[Announcement] Avalon ASIC Batch #1 Ships

[kano]

...
Might have been better like this:

It was interesting to see in the #btcfpga IRC channel, Luke-Jr saying he had images of the inside of the Avalon - though who knows how reliable that info is.

Less fun
No info available and someone - that might be involved - says something - worth seeing if it's true

[ab8989]

It was you that specifically mentioned you have problems with exactly resistors and capacitors. Shifting goalposts. However now the new components you seem to be saying you are building your own power supplies or DC-AC-DC switching voltage regulator units from scratch. How else would you need mosfets and rare inductors?

I would consider designing and building your own power supply units or switching regulators to be highly silly. Why not buy on-the-shelf solutions for that? I would hope jgarzik when he gets his unit sends a photo of your silly self-built powersupply unit.  I seriously hope it does not consume AC wall-power as in that case you would seriously be lacking some official approvals. Still voltage regulators are not exactly rocket science like also pretty much half other digital boards using something for this and I am back to my original statement that you have chosen the wrong design to A) spend your valuable time on solving a non-essential problem, and B) solving it wrongly using rare type of components.

There have been thousands of engineers solving this problem for decades fine tuning to find the most power-efficient solution which your own home-cooked solution does not come even close.

[organofcorti]

...
Might have been better like this:

It was interesting to see in the #btcfpga IRC channel, Luke-Jr saying he had images of the inside of the Avalon - though who knows how reliable that info is.

Less fun
No info available and someone - that might be involved - says something - worth seeing if it's true

Ah kano, you big kidder

Still, given your history with L-jr, I'd be careful using any and all information from him, even if you hear it indirectly. I have it on good authority he will stop at nothing until he has destroyed you - though who knows how reliable that info is.

[nathanrees19]

Maybe I wasn't being clear, Mosfets and Inductor is what I'm most worried about

Not being clear? Is that the new name for lying by omission? Do you guys really think you're better than BFL?

[franky1]

bitsyncom. i fully understand there are parts parts sourcing issues with avalon. and those genuine people that want ASICS (either from yourselves or BFL) to succeed. one thing that has been BFL's biggest failure is the way it communicates with customers.

i know both BFL and yourself have passion about your products. but the professional silence followed by insults has been BFL's failings and from what i am reading today, will become avalons too.

the way i read it is that so far you have not been getting parts from a factory, which would easily have millions of stock,  due to a big shipping/ordering time delay. so instead you found a local source, probably something like radioshack or a small wholesaler. which this week you have managed to empty them of stock. so now you have to either wait for the local wholesaler to restock. or order from their a foreign supplier, causing a bit of a delay.

which is fully understandable.

one thing i would say is be passionate about your product but don't take public criticism personally and attack people individually. allow the product to uphold your companies reputation. don't ruin it with insults, especially directed at individuals.

samsung CEO would never respond to each and every customer with use of insults due to their comments. i have however seen some CEO's make generalised statements that poke at critics in a elegant and subtle way.
its time bitcoin companies step up their game. PR can be the biggest advert a company has, try not to get personal with individuals.

i know its hard sometimes to bite your lip and thinking that replying to comments about the place you work, on personal time wont affect you or your business. but in the end it does. INABA is the proof of that.

at least pre-draft replies and read them twice asking yourself:
is this business or personal
is it factual
does it clear any concerns the recipient may have
will this statement hurt the companies reputation
you should call it the "am i doing a BFL_josh dumb reply" checklist

then redraft another copy that at least gives a positive answer to each of those questions. try not to make it sound like your bringing a gun to a knife fight. but more like bringing a beef steak for others to use the knives on. (do something they wont expect).

lastly. slander is vocal libel is written

[nathanrees19]

It was you that specifically mentioned you have problems with exactly resistors and capacitors. Shifting goalposts. However now the new components you seem to be saying you are building your own power supplies or DC-AC-DC switching voltage regulator units from scratch. How else would you need mosfets and rare inductors?

I would consider designing and building your own power supply units or switching regulators to be highly silly.

Mosfets seem odd to me as well... Apparently they wanted to go with ATX power supplies, so I would expect 12V to run to each board, and a high-amp low voltage regulator (which should have one inductor and some caps) with very thick PCB tracks to carry this to their metric shit ton of low spec chips (each with more caps). If this 3 board design is real, that means 3 inductors per unit. If they really want to put mosfets in to control the power, put them on the 12V side and you can again use just 3 per unit (or have regulators with enable and it's 0 per unit).

900 mosfets and 900 inductors should not be difficult to acquire. The regulators would be a bit harder, but he didn't mention regulators. (But that's a common theme - who knows what to believe until someone actually gets a unit).

[beekeeper]

Lol..
300W at around 1V per chip means 300 Amps. They would need more than one power supply for chips per unit, probably 30 minimum ( 60 MOSFETs and 30 inductors) if each is able to source 10 Amps.

[nathanrees19]

if each is able to source 10 Amps.

You can get regulators (even single-chip) that go much higher than that. I suppose they wanted to try and cut costs by rolling their own, once they realised that powering their 300W monstrosity would not be cheap. Then they decided to not buy the parts months in advance.

[RHA]

Typical high-performance graphic card which gets over 300 W from 12 V uses quite less than 60 MOSFET and 30 inductors, doesn't it?

[ElectricMucus]

if each is able to source 10 Amps.

You can get regulators (even single-chip) that go much higher than that. I suppose they wanted to try and cut costs by rolling their own, once they realised that powering their 300W monstrosity would not be cheap.

What the fuck are you talking about.

I can order 30 of these for USD 44 at mouser and right now there are 3000 of the immediately available, enough for 100 units.

[beekeeper]

if each is able to source 10 Amps.

You can get regulators (even single-chip) that go much higher than that. I suppose they wanted to try and cut costs by rolling their own, once they realised that powering their 300W monstrosity would not be cheap. Then they decided to not buy the parts months in advance.

Yeah, I meant that..

[Luke-Jr]

It was interesting to see in the #btcfpga IRC channel, Luke-Jr saying he had images of the inside of the Avalon.

So any customers hoping to see them - I guess that a complete - "fuck you" from Avalon.
They don't give a shit ... ... ... or they still haven't got the software working and wanted Luke-Jr's help.
I wonder which it is?

Slander, did not send Luke any photos, nor we asked him for help.

FWIW, as BitSyncom said, they didn't send me any photos nor ask for any help. Not sure why kano feels the need to make these speculations.

[kano]

It was interesting to see in the #btcfpga IRC channel, Luke-Jr saying he had images of the inside of the Avalon.

So any customers hoping to see them - I guess that a complete - "fuck you" from Avalon.
They don't give a shit ... ... ... or they still haven't got the software working and wanted Luke-Jr's help.
I wonder which it is?

Slander, did not send Luke any photos, nor we asked him for help.

FWIW, as BitSyncom said, they didn't send me any photos nor ask for any help. Not sure why kano feels the need to make these speculations.

Well you clearly did say you have images of the inside of an Avalon and said those chip/board counts I quoted before.
Not sure what your trying to cover up with that comment above

[finway]

So what? You'll keep 240 units and mining yourself?  I see network hashrate bumping tonight.

[arklan]

So what? You'll keep 240 units and mining yourself?  I see network hashrate bumping tonight.

of all the things said in this thread, i must congratulate you sir. your's is by far the most insanely nonsensical.

where did you ever get anything about 240 units or self mining?

[SolarSilver]

So what? You'll keep 240 units and mining yourself?  I see network hashrate bumping tonight.

of all the things said in this thread, i must congratulate you sir. your's is by far the most insanely nonsensical.

where did you ever get anything about 240 units or self mining?

Convoluted logic:

If they have produced 5 days of 12 units each day, and they have problems sending them out due to customs problems, they might still be producing units but stopped shipping.

And if they are just sitting there, why not use them as space heaters?

[jgarzik]

(reposting from another thread)

No shipping/tracking information has been sent to me, privately or publicly, as of this writing.

No private communications since Jan 20.

Forum readers know as much as I know, at this point.

For the record, at this time, I do not think Avalon or BFL are scams.

[Pardo]

First unit goes to Jeff Garzik in honor for the work he has done for the bitcoin codebase being the only developer who ordered from us.

we also arranged to ship a unit to the Bitcoin Foundation, whom is going to do a demo.

The avalon team on the other hand is going to make sure the whole shipping process go smoothly. like handling DHL/EMS problem, and other custom issues.

cheers.

for the record, I do not know shipping method, nor have a tracking number

It's been 5 days. Jeff were you given any shipping information?

No tracking/shipping info yet.

I should probably say Jeff's unit, I paid about ~$400 USD to "get it out of the country", so it is definitely on it's way and I'm sure it'll arrive before this week ends assuming there's no problems with US customs.

No shipping/tracking information has been sent to me, privately or publicly, as of this writing.

No private communications since Jan 20.

Forum readers know as much as I know, at this point.

Complete opposite, We did some time tables and realized our greatest time waster was us smashing trolls

Not even an email to Jeff??!! Nice time tables

http://pad2.whstatic.com/images/thumb/8/8b/35th-U.S.-Army-Culinary-Arts-Competition---March-2010-4408518417_c541d67b63_o.jpg/629px-35th-U.S.-Army-Culinary-Arts-Competition---March-2010-4408518417_c541d67b63_o.jpg

Wiki: How to Treat Your Customer While Serving Them

[fcmatt]

(reposting from another thread)

No shipping/tracking information has been sent to me, privately or publicly, as of this writing.

No private communications since Jan 20.

Forum readers know as much as I know, at this point.

For the record, at this time, I do not think Avalon or BFL are scams.

Thank you for the update.

I still do not understand why they are leaving you in the dark though. No tracking number, no idea who will be delivering it,
any possible customs problem updates, etc...

Almost like they are not even sure when it might show up if at all.

[MonsterZero]

(reposting from another thread)

No shipping/tracking information has been sent to me, privately or publicly, as of this writing.

No private communications since Jan 20.

Forum readers know as much as I know, at this point.

For the record, at this time, I do not think Avalon or BFL are scams.

Thank you for the update.

I still do not understand why they are leaving you in the dark though. No tracking number, no idea who will be delivering it,
any possible customs problem updates, etc...

Almost like they are not even sure when it might show up if at all.

I think ti's safe to assume when paying $400 to ship something Jeff would need to sign for it...