March 30th BFL ASIC update

[willphase]

full transcript here if you don't want to have to manually trawl the shout logs:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1b8hvt/bfl_josh_updates_on_asic_status_full_transcript/

Will

[peterepeat]

Well, at least BFL offer a Lifetime warranty

[marra]

haha, I knew it, the singles will be at 130w... and the life span of those units, my guess, at that density of PCB design, hmmm, a week, or a month top...

perhaps even less... and why no video of a working product... I think when they get the machine on it starts to melt...

Batch #1 & #2 customers - you are looking forward to something like this:

Exactly...

Just check the design of Avalons, 2.5W per chip and a lot of space between, and still it could over heat if you don't manage it correctly... BFL wants 15W chip without any space in between...

[greyhawk]

Well, at least BFL offer a Lifetime warranty

Lifetime of the product.

[dave3]

Well, at least BFL offer a Lifetime warranty

Does the lifetime warranty also cover the cost to replace a house after they burn it down?

[marra]

Well, at least BFL offer a Lifetime warranty

Does the lifetime warranty also cover the cost to replace a house after they burn it down?

no, you'll just a get a disclaimer to never turn it on indoors...

[Zeeks]

Well, at least BFL offer a Lifetime warranty

Lifetime of the product.

This is an extremely important and usually overlooked detail. If they stop selling the version you have then it breaks down you get nothing, the product lifetime is over. If they start making a new version immediately after shipping then the warranty will last until they finish shipping the first batch then it's over, which could be a very short time.

[Wayne_Chang]

I think if they really have something can work, no matter how much power drain it is or how hot it is, they can provide a short mining video. But except words, we see nothing.

[loshia]

I think if they really have something can work, no matter how much power drain it is or how hot it is, they can provide a short mining video. But except words, we see nothing.

Or they just are not able to disguise avalon and post video of it mining 

[m3whiteknight]

do not have time to read the whole thread but is it true that BFL hold off the remain waffer run now while they try to fix problem.

[Tehfiend]

For those that missed, an update was posted last night @ https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/692-bfl-asic-status-2.html

28 March 2013 - Mini-Update

I had wanted to post a video tonight, but wasn't able to make that happen, so let me apologize for that in advance. As some of you may know from the chatbox, we have been working diligently to get these ASICs out the door. We've been tracking down a power issue these last few days and have it isolated to a few key systems. In the interest of time, we are planning on potentially scaling back units hashing speed as required to accommodate the extra power and shipping multiple units to those that want their units right now. If would would prefer to wait for a unit after we've made some changes to the systems that need a bit of tweaking, we will be happy to put your shipment on hold. However, if you'd rather have the units right now at an increased power usage, we will ship you as many units as required to get you to the hashrate your purchased, if we end up having to scale back any given class of unit to fit within the power envelope of the current board design.

We have the current design hashing, and as I said, I had hoped to have a video of a unit hashing here in KC, but I wasn't able to bring that all together tonight, but hopefully I can get it posted up tomorrow or by this weekend. I will update as soon as I have more news to share, with a video.

If you absolutely do not want a unit that is consuming more power than expected, you can let us know you'd like to wait for a revised unit or you are welcome to request a refund. If you'd rather have your units shipped regardless of increased power usage, we will still guarantee your hashrate by shipping you however many units are required to achieve your purchased hashrate. There is no need to contact us right now if you are not concerned about the power usage and just want your units shipped ASAP. Even with the increased power demand on these first units, they will still out perform any competing products by a very wide margin in terms of power and megahash/J.

Again, we apologize for the delay, but we are almost there.

[Slix]

Well, at least BFL offer a Lifetime warranty

Lifetime of the product.

This is an extremely important and usually overlooked detail. If they stop selling the version you have then it breaks down you get nothing, the product lifetime is over. If they start making a new version immediately after shipping then the warranty will last until they finish shipping the first batch then it's over, which could be a very short time.

Well I know this is BFL we're talking about, but I don't think they would announce end of life that soon. Typically a company would do a major redesign like whole new PCB layout and/or whole new chip design, change the product name then announce end of life of the old product ahead of time. Even though they are really slow at getting their product out there, they *sound* like they want to accommodate their customers.

In the end I think that once BFL finally gets off the ground, I'm sure that their warranty will be much better than 1 year only from a business out of China no less, with possibly more long shipping turn arounds due to customs and such.

[thefiniteidea]

Finally! Now the various units can be sent out for UL and FCC approval. I'm pretty sure that's only a 24 hour process, 48 hours at the most, being that a holiday weekend is at hand. Meanwhile, a wave of emails, like a swarm of locust, is going to be sent out for customers to send in their FPGAs, otherwise no ASICs. All should go smoothly from this point forward since enough time has past to make sure all the information on file is up to date and the 1/3:1/3:1/3 shipping arrangement has been all ironed out.

Happy Days!

 

[greyhawk]

Typically a company would do a major redesign like whole new PCB layout and/or whole new chip design, change the product name then announce end of life of the old product ahead of time.

Yes, that is indeed what a real company would do.

See where the problem is?

[Slix]

Avalon can only produce about 600 units a month with their awesome assembly/production equipment.

BFL bought their assembly/production equipment off of Ebay (TRUTH), lol. 400 units a day... that's comedy!

Have you actualy inspected the size and complexity of Avalon vs SC?

Well I don't know all the facts, but from the pictures of BFL posted before, it looks like they *might* have a warehouse full of "boxes of fans" probably already equipped with PCBs just waiting for chips to be dropped in them. If that was the case and they had a full-time production of chips going, they might be able to assemble that much per day.

Also, if Avalon has such great production equipment, judging from the pictures of their rigs, I can't see why they can't make more in a month. Just looks like GPU sized PCBs with heatsinks in a computer case with a computer PSU. Nothing that fancy or hard to assemble but I guess thats just my opinion...

[Slix]

Typically a company would do a major redesign like whole new PCB layout and/or whole new chip design, change the product name then announce end of life of the old product ahead of time.

Yes, that is indeed what a real company would do.

See where the problem is?

Hahah, yeah I see what you mean... that's why I opened with "I know this is BFL we're talking about, but...". I have my own reservations but I want to try and keep an open mind

[Cluster2k]

So, BFL is getting closer to ship an ASIC product.  Maybe two weeks away if everything goes well.

- How does the increased power consumption affect the Jalapeno product?  USB does not deliver bountiful amounts of power as it is

- If someone orders today how likely are they to get their product within the next 4 months?  It's going to take a while to manufacture enough chips to fill the last 10 months of orders.  BFL's page states a 2 month or longer wait, so we can safely double that as they've already missed their late March 2013 shipping date.

In four months time I imagine difficulty will be at least 100 times higher than it is today and starting to mine with an ASIC then will be like mining with a 6970 now (not very pforitable).

[S M I L Y]

Im fine with them shipping whatever Ghz I ordered.

However they should give more Ghz due to them failing on their power targets.

I hope they will give us rework instructions if the power issue is with their board or the VRs.

Their board is nothing but VR and ASIC!  The current leakage can only be in one of 2 places!!!!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Im fine with them shipping whatever Ghz I ordered.

However they should give more Ghz due to them failing on their power targets.

I hope they will give us rework instructions if the power issue is with their board or the VRs.

Their board is nothing but VR and ASIC!  The current leakage can only be in one of 2 places!!!!

Once the finished boards gets back from UL, they'll know exactly where the leak is. There is no way in hell that any of their units are going to leave their factory without UL approval, especially now that they're on record for stating there's a concern. Same true for FCC approval, of which Josh stated back in September he was waiting for the results from them then, expected within a couple weeks.

[jedunnigan]

Situation with Jalapeno makes me wonder as well. Another thing that makes me wonder is how come new orders would need to wait 2 months
if BFL makes 400 units per day, it makes no sense. They haven't got that many orders to start with and a lot of people cancelled their orders,
especially in last few months, since problems with delivery date and other issues started.

Main concern for me right now is will those who ordered recently or even today will get the new, improved SC, or will be getting "old", flawed ones?

To be fair, given their track record they may have erred on the side of caution with date estimates. Say two months, deliver in 1-2, looks good for them. Just a guess.

If you ordered today just read Josh's policy:

If would would prefer to wait for a unit after we've made some changes to the systems that need a bit of tweaking, we will be happy to put your shipment on hold. However, if you'd rather have the units right now at an increased power usage, we will ship you as many units as required to get you to the hashrate your purchased, if we end up having to scale back any given class of unit to fit within the power envelope of the current board design.

If you DONT want the power hungry ones, contact BFL and let them know; they will hold your order until the new ones are ready. They don't have an specific estimate as to when a fix would be rolled out to production units, so if they fix quickly, yes you probably would get a newer one if you ordered today, but if it is difficult to solve, well, then, your SOL. We need more info tbch.