BM1384 Pod Miner plus trade-in/recycling - an interest and feasibility poll

[sidehack]

Right now ASICs are in tighter supply than power parts (I have power parts for about four times more boards than I have ASICs for, especially given it's an 8:1 ratio chips to VRMs) so I'm hoping some dead S5 people will get in on it.

I think the pod line will carry the Amita name. Stickminers will be versions of Compac, and pods would be versions of Amita.

I'll start working on PCB layout tomorrow. Novak's out for a couple days so we won't have any comm/control prototyping for a bit and it'd probably be two weeks at least before I had any sort of prototype PCB in hand. Mass production distribution would be, best case, about Thanksgiving. No need to send boards just yet.

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[notlist3d]

I can donate a complete S2 with all boards, I think 1 board has missing (yellow) resistor thingy broken during shipment. 
I like the idea, why not?  Keep the creative juices flowing.
F the big companies for releasing 1 product per year and at a premium.
Long live the "Gekko Glee Club"  GGC!
Let me know how soon you want to proceed and I will send the boards.

"Now this is Pod racing!"   How about calling it "G-Pod" or instead of Pod call it "the Puck" why the puck not!

If this is called something pod..... which I hope it is.  I will be able to get some great pictures of my lifesize jar jar binks and the pod.   Just thinking of star wars pod racing when I hear pod racing .

And yes one of the odd facts about me I won a full size replica of jar jar binks at one point in my life.

[Mikestang]

I would guess the "stupid idea" votes are from folks that either don't know how much fun playing with the compac sticks is, or are looking at this from a purely "roi" frame of mind.

I have 2 S1 boards I'd gladly donate toward the cost of a pod miner.  These little usb miners are fun to mess around with, I still play with one U3 despite all of its headaches.

[sidehack]

Oh in case anyone's wondering, about half the hashrate currently mining on the Burger (http://eligius.st/~wizkid057/newstats/userstats.php/1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr) is my proof-of-concept. About 115GH is seven test Compacs Novak set up running at 300MHz and another 88GH is my 8-chip setup at 200MHz. Like I said it's not a proper build, it's all hacked up but the main circuitry is pretty much the same as what my board'll have all integrated.

[marvykkio]

I have 2 pcb s5 death, and perhaps this morning has burned the 3rd.

I keep saying that the chips are built with substandard materials

[toptek]

I have 2 pcb s5 death, and perhaps this morning has burned the 3rd.

I keep saying that the chips are built with substandard materials

looks like that, some of the stuff on the PCB don't look that good, some of it does as for the high end parts the S5 to me was a fast buck for them and roughed compared to the S3 or even S7 from what a S7 looks like.

my S3 are work hoers the S5 at times I'm afraid to reboot it or turn it off to long for fear it may stop . that's how cheap the feeling is get form S5 but so far the three i have left keep going i had five at one time .
and they all  have done ROI a friends ask me one day was it worth it doing this i said yea then it got me thinking was it really then i looked at when i bought them etc it had done a ROI for me by then , i don't mine to get a ROI  either  " .

My S3 i have no such fear of . even the ones i upgraded

[marvykkio]

s3 is a rock.
s5 is a shit miner

[RichBC]

The "Trouble" with the S5 is the chain voltage supply. It is both it's greatest strength in that it's very low cost and very efficient with no Buck Converters and on paper allows easy undervolting by just reducing the supply voltage. It is also it's greatest weakness in that you have a "Christmas Tree Light" one down all down situation when you get a fault.

Also it's difficult (or at least I find it so) to then find where the fault is. I have been doing a rob Peter to Pay Paul exercise, with not much success yet, to try and get one good board from two bad ones... Which is why this is a great project.  

Rich

[chiguireitor]

You know you want to put this pod with something like this:



 

Count me in for these guys. Prolly 20 or so of them, those will sell like hot bread down here.

[kipper01]

Sadly I have 1 S5 and its is not dead.  I would be willing to purchase a couple miners though if people sent in an excess of parts.

[pepto]

Bring some added value to s1's, s2's, and s3's and the world will come knocking on your door.
I can't be the only one thinking of putting them in the trash.

[sidehack]

Keep the S1/S3 heatsinks and fans. The goal we've been working toward for the last six months is being able to build new hashboards for those old chassis. I'm still working toward that goal.

I'll have to check S3 boards for parts I'm looking for, but since most of those probably work and you can get $70 for a complete S3 I didn't figure folks would be willing to trade.

[philipma1957]

these would also allow membership in the sidehack stick solo pool.  which I am running here


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1177508.0


this pool will always have free hash added by me to promo sidehack products. At worst 1th a day on average.



we will soon be starting the non beta run of it.

[toptek]

hey i have a request instead of sending me that pod could you maybe do some kind of give a way for it on the forums ? . i was thinking i really would rather pay for one even thu i donate .

[pepto]

I'm not an ebayer, well never a seller I mean. Without even looking at current prices, my mind works like this... You've got to box the thing, pack it well, at least better than bitmain did with the s2's,  wrap it up in tape, pay a 'ups store' a marked up price and hope the receiver doesn't have any complaints.  I just can't justify it.  Beany baby's maybe, but not miners.
If you send me a prepaid shipping box, a roll of tape, and a bunch of bubble wrap, I'll pretty much put anything you ask for into it.
Provided of course that it leads to progress and that maybe I'd get some consideration down the road.

Fine print.. this is not a giveaway to the general public.

[sidehack]

Actually, all you have to do is grab a screwdriver, pull the hashboard off the heatsink, stuff it in a padded envelope, and mail it to me as cheap and slow as you want. Looks like a pair of S5 boards in a padded envelope would ship first-class within the US for less than $5. Shipping for the miner itself would need to be paid, but for most US customers a single miner, possibly even with a cooler, would be about $10.

Seriously, I don't really care what condition the boards arrive in so long as they're not shattered. I'm pulling parts. I don't want heatsinks or fans or controllers or anything else that make shipping difficult or costly.

Something like the original-version BTCGarden BE200 blades are probably too long to fit comfortably in an envelope, but I have no problem with one being chopped in half and sent as two pieces provided the power components are intact which gives you about a two-inch window of "right in the middle" to hack away. S2 boards would actually be the opposite - all their power parts are in that middle space, so you could chop off about four inches off both ends and it'd still be acceptable. Though I could probably find a use for all those 470uF caps if boards were delivered intact.

toptek - Maybe I could do a raffle. Maybe 0.01-0.02BTC gets a "ticket" and the drawn winner gets a free pod. Two boards sent in gets you two pods, so unless you want one of them I can do two drawings. Maybe I'll do a third-place winner gets a free Compac. Something like that will have to wait until I've got at least prototypes built, so there's a while to figure out the details.

[mm5aes]

What a great idea. Would fit right into my solar powered farm. Have a couple of S1's gathering dust but shipping from the UK probably wouldn't be worth the effort. Anything on Gridseeds of use? The small boards could be shipped cheaply or even just a straight donation from the likes of aliexpress....
Keep up the good work....

[sidehack]

Naw, Gridseeds are a different breed of cat. Not much on 'em or in 'em that would benefit my design more than about a dollar's savings.

The options lined out in the poll above are for the things that I guarantee I can work with, so I'll probably stick with that list for now.

[rebeetle]

Any chance of making a 'good' PCB to put in a U3 and making it reliable?

[sidehack]

Probably not. I'd rather put effort into making a nice open standard design than put effort into rebuilding within someone else's lame mechanical constraints. The idea has previously been considered and rejected.