GekkoScience is now dabbling with 16nm ASICs for new designs

[sidehack]

It'll take a second pass to verify everything, but the pod layout might be done. With that, all parts and pinouts for the standard control set have been determined and porting it to other stuff shouldn't be too difficult. I'll be ordering parts today to start prototyping the controls, with full integration when the 1/2-chip test PCBs arrive in a few weeks.

Looks like I'll be going with a 2/3-pin fan setup instead of a full 4-wire PWM so just about any 80mm case fan will work. In order to make 2- and 3-wire fans work interchangeably (2-wire has no tach line) I'll probably use that for reporting only. The fan'll start out on some initial speed (50%?) and throttle up or down to maintain a stable safe temperature. Maybe that'll be user-set with a default (70C?) setpoint. Probably should have pretty granular speed controls and something like a PID loop to avoid fan speed bounce like a lot of people are seeing with the auto-tuning S9 firmware. The means of thermostatic control should be built into the cgminer driver for the most control and flexibility, but I'll probably rig some means of emergency control into the onboard micro to avoid cgminer-disconnect meltdowns like the S5 would do on occasion.

Thanks for the support, everyone. Efficiency and transparency are essential for any community-centered project to keep going, and I'll do my best.

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[elokk]

Paypal donations welcome as well?

[Shiroslullaby]

What would need to be done to retrofit an old antminer?
Are we talking a lot of soldering small chips or simply swapping out a board?

[sidehack]

Unscrew the old boards from the heatsinks, screw new boards onto the heatsinks. The old controller won't be necessary, the new boards run off USB. Fans will jack directly into the boards.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Now that Avalon has announced their new miner, how will the pods compare to them for power/THs and of course, pricing?

[sidehack]

No idea, and no idea. I haven't actually gotten any power curves from Bitfury. If the engineering samples from last winter are representative of production chip efficiency, it'll beat the Avalon7. By price, no guarantees.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

No idea, and no idea. I haven't actually gotten any power curves from Bitfury. If the engineering samples from last winter are representative of production chip efficiency, it'll beat the Avalon7. By price, no guarantees.

Price: Not too much of an issue for me.
Given that the pods go on existing s1-style miners that we supply or you do as core exchanges, that should give you a leg up pricing of the boards vs the fully assembled Avalon 7.

edit: strike erroneous statement

[sidehack]

I believe you are confused. The pod and the S1 refit are, and pretty much always have been, separate designs.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

I believe you are confused. The pod and the S1 refit are, and pretty much always have been, separate designs.

ah. post corrected.

[QuintLeo]

Avalon 721 actually (dunno why they changed their naming convention) - and it looks like it's not quite as efficient as the S9 or R4 anyway, though it's lower heat density and lower cost of entry by quite a bit and somewhat close on efficiency.

 I'm a bit shocked they got the chips designed as fast as they did - but they may have given up some potential efficiency to get it out the door soon enough to matter. Optimally there will be a "722" model with a more optimised chip middle of next year or so.

[Eagleone]

I don't care if your a little more money for a little less speed, just please compete

I missed my opportunity at history with the 3 BW sticks

First batch of pod miners will have to do ...

[Shiroslullaby]

Unscrew the old boards from the heatsinks, screw new boards onto the heatsinks. The old controller won't be necessary, the new boards run off USB. Fans will jack directly into the boards.

Thats really cool.
I will definitely be interested in picking something up if they are available.
I had a ton of fun messing around with my Gecko mining sticks. Would be fun to do some more serious mining.

[Jake-R]

Sounds promising! 

[sidehack]

I've pretty well finished an 11-chip pod layout, and have most of a 2-chip Compac layout done. The controls setup is pretty much finished, anyway. Today I sent off for prototype PCBs of a modified 2-chip using the Compac as a base, but expanded for additional testing. I'll finish the Compac PCB based off any changes I have to make after testing this board.

The Compac will run 2 chips, and I expect around 20-25GH at stock 2.5W setting but a practical peak above 100GH, possibly closer to 200GH for extreme extreme overclocking (extensive modified cooling, etc).

The 11-chip pod would stock about 700GH from around 75W DC, with room for both over- and under-clocking. I expect a bottom-end around 450GH for 35W but I guess we'll find out.

Plans for the TypeZero (S1 refit) right now are basically three of the pod circuit on a single board, so 33 chips and 2TH 200W stock per board, with room up and down. The nifty thing about doing it that way is, each string would have independent voltage adjustment, fuse and master disable, plus a temperature sensor local to each string. This allows for a lot of control and flexibility, plus some fault tolerance.

Just because I can, I'm gonna plug the project donation address 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr. Prototyping ain't free, and I really want this project to succeed. The only things needed for that are funding to keep it going, and Bitfury to get us chips, and I can't really do either of those things alone.

[Jake-R]

I've pretty well finished an 11-chip pod layout, and have most of a 2-chip Compac layout done. The controls setup is pretty much finished, anyway. Today I sent off for prototype PCBs of a modified 2-chip using the Compac as a base, but expanded for additional testing. I'll finish the Compac PCB based off any changes I have to make after testing this board.

The Compac will run 2 chips, and I expect around 20-25GH at stock 2.5W setting but a practical peak above 100GH, possibly closer to 200GH for extreme extreme overclocking (extensive modified cooling, etc).

The 11-chip pod would stock about 700GH from around 75W DC, with room for both over- and under-clocking. I expect a bottom-end around 450GH for 35W but I guess we'll find out.

Plans for the TypeZero (S1 refit) right now are basically three of the pod circuit on a single board, so 33 chips and 2TH 200W stock per board, with room up and down. The nifty thing about doing it that way is, each string would have independent voltage adjustment, fuse and master disable, plus a temperature sensor local to each string. This allows for a lot of control and flexibility, plus some fault tolerance.

Just because I can, I'm gonna plug the project donation address 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr. Prototyping ain't free, and I really want this project to succeed. The only things needed for that are funding to keep it going, and Bitfury to get us chips, and I can't really do either of those things alone.

Just sent a donation. These sound like they are going to be really nice. I will want the 11-chip. Are you planning on having the voltage adjustment be software controlled or will it be mechanical like the first gen? I'm hoping for software

[segaklon1]

Interesting your project and contribution, you know when it will be the first bach, which number of units and what will be the price of both miners?

Thank you

[sidehack]

Price will depend a lot on what Bitfury charges for chips; release date will depend on supply of chips and also how quickly we can dev. I'd be willing to start working on manufacture as soon as we prove basic functionality, because there'd be a month or so of lead time on big stuff (PCBs, etc) to finesse the code.

Everything is software-controlled voltage.

[Biodom]

put two-three pods into middle school kid room, make him interested in computer technology (they will be like a pet), heat the room a little (75w-like a lamp of old days) and pods would provide an allowance of $10/week. Nice!
Donated

[Jake-R]

Keep thinking about these 11-chip pods. 12 volt PCI-e PSU? Will they have fans for stock set-up, or do we provide our own?

[philipma1957]

Waiting for some good news.