Community Miner Design Discussion

[HagssFIN]

Guys I'm super excited about this personally and want to help as much as I can!

I'll discuss internally if and how BitFury could contribute to this project. Our reference design PCB for 16nm is almost done and could be used as a starting point should BitFury's chip be selected.

Again nice words, but zero acting. What would be the minimum amount of $ required in order to sell chips to the forum hardware manufacturers?

Bitfury wants $1m upfront for a batch of their chips if that's what you are asking

Well that is already known information. But judging from what punin said I thought that he might lower that huge amount of money for the forum buyers/integrators. That would be really helpful instead of free empty words.

Yeah. And at the same time, it would give Bitfury some good publicity. So everybody wins.

[toptek]

And again what is WASP ?
link anybody ?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=422243.0



this project will be nothing like that one was but will be if you com pair them side by side but this is being done with care and one design so it will get done the only problem is chips once they have chips and a good supply the rest will fall in place that's how much trust and faith I have in this project and wish i had the cash to match it , this will work over what the wasp did or tried .

Side, means to get it it out there, hes has proved that .

[toptek]

Yeah. And at the same time, it would give Bitfury some good publicity. So everybody wins.

Yea but if they actually agree and see that remains, to be seen .

I'm willing to bet it's not the cash with them either at this point, it's something else,likely to do with investor or investments rules. or just market rules in General the norm aka Normal way it's done  etc.

[notlist3d]

Guys I'm super excited about this personally and want to help as much as I can!

I'll discuss internally if and how BitFury could contribute to this project. Our reference design PCB for 16nm is almost done and could be used as a starting point should BitFury's chip be selected.

Again nice words, but zero acting. What would be the minimum amount of $ required in order to sell chips to the forum hardware manufacturers?

Bitfury wants $1m upfront for a batch of their chips if that's what you are asking

Well that is already known information. But judging from what punin said I thought that he might lower that huge amount of money for the forum buyers/integrators. That would be really helpful instead of free empty words.

Yeah. And at the same time, it would give Bitfury some good publicity. So everybody wins.

I think it would be a win for sure.  I think this project needs Bitfury to be a homerun.   If it get's Bitfury and beats out others on shipping date and efficiency.... this would be one really nice miner.  Also gives us little guys chance at miners which is ultimately what we all want.

It would be great to see it.  I think Bitfury will win the big data center's over on gear unless Bitmain pulls something amazing out of their hat on a chip.  SP50.... already beat before even out.   It will be interesting to see where this ranks on their to-do list.

[Mitak]

wow, wow
How fast you think all this will happen
the first "fruits" of this kind of project can be expected to be out in the wild after 1-st of May earliest

[toptek]

wow, wow
How fast you think all this will happen
the first "fruits" of this kind of project can be expected to be out in the wild after 1-st of May earliest

'

They just need a good supply of chips to go forward then it won't be long that's been the hold up with sidehack stuff all a long, no chips. even the pod which could have out done any S5 by far but there is no motive to go thu with that now, with so much new stuff due out starting in April or end of next month.

[kilo17]

Just a quick note:

As previously mentioned, I have been in discussion with several people about sourcing chips.  I have received confirmation that the chips will be made available for this project.  Equally important, I have discussed our budget and that is not an issue with sourcing the chips.

As soon as I get a timeline and the OK to speak freely about it I will post more info.  

All info I have is shared with SideHack and I will defer all technical questions to him.  I think it is also important to note that part of the original design idea was to allow it to be modified for different chips.  This has important implications because it allows us to proceed now and make modifications if the chip source falls through.  I do have a backup source for another chip if that was to happen but believe the "Guarantee" I received is honorable.


Edited to add the following:
Not sure if the original plan of a modifiable board would hold true if Bitfury chips are used because of the lack of additional parts needed on the board as compared to say the BM1385 or A3218

[sidehack]

Adding those parts isn't trivial, but also isn't difficult. Having a form factor, power, peripheral controls and a driver framework already in place covers a lot of what you'd need.

[heslo]

This is brilliant news guys, VERY excited!!!

[redukt]

Sounds promising! I will certainly follow this thread and I wish you all the best until we hear / learn more!

[fvineyard]

I am certainly interested and have a few S3's ready for an upgrade. I will be watching this thread closely.

fvineyard

[QuintLeo]

Very exciting project...thanks

Just a side note: Personally, i don't have S1, S3 or S5-had all three types, but sold them off as they became obsolete.
Buying used S3 or S5 again just to fit the new board?
Miner might have higher demand than boards, but I might be mistaken.

I'm in the same boat for my electricity price I got rid of all older generation miners.  I felt it was best to sell and buy BTC vs mining when I did calculations I came out with more BTC this way.

So I would have to buy them for this.  And chances are as soon as you say X miner it fit's parts miners take a jump in price on that model.   It might not be possible but I would love to see a complete miner without using other miners gut's cases.  And that might be to hard of a feat when keeping prices low I do realize that.

But best of luck with project.  

To your point, I wonder how feasible it would be to come up with a heatsink/chassis/fan solution that could handle 2 boards and come in around $20ish.  Certainly could be interesting.  I mean, we have a form factor already defined, so lead time might be a non issue.  I will investigate this on my own, but as this is (I hope) a community oriented project, perhaps someone else on the forum has better contacts than I. Anyone with an S1/S3/S5 wins because they can upgrade on the cheap.  Anyone without wins because they could buy this chassis kit on the cheap.  Sidehack/the dev group wins because the market for their product expands.  Home miners win because we have a cost effective alternative to the commercial products, and potentially those products have to lower their respective price points. Not to mention, whoever could facilitate a low cost chassis kit might stand to make a bit of coin for themselves in the process.

 The heatsink/fan from the Gridseed "80" blades would be pretty cheap for folks to aquire, and were SERIOUSLY overkill for that project (if Gridseed had clue one on how to do board-level design).

 I'd love to see a project that came up with a board to fit those - especially when I sold my last S5 earlier today (have 2 to ship out Monday, then I'm out of Bitcoin mining for a bit - already sold off the rest of my S5s and the SP20).


 Looks like the next couple months are going to get even more "interesting" than I thought they would when I made the decision in very early January to sell off my existing Bitcoin mining farm, though looking like I underestimated the timeframe by a month or two....

[bctmke]

This thread gets better everytime I check it.  Great news from kilo and much like everyone else I'll be watching with much interest.

[notlist3d]

This thread gets better everytime I check it.  Great news from kilo and much like everyone else I'll be watching with much interest.

It really does seem pretty positive.  I was really surprised on Bitfury jumping on board.  I applaud them though for doing it. 

Any way that get's me closer to that chip of theirs mining in my hobby mining area I see as positive.   

[Makingsure]

This thread gets better everytime I check it.  Great news from kilo and much like everyone else I'll be watching with much interest.

It really does seem pretty positive.  I was really surprised on Bitfury jumping on board.  I applaud them though for doing it. 

Any way that get's me closer to that chip of theirs mining in my hobby mining area I see as positive.   

that's also the biggest surprise for me
after everytime i heard them say to a cryptonews outlet last year that "they support de-centralization"
i was about to really start calling those guys on their shit haha (many already were)
this is a big plus for them, and puts them back in the community in my eyes.

Side and Kilo? meh , no surprises there, we all knew they would be putting these things together, putting in the work from the second they knew they MIGHT be able to get chips ;p
good job guys, will be buying what i can, as always

[Legacy2005]

This project is awesome to hear/read about.

If they really can repurpose old gear and give it new life that would be awesome.

Not sure what the final design will be or how it will be sold but something to think about would be how to sell the units. I know in the automotive world they do "core" charges which means you are charged extra for the part until you bring your old part back in so that it can then be sent off to be reused/refurbished. Perhaps something like that could be done here. charge the customer an extra $xx.xx on top of the miner to cover buying new shells/fans incase they don't return the "core". This would allow those that have these older units laying around but may not have the skill/ability to take apart/rebuild a miner an option to purchase a plug and play miner. The other option would be to just sell the blades for each model and let the owner do the retro fit.

Cant wait to see what comes of this venture.

[philipma1957]

This project is awesome to hear/read about.

If they really can repurpose old gear and give it new life that would be awesome.

Not sure what the final design will be or how it will be sold but something to think about would be how to sell the units. I know in the automotive world they do "core" charges which means you are charged extra for the part until you bring your old part back in so that it can then be sent off to be reused/refurbished. Perhaps something like that could be done here. charge the customer an extra $xx.xx on top of the miner to cover buying new shells/fans incase they don't return the "core". This would allow those that have these older units laying around but may not have the skill/ability to take apart/rebuild a miner an option to purchase a plug and play miner. The other option would be to just sell the blades for each model and let the owner do the retro fit.

Cant wait to see what comes of this venture.

My guess is  they offer both methods. 
That way a good diy guy saves money.
It also cuts shipping cost no heavy heatsinks and or fans.
It also speeds work up since sidehack and co.  do not have to deal with assembly of every unit.

On the other hand someone with no time or skills or tools pays a little extra for a complete unit.

Best of both worlds.

[Legacy2005]

im sure they will end up with various purchase options. the whole idea came to mind when they mentioned they had 40ish units on hand already. By doing the core switch method this would allow them to continually have old miners coming in that can be refitting by them vs just sending out the boards.

Hopefully this venture will also accept cash/cc money vs just that of btc for those that either dont have a large stock pile or dont want to part with their btc.

[Mitak]

I do not see reason to not receive cash/cc/bank wire as far PCB adn other components are usually bought in USD

[Witrebel]

 The heatsink/fan from the Gridseed "80" blades would be pretty cheap for folks to aquire, and were SERIOUSLY overkill for that project (if Gridseed had clue one on how to do board-level design).

 I'd love to see a project that came up with a board to fit those - especially when I sold my last S5 earlier today (have 2 to ship out Monday, then I'm out of Bitcoin mining for a bit - already sold off the rest of my S5s and the SP20).


 Looks like the next couple months are going to get even more "interesting" than I thought they would when I made the decision in very early January to sell off my existing Bitcoin mining farm, though looking like I underestimated the timeframe by a month or two....

I think it may be prudent to get a better sense of the scale for this project before moving forward with a chassis/heatsink solution. If the majority of the boards they will produce have homes already waiting in obsolete Antminer gear, then there might not be enough of a market to actually justify sourcing the components and offering a full kit.

If that ends up being the case, I have an alternative idea, which would be identifying some commercially available heatsink that anyone could aquire, similar to your gridseed suggestion.  Then model up a chassis that is 3D printable and would provide mounting for fans.  Maybe even something modular that can scale to be 2-4-6, whatever number of blades.   My coworker just purchased a very nice printer (http://formlabs.com/products/3d-printers/form-2/) and is looking to get into the bitcoin space. So this could be something open source that you could print yourself if you have access to a printer, or he could print and sell the parts if requested.