Who likes pod miners?

[mwin58747]

Thanks for the update sidehack! Looking forward to it

[1713580775]

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[ab1jx]

You're frustrated? Try being the guy that works 70-hour weeks in a 95-degree shop (for what amounts to well under minimum wage) designing and building stuff for people who whine on the internet. Last week I got a full-time helper for manufacturing for the first time ever and I've been building miners for two years now. Only got a helper because my mom lost her job so we're helping each other out.

You want something, go make it. Can't make it? Don't complain. I got more skin in the small-miners game than anyone else in the world has had since 2014 and I'm working as hard as I can to fill that gap. I'll get it when I get it.

I worked as an electronics technician for 20 years, started at age 14 for maybe $3/hour, I've been there.  Now I can't see that tiny stuff anymore.  SMD is scary, a job for robots.  I can see my 24" computer screen but I need lighted binocular magnifiers to solder DIP packages even.

Got the electric bill, shut down my 2 ASICs.  Thinking about remounting my solar panels that were mounted on wood until it rotted out.  Maybe I could mine a few hours a day on solar.

[sidehack]

The best part about using stripped chips is they're all hand-mounted , so I'm manually lining up 0.5mm pitch QFN (no magnifier). Everything else is done on the robot, thank goodness, but I still have to spot-check every single part. I'm considering investing in a better one, 4 heads and a vision system, so it'd get everything done faster and with good accuracy.

My good screens are 17" 1920x1200, homemade; this laptop is 1920x1200 in 15.4". Nice and tidy.

I'm still backed up on 2Pac manufacture but having help is really nice and things are getting done quicker - though hours are limited this week because of the 100+F heatwave making conditions more miserable than usual. But hopefully before long I'll be able to take a day or two and get Terminus pods moving. And hopefully another day or two and get some Bitfury test boards out, sorry everything's way the heck behind schedule.

What ASICs were you running?

[Biffa]

Plus you run a kick ass hosting service as well. Don't know how you do it all man, but I hope you know it IS appreciated.

[sidehack]

Mostly I do it because I don't have anything else to do. All my friends skipped town, heck even my church closed its doors almost a year ago so I don't really have much else going on. Let's just say I haven't worked a 40-hour week since 2011, but it's okay because I actually like my job.

Hosting is mostly hands-off anyways, and I'm fortunate that customers are patient because sometimes it's a couple days before I can find time to troubleshoot or repair a miner with issues. That's one reason I won't take in GPU rigs, those things take way too much time to keep running stable. That and I don't give a rip about altcoins so BFD.

Depending how I'm feeling on Sunday, I may fetch a pizza and spend the day in the office catching up on design work. Last weekend I was back home helping my grandma run the food stand at the county fair (we were there until 1AM two nights, and the morning inbetween I got roped into pouring concrete at 7AM), and then this whole week has been literally a hundred degrees every day, so I might want to take some time off, but it's likely I'll be out there for at least a while.

The non-manufacture priorities right now are lighting up the BM1384 Terminus pod, which will require about a day's worth of coding after the basic hardware tests, and revamping a Bitfury test board to integrate some new signalling stuff VH and I conjured up. Office work probably means working on the Bitfury test board since that only means PCB layout; Terminus stuff is mostly workbench. Out where it's a hundred degrees. Which sucks. And is also pretty hard on the hosted machines, sorry about that.

[licutis]

We appreciate all that you do far more than you could know. Thank you.

[mizan2821]

This post very uuseful.. Thank you for the update and I look forward to the terminus miners.

[sidehack]

Oh hey guess what?

Chicken butt.

Also, an actual update.

I realized on Saturday, while sitting on my couch getting nothing accomplished, that the reason I haven't gotten much accomplished with design work lately is because I had been coming in on weekends for that and focusing on manufacturing Monday through Friday, but I've only had two or three weekends since about the first part of May that I've actually been in town and those days I was usually pretty darn beat and ended up staying home, or did come in for a while to dawdle on stuff.

So anyways we're a bit ahead of the game now that I have some decent help, so I took today to start working up Terminus pods. And the verdict is - it's gonna take a few more changes to the PCB to get 'em going proper.

So while I was laying out connections to the microcontroller I forgot a simple but non-obvious fact - one of the GPIO pins is pretty freakin' worthless. So I'm using an 8-pin micro, which means 6 pins of IO. I need 6 pins of IO - specifically, 2 I2C lines, 1 analog in and 3 outputs. So of the 6 IO pins, it turns out one can only be used as an input, not an output. So hey how about I use that as the input? Handy enough. Except oh wait I need ADC input and that's the only pin not tied into the ADC.

So I think I've figured up a half-decent workaround to the problem this causes, and I should be able to combine two of the outputs into a single output with a small additional circuit to handle the second function. But that means redesigning the PCB.

So now I'm left with about twenty Terminus boards whose internal controller won't fully function. It's supposed to handle fan speed and power shutdown off the temp sensor, reset the string when it detects a lockup, stuff like that. Power shutdown cannot work as it is. I started on simple problems first and haven't gotten to temp sensor interfacing yet but that could probably work for fan speed control, but without power shutdown it doesn't matter a whole lot anyways.

So, apparently I start every paragraph with the word "so". Additionally, I may populate one of these boards with the full miner (I started with just the power and base controls), lock the fans on full, wire up an RC reset, basically rolling back the advanced controller feature set to basic. We'd still have the better 5V onboard that can power a Pi, and the 6-pin power jack alongside the barrel, as improvements. And if it works I can have a dozen or so to sell on here as a "beta release" kind of thing if folks are interested, while I wait another two or three weeks on the revised PCBs to arrive.

These guys would be the final form factor, so I'll be doling a few out to resellers so they can get an idea of sizing and mounting requirements for enclosures or anything else.

[quantumbit]

Oh hey guess what?

Chicken butt.

Also, an actual update.

I realized on Saturday, while sitting on my couch getting nothing accomplished, that the reason I haven't gotten much accomplished with design work lately is because I had been coming in on weekends for that and focusing on manufacturing Monday through Friday, but I've only had two or three weekends since about the first part of May that I've actually been in town and those days I was usually pretty darn beat and ended up staying home, or did come in for a while to dawdle on stuff.

So anyways we're a bit ahead of the game now that I have some decent help, so I took today to start working up Terminus pods. And the verdict is - it's gonna take a few more changes to the PCB to get 'em going proper.

So while I was laying out connections to the microcontroller I forgot a simple but non-obvious fact - one of the GPIO pins is pretty freakin' worthless. So I'm using an 8-pin micro, which means 6 pins of IO. I need 6 pins of IO - specifically, 2 I2C lines, 1 analog in and 3 outputs. So of the 6 IO pins, it turns out one can only be used as an input, not an output. So hey how about I use that as the input? Handy enough. Except oh wait I need ADC input and that's the only pin not tied into the ADC.

So I think I've figured up a half-decent workaround to the problem this causes, and I should be able to combine two of the outputs into a single output with a small additional circuit to handle the second function. But that means redesigning the PCB.

So now I'm left with about twenty Terminus boards whose internal controller won't fully function. It's supposed to handle fan speed and power shutdown off the temp sensor, reset the string when it detects a lockup, stuff like that. Power shutdown cannot work as it is. I started on simple problems first and haven't gotten to temp sensor interfacing yet but that could probably work for fan speed control, but without power shutdown it doesn't matter a whole lot anyways.

So, apparently I start every paragraph with the word "so". Additionally, I may populate one of these boards with the full miner (I started with just the power and base controls), lock the fans on full, wire up an RC reset, basically rolling back the advanced controller feature set to basic. We'd still have the better 5V onboard that can power a Pi, and the 6-pin power jack alongside the barrel, as improvements. And if it works I can have a dozen or so to sell on here as a "beta release" kind of thing if folks are interested, while I wait another two or three weeks on the revised PCBs to arrive.

These guys would be the final form factor, so I'll be doling a few out to resellers so they can get an idea of sizing and mounting requirements for enclosures or anything else.

I would be happy to take a few of them.

Keep up the great work,

[sidehack]

Oh hey, question.

While I'm making changes - what would be better for 5V out (like Pi power), a 4-pin header or a USB A jack? The header is more flexible, but with the jack you could just plug in any USB cable that powers whatever controller you're using.

[leowonderful]

Oh hey, question.

While I'm making changes - what would be better for 5V out (like Pi power), a 4-pin header or a USB A jack? The header is more flexible, but with the jack you could just plug in any USB cable that powers whatever controller you're using.

I'd personally prefer USB A, I just enjoy using em and I have a shit ton that have no use at the moment.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

I'd stick with using a header.
The general public being what they are you just know someone would try to power the pod using a USB jack if it has one...

[vapourminer]

Oh hey, question.

While I'm making changes - what would be better for 5V out (like Pi power), a 4-pin header or a USB A jack? The header is more flexible, but with the jack you could just plug in any USB cable that powers whatever controller you're using.

I'd personally prefer USB A, I just enjoy using em and I have a shit ton that have no use at the moment.

the same, usb a please

[sidehack]

I'd stick with using a header.
The general public being what they are you just know someone would try to power the pod using a USB jack if it has one...

The only thing that would do is light up anything pulling from the 5VDC line - so, USB chip, fan controller (but not the fans), node-level IO power, LEDs. Probably wouldn't draw more than a hundred milliamps and wouldn't do anything for the heavy-hitter ASICs.

If someone radioed in to say the pod wouldn't turn on from USB power, we'd be forced to openly ridicule that person, which is <sarcasm>very unfortunate</sarcasm>.

The general public being what they are, I have to make concessions to simplify things because most people don't like figuring things out for themselves, or even have the tools to do so. Apparently my upbringing was atypical.

[usao]

Oh hey, question.

While I'm making changes - what would be better for 5V out (like Pi power), a 4-pin header or a USB A jack? The header is more flexible, but with the jack you could just plug in any USB cable that powers whatever controller you're using.

What's the power draw? Answered above... If it's anything above 2A I would prefer a header as I would most likely be using a switching PSU rather than a USB.
Yea, stick with a micro/mini or A type USB port...

[quantumbit]

USB a is my preference

[toptek]

I'm still waiting, wishing and hoping with my retired S3 one bad chip, C1 full working miner, S1 same and S5 heat sinks.I know some one has upgrade boards but i live in the US and believe in buying US and NOT BECAUSE OF TRUMP, I hate him, he is well that's off topic so i won't go there .

[sidehack]

Yeah, and I've got probably close to 200 S1-S5 chassis around the shop just waiting, and probably gonna collect more.

Now I've got some actual good help, and also a couple good guys I can delegate to (VH the driver whizbang, and Optimizer is doing buck design), things are getting done. If I can get closer to caught up on manufacturing I can have more R&D time.

I'm gonna try today to get one of these Terminus pods up to base functionality and cabled into a Pi that it's powering, so I can post a picture or two of the thing in operation. USB-A I think is a good idea.

[qctechno]

I'd stick with using a header.
The general public being what they are you just know someone would try to power the pod using a USB jack if it has one...

I second that, at least a header pad/hole behind the USB jack if you go for it.

[sidehack]

Not enough room for both. It's an either/or. This thing is already super busy.