[CLOSED] Avalon ASIC chip distribution

[SebastianJu]

I paid like 40 CHF for shipping and handling per package, so after you receive the samples please send 0.4 BTC to 184g4gAJqtM1BTDmDwRPB4AokXbqtZ2wnG if you have the coins at hand, otherwise take it as a donation. If possible, send from the address you paid your chips from, otherwise drop me a PM to assign your payment correctly.

Hefty... 32.5€ per shipping. Thats what i paid in total for all shipments. One DHL Package to burnin because of the worth of 20 chips and the other single chips sent with certified mail. Unfortunately german post cant track them anymore once they are outside of germany. But they claim that they yesterday left germany.

[zefir]

You are a star Zefir!
buy the way are there any samples sent to Bkkcoins? 17 Chips are scheduled as far as i can see

Thank you very much!

Yes, distributed as stated above.

Hefty... 32.5€ per shipping. Thats what i paid in total for all shipments. One DHL Package to burnin because of the worth of 20 chips and the other single chips sent with certified mail. Unfortunately german post cant track them anymore once they are outside of germany. But they claim that they yesterday left germany.

Yeah, shipping from Switzerland is outrageous expensive. I first checked DHL express: 1 package, 0.1kg 15x10x2cm³, value 30 CHF, shipping to Taiwan 153.90 CHF. They can't be serious, or?

I first thought to drive to Konstanz / Germany and send from there for like 60€ in total for all 6 packages, but as usual Post offices are only open when normal folks are working and closed when you need them


Shipping is something I will need to check in more detail for distribution of the chips.

[SebastianJu]

You are a star Zefir!
buy the way are there any samples sent to Bkkcoins? 17 Chips are scheduled as far as i can see

Thank you very much!

Yes, distributed as stated above.

Hefty... 32.5€ per shipping. Thats what i paid in total for all shipments. One DHL Package to burnin because of the worth of 20 chips and the other single chips sent with certified mail. Unfortunately german post cant track them anymore once they are outside of germany. But they claim that they yesterday left germany.

Yeah, shipping from Switzerland is outrageous expensive. I first checked DHL express: 1 package, 0.1kg 15x10x2cm³, value 30 CHF, shipping to Taiwan 153.90 CHF. They can't be serious, or?

I first thought to drive to Konstanz / Germany and send from there for like 60€ in total for all 6 packages, but as usual Post offices are only open when normal folks are working and closed when you need them


Shipping is something I will need to check in more detail for distribution of the chips.

Swiss has cheap train travels in exchange... but most other things are way overpriced. Internet, Post...

First i thought i will have to ship to 260 or so different people. Now it looks more like its 2 hand full of target addresses only because 98% of the chips will go to burnin directly. I thought it will be spread way more. Maybe you should start receiving target addresses too. Its something that can be done beforehand and there are a good chunk of assemblers to chose from at the moment. (see my sig for a list). Of course no proofed miner concept yet. But better being prepared beforehand than having to wait later i guess.

[BkkCoins]

Unfortunately shipping kinda sucks everywhere. You can either have cheap and slow without tracking or fast and expensive with tracking, regardless of how small the item is. I think EMS is pretty much bottom end price wise for fast with tracking. I'd suggest allowing users to choose between that and regular air mail for those with only 10 chips. When you get over 10 chips, which most people probably will be, then you can ship a lot for the minimum EMS fee as long as the packaging isn't overdone.

Here in Thailand the minimum EMS fee is still $25 - so even here, which is very cheap for air mail, the fast with tracking option is still costly.

[SebastianJu]

Unfortunately shipping kinda sucks everywhere. You can either have cheap and slow without tracking or fast and expensive with tracking, regardless of how small the item is. I think EMS is pretty much bottom end price wise for fast with tracking. I'd suggest allowing users to choose between that and regular air mail for those with only 10 chips. When you get over 10 chips, which most people probably will be, then you can ship a lot for the minimum EMS fee as long as the packaging isn't overdone.

Here in Thailand the minimum EMS fee is still $25 - so even here, which is very cheap for air mail, the fast with tracking option is still costly.

One should consider that the chips are really tiny and could be shipped safely in an bubble envelope.

I sent 1 chip each with certified mail to germany for 2.18€. It has tracking and is ensured till 20€. The same international costs 2.80€ only. When i want higher insurance it costs 1.5€ per 100€ more insurance. Up to 5000€ possible. Pretty cheap i think and it includes insurance and tracking. Plus, the chips are really tiny... i could ship a lot chips in an envelope safely and its ensured. A packet wouldnt even be needed.

But if i have to use a packet to thailand for example the price for 35 cm x 25 cm x 15 cm weight: 0,25 kg would be 61€ with DHL. To USA 51€. Not cheap anymore and insured only till 500€ but with tracking.

[zefir]

First i thought i will have to ship to 260 or so different people. Now it looks more like its 2 hand full of target addresses only because 98% of the chips will go to burnin directly. I thought it will be spread way more. Maybe you should start receiving target addresses too. Its something that can be done beforehand and there are a good chunk of assemblers to chose from at the moment. (see my sig for a list). Of course no proofed miner concept yet. But better being prepared beforehand than having to wait later i guess.

Well, I hired someone to develop a web-site for address signed chip-claims and shipping address collection, which will be online by end of June. Now if it turns out that 95% of my orders are going to 3 major manufacturers, it will be a big project for a small purpose. But after the sleepless nights manually fixing wrong orders and explaining for the 10th time why not use MtGox addresses for sending coins, I decided it is a good investment.

One should consider that the chips are really tiny and could be shipped safely in an bubble envelope.

I sent 1 chip each with certified mail to germany for 2.18€. It has tracking and is ensured till 20€. The same international costs 2.80€ only. When i want higher insurance it costs 1.5€ per 100€ more insurance. Up to 5000€ possible. Pretty cheap i think and it includes insurance and tracking. Plus, the chips are really tiny... i could ship a lot chips in an envelope safely and its ensured. A packet wouldnt even be needed.

But if i have to use a packet to thailand for example the price for 35 cm x 25 cm x 15 cm weight: 0,25 kg would be 61€ with DHL. To USA 51€. Not cheap anymore and insured only till 500€ but with tracking.

Two issues here: a) I hope the final chips will arrive in some containment that is easily dividable - and not as loose parts in a box, which is a PITA to re-pack. b) should my batches arrive at the same time, I am considering driving to Germany and shipping chips from there as a viable alternative (given that majority of chips go to burnin worth the effort to significantly reduce shipping costs).


I'm glad that after the past weeks of uncertainty and doubt we can now deal this luxury problems of reducing expensive re-shipping costs
 

[SebastianJu]

First i thought i will have to ship to 260 or so different people. Now it looks more like its 2 hand full of target addresses only because 98% of the chips will go to burnin directly. I thought it will be spread way more. Maybe you should start receiving target addresses too. Its something that can be done beforehand and there are a good chunk of assemblers to chose from at the moment. (see my sig for a list). Of course no proofed miner concept yet. But better being prepared beforehand than having to wait later i guess.

Well, I hired someone to develop a web-site for address signed chip-claims and shipping address collection, which will be online by end of June. Now if it turns out that 95% of my orders are going to 3 major manufacturers, it will be a big project for a small purpose. But after the sleepless nights manually fixing wrong orders and explaining for the 10th time why not use MtGox addresses for sending coins, I decided it is a good investment.

One should consider that the chips are really tiny and could be shipped safely in an bubble envelope.

I sent 1 chip each with certified mail to germany for 2.18€. It has tracking and is ensured till 20€. The same international costs 2.80€ only. When i want higher insurance it costs 1.5€ per 100€ more insurance. Up to 5000€ possible. Pretty cheap i think and it includes insurance and tracking. Plus, the chips are really tiny... i could ship a lot chips in an envelope safely and its ensured. A packet wouldnt even be needed.

But if i have to use a packet to thailand for example the price for 35 cm x 25 cm x 15 cm weight: 0,25 kg would be 61€ with DHL. To USA 51€. Not cheap anymore and insured only till 500€ but with tracking.

Two issues here: a) I hope the final chips will arrive in some containment that is easily dividable - and not as loose parts in a box, which is a PITA to re-pack. b) should my batches arrive at the same time, I am considering driving to Germany and shipping chips from there as a viable alternative (given that majority of chips go to burnin worth the effort to significantly reduce shipping costs).


I'm glad that after the past weeks of uncertainty and doubt we can now deal this luxury problems of reducing expensive re-shipping costs
 

Yes, how to sign is the biggest problem in my groupbuy too. Its a bit less since i tried to explain it as carefully as possible in the first post but its still the biggest problem it seems.

Since i got contact with the support very fast i opened a second ticket to ask some questions about the shipment, including how the chips are delivered, the size of the trays/reels or tubes and how many chips are contained. I didnt get an answer yet but i hope support will answer soon. Would be one of the middle important questions.

Yes... i feel a lot better now that i got an answer from support at least so that the smaller problems can be addressed... ill be really happy when all is done well till the end result.

[BkkCoins]

Keep in mind that chips going to real production facilities need to be packed appropriately. Hopefully there is some indications on the final trays you receive. It varies from part to part but often they need to be kept sealed and/or containing silica gel to prevent moisture absorption. This won't matter for prototyping but for production reflow moisture content can cause problems. I know some of my chips arrived from Mouser with statements they should not be open-air for more than 160 hours before reflow.

[SebastianJu]

Keep in mind that chips going to real production facilities need to be packed appropriately. Hopefully there is some indications on the final trays you receive. It varies from part to part but often they need to be kept sealed and/or containing silica gel to prevent moisture absorption. This won't matter for prototyping but for production reflow moisture content can cause problems. I know some of my chips arrived from Mouser with statements they should not be open-air for more than 160 hours before reflow.

Avalon shipped the samples to me on a broken tray, the chips werent really hold back from the tray... they could jump around when they wanted. I expected it another way. And avalon did put something like cellophan around the tray to stop the chips from jumping around. Im not sure what it was. It felt like cellophan but was some kind of tape, 5cm broad.
And bkkcoins only had the chips contained in some foam.

I hope they send it a bit better packaged. But i already have silica gel, and very small esd-bags with , then bigger normal zip bags i think nearly no air flows out and in. Of course i cant make them without air. But i can put silica gel inside to keep moisture out. Then i have bought an ESD-Workspace for packaging. And all together comes into bubble bags. I guess there cant be done much more. The only thing maybe is that i maybe have to buy bigger esd-bags too. But before that it would be good to know the actual size of the chip-packages. Trays, tubes or reels.

When i see how avalon handles the chips i tend to believe they are somewhat robust.

[flyonwall]

Practically all chips now are ESD protected. I think it can be safely assumed that the Avalon chips are ESD protected. The only problem is moisture.

[SebastianJu]

Practically all chips now are ESD protected. I think it can be safely assumed that the Avalon chips are ESD protected. The only problem is moisture.

That would be good if true. The bigger ESE-Bags are somewhat expensive... i wonder if one would get an answer form avalon about this.

[PuertoLibre]

BFL has lowered the cost of their ASIC by almost half.

Perhaps it is time for Avalon to slash prices?

[SebastianJu]

BFL has lowered the cost of their ASIC by almost half.

Thats a smart move. Probably no one bought. Half the price is an advantage even when you would have to wait 1 third longer than for avalon chips.

[weaknesswaran]

BFL has lowered the cost of their ASIC by almost half.

Thats a smart move. Probably no one bought. Half the price is an advantage even when you would have to wait 1 third longer than for avalon chips.

If you can get a working pcb and cooling solution.
I guess thats more complicated than with the avalon chips.

[SebastianJu]

BFL has lowered the cost of their ASIC by almost half.

Thats a smart move. Probably no one bought. Half the price is an advantage even when you would have to wait 1 third longer than for avalon chips.

If you can get a working pcb and cooling solution.
I guess thats more complicated than with the avalon chips.

Im not so sure that its very much more complicated. The only thing probably will be the more heat that needs to be dissipated. But getting the hashpower for the half price is a good thing. At least we know the chips are working too.
But all the development has to start first. All devs are already in creating avalon miners yet.

[giorgiomassa]

Keep in mind that chips going to real production facilities need to be packed appropriately. Hopefully there is some indications on the final trays you receive. It varies from part to part but often they need to be kept sealed and/or containing silica gel to prevent moisture absorption. This won't matter for prototyping but for production reflow moisture content can cause problems. I know some of my chips arrived from Mouser with statements they should not be open-air for more than 160 hours before reflow.

Just as a hint it would be a good idea to bake them before the assembly as the ICs are probably moisture sensitive and Avalon's samples package was one of the worst ever seen in the IC industry without any silica gel or airtight packing at all, at least that's how we've received them. Failure in doing so may develop failures during soldering due the package crackings.

[marto74]

6 sample chips are here



0.4 BTC sent
https://blockchain.info/tx/7569c369c59cbe5bd2b1839d3b98cf2ed3c8bc5656748420ee12aecab19bfc45

[gateway]

Today (2013.06.19) 1 Avalon chip was delivered to me from zefir.
It is sample chip from batch #1.
Thank you, zefir!

Shipping payment:
OROBANK, 1JLzgdt3JhnSxQEgWv8Zd828M2eawGRuZA, 0.40

This is how my Avalon chip looks like:

I was in first batch also, are these being distributed now?

[turtle83]

Today (2013.06.19) 1 Avalon chip was delivered to me from zefir.
It is sample chip from batch #1.
Thank you, zefir!

Shipping payment:
OROBANK, 1JLzgdt3JhnSxQEgWv8Zd828M2eawGRuZA, 0.40

This is how my Avalon chip looks like:
http://orobank.org/img/avalon.png

I was in first batch also, are these being distributed now?

No these are sample chips for developers.

[lumix1991]

lumix1991;-100;-8.60;12drGmcWLMCyiSetQUaMMddwY6QGDBoGVp

HHAhuMeUwY9goSYOiDDBkB5nocsj2aBEGny0Gg+ZHD4kDNaIbviRdmxeusavCll/OSSpjtuel48gkFuTFgxFWc0=

Thanks!