FYI
4UCONN parts 10987 & 11182 have an MOQ of 1k parts
Im trying to source alternatives with a much smaller MOQ...
Other board assemblers, you need to be aware of this
This is only about $65 total, and I think amongst us we'll use them all (4 2x2 pin hdrs/K16). The real problem with 4UCONN is the lead time is 4-6 weeks currently. I've been thinking of going back to thru hole for these, or at least having holes there just in case, since they're out near the edge a smaller heat sink won't contact the underside. I was going to order 1000 pcs of both those, to spread out amongst forums members or kits, until they told me it could be 6 weeks. Now, not so sure. AFAIK there isn't another source I've seen for SMD pin headers - though, having said that I expect everyone to dig up a half dozen in China...
This pioneering effort truly puts you up there with Stallman/Wozniak/Linus Thorvalds types of heroes for sure
(imo)
<Blush> I think you've gone too far, but if it weren't for the lack of communication I would have put Yifu in that category for the ASIC design.
Thank You. If people do want to mine to me then they can use 50btc.com and set user name to be
1E1gPLHVo5qoeB5BZqHZhUvLC7yy3VoEPZ, or any pool or method where you can set the target address - I've created that one separately so people can monitor how much is mined to me - so let's keep it for mined coin only. My regular donation address is: 1BvpJvejSmtWjuDfytZL5HTBUjoXokazp9 and even little bits help with travel and shipping costs.
Marto - I received your heat sink. DHL! Looks good and is waiting here for testing.
BkkCoins, can you comment on that? Do you expect any problem between Klondike and p2pool with its short interval (10s)?
I believe that found nonces should be relayed as quickly as any other method, like GPU. I guess it will depend on the driver end and how often it polls. But in the PIC once a share is spit out by the ASIC, it gets sent immediately (< 1uS) to the host, unless it's "down the I2C chain", in which case it could take a few mS due to bus polling. Maybe later I can work on an I2C interrupt hack. Hopefully I can get the host to support a callback so that it immediately gets relayed. That would be ideal. I don't know what the issue with Avalon is and why it takes longer - unless, maybe the ASIC doesn't report it immediately and in that case I'd be in the same boat.
Thanks again for the statements of support. I'm doing my best to keep the things moving forward.
In case it's not obvious - I'm back from Bkk again. I have the scope and tested it with built in test signal and it appears to be A-ok. Looks awesome so far. The K1 boards look good too and they sent me 12 instead of 10. I'm going to probe them randomly a bit with my meter and see if the traces are as expected before I put parts on. Total, I got 9 new packages this trip so lots of stuff to work on now. I'm off for a shower and maybe rest a bit before digging in again.
Next up - make a parts inventory to see if I really have everything I need. Then I think I'll try cutting some SMD stencils on the Silhouette SD. Apparently it should work and there's a nice open source app for doing it directly from gerbers (
see here). So if that works as expected I'll stencil up a few K1 boards and place parts and cook. Then I'll test out my firmware chaining functionality.
Anyone, who has ASIC samples in bound to them - please PM me with a rough estimate when you expect arrival and re-shipment to me so I can plan my next trip for their arrival. I'm expecting k16 boards any day now as well, and by then should have fully working firmware, and all needed parts for a K16 test. Fingers crossed.
