what will be better, but i like the vibe of the top down thing. Spotswood case is looking cool.

Latest update on our wayward package is that it has left the states. Hooray. Almost there. Thank you everyone for being nice and decent about it. It is frustrating the hell out of me not having these things done yet, but it is a great relief to not be feeling the wrath of annoyed bitcoin punters, who as we all know can be a spikey bunch at times! ... not you guys though 

Thanks

Barntech

Awesome. 

Loving your work.

Thank you

Also,

I have an update from our manufacturers. There is going to be a delay of about 2-3 days on our boards. I am really sorry for this. It is very frustrating from my point of view as it is entirely out of my control.

There has been an issue with the Atmel processor chips which are the main brains of our boards. Apparently the United States has particularly tight regulations about parts which have encryption capabilities and makes you jump through many hoops to get them shipped. Digikey U.S. was the only company that had enough of these chips in stock for our production. I thought this had been dealt with long ago but just found out there were still issues. Basically the states don't want to be providing China with spy capabilities or something, which is of course ridiculous in this context but has meant that the processor chips for our boards have been held up delaying assembly. Rah!

Anyhow, things have been sorted now and the package is set to arrive tomorrow and which point the assembly will proceed. This means that we will be looking at getting finished boards back on Friday or Saturday. Flashing firmware and testing over the weekend and shipping on Monday.

It's truly very frustrating to bring you this news, but there is nothing i can do. I'll keep you all posted as we go. And thank you all for your patience on this final hurdle.

Cheers

Barntech

Hey all.

So a quick note on the cases. Firstly thanks Spotswood for your work. Looking really nice. There is one element of the design that is a little counter-intuitive, which is that the fins of the heatsinks go length ways down the boards. (we couldn't find sideways ones at short notice). This means that the best fan position is going to be directly on top of the miniplane stack facing down, or perhaps to keep it sideways, the miniplane would have to be standing up. To account for this, we have added holes to the miniplanes so air can pass through. (see photo of actual boards beneath). For the doublescroll, the fan position will be best at the end. Not to say that shooting a fan across won't still be effective, but shotting it along the fins of the heatsink is ideal. Now i know this is a bit weird, and apologies for that, but it was the best we could do with the heatsinks we got. It will still work. 

Spotwood, could you have a look at factoring this into your design. Cheers.

Yeah, we're not rushing out to get super involved with Avalon after all that has passed with them, but if they want to give us a free reel of chips for designing them an awesome board, then i am not going to stop them. 

We already have some samples. Our Avalon next gen design is currently in prototyping. 

New Prices:

Drillbit Thumb -               0.5 BTC
Drillbit 8 Board -              1.6 BTC
Drillbit Miniplane -            0.2 BTC
Drillbit Double Scroll -       0.2 BTC

 

Hey hey.

Latest status update is the PCBs are ready and we are going in for assembly. This process will take a few days. We will then need to test the boards and get onto shipping. Still should happen this week, at least for the first bunch. I'll let you all know as each stage is happening.

The firmware is upgrade-able over USB. The boards will come with firmware, but more features will be added as we go. Don't worry, there won't be any delays due to firmware.

The final hashrate before production was about 2.5 per chip, but all adjustments that will improve this are in software land. The hardware is ready and capable. The main factor for what these things end up being capable of will be heat management. They will all be able to comfortable sit somewhere round the 2.3 GH/s per chip range but will need more special cooling if you want to run them really hard ongoingly. Those of you in cold places, with good fans etc will see the best hashrates.

As for price drop, i will be putting prices down one last time for a bit of a 'sale' as it were before we get the boards in. Once they are in, we will be looking at trying to sell some on ebay for silly prices because people will probably pay them, so if you are wanting more boards, grab them now. 

Cheers

Barntech

Thanks for the pointer. Do you have a good suggestion?