DIY S1 to S3 adapter-board

[pinhead666]

I'd like to know if there's any interest for 200mm cables for C1- and S3-blades? I'll order a few sets of both kind of cables for my experiments.I can easily have more of them made,if there is any interest.It's easier for me have them ready make than crimp myself a zillion crimps.

[toptek]

I'd like to know if there's any interest for 200mm cables for C1- and S3-blades? I'll order a few sets of both kind of cables for my experiments.I can easily have more of them made,if there is any interest.It's easier for me have them ready make than crimp myself a zillion crimps.

Depending on price id be interested in a set for both C1 and S3 blades only reason i make my own is i have to can't find them ready made .

[dimke_yu]

Received adapter board from pinhead, working good so far. I have one V1.0 and V1.5 S3 hash boards. Procedure is simple just flash on S1 control pcb S3 fw and then Kano S3 cgminer. Keep up the good work!

[pinhead666]

Here is second and hopefully last version of my adapter. No more overheating regulator or trannys. This version should work with all S3 and C1 boards. Level shifting is done now with a schmitt-trigger buffer chip. It has same mounting holes than original S3-controller and mounting holes for S1-controller. Basically it's the same that came with BM's upgrade kit. This adapter has optional circuit to connect two more fans and control them with pwm from S1-controller or you can use external pwm signal. Test points provided also for TMP data signals. Those who bought original version of my adapter will get this one for free. And my thanks for testing them. Next project is already under construction. And I finally got some S5's so I'll tweak them a little.

[dimke_yu]

Whoa dude nice work! I can say that first version is still working well Keep up the good work!

[toptek]

Here is second and hopefully last version of my adapter. No more overheating regulator or trannys. This version should work with all S3 and C1 boards. Level shifting is done now with a schmitt-trigger buffer chip. It has same mounting holes than original S3-controller and mounting holes for S1-controller. Basically it's the same that came with BM's upgrade kit. This adapter has optional circuit to connect two more fans and control them with pwm from S1-controller or you can use external pwm signal. Test points provided also for TMP data signals. Those who bought original version of my adapter will get this one for free. And my thanks for testing them. Next project is already under construction. And I finally got some S5's so I'll tweak them a little.

nice can't say any of mine ever worked right but as we spoke in emails , i didn't care and went with what ever you wanted ")


big ty

[pinhead666]

Yes, the first adapter is unreliable. It works like a charm with some boards and some are not even recognized. Worst problem was that overheating regulator. My first tests were done without controller, only cp-2102 adapter and level shifting circuit. Hashboards don't suck current very much. There was no need for heat-sink. But that controller takes so much more power that I had to add heat-sink and still it runs very hot. Well, that problem is now in the past. The other problem was Tx circuit. I don't know why it works with some blades,and not with some. I'm not good at all designing pcb's, so it might be related with signal paths, I don't know the term in English, maybe "paracite capacitance" or something like that. In this new version, I kept signal-path as short as I could (read: copied from BM-controller).Here is little better picture of it.


I'll solder and test this weekend these adapters and I'll send them at Monday.

[UserVVIP]

You should connect it to irc and have it tweet when u mine a block

[dimke_yu]

Yes, the first adapter is unreliable. It works like a charm with some boards and some are not even recognized. Worst problem was that overheating regulator. My first tests were done without controller, only cp-2102 adapter and level shifting circuit. Hashboards don't suck current very much. There was no need for heat-sink. But that controller takes so much more power that I had to add heat-sink and still it runs very hot. Well, that problem is now in the past. The other problem was Tx circuit. I don't know why it works with some blades,and not with some. I'm not good at all designing pcb's, so it might be related with signal paths, I don't know the term in English, maybe "paracite capacitance" or something like that. In this new version, I kept signal-path as short as I could (read: copied from BM-controller).Here is little better picture of it.


I'll solder and test this weekend these adapters and I'll send them at Monday.

You are a great man. What will be pricing for new adapter boards?

[pinhead666]

Yes, the first adapter is unreliable. It works like a charm with some boards and some are not even recognized. Worst problem was that overheating regulator. My first tests were done without controller, only cp-2102 adapter and level shifting circuit. Hashboards don't suck current very much. There was no need for heat-sink. But that controller takes so much more power that I had to add heat-sink and still it runs very hot. Well, that problem is now in the past. The other problem was Tx circuit. I don't know why it works with some blades,and not with some. I'm not good at all designing pcb's, so it might be related with signal paths, I don't know the term in English, maybe "paracite capacitance" or something like that. In this new version, I kept signal-path as short as I could (read: copied from BM-controller).Here is little better picture of it.


I'll solder and test this weekend these adapters and I'll send them at Monday.

You are a great man. What will be pricing for new adapter boards?

Price will be the same. These cost me a little more but I can't measure everything in money. This has been fun for me. I also bought a lot of parts that I don't even use in the final version. A hundred chips which are used especially in ATM's. Man, they were hard to get: "Where do you need them, what are you going to build"? I had to sign some papers and can't tell where I got them. And I couldn't even use those parts in this project, they just don't work as I expected. Maybe I'll build my own ATM-machine later  . Well there was a time when I programmed eproms for those machines.

[pinhead666]

This version is so simple that it was a "hit or miss". Well I'm glad to tell that it works ok. Takes about an hour while everything settles and stats show what they should. This screenshot is from miner that has one board which first version had troubles with. It has two dead chips and first version gave a lot of HW errors and sometimes lost that board. Here you can see how it shows now.

[pinhead666]

My project got little out of hands. This one isn't adapter anymore, it's a full, stand-alone controller. I added two extra connectors as I hope that code in pic could be hacked to support them. My hands are little shaky right now, so the picture isn't best possible.

[dimke_yu]

Nice work man as usual. I received my adapter board but I am unable to test it out because I am out of country. Will test it when I come back. Does this mean that you will have full replacement control boards for S5 also? I know a lot of people need those...

[pinhead666]

Nice work man as usual. I received my adapter board but I am unable to test it out because I am out of country. Will test it when I come back. Does this mean that you will have full replacement control boards for S5 also? I know a lot of people need those...

No these are simply for S3 miners. I needed some kind of prototype board to test a few things. So I designed this. This works just like original (well,leds behave like S1) S3 controller, but I have added some connectors which I can use to connect little different things... This one works for me as a developement board, and if there's still need for S3 controllers, I can sell these populated to work as an ordinary controller.

[pinhead666]

Bad quality picture, but I think my leds are more "cool" than BM's. Wifi is really blue.

[gecox22]

Bad quality picture, but I think my leds are more "cool" than BM's. Wifi is really blue.

Any way to make the board be able to equip more than one s3 and upgrade the firmware to say C1 so you would run 3 antminer s3 together instead of separate?

[pinhead666]

C1-controller is beagle-bone based. So it's not possible, totally different controllers.

[RichBC]

My project got little out of hands. This one isn't adapter anymore, it's a full, stand-alone controller. I added two extra connectors as I hope that code in pic could be hacked to support them. My hands are little shaky right now, so the picture isn't best possible.

Very nice indeed. Were you able to read the code from the Pic (not protected?) or was it available online somewhere? Have you sussed if it was written in assembler or a higher level language?


Rich

[pinhead666]

I read it straight from pic. It's not protected and it can be modified. But ar9331 (open-wrt) module can re-write that code. That's why you can update fw in S1 controller to S3 controller. I have no clue what language was used to program it. Now it looks like ar9331 module don't work with (usb) full-speed devices without passive usb-hub which converts signal to high-speed (12Mbps --> 480Mbps). That explains why BM used that painful Nec's usb-hub chip in their circuit and moved to BBB.
The design also gives me hints how they propably have done their newer controllers. I think BBB and it's software can update code in Altera-chip, which is used in lower pcb. That lower pcb with Altera is just one kind of uart-adapter board. So I believe that lower board can be used with any BBB rev. from BM. But I'm only guessing here.

Edited right units.

[RichBC]

I read it straight from pic. It's not protected and it can be modified. But ar9331 (open-wrt) module can re-write that code. That's why you can update fw in S1 controller to S3 controller. I have no clue what language was used to program it. Now it looks like ar9331 module don't work with (usb) full-speed devices without passive usb-hub which converts signal to high-speed (12mHz --> 480mHz). That explains why BM used that painful Nec's usb-hub chip in their circuit and moved to BBB.
The design also gives me hints how they propably have done their newer controllers. I think BBB and it's software can update code in Altera-chip, which is used in lower pcb. That lower pcb with Altera is just one kind of uart-adapter board. So I believe that lower board can be used with any BBB rev. from BM. But I'm only guessing here.

All very interesting i have spent time over the Years with other Pic based systems and have ICD / PicKit2 etc so may take a look sometime, however already have too many unfinished projects on the go.   I am sure you are right on being able to update the Altera code. I also agree with you on that lower board being common, albeit that they have changed the number of Hash Board connectors I think that you can load S5, S5+ or S7 Code into any of them?


Rich