Who likes pod miners?

[xxooss]

quiet is good but stability is more important to me...just my 2 coppers. Also great job progressing along...can hardly wait to get one to do my fraggle rock test on. lol

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Once I have samples of the new PCB in hand and they're tested to work, I may do a "limited first run" sale of them, maybe a dozen or so, to put toward a full batch.

<raises hand> Sign me up for one

[Eagleone]

Id love one

[sidehack]

I think there'll be room for it but no guarantees yet, but I'm gonna look into putting a small buck on there instead of a linear regulator for 5V needs (USB, LEDs etc). That would increase the cost slightly but would also increase efficiency slightly - and the real significance is that would increase the 5V current capacity without something catching on fire, so I could put a header on there that one could use to power a Pi without requiring a second adapter. Be handy for a more standalone setup, especially if your Pi had wireless, which I think Biodom among others has been pushing for.

[philipma1957]

I think there'll be room for it but no guarantees yet, but I'm gonna look into putting a small buck on there instead of a linear regulator for 5V needs (USB, LEDs etc). That would increase the cost slightly but would also increase efficiency slightly - and the real significance is that would increase the 5V current capacity without something catching on fire, so I could put a header on there that one could use to power a Pi without requiring a second adapter. Be handy for a more standalone setup, especially if your Pi had wireless, which I think Biodom among others has been pushing for.

looking forward to using this gear.

[qctechno]

In line for 1 or 2. I like the idea to be able to power a Pi, clean setup

[sidehack]

Couple more tweaks to the buck and I just hit 325MHz. It's running off a Pi right now, gonna take it home and see how it fares - see if the fan's annoying, if temps stay reasonable, whatever.

[Biodom]

the idea to put a header on Terminus for pi sounds awesome...what kind of header it could be?
pi has micro-usb and GPIO
pi zero W has just micro-usb, but has GPIO pinout

for regular pi (powering):
https://www.modmypi.com/blog/how-do-i-power-my-raspberry-pi
for pi zero W (GPIO options):
https://learn.adafruit.com/introducing-the-raspberry-pi-zero/gpio-header-options

aka lots of options for tinkering  

Personally, i like the idea of using pi zero W because you can just toss the whole thing in room's corner and not bother with much of ethernet cabling.

[sidehack]

Probably just a standard 4-pin header with 5V and ground, should be easy to make that work.

[philipma1957]

the idea to put a header on Terminus for pi sounds awesome...what kind of header it could be?
pi has micro-usb and GPIO
pi zero W has just micro-usb, but has GPIO pinout

for regular pi (powering):
https://www.modmypi.com/blog/how-do-i-power-my-raspberry-pi
for pi zero W (GPIO options):
https://learn.adafruit.com/introducing-the-raspberry-pi-zero/gpio-header-options

aka lots of options for tinkering  

Personally, i like the idea of using pi zero W because you can just toss the whole thing in room's corner and not bother with much of ethernet cabling.

I am running my 2pac and my compac on a sff hp m700 it has an i7 in it and I am cpu mining XMR with it.  that turns a very small daily profit.  so it ends up being a little better then a rasp pi.

I make a few pennies a day   running the pc mining the cpu.  and I lose a few mining the sticks.

but the sticks are pointed at mmpool.org which gives the tx fees to the person thatchiest a block.  So basically I have a free chance on every block to win its tx fees.

adding a few pods would get me up to maybe 300gh  and still kind of be in the free shot at tx fees on every block made.

If I go solo i don''t earn on the hash.  but mmpool.org lets me earn some btc and the cpu lets me earn some xmr

[Morguk]

Hi Sidehack, I'd love to be in this first test batch. Please save me one!

Regarding noise, it's definitely important but I like the previous recommendations you gave for the compac. If it's under X frequency probably no fan, if over X then probably need a fan. I'll be using a fan so noise is not important to me.

[james50a]

Id probably be interested in one as well. would be personally interested to see how far the chips could be pushed ignoring normal thermal constraints

[thehypnominer]

I'm most certainly interested in one (or three!) I've already got a fan mount printed up to try out.

[sidehack]

So 2Pac assembly is going so fast now that tomorrow I'll be out of a job again until I get more chips (don't worry, they're already on the way) so I should be able to spend more time on Terminus R&D.

Now my original plan was to build a pod miner in the 50-100W range, and the Terminus was going to be a half-scale pod in the 30-60W range. But my current prototype is already good for more than 60W. Thing is, the full-size BF16 pod was intended to have 11 chips (I know that's a crazy number but there are reasons) and the recommended clock for 'em is at about 6W each, so an 11-chip pod would push around 75-80W at the top anyway. Shoot, the Terminus can handle that heat already.

So here's what I think I'll do.

I think I'll continue the Terminus formfactor as the defacto pod miner, with an expected power range 30-80 watts. However, it'll take the Amita product name that I've always intended for a pod miner. If you know the source material, it makes more sense for the Compac and Amita to be small and the Terminus and TypeZero (the S1-5 refit boards) to be big anyways.

So I'll look into the Amita pod having 11 chips, and a Terminus with 22 chips in more of a New R-Box type thing running up to 150W or thereabouts. The TypeZero boards will have 33 chips per board, so 66 per miner.

I don't know about y'all but that makes sense to me. Anyways I'll be spending most of this week ironing out the remaining kinks with the BM1384 pod, whatever it wants to be called.

[gt_addict]

Sounds like things are going full speed. Nice to hear 2pac production has been ironed out and the minions training finally paying off 

Cant comment on the naming of the products as I cant remember what they all come from (although i know its been mentioned somewhere 🤔).

[in2tactics]

It sounds like things are working themselves out. The target wattage range sounds good.

[-EOS-]

I'm really looking forward to picking up a few of these.

Keep up the good work Sidehack!

[nuanicaj]

I want the BF16 Miner for compensation.

Thanks for the hard work, I have 10 2pacs on ckpool.  oh well.

[Morguk]

Sounds like a good plan Sidehack. I certainly want the Amita as I need to keep on the lower side of power consumption.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

So 2Pac assembly is going so fast now that tomorrow I'll be out of a job again until I get more chips (don't worry, they're already on the way) so I should be able to spend more time on Terminus R&D.

Now my original plan was to build a pod miner in the 50-100W range, and the Terminus was going to be a half-scale pod in the 30-60W range. But my current prototype is already good for more than 60W. Thing is, the full-size BF16 pod was intended to have 11 chips (I know that's a crazy number but there are reasons) and the recommended clock for 'em is at about 6W each, so an 11-chip pod would push around 75-80W at the top anyway. Shoot, the Terminus can handle that heat already.

So here's what I think I'll do.

I think I'll continue the Terminus formfactor as the defacto pod miner, with an expected power range 30-80 watts. However, it'll take the Amita product name that I've always intended for a pod miner. If you know the source material, it makes more sense for the Compac and Amita to be small and the Terminus and TypeZero (the S1-5 refit boards) to be big anyways.

So I'll look into the Amita pod having 11 chips, and a Terminus with 22 chips in more of a New R-Box type thing running up to 150W or thereabouts. The TypeZero boards will have 33 chips per board, so 66 per miner.

I don't know about y'all but that makes sense to me. Anyways I'll be spending most of this week ironing out the remaining kinks with the BM1384 pod, whatever it wants to be called.

Or... To keep things simpler, maybe follow <heresy, I know> BFL's Single (or is it 2x of them together?): keep with the cube Terminus design and offer a dual version: Gotta admit -- it does look good


As for Pi power, I agree header is best. Found that since regular micro usb cables use 2 data, 2 pwr setup and either my old RiPi-1 dinna know how to handle it or whatever but RiPi was not happy driving an Avalon dongle. Switched to a charger cable that I assume has all 4 wires tied to power at the standard USB-end and all is well. Using a wired-to header - possible issue solved.