Launching the Antminer L3+, World's Most Powerful and Efficient Litecoin Miner

[HagssFIN]

You know that BW is also coming up with their scrypt miner, right?
(see my speculation thread about it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1918895)

There is going to be a big spike in the difficulty.

I would not bet on a easy ROI.

[jstefanop]

So after tearing these things apart and figuring out how they work (driver for these are open source as well which is cool), pretty sure that bitmain is purposely shipping these to underperform. The actual boards are built to output way more power than they currently are with shipped settings.

I've been able to play with the voltage controller on the boards and have them hashing at over 600mh currently with same power draw lol. I might try a over volt/ over clock and see what I can push them at within the thermal envelope.

Your joking, that is absolutely insane and on a new level of scummy/scammy.  So they are running these things at 20% higher hashing power in their own facilities, but then shipping them with crappier settings so that they keep a higher percentage of the network without having to do squat.  That is pretty shitty, even for them.

Or we accept the other side of the argument and suppose that they are idiots who didn't know they could be pushed that far, seems unlikely though.

Push them at your own risk.  I have not seen this overbuilt rock solid miner you speak of.  Pull it apart and it is the same garbage that Bitmain sells.  

I have been playing around the world with hash boards and controllers for the L3's at stock settings since about a month after I received them and still have a miner down awaiting parts repairs.  So no WAY would I even attempt to turn up the clocks.  If I were to turn up anything it is going to be the fans to keep those inner boards cool.  Proceed at your own risk... Pay attention to those interior board temps and HW errors.  I think this is a bad idea.  

Well I'm speaking from a purely engineering standpoint, and compared to the last thing I bought (used) from bitmain being an S5 they have pretty much perfected these miners. Also the last scrypt machines Ive used were Zeus/Alcheminers (which were crap, and almost all 500 units of alcheminers sold are running my firmware these days which fixed alot of issues with them).

I know you bought in early with the L3, which seemed like were the guinea pig test bed for their L3+'s, but I really cannot find anything wrong with the L3+ from a technical perspective. The thermal engineering alone is impressive...these things have chip densities rivaled by immersion boards(more on that in a bit), on air cooling. The serial design is also pretty rock solid. At the top there is a voltage regulator that actually regulates the input voltages divided by the serial chain (which their previous machines did not do and was one of the reasons for fried boards). The actual regulator has an inductor rated for 40 amps, plus dual high side mosfets rated for 60 AMPS continuous EACH. For comparison the typical power draw of each board at stock settings is about 15-16 amps. Thats WAY overbuilt by cheap miner engineering standards.

So back to immersion, my guess is that Bitmain is running these boards for their hashnest cloud in immersion coolers, and probably have them running at near the maximum capacity of the regulator (which is 30-40 amps). I would not be surprised if they have them hashing in the 800mh range. I might break out my immersion prototype tank for these and see what I can do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5-BaH8_SAk

[sidehack]

At the top there is a voltage regulator that actually regulates the input voltages divided by the serial chain (which their previous machines did not do and was one of the reasons for fried boards).

Please explain this point.

[micairvas]

What is safe overclock for L3+? And how much power consumption and temperatures going up after OC? I using Corsair RM1000i for L3+, maybe I need better power supplies if i want OC...

[smartbitcoininvestor]

The Antminer Router looks legit. Anyone have experience with it?

[artorres]

Can you mine Digibyte coin with the L3+ or other script algo coin besides litecoin??

[rogerajacto]

Supposedly knc is coming back, maybe thats why these are so cheap


Anyone can confirm if this is a scam or not

https://247btc.net/knc-miner-returns-with-improved-mining-product-for-sale/

Just saw this... Maybe it can help!

https://news.bitcoin.com/mining-hardware-scams-rise/?utm_source=OneSignal%20Push&utm_medium=notification&utm_campaign=Push%20Notifications

[jstefanop]

At the top there is a voltage regulator that actually regulates the input voltages divided by the serial chain (which their previous machines did not do and was one of the reasons for fried boards).

Please explain this point.

The board is designed in an array of 12 serialized banks of 6 chips. So each bank of 6 chips receives whatever the input voltage is divided by 12. Their first serialized power boards just divided the input voltage straight from the power supply. So whatever was coming in those 12v inputs to the boards is what the chips received (i.e. if the input voltage was really 11.5 chips would receive 958mv at the core, or if it was 12.5 they would receive 1042mv. This was a wide range for different power supplies etc which caused too high of core voltage and thats why so many S5 boards got fried.

This board has a single regulator that regulates that 12v input, (whatever it is) to a set point (I haven't measured it yet but I'm assuming its going to be in the 9-11v range for these chips, which translates to a core voltage of around 800-900mv).

So the cool part about this setup is that first you can use a wide range of input voltages (controller is LM27402 with input range of 3-20v), second the core voltage on the serial chain can be under/over volted, and third you have a clean supply to the chips and don't have to worry about PSU spikes/sags on input voltage.

[Sandal_Hat]

It can mine litecoin. Can it mine other coins like ethereum?

[HagssFIN]

It can mine litecoin. Can it mine other coins like ethereum?

Antminer L3 and L3+ can mine scrypt algorithm cryptocurrencies.

Ethereum is based on Ethash algorithm.

You cannot mine Ethereum with any ASIC hardware. It is for GPU or CPU mining only.

[lestherat]

I hope it stays in that status for months 



I feel better with my July batch order.

[sidehack]

Jstefanop - okay. You said it was different than previous boards which is what got me confused, didn't know if they had changed something. What you describe is present on almost every miner after the S5. S7 (145-chip batches), S9, T9, R4 all have a string regulator like that. Novak and I were thinking about bucked strings back in 2014. To me, what makes it either the best or almost the worst topology is whether or not the user is able to adjust the voltage. If core voltage regulation is in play, the user absolutely should be allowed to adjust it.

[jstefanop]

Jstefanop - okay. You said it was different than previous boards which is what got me confused, didn't know if they had changed something. What you describe is present on almost every miner after the S5. S7 (145-chip batches), S9, T9, R4 all have a string regulator like that. Novak and I were thinking about bucked strings back in 2014. To me, what makes it either the best or almost the worst topology is whether or not the user is able to adjust the voltage. If core voltage regulation is in play, the user absolutely should be allowed to adjust it.

Yea sorry I was compare it to the S5 boards. I don't have any S7s or 9s. It is controllable, the reg is connected via a PIC, but you have to hack their driver. Its not currently exposed user side.

[MachineZero]

Difficulty really sucking the wind out of profits
We have gone from 1.45 LTC down to 1.1 LTC daily PPS rewards in only 8 days.

Price dropping down to as low as $20 stings 2x. ROI stretched from 30, now to 90 days if things remain constant (which they won't).

Batch 1 may push to 5-7 months ROI if diff keeps raising 8-12% twice a week.

[lestherat]

Difficulty really sucking the wind out of profits
We have gone from 1.45 LTC down to 1.1 LTC daily PPS rewards in only 8 days.

Price dropping down to as low as $20 stings 2x. ROI stretched from 30, now to 90 days if things remain constant (which they won't).

Batch 1 may push to 5-7 months ROI if diff keeps raising 8-12% twice a week.

Just mine and hold, bitcoin will reach 3000 usd at the end of this year, or hold 3 years, more than 5000 usd for sure, stop thinking in the present, think about the future.

And dont forget Litecoin is not the only Scrypt coin to mine, do not drown in a glass of water.

[edonkey]

I just noticed that my L3+ found a block! This was on litecoinpool.org, not solo mining. But it's still kind of exciting.

[wheelz1200]

I just noticed that my L3+ found a block! This was on litecoinpool.org, not solo mining. But it's still kind of exciting.

Always cool when your miner finds the block congrats, its still possible, but not for long 

[edonkey]

I just noticed that my L3+ found a block! This was on litecoinpool.org, not solo mining. But it's still kind of exciting.

Always cool when your miner finds the block congrats, its still possible, but not for long 

Yup. Dat difficulty.

Winter is coming...

[aarons6]

Difficulty really sucking the wind out of profits
We have gone from 1.45 LTC down to 1.1 LTC daily PPS rewards in only 8 days.

Price dropping down to as low as $20 stings 2x. ROI stretched from 30, now to 90 days if things remain constant (which they won't).

Batch 1 may push to 5-7 months ROI if diff keeps raising 8-12% twice a week.

Just mine and hold, bitcoin will reach 3000 usd at the end of this year, or hold 3 years, more than 5000 usd for sure, stop thinking in the present, think about the future.

And dont forget Litecoin is not the only Scrypt coin to mine, do not drown in a glass of water.

if this was your strategy you would have made more just buying LTC or even BTC while it was cheaper and holding it.. no need to buy expensive mining equipment that might not make ROI.

[lestherat]

Difficulty really sucking the wind out of profits
We have gone from 1.45 LTC down to 1.1 LTC daily PPS rewards in only 8 days.

Price dropping down to as low as $20 stings 2x. ROI stretched from 30, now to 90 days if things remain constant (which they won't).

Batch 1 may push to 5-7 months ROI if diff keeps raising 8-12% twice a week.

Just mine and hold, bitcoin will reach 3000 usd at the end of this year, or hold 3 years, more than 5000 usd for sure, stop thinking in the present, think about the future.

And dont forget Litecoin is not the only Scrypt coin to mine, do not drown in a glass of water.

if this was your strategy you would have made more just buying LTC or even BTC while it was cheaper and holding it.. no need to buy expensive mining equipment that might not make ROI.

Im happy with my July batch orders, i bought that with a little part of my proffits for trade, you need to diversify if you want to be success, i just lost 4 btc for trading last day so i should

bought 5 more miners with that, Trade is awesome, Crypto is awesome, but better keep some in safe investment, for me this L3+ is good investment, and im sure hundred of people are happy too.

Remember crypto will be nothing without miners, and someone need to take the risk to keep crypto alive.

We talk in december, im sure most of us will Roi before that