Avalon update [15/04/13]

[darkip]

The email is as follows:

We are ramping up and the shipping of batch two has indeed begun, albeit not up to speed, we expect this situation to improve in a week or so once the equipment finish installing and the new, additional crew get use to the process. we are in also the process of merging many earlier problematic orders, if your order still does not show up in the store by Friday of the 19th please open another ticket.

Those who wish to trade in your FPGA generation Icarus or Lancelot: it is time to package and RMA those units back to us.

The address to sent

    Mr. Chen Xuyi
    Xin Zhong Fa Dian Zi Shi Chang, 2319#
    Zhong Guan Cun Da Jie 32 Beijing Hai Dian
    China
    100086

or in chinese

    陈旭宜
    新中发电子市场，2319#
    北京海淀区中关村大街32号
    +86 13801156072

State on the Box this is a Icarus/Lancelot RMA, in the box include your contact information (name, email is a must!), once received we'll get in touch with you.
 
On to chip sales which has been updated.
 
Due to overwhelming demand, we are going to gauge interest on a smaller 2 module version of the Avalon unit that's effectively half of a Avalon original in size, and greater than 45Gh/s in performance.
 
As per usual the price of the unit is determined by the following equation.
mining_difficulty * ( 1 + number_of_month_in_lead_time) over a 30 day period on the unit's hashing power. to those interested, here is the form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1rJJniFiYn0XMPZVKVni86xBvSTylWw0fv1c1zAfuR68/viewform

p.s. here's a picture of our new case.

[kaerf]

fairly reasonable price for the chips.

nice case!

[Dalkore]

Great news.   Patience will pay off.   Interesting developments in the new product area.

[GenTarkin]

good to hear some news =) .. is that case picture all the batch 2 cases? looks cool! any internal improvements? or just diff paintjob?

[BitSyncom]

good to hear some news =) .. is that case picture all the batch 2 cases? looks cool! any internal improvements? or just diff paintjob?

every batch is going through small adjustments, some internal design is different, and late batch 2 and early batch 3 will look like that.

[darkip]

every batch is going through small adjustments, some internal design is different, and late batch 2 and early batch 3 will look like that.

Any word on whether the issue with the FPGA on the control board will be remedied in Batch #2?

[BitSyncom]

every batch is going through small adjustments, some internal design is different, and late batch 2 and early batch 3 will look like that.

Any word on whether the issue with the FPGA on the control board will be remedied in Batch #2?

what's wrong with the FPGAs on the controller board? if you mean how it has low fault tolerances on data loss due to packets either via USB or the internet then no not really, however we are changing the internal structure on the FPGA to better cope with this.

[darkip]

if you mean how it has low fault tolerances on data loss due to packets either via USB or the internet then no not really, however we are changing the internal structure on the FPGA to better cope with this.

That sounds great! Thanks for the quick reply.

[yxt]

will trade in customer given preferential treatment?

[koob]

great.

let the DHL spam begin

[darkip]

let the DHL spam begin

It's probably too much to hope for a tracking number isn't it...

[Minor Miner]

What do you do with the FPGAs that come back as trade ins?

[wknight]

Thanks for the Update. Also reposted on btcmu.info

[CoinHoarder]

Good to see Avalon is getting ready to ship Batch 2. Judging by their previous update, that means they will start shipping batch 2 in a week.

Also, with all the uncertainty in the ASIC arena (who will ship when), as a batch 3 customer, it's nice to hear this "we expect this situation to improve in a week or so once the equipment finish installing and the new, additional crew get use to the process."

Good work Avalon!

[jovicastmn]

Good news and good job from Avalon.
I waiting to see my order in the store of Avalon.

[singular]

Things moving along nice i see

one more thing..

.. if your order still does not show up in the store by Friday of the 19th please open another ticket.

I didnt even have my shipping details entered in store account (which i created at a later time and entered shipping info just now). WalletBit support told me you have all my info when i contacted them about this, because ordering on 2. Feb didnt require account.. I hope this wont create a problem

[monkee]

i hope i am in the beginning of batch 2 but at least if i am late i will get a cool black case

as for a two module unit, i am not interested but could see some people may want to add less to their pockets the security of the network for a smaller investment

[Tehfiend]

I find it very interesting that, like batch 3, they again chose to price the bulk chips in BTC. While I consider myself a true believer and part of me loves this, the hard truth is that their manufacturing costs are not in BTC so the exchange rate is a huge factor and USD is much more stable and predictable at this time. While this made sense with batch 3, which was sure to sell out quickly, I can't imagine how they are addressing this unless they also expect these bulk chips to "sell out" quickly as well. For example when I first got their e-mail update, BTC was at 85USD and it has since dropped as low as 55. That means my price for 10,000 chips has fluxuated between $66,000 and $43,000 in just 8 hours or so. Surely if the rate dropped to $20 tonight, they wouldn't be able to sell me 200,000 chips for $312k...

Very surprised they are already taking orders for bulk chips when there's still so little information out and still no sales staff to address any questions/concerns and of course zero technical support. I guess I will have to abandon my dreams of bulk chips as I don't have the courage to proceed with the current level of fog surrounding them. Good luck to those who do!

[BitSyncom]

I find it very interesting that, like batch 3, they again chose to price the bulk chips in BTC. While I consider myself a true believer and part of me loves this, the hard truth is that their manufacturing costs are not in BTC so the exchange rate is a huge factor and USD is much more stable and predictable at this time. While this made sense with batch 3, which was sure to sell out quickly, I can't imagine how they are addressing this unless they also expect these bulk chips to "sell out" quickly as well. For example when I first got their e-mail update, BTC was at 85USD and it has since dropped as low as 55. That means my price for 10,000 chips has fluxuated between $66,000 and $43,000 in just 8 hours or so. Surely if the rate dropped to $20 tonight, they wouldn't be able to sell me 200,000 chips for $312k...

Very surprised they are already taking orders for bulk chips when there's still so little information out and still no sales staff to address any questions/concerns and of course zero technical support. I guess I will have to abandon my dreams of bulk chips as I don't have the courage to proceed with the current level of fog surrounding them. Good luck to those who do!

why does it matter if it drops to $20, or $200?

Avalon will rise and fall with bitcoin, we only provide the option, the choice is yours.

[silzero]

BitSyncom,
For the chip order you mention everything from FPGA to PCB will be open source. Does this include the chips and their VHDL/Verilog code?