sidehack (OP)
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Merit: 1848
Curmudgeonly hardware guy
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September 17, 2015, 05:32:51 AM |
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All Phil's meter (which Novak and I also have one each for testing sticks) does is measure the DC voltage same as if you put a voltmeter across the pins on the jack. 5% drop on the bus line gets you 4.75V from 5V in, which you probably don't want to go below that. Your voltage will drop because of the resistance of the traces between the 5V source and the actual jack, and depending on how much current you're pulling it could eat up a fair bit of power.
My test setup uses a cheap unpowered hub off a laptop and a long USB extension cable. The no-load volts is 5.00 but with a 610mV/150MHz stick I see 4.35V at 610mA, so my stick is using 2.65W and my transmission losses are 0.4W or about 13% of the total power. That's pretty bad. The powered hub we use to burn in has reworked traces off a Molex, and probably doesn't drop 300mV at the port for a 2A load. Novak's taken sticks up close to 3A on it without trouble.
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It is a common myth that Bitcoin is ruled by a majority of miners. This is not true. Bitcoin miners "vote" on the ordering of transactions, but that's all they do. They can't vote to change the network rules.
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VirosaGITS
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Activity: 1302
Merit: 1068
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September 17, 2015, 05:47:00 AM |
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All Phil's meter (which Novak and I also have one each for testing sticks) does is measure the DC voltage same as if you put a voltmeter across the pins on the jack. 5% drop on the bus line gets you 4.75V from 5V in, which you probably don't want to go below that. Your voltage will drop because of the resistance of the traces between the 5V source and the actual jack, and depending on how much current you're pulling it could eat up a fair bit of power.
My test setup uses a cheap unpowered hub off a laptop and a long USB extension cable. The no-load volts is 5.00 but with a 610mV/150MHz stick I see 4.35V at 610mA, so my stick is using 2.65W and my transmission losses are 0.4W or about 13% of the total power. That's pretty bad. The powered hub we use to burn in has reworked traces off a Molex, and probably doesn't drop 300mV at the port for a 2A load. Novak's taken sticks up close to 3A on it without trouble.
Gotcha, thanks. Could you tell me the pinout for the 4 pins? I have been assuming i would use those pins;  (Shamelessly ripped off Phil's picture) As Labeled? |
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TheRealSteve
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September 17, 2015, 10:05:53 AM |
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Gotcha, thanks. Could you tell me the pinout for the 4 pins? I have been assuming i would use those pins; (Shamelessly ripped off Phil's picture) As Labeled? As labeled in Phil's picture: 1 = GND = BLACK = Ground (0V potential)
2 = D+ = GREEN = differential data pair positive
3 = D- = WHITE = differential data pair negative
4 = VCC = RED = USB bus voltage (+5V potential)If you're trying to measure off of those pins, be careful not to short pin 4 with the shield around the USB connector, as that's shortin VCC and GND. One of those little USB meters is much more convenient. |
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cavaliersrus
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September 17, 2015, 12:47:50 PM |
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hack what time are you guys going to be at the shop if your not there already moms going to head home here in a bit
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sidehack (OP)
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Curmudgeonly hardware guy
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September 17, 2015, 02:16:11 PM |
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Maybe around 10? We open late and stay open late.
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cavaliersrus
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September 17, 2015, 02:19:30 PM |
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ok she should be in area this afternoon
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Mikestang
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Activity: 1274
Merit: 1000
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September 17, 2015, 05:46:46 PM |
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What kind of power do those hubs put out on the ports? Looked at those before, but never could find the power output, so forgot about them.
I've sent them an inquiry, will share when I hear back. So they replied back to me and said "Maximum is 500ma" which I already knew is the max rating for USB 2.0, but I don't think it answers our question. A more complete answer from the CoolGear USB folk: The 2.0 model hubs are not designed to operate near their limits on all ports for extended
time periods (thermal issues), whereas the 3.0 models can handle this fine. I've run some
old block erupters on several models of our hubs for a few hours without issue, but I
admit it was an educational exercise and I didn't try to overclock them or run for
days/weeks.
The USB 2.0 models of our hubs are not designed to run at 100% for
extended periods of time, their voltage regulators will fail early due to thermal load
problems.
2.5W x 7 ports = 17.5W total draw. The switching regulators used in the hub for voltage
conversion are about 85% efficient, which means you need about 21W (17.5 / 0.85) or so on
the input side, plus another 2W for the hub itself. Call it 24W input just to be safe. 24W
/ 12V = 2A. You need 2A from your power supply at 12V. I bought this hub originally because of the chip it uses inside, it was supposed to help with running more than one U3 at the same time, which it didn't. I think I'll play around with it a bit, but it's not looking like it's going to be suitable for 4 compac sticks if I want to do any overclocking. |
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sidehack (OP)
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Activity: 3318
Merit: 1848
Curmudgeonly hardware guy
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September 17, 2015, 05:53:17 PM |
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The USB 2.0 models of our hubs are not designed to run at 100% for
extended periods of time, their voltage regulators will fail early due to thermal load
problems. Pfft. Weak sauce. |
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Mikestang
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September 17, 2015, 05:59:21 PM |
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The USB 2.0 models of our hubs are not designed to run at 100% for
extended periods of time, their voltage regulators will fail early due to thermal load
problems. Pfft. Weak sauce. Kinda my thoughts, too, especially given how beefy they appear to be and how expensive they are. Oh well, live and learn. |
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cavaliersrus
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September 17, 2015, 08:59:29 PM |
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got my 4 sticks today cant wait to play with them some
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heslo
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September 18, 2015, 09:27:14 AM |
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All you lucky buggers getting your sticks!  Can't wait until mine arrive!!! |
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vapourminer
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what is this "brake pedal" you speak of?
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September 18, 2015, 10:27:38 AM |
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All you lucky buggers getting your sticks! Can't wait until mine arrive!!! yup. they definitely are the most fun stick miner yet. |
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bmoscato
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September 18, 2015, 11:21:50 AM |
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All you lucky buggers getting your sticks! Can't wait until mine arrive!!! Mine came with yesterdays mail. |
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edonkey
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September 18, 2015, 02:35:29 PM |
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I've already got a couple of sticks. They're working great with Minera and an RPi
But now I'm thinking about building a standalone bitcoin lottery box as a christmas gift.
I think I could do this with one sick, a USB Y splitter (for overclocking if interesting), a bare RPi board, a USB powered case fan, a 4 port powered USB 2 hub, and a plastic case to house it all.
Since the Pi has a couple of USB ports, I could use one of them for a WiFi dongle instead of Ethernet. That way the box could be put anywhere in the house that has power. Of course it would still need an Ethernet jack for initial configuration.
The USB 2 hub would have to be decent enough to power the Pi, stick, fan, (and maybe a WiFi dongle) 24/7 inside an enclosure without falling over.
The challenge would be to get the entire package compact enough, be well ventilated, and look nice. A clear case would be cool because you could see the components. But that means everything has to be neat and tidy inside (not my strong suit). Maybe a black case with an LED illuminated case fan so that you can see that it's on.
I'm still mulling this over. If anyone has suggestions, let me know.
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notlist3d
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September 18, 2015, 04:09:18 PM |
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I've already got a couple of sticks. They're working great with Minera and an RPi
But now I'm thinking about building a standalone bitcoin lottery box as a christmas gift.
I think I could do this with one sick, a USB Y splitter (for overclocking if interesting), a bare RPi board, a USB powered case fan, a 4 port powered USB 2 hub, and a plastic case to house it all.
Since the Pi has a couple of USB ports, I could use one of them for a WiFi dongle instead of Ethernet. That way the box could be put anywhere in the house that has power. Of course it would still need an Ethernet jack for initial configuration.
The USB 2 hub would have to be decent enough to power the Pi, stick, fan, (and maybe a WiFi dongle) 24/7 inside an enclosure without falling over.
The challenge would be to get the entire package compact enough, be well ventilated, and look nice. A clear case would be cool because you could see the components. But that means everything has to be neat and tidy inside (not my strong suit). Maybe a black case with an LED illuminated case fan so that you can see that it's on.
I'm still mulling this over. If anyone has suggestions, let me know.
Thank you sidehack I got my production unit to play with. It is a beautiful little stick, and has worked great so far. I am running a RPI with raspbian and it is working well on it. The only thing I would warn before jumping into hub with RPI is reading compatibility. In theory all usb 2 should work. But I found this not to be the case and it was a pain to get one working. I had to do a few mod's before I finally got it working. If you get one that has been tested already and order that hub your life will be much easier. |
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Mikestang
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September 18, 2015, 04:21:17 PM |
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All you lucky buggers getting your sticks! Can't wait until mine arrive!!! Mine came with yesterdays mail. So did mine, way sooner than I expected! Can't wait to get tweaking on them. |
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edonkey
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September 18, 2015, 08:35:56 PM |
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Thank you sidehack I got my production unit to play with. It is a beautiful little stick, and has worked great so far. I am running a RPI with raspbian and it is working well on it.
The only thing I would warn before jumping into hub with RPI is reading compatibility. In theory all usb 2 should work. But I found this not to be the case and it was a pain to get one working. I had to do a few mod's before I finally got it working. If you get one that has been tested already and order that hub your life will be much easier.
I've had really good luck with the ORICO 10 port hub. I've got several and have used them with RPis with no issue. Now I just need to find decent 4 port USB 2 powered hub. Unfortunately everything on the ORICO is USB 3 now. I've heard that USB 3 is problematic with RPi's. If anyone can recommend a decent inexpensive 4 port USB 2 powered hub that has been known to work with the Pi, that would be great. |
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notlist3d
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September 18, 2015, 08:52:09 PM |
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Thank you sidehack I got my production unit to play with. It is a beautiful little stick, and has worked great so far. I am running a RPI with raspbian and it is working well on it.
The only thing I would warn before jumping into hub with RPI is reading compatibility. In theory all usb 2 should work. But I found this not to be the case and it was a pain to get one working. I had to do a few mod's before I finally got it working. If you get one that has been tested already and order that hub your life will be much easier.
I've had really good luck with the ORICO 10 port hub. I've got several and have used them with RPis with no issue. Now I just need to find decent 4 port USB 2 powered hub. Unfortunately everything on the ORICO is USB 3 now. I've heard that USB 3 is problematic with RPi's. If anyone can recommend a decent inexpensive 4 port USB 2 powered hub that has been known to work with the Pi, that would be great. 3 from all I read is worse then 2 on compatibility with RPI. I know what you mean those ORICO/Anker hubs were solid hubs I sold all mine though in the block erupter days. But if you can get one verified to work it is will be very simple with RPI and install. I had no problem on software was all hardware with hub. So that is not any fault off Gekko Science. All RPI issues. |
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sidehack (OP)
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Activity: 3318
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Curmudgeonly hardware guy
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September 18, 2015, 09:24:36 PM |
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Updated the shipping queue. I got a few small orders in over the last few days, which are all going out. The first big US-domestic reseller shipment is going out, and the second is ready but waiting for a label. After that I have 134 sticks in six large-queue orders to send out. I'm going to try to have all of them out by next Friday.
Pretty soon I'll be out of parts and have to scrounge up for another batch. We brought in enough stuff to make 500 sticks. I was hoping they'd sell faster (and orders would get filled faster) so we'd already be buying the second half parts but it'll work out.
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