DIY PCB with AVALON: "The Quarter Stick" - Needs Help!

[zefir]

There is no point in posting price figures since we have no clue if and when chips will be available.

As for the open source issue, I was not clear in explaining what my concern is. I'll try again.

Open source HW means everything is openly available for anyone to build the device from scratch. Arduino is a typical example, as are 3d-printers as a current hot topic. DIY with Arduino typically means you order a kit and solder it yourself to play with. The full blown open source approach is different: you take the design files (schematics), do your layout, create PCB, solder yourself or pay for assembly. The numbers I gave for EMS ramp up is what our company pays when we build new prototypes (also includes testing). It is Swiss based and therefore maybe too high, but bottom line is there are costs involved that are advantageous for the large scale producer.

With that in mind, there is one factor that makes Bitcoin mining devices unique: it imposes interdependencies between producers. Say you buy an Arduino kit, while your neighbor takes the open source design documents and ramps up mass-production to build 1000 Arduinos. You don't care, or maybe you are even happy if he can offer better retail prices. Now move over to the mining board. You buy one, while your neighbor ramps up mass-production. You won't be happy, since he reduces your mining income.

And that is exactly what will happen, driven by pure market logic - ending in mining centralization.

But this is all speculation until we have chips available, so better postpone it to the point we know it is doable.

[loshia]

There is no point in posting price figures since we have no clue if and when chips will be available.

As for the open source issue, I was not clear in explaining what my concern is. I'll try again.

Open source HW means everything is openly available for anyone to build the device from scratch. Arduino is a typical example, as are 3d-printers as a current hot topic. DIY with Arduino typically means you order a kit and solder it yourself to play with. The full blown open source approach is different: you take the design files (schematics), do your layout, create PCB, solder yourself or pay for assembly. The numbers I gave for EMS ramp up is what our company pays when we build new prototypes (also includes testing). It is Swiss based and therefore maybe too high, but bottom line is there are costs involved that are advantageous for the large scale producer.

With that in mind, there is one factor that makes Bitcoin mining devices unique: it imposes interdependencies between producers. Say you buy an Arduino kit, while your neighbor takes the open source design documents and ramps up mass-production to build 1000 Arduinos. You don't care, or maybe you are even happy if he can offer better retail prices. Now move over to the mining board. You buy one, while your neighbor ramps up mass-production. You won't be happy, since he reduces your mining income.

And that is exactly what will happen, driven by pure market logic - ending in mining centralization.

But this is all speculation until we have chips available, so better postpone it to the point we know it is doable.

zefir,
I do not see nothing wrong in both approaches.

My point is:
1. who have the guts let invest and build PCB and make business out of it with some profit is welcome
2. Who wants to have DIY to be able to buy from business complete product or DIY kit
3. Who wants to have all docs, schematics and pic source publicly available to build own boards not for reselling

And i do completely agree with you words about support and warranty.

What i am saying is that we ought to have all schematics, components, software code publicly available. And every one shall decide which root to take 1,2 or three.

I do not care if someone will produce 1000 broads or just one. But i care if i want to produce just a few boards for me to be able to access same docs and technical details like the guy who is making business out of it. And i do care for the docs update also - When i found something wrong even with my single board i will report it. I will expect same to happen with the guy making 1000 boards. We all are obliged to contribute to the open source no matter if it is a business or hobby project

best

PS: the approach was similar with NG Icarus and Lancelot - All is published in github schematics, docs components, bitstream. And no one except NG as far as i know made a mass production just because two reasons - No guts/money to invest and the price of spartan itself.

Let us take our project to the end like Icarus, lancelot git with pcb design, git, docs, software and every one to decide which route to take

[peterepeat]

I like the idea of Arduino for this: i.e. you only need to create an Avalon ASIC "Shield" that fits the form factor of the Arduino.

This way, not only do you not need to worry about reinventing any of the uC selection and board layout, power, USB connection and so on.

Additionally, you have a MASSIVE distributed market of existing Arduino enthusiasts and vendors (e.g. Adafruit et al) who would be keen on purchasing and distributing the shield.

As long as the Arduino IO is (or can be made) compatible for the Avalon Asic, and that the mining softwares can communicate some how via the Arduino, this would be a lower risk option IMO

(edited for format)

[Bicknellski]

Could we raise money, kickstarter or indiegogo, then design and fab the ASIC chip? Something using older tech?

Observing the freaking-out of miners driven by under-supply of ASIC mining rig (peaking in lucky lottery winners selling their $1.5k device for $20k), and based on the fact that ASICMINER developed their chips with NRE of less than $200k, one might conclude that developing ones own Bitcoin ASIC is the most obvious next step.

At least I concluded recently, but after discussing with some experienced insiders, it only supposedly sounds easy. The two core issues are

Time to Market
There is an absolute minimum development time of ~6 months to be considered. That is, no matter which expertise you hire and how hard you try to negotiate with fabs - starting our mining ASIC today we would have chips in our hands for Christmas. Quite some time for numerous 'what ifs' and surprises in the Bitcoin world.

Expertise and Luck
Having only two successful ASIC manufacturers out of four taking the challenge indicates that designing a mining chip is far from being trivial. There are rants over BFL all over the forum for being incompetent idiots failing to provide what they promised long ago. Being more objective, there is no doubt they had the highest skilled experts available money can buy (and they had tons of money) - and yet they failed to meet expectations. That's because luck is an immanent component with the development of such uncommon ASICs. Those engineers in this forum believing to work error free, go cast the first stone.


tl;dr: starting a new mining ASIC from scratch is already too late and overall maybe not the best idea.

Avalon initially planned to develop only the chips and let others do the productizing. Taking the opportunity to monetize the current shortage of mining rig supply to dictate prices and recover NRE fast is a legitimate approach. But as soon as a second manufacturer enters the competition, they will gradually be forced to concentrate on their core business - and that's where we should build on top of. There are only two manufacturers of CPUs for desktop PCs worldwide, that's enough for everybody to have a computer at home, as it is enough to keep up a healthy competition with continuous technologal advances.


I expect this scenario to be reached in Bitcoin world not later than by the end of this year. Avalon might still have one or two successful batches to sell, but then things will go to normal again. That is, to what we had at the beginning with CPUs/GPUs: whoever likes to support the Bitcoin network buys and attaches rig right away. No pre-order limbo and no pre-sale lotteries.

At least thats the plan

+1 that makes perfect sense. Appreciate the effort and the clarification. Here is hoping chips are available from Avalon then.


In terms of the debate on Open Source Hardware etc... I am of the same feeling as loshia

I do not care if someone will produce 1000 broads or just one. But i care if i want to produce just a few boards for me to be able to access same docs and technical details like the guy who is making business out of it. And i do care for the docs update also - When i found something wrong even with my single board i will report it. I will expect same to happen with the guy making 1000 boards. We all are obliged to contribute to the open source no matter if it is a business or hobby project

best

PS: the approach was similar with NG Icarus and Lancelot - All is published in github schematics, docs components, bitstream. And no one except NG as far as i know made a mass production just because two reasons - No guts/money to invest and the price of spartan itself.

Let us take our project to the end like Icarus, lancelot git with pcb design, git, docs, software and every one to decide which route to take

Centralization will occur if we don't have open source hardware I believe. At least this somewhat levels the playing field as does pool mining. I see this as the right track so that us small fish with the inclination can go for it. Currently the pre-order and speculation of the ASIC market is something that must be resolved as soon as possible and maybe this is the only way we will see this happen.

[jimmy3dita]

I like the idea of Arduino for this: i.e. you only need to create an Avalon ASIC "Shield" that fits the form factor of the Arduino.

This way, not only do you not need to worry about reinventing any of the uC selection and board layout, power, USB connection and so on.

Additionally, you have a MASSIVE distributed market of existing Arduino enthusiasts and vendors (e.g. Adafruit et al) who would be keen on purchasing and distributing the shield.

As long as the Arduino IO is (or can be made) compatible for the Avalon Asic, and that the mining softwares can communicate some how via the Arduino, this would be a lower risk option IMO

(edited for format)

This would be fantastic, except that Arduino probably can't handle gigs of hashes every second, it wasn't designed to handle calculations and high speed i/o.


answering to Zefir: you are absolutely right if Bitcoin become a solid currency (I imagine a future where on TV is announced the discovery of a new block), but from the geek/nerd perspective I really don't care if someone is stacking Asics to mine for money, as soon as there are more cryptocurrencies that runs on SHA256 that can be discovered in the same way

[loshia]

This would be fantastic, except that Arduino probably can't handle gigs of hashes every second, it wasn't designed to handle calculations and high speed i/o.

that is what we need I/O dude, nothing more And Usb eventually. and the price point is good for assembled dev boards. Avalon chip is good at hashing we know that already

[peterepeat]

I like the idea of Arduino for this: i.e. you only need to create an Avalon ASIC "Shield" that fits the form factor of the Arduino.

This way, not only do you not need to worry about reinventing any of the uC selection and board layout, power, USB connection and so on.

Additionally, you have a MASSIVE distributed market of existing Arduino enthusiasts and vendors (e.g. Adafruit et al) who would be keen on purchasing and distributing the shield.

As long as the Arduino IO is (or can be made) compatible for the Avalon Asic, and that the mining softwares can communicate some how via the Arduino, this would be a lower risk option IMO

(edited for format)

This would be fantastic, except that Arduino probably can't handle gigs of hashes every second, it wasn't designed to handle calculations and high speed i/o.


answering to Zefir: you are absolutely right if Bitcoin become a solid currency (I imagine a future where on TV is announced the discovery of a new block), but from the geek/nerd perspective I really don't care if someone is stacking Asics to mine for money, as soon as there are more cryptocurrencies that runs on SHA256 that can be discovered in the same way

maybe build on this FPGA shield?
http://dangerousprototypes.com/2011/06/30/papilio-fpga-shield-for-arduino/
so the mining can go
CGMiner<-USB->Arduino<-Low SPeed IO->FPGA<-Buffer Work + High Speed IO ->ASICs

This would be fantastic, except that Arduino probably can't handle gigs of hashes every second, it wasn't designed to handle calculations and high speed i/o.

that is what we need I/O dude, nothing more And Usb eventually. and the price point is good for assembled dev boards. Avalon chip is good at hashing we know that already

It would be satisfying to make one with the form factor of a USB coffee cup warmer and get it out before a certain ASIC supplier does

[burnin]

1. I want to start a business on this to make profit by selling boards
2. My whole design was aimed to be open sourced from the start and i hope that got through in my messages.

My point on this is that if i do all Development in the open, a closed source competitor will likely profit greatly from my work and might beat me to the market.
At that point i lost time and money and will never see a penny for it.
I will happily share my insights and work on the Avalon with any developer that is
really working on an Opensource product and is going to contribute and share.
For all others i will release the sources with shipping of batch one.
Does that sound fair to you guys? 

[Bicknellski]

1. I want to start a business on this to make profit by selling boards
2. My whole design was aimed to be open sourced from the start and i hope that got through in my messages.

My point on this is that if i do all Development in the open, a closed source competitor will likely profit greatly from my work and might beat me to the market.
At that point i lost time and money and will never see a penny for it.
I will happily share my insights and work on the Avalon with any developer that is
really working on an Opensource product and is going to contribute and share.
For all others i will release the sources with shipping of batch one.
Does that sound fair to you guys?  

More than generous. Thanks for even bringing this to the forum and giving us a heads up... I mean really it be simpler if you did it behind closed doors with a small group of like minded people then presented it more or less fully formed. Just putting your plan out here to everyone is a great hope for better days for a wider range of potential miners. Keep going... don't stop... we will support this I have little or no doubt.

[dan99]

1. I want to start a business on this to make profit by selling boards
2. My whole design was aimed to be open sourced from the start and i hope that got through in my messages.

My point on this is that if i do all Development in the open, a closed source competitor will likely profit greatly from my work and might beat me to the market.
At that point i lost time and money and will never see a penny for it.
I will happily share my insights and work on the Avalon with any developer that is
really working on an Opensource product and is going to contribute and share.
For all others i will release the sources with shipping of batch one.
Does that sound fair to you guys?  

More than generous. Thanks for even bringing this to the forum and giving us a heads up... I mean really it be simpler if you did it behind closed doors with a small group of like minded people then presented it more or less fully formed. Just putting your plan out here to everyone is a great hope for better days for a wider range of potential miners. Keep going... don't stop... we will support this I have little or no doubt.

Awesome when are you going to make this board or chip? Thanks

[SebastianJu]

*lol*



https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.msg1819469#msg1819469

[loshia]

1. I want to start a business on this to make profit by selling boards
2. My whole design was aimed to be open sourced from the start and i hope that got through in my messages.

My point on this is that if i do all Development in the open, a closed source competitor will likely profit greatly from my work and might beat me to the market.
At that point i lost time and money and will never see a penny for it.
I will happily share my insights and work on the Avalon with any developer that is
really working on an Opensource product and is going to contribute and share.
For all others i will release the sources with shipping of batch one.
Does that sound fair to you guys?  

What about allten and zefir? are they your team members already?

I am just curious?

Answering to your question - it sounds fair but was not about what i wanted to hear. Again batches, waiting, and ques That is the main thing that i want to avoid with DIY projects

Can you consider sharing hardware part before you ship? Or just from the start right away to setup a git repo? So we can look make a suggestions and contribute. As long as your chip source I/O part is still hidden you are protected right?

How many chips do you plan the I/O board to be able to control?

10X

[zefir]

What about alten and zefir? are they your team members already?

I am just curious?

Well, allten is the OP and got the DIY idea rolling (after he already did the awesome BitSafe project).

I jumped in since I originally planned to develop my own boards as soon as ASIC chips are available. For that, I prepared sufficient funds for large volume orders. When I saw burnin's design drafts, I realized that it more or less is where I intend to go and there is no need for an own redundant development. Therefore I decided to instead collaborate by funding the bulk orders and act as distributor for this and similar developments.

So basically there is no firm project with dedicated roles set, but a cooperation between individuals with identical goals. Besides the (almost not relevant ) chips we have the competences and funding ready, and with friedcat's announcement of tiny-USB-ASIC-miner chances increased that we will make it.

[loshia]

Well, allten is the OP and got the DIY idea rolling (after he already did the awesome BitSafe project).
........

Thanks zefir

Are you going to share hardware design upfront or it will be hidden for the public before batch 1?

[zefir]

Are you going to share hardware design upfront or it will be hidden for the public before batch 1?

I'm just putting coin into this venture, so it's the designers to plan and execute the open source aspects of it.

We all internally agreed that the open way is where we want to go, but as burnin wrote above: he is working full-time on it and needs to find a way to open it but ensure that months of hard design work is not just taken over by free-riders.  We are discussing internally options to ensure compensation. In worst case, open sourcing will have to wait until the first x*1000 boards are sold - and now guess how long this would take

[loshia]

Are you going to share hardware design upfront or it will be hidden for the public before batch 1?

I'm just putting coin into this venture, so it's the designers to plan and execute the open source aspects of it.

We all internally agreed that the open way is where we want to go, but as burnin wrote above: he is working full-time on it and needs to find a way to open it but ensure that months of hard design work is not just taken over by free-riders.  We are discussing internally options to ensure compensation. In worst case, open sourcing will have to wait until the first x*1000 boards are sold - and now guess how long this would take

Dude,
I have a week heart please be easy with jokes  

Thank you for your update!

[pheaonix]

What about alten and zefir? are they your team members already?

I am just curious?

Well, allten is the OP and got the DIY idea rolling (after he already did the awesome BitSafe project).

I jumped in since I originally planned to develop my own boards as soon as ASIC chips are available. For that, I prepared sufficient funds for large volume orders. When I saw burnin's design drafts, I realized that it more or less is where I intend to go and there is no need for an own redundant development. Therefore I decided to instead collaborate by funding the bulk orders and act as distributor for this and similar developments.

So basically there is no firm project with dedicated roles set, but a cooperation between individuals with identical goals. Besides the (almost not relevant ) chips we have the competences and funding ready, and with friedcat's announcement of tiny-USB-ASIC-miner chances increased that we will make it.

i just wanted to say thank you for taking this big step to help end the asic monopoly and get these things into peoples hands. surely you will be rewarded with profit for your actions.

you are located somewhere in the US correct? (assuming you will be ordering the chips to your location and sending them out)

[aeronautical]

Do you have too register somewhere to get on a list?

[ursa]

Maybe Avalon's parents can tell us something....

[aTg]

Are you going to share hardware design upfront or it will be hidden for the public before batch 1?

I'm just putting coin into this venture, so it's the designers to plan and execute the open source aspects of it.

We all internally agreed that the open way is where we want to go, but as burnin wrote above: he is working full-time on it and needs to find a way to open it but ensure that months of hard design work is not just taken over by free-riders.  We are discussing internally options to ensure compensation. In worst case, open sourcing will have to wait until the first x*1000 boards are sold - and now guess how long this would take

If you are not going to release the code from the outset who will buy avalon chips and will also pay your design?
That purchases avalon asic and factories with their design for the same price ...
That absurd.