Community Miner Design Discussion

[sidehack]

For industrial-scale mining, you want a different project and you want someone other than me to design it because I really don't care one bit about industrial-scale miners. And this project will not use CAN, this project will use USB because specifically-non-industrial miners will probably get along better with it. Also because the point of the framework is to be generic, and I don't really see the use-case for stickminers or pods or a single S1 using CAN instead of USB and those are the use cases I do care about.

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[2112]

1 Firewire cable from the PC feeds first drive, that drive and all other drives is also a repeater (hub) with extra 2 ports. Each port from that drive feeds 2 more drives which also have 2 extra ports, those feed 2x more drives, rinse and repeat. Think of a tree, first FW cable from the PC is the trunk which branches out at each drive and the branches have branches. Any other name for that branching config?

I will not negate your on-the-bench experience with your turnkey solution. Please post how many devices you control and what connectors and cable lengths you are using.

I have broader experience with systems deployed in many office environments. Macintoshes were actually comparatively all right. Some on the motherboard IEEE 1394 controllers (Dell) were so bad that they couldn't reliably handle single 3-meter cable to a single device across the desk and would only work with a 3-feet cable. We had to specify that customers buy a PCI expansion card with particular controller brand (TI? can't recall anymore) to accommodate fairly large office desks from regular office furniture vendors.

The Macintosh deployment I mentioned in my earlier post did partial downgrade to parallel SCSI enclosures and partial upgrade to FibreChannel enclosures. They used Firewire setups only in training where the downtime/slowness wasn't a real obstacle and some trainees actually enjoyed it.

[2112]

For industrial-scale mining, you want a different project and you want someone other than me to design it because I really don't care one bit about industrial-scale miners. And this project will not use CAN, this project will use USB because specifically-non-industrial miners will probably get along better with it. Also because the point of the framework is to be generic, and I don't really see the use-case for stickminers or pods or a single S1 using CAN instead of USB and those are the use cases I do care about.

I have a feeling that you are getting upset. I can't understand why? This is just a discussion. I fully support your decision to go with point-to-point USB.

I'm engaging people to explain why other solutions are not competitive for a hobby miner. And some aren't even competitive for an industrial miner. Like daisy-chaining will be a loss no matter how one would implement it.

Maybe because I use "you" more in the sense "y'all" or "youse", a plural "you", not "you" sidehack in particular?

[philipma1957]

For industrial-scale mining, you want a different project and you want someone other than me to design it because I really don't care one bit about industrial-scale miners. And this project will not use CAN, this project will use USB because specifically-non-industrial miners will probably get along better with it. Also because the point of the framework is to be generic, and I don't really see the use-case for stickminers or pods or a single S1 using CAN instead of USB and those are the use cases I do care about.

I have a feeling that you are getting upset. I can't understand why? This is just a discussion. I fully support your decision to go with point-to-point USB.

I'm engaging people to explain why other solutions are not competitive for a hobby miner. And some aren't even competitive for an industrial miner. Like daisy-chaining will be a loss no matter how one would implement it.

Maybe because I use "you" more in the sense "y'all" or "youse", a plural "you", not "you" sidehack in particular?

remember internet posting always has a bit of:      


fuck you, you are a moron  


 as it is   built into the typing aspect and the delay of talking.


I am looking at the posts and reading from a different viewpoint then you or sidehack or anyone else posting here.



I find when one wants to really post precisely perfectly what they mean  the posts get too   long   like sloopy's posts tend to do.

 (@ sloopy not an insult I admire you for efforting to write correctly)  

Then they get skipped over or skimmed.   Like this post will be     and some may just see :   fuck you, you are a moron


So many posts seem short and nastly even when they are not meant to be that.


  Note this is a sincere post attempting to  calm the waters on the thread.  No tricky techniques here.

[2112]

remember internet posting always has a bit of:      


fuck you, you are a moron  


 as it is   built into the typing aspect and the delay of talking.


I am looking at the posts and reading from a different viewpoint then you or sidehack or anyone else posting here.



I find when one wants to really post precisely perfectly what they mean  the posts get too   long   like sloopy's posts tend to do.

 (@ sloopy not an insult I admire you for efforting to write correctly)  

Then they get skipped over or skimmed.   Like this post will be     and some may just see :   fuck you, you are a moron


So many posts seem short and nastly even when they are not meant to be that.


  Note this is a sincere post attempting to  calm the waters on the thread.  No tricky techniques here.

I understand, but this is an international board directed to a global audience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_nice is not the prevailing dialect of English here.

I guess its time to refresh the "hamburger theory of management".

When an American manager has to discipline a subordinate he will make that scolding will be both prefaced and post scripted by some faint praise.

Very much like hamburger patty is typically delivered between two halves of a bun.

The German manager in the same situation will deliver just the meat patty.

The Japanese manager will only give two bun halves and the Japanese employee is supposed to infer the patty in the middle.

[sidehack]

I guess I'm just getting tired of shooting down suggestions that don't make sense in the context of this project, and reminding people why they don't make sense in the context of this project. Maybe I should just leave for a while and come back when y'all are done.

[philipma1957]

I understand, but this is an international board directed to a global audience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_nice is not the prevailing dialect of English here.

I guess its time to refresh the "hamburger theory of management".

When an American manager has to discipline a subordinate he will make that scolding will be both prefaced and post scripted by some faint praise.

Very much like hamburger patty is typically delivered between two halves of a bun.

The German manager in the same situation will deliver just the meat patty.

The Japanese manager will only give two bun halves and the Japanese employee is supposed to infer the patty in the middle.

I like that example as  there are a lot of different styles here.

best regards,

 phil

[Mitak]

Just some OT
I want a hamburger too

[sidehack]

Also I was probably a bit grouchy because today is sandwich day but I didn't get the sandwich until about ten minutes ago.

[2112]

Anyway, getting back to the original subject which was the Community Miner based on Bitfury chips.

Their industrial scale design posted in a nearby thread has the following pin names on the central controller chip: ICK+ ICK- OCK+ OCK- ITx+ ITx- OTx+ OTx- IRx+ IRx- ORx+ ORx-.

I don't recognize any published standard, beyond the fact that they use differential signaling. punin mentioned UART, but I see explicit clock signal, which means USART or USRT, meaning synchronous and not asynchronous communication.

Is anyone willing to venture a guess about their comm protocol?

[Witrebel]

Yeah that's great, since the micro has an I2C bus. Except it's already in use talking to sensors as specified in my post on the first page. So if you want to make sure to address around those sensors (which are going to be implementation-dependent of course) I guess it's possible. And then add that into the firmware. And then add it into the driver on whatever you're compiling cgminer on.

So, to be not sarcastic, yes it's possible. Also, I'm not gonna do it. Please read my post on the first page with a description of everything I am going to do. If you want to extend that further on your own you're welcome to it, but I'm not going to. One of the things mandated was no design-by-committee because exactly this kind of thing happens. Feature creep kills time-sensitive projects just as much as anything. So, no offense guys, but I'm probably going to ignore all suggestions for at least the next month or so since Novak and I already spent most of a year talking over and ironing things out to where they are now and I figure that's good enough.

I get your sentiment of "read my OP" and "chill with the scope creep", and certainly I understand the lack of sandwich induced grouchyness.

I've personally used a couple different micros that have more than one I2C bus, not to mention bit banging, software implemented peripherals, etc.  There are many ways to skin a cat, and they aren't always as complex as they seem. That said, do your thing, I'll quiet down in the peanut gallery and observe. 

[NotFuzzyWarm]

1 Firewire cable from the PC feeds first drive, that drive and all other drives is also a repeater (hub) with extra 2 ports. Each port from that drive feeds 2 more drives which also have 2 extra ports, those feed 2x more drives, rinse and repeat. Think of a tree, first FW cable from the PC is the trunk which branches out at each drive and the branches have branches. Any other name for that branching config?

I will not negate your on-the-bench experience with your turnkey solution. Please post how many devices you control and what connectors and cable lengths you are using.

I have broader experience with systems deployed in many office environments. Macintoshes were actually comparatively all right. Some on the motherboard IEEE 1394 controllers (Dell) were so bad that they couldn't reliably handle single 3-meter cable to a single device across the desk and would only work with a 3-feet cable. We had to specify that customers buy a PCI expansion card with particular controller brand (TI? can't recall anymore) to accommodate fairly large office desks from regular office furniture vendors.

The Macintosh deployment I mentioned in my earlier post did partial downgrade to parallel SCSI enclosures and partial upgrade to FibreChannel enclosures. They used Firewire setups only in training where the downtime/slowness wasn't a real obstacle and some trainees actually enjoyed it.

last OT on this.. Our most complex systems have 14 devices talking through the 1 FW cable between the PC and 1st drive. Our vendor says up to 32 can be connected this way (branching out). For main axes the data update rates to/from each drive is 8kHz, and the high-speed galvo drives run with 48kHz update rate. Given that setup the total rate between the host to 1st drive should be update rate(s) x number of drives = a heap o'data.... The smart drives have 32-bit cpu's in them so not sure of packet size but for performance reasons I'd think they are as big as possible (maybe a FW data spec limitation there?)
...
Connectors are "the big ones' vs the mini connectors, cable length from PC to 1st drive is 2meters long, branches from there are very short. This is the only pic I have here at home http://imgur.com/8nKGIUA And yes, I am not thrilled with the connectors but being buried inside a cabinet at least they are not subject to abuse or constant mating cycles.

As for the chipset used.. ya that can be a bugger, not sure chip# but we use cards from SIIG with a TI chip on it. The controls system vendor (Aerotech) Has a very short list of compatible chipsets due to the fanout limitations you mentioned along with other gotcha's. The one time I tried using a mobo FW port (on ASUS Extreme mobo) it worked fine here. Got to Taiwan to install the system and no-go. Timing errors all over the place and had to plug in a spare SIIG FW card they luckily had.

[kilo17]

I for one enjoy reading the discussion about the project.  It definitely helps less qualified (in my case bordering on ignorant about much of it) people understand the technical aspects.

Having said that, Sidehack is 100% correct about the project.  He has spent an enormous amount of time on it.  I know that I have been involved with him for 4 months and work had been done prior to my involvement.

The project is to keep things inexpensive, reliable and SIMPLE.  Some of that crosses over because in my experience "simple" is often the most reliable.  I think Sidehack has tolerate my ignorance because we share a goal - to make a miner for the home miner - and the outcome of our conversations has been explained by Sidehack and I support it 100%

[kilo17]

Also I was probably a bit grouchy because today is sandwich day but I didn't get the sandwich until about ten minutes ago.

I sent $10 in BTC to the Burger Fund so you won't have that problem tomorrow - lol

https://blockchain.info/tx/7f211e5e7c4f7977824e2007dd2a3ede88885594b4f8275ee62268795ea14bb7

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Also I was probably a bit grouchy because today is sandwich day but I didn't get the sandwich until about ten minutes ago.

I sent $10 in BTC to the Burger Fund so you won't have that problem tomorrow - lol

https://blockchain.info/tx/7f211e5e7c4f7977824e2007dd2a3ede88885594b4f8275ee62268795ea14bb7

Looks like this is his BF address no? 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr

[philipma1957]

Also I was probably a bit grouchy because today is sandwich day but I didn't get the sandwich until about ten minutes ago.

I sent $10 in BTC to the Burger Fund so you won't have that problem tomorrow - lol

https://blockchain.info/tx/7f211e5e7c4f7977824e2007dd2a3ede88885594b4f8275ee62268795ea14bb7

Looks like this is his BF address no? 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr

I hope so as I send funds there.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Also I was probably a bit grouchy because today is sandwich day but I didn't get the sandwich until about ten minutes ago.

I sent $10 in BTC to the Burger Fund so you won't have that problem tomorrow - lol

https://blockchain.info/tx/7f211e5e7c4f7977824e2007dd2a3ede88885594b4f8275ee62268795ea14bb7

Looks like this is his BF address no? 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr

I hope so as I send funds there.

Personally I was hoping for a 'yes' from someone before I send... or have ya before and it's right ?

[2112]

Speaking of connectors: I was trying to find the list of bands & performers endorsing Neutrik and I couldn't find it. Maybe they discontinued the endorsement program because nowadays if any well-known national or worldwide act is performing on stage they have their equipment plugged in through the Neutrik connectors.

Take a look at the Neutrik's version of Ethernet, USB and power plugs:

http://www.neutrik.us/en-us/ethercon/
http://www.neutrik.us/en-us/multimedia/
http://www.neutrik.us/en-us/powercon/

and compare them to the stuff available at Amazon or your local electronics retailer.

I'm not going to try to post the prices, because some readers could get a heart attack and some others could choke laughing. But think of Neutrik next time you'll be warming your glue gun to fix loose connectors.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Speaking of connectors: I was trying to find the list of bands & performers endorsing Neutrik and I couldn't find it. Maybe they discontinued the endorsement program because nowadays if any well-known national or worldwide act is performing on stage they have their equipment plugged in through the Neutrik connectors.

Take a look at the Neutrik's version of Ethernet, USB and power plugs:

http://www.neutrik.us/en-us/ethercon/
http://www.neutrik.us/en-us/multimedia/
http://www.neutrik.us/en-us/powercon/

and compare them to the stuff available at Amazon or your local electronics retailer.

I'm not going to try to post the prices, because some readers could get a heart attack and some others could choke laughing. But think of Neutrik next time you'll be warming your glue gun to fix loose connectors.

For USB hubs (yes using the dreaded type-a for fanout) we finally changed over to Triplite's line of industrial hubs. God alone knows how many off-the-shelf ones - Brand name ones mind you - we and our customers have gone through at the operator stations... Search for them through Amazon. Not cheap but so far bullet-proof. Even accept up to 24v power in.

[kilo17]

Also I was probably a bit grouchy because today is sandwich day but I didn't get the sandwich until about ten minutes ago.

I sent $10 in BTC to the Burger Fund so you won't have that problem tomorrow - lol

https://blockchain.info/tx/7f211e5e7c4f7977824e2007dd2a3ede88885594b4f8275ee62268795ea14bb7

Looks like this is his BF address no? 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr

Yes, it is posted in the Compac sales thread in the Group Buys