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

[sidehack]

So, Novak and I are working on a proof-of-concept device which we think has potential. It'd be a U3-style "Pod" miner sporting 8x BM1384, which puts it at 8 times the hashrate of a Compac or approximately one eighth of an S5. The pod would have fully adjustable (in software) voltage and frequency, meaning it could be cranked up to full power or undervolted to a quiet 0.28W/GH (approximately). Power comes in through either a 12V brick or a 6-pin PCIe (both jacks would be standard). USB connection to a controller, just like any other pod. Instead of a custom heatsink there'd be screw holes to mount a standard CPU cooler, which I could probably source cheaply if you didn't already have one laying around. Cooler fan speed would be automatic and thermostatic.

Here's the thing. I talked to some of my cronies a few weeks ago about an idea like this and, at the estimated cost of materials and such, I was told it wouldn't sell. Not efficient enough, $/GH wasn't there, stuff like that.

So, what if we recycle?

We're cooking up a design that actually reuses some common components from previous-generation hashing boards. We've got boxes of this crap laying around, and the parts are still good, so why not? They're basically free, just take a bit of work to pull and clean up. And in order to get more parts in, we could trade miners for last year's boards that contain the parts.

The most important components, the hashing chips themselves, really can only come from S5 or S5+ boards. I know a lot of people probably have failed S5 boards, so in order to get some of that hashrate back would you be willing to trade a dead S5 board for an 8-chip pod?

Some additional components can be found in common power circuits like on BTCGarden AMV1/AMV2 blades, ASICMiner Tubes and to a lesser extent on the boards common to Rockminer BE200 gear, as well as AntMiner S1 and S2 boards. As the power parts don't represent near as much expense as the hashing chips would, a quota of these parts would cover half the cost of a miner, so you'd get one miner for your old boards and $25.

I'd only need the boards. Heatsinks and whatever else can be recycled or reused locally. Honestly, shipping speed doesn't matter to me either (though your miner might not go out until I have your trade boards in hand) so that can be pretty cheap.

And if you don't have boards to trade, or we have so many boards already that I have to suspend trading and sell for cash only, the price is still going to be substantially lower than it would have been otherwise.

The miners would, obviously, be built from used parts. But as with everything else we've ever built and sold, they'd be tested before shipping and go with a full warranty. If it breaks and not because you played football with it or tried to push it to 400MHz with one of those baby i3 coolers, it's probably covered by warranty.

Once I've pulled the parts I need, all the excess board will be taken in for proper recycling/reclamation rather than hauled to a landfill.

So, show of hands. How many people would get in on a program like this? I'll be honest, I just thought of it a couple days ago and we just talked it over today and I just 20 minutes ago got some semblance of a prototype approximately working with hacked-up chunks of other miners, so it's very much a plan in progress. It won't go very far without community support, so, community, how much do you support this?

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[torepia]

I like the idea tbh. Sadly I don't have any S5's, only S1's!
Could you make them with 120 mm fans? Thinking about noise level.

[generalt]

If I had dead S5 boards I would consider this.

[sidehack]

Two S1 boards would get you to half price. 400MHz on the pod would get you the same hashrate as an S1 for a quarter the power. Just throwing that out there. And then if we can ever get the resources together for TypeZero boards with new chips, you'd already have a bare S1 chassis to strap 'em to.

I won't be making them with any fans. It's a board to mount a CPU cooler on, so whatever cooler you have or find or what I can find.

[Xian01]

Love your work, but voted for stupid idea

[notlist3d]

The only problem for me is I don't have any dead parts.  I have always in past sold them off.  I don't believe in sitting my miner gear on a shelf as it loses value.  If people did sit them on a shelf it would be a amazing deal for them.

Myself though without the gear I will have to pay.   And I don't mind the idea of a CPU heatsink as long as it is one that is not to bad on cost, I'm sure it would take a little searching to find which one this is.

The hardest part I see is mass production competing against U3's.  U3's are no near as efficient but they are cheap.  So in a way you would direct compete with them which is bad because they have massive volume.  And I suspect bigger after antrouter as a lot will want one or two to plug in antrouter.

[sobe-it]

well i have about 30 to 40 s1 boards, 2 s2 blades, 1 dead s5 board and 1 s5 board worth of pulled chips.

[dunand]

It's sad because Novak and you have super cool idea for the home miners but from my understanding Bitmain do not want to sell you the last generation chip. Or if they want the price will be prohibitive.

[quakefiend420]

I have a couple defective SP20 boards, anything you can scavenge from those?

[sidehack]

Seems unlikely there'd be much of use from an SP20.

Competing against the U3, yeah that's a bit of a problem. Of course, the AntRouter kinda sucks (at least until someone hacks the firmware) and so does the U3 (with its poor efficiency and known stability issues) so I figure someone might want a better option anyway, especially if it can be had for cheap or free depending on what's in the bin.

We've got enough parts running around to build a small batch just for ourselves if nothing else, but I figure if anyone else might want to get in on it I certainly am not opposed.

I need to talk to the proper owners before making any arrangements, but I have several cases of new-in-box Freezer 7 Pro (or whatever) coolers gathering dust on my shelf for over a year because some hosting customers got screwed by Technobit and never received their 50-odd HEX4M boards. Might could get a deal on those which would help people out and they'd certainly do well cooling these chips even at top-end.

[toptek]

ID pay either way + plus donate parts .

so 50 bucks sound fair to me   .


I have a S1 board I'll send i didn't think you want, I want  nothing in return expect keep it up for US . .

[sidehack]

Once I have a better estimate of parts (which will of course require more of a finished design than I currently have) the price may go down. Or it may include a cooler, in which case if you don't want a cooler the price may go down.

Also, toptek, your dead S5 board donation partially inspired this idea so you'd be getting one anyway.

[notlist3d]

Once I have a better estimate of parts (which will of course require more of a finished design than I currently have) the price may go down. Or it may include a cooler, in which case if you don't want a cooler the price may go down.

Also, toptek, your dead S5 board donation partially inspired this idea so you'd be getting one anyway.

With the nice cooler what will be hashrate when you say "which puts it at 8 times the hashrate".  Is it times the lower or higher range?

I didn't think of this till after but if it's the high side of chip at 50 it could be a better deal then U3.  Say 16 x 8 chips would be 128 and that could fight U3's at the 50 dollar range.

*Edit 1/8th of a S5 would be around 137 is that the speed were talking about for around 50 dollars?

[sidehack]

It's times the entire range. Why would I build something you couldn't adjust the voltage and frequency on? That's no fun. Since it's 8 chips, it's 8 times the hashrate of a Compac at any frequency (and probably slightly better efficiency). 100MHz gets you 44GH, and you could take the voltage down to where the whole thing probably burns under 15W of DC power; 400MHz gets you 176GH at around 90W. If you had a good cooler you could probably push it to 450MHz and see just shy of 200GH but the efficiency would be probably pushing 0.55-0.6W/GH at that point.

Adjustability was noted in the first paragraph of the first post, in the sentence right after "which puts it at 8 times the hashrate".

[Jake36]

I don't have any boards, but I would probably buy 2 for sure.

[philipma1957]

Sadly I do not have any parts except for heatsinks .

But if it can do 80 gh at .3 watts it would work for stick holders like myself.

I have at least eight ports left to use on my stud hubs.

I could fit this in with the stick setup.

So I am in.

I can go for one btc .

This would be four to six  most likely five pieces.
Of course if only one  is available vs more I would take one .

[Rabinovitch]

Love your work, but voted for stupid idea

Me too... 

[notlist3d]

It's times the entire range. Why would I build something you couldn't adjust the voltage and frequency on? That's no fun. Since it's 8 chips, it's 8 times the hashrate of a Compac at any frequency (and probably slightly better efficiency). 100MHz gets you 44GH, and you could take the voltage down to where the whole thing probably burns under 15W of DC power; 400MHz gets you 176GH at around 90W. If you had a good cooler you could probably push it to 450MHz and see just shy of 200GH but the efficiency would be probably pushing 0.55-0.6W/GH at that point.

Adjustability was noted in the first paragraph of the first post, in the sentence right after "which puts it at 8 times the hashrate".

Thanks one that has the entire range would be a lot of fun to play with then.   That makes  U3's a crushing competition as you offer more GH and more efficient then and is around 50 dollar range.   

I like both jacks on it that is a good design to give options to power it.   If it is not to expensive on cpu coolers I think you could sell a good amount of them.  And I know you hate the antrouter.  But if there is a hack or you can make these run off antrouter I predict even better sells.  As I think a lot of people will end up with a antrouter with no device and want something to plug into it.

[kilo17]

I have a couple of working S1's sitting in the garage collecting dust-- would love to get in on the deal...

[Meech]

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!