Klondike - 16 chip ASIC Open Source Board - Preliminary

[turtle83]

You guys do know that he kind of dissappeared when typhoon utor hit, right??

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23662733

Thailand and Philippines are different countries and quite far apart. Also the storm had no affect anywhere close to Thailand.

[1714216636]

1714216636

[cardcomm]

I believe English is Marto's second language, am sure he means disappearing. 

Regarding lost funds - Am sure BKK never meant to take funds without supplying, I did receive most of my small insignificant order so he was sending out before something got in the way. He has given so much on this for nothing.

Lets give him some time.

I've sent him several emails with no response. I even asked him to just ship a tiny fraction of what I'd ordered (a couple "picngo" boards and a couple PIC chips), forget the rest, and keep the funds.

I don't know if I should be worried or annoyed. He certainly seemed honest and committed to the project.

[w33mhz]

Just a guess here, but he's probably a student?  The falling off the grid so to speak seems to correlate with school starting.  Believe it or not most of the people on here probably have real jobs and/or school of which have nothing to do with their bitcoin projects on here.  Fall time (at least fall time here in the US) is a pretty busy time of the year for most people.  Getting blasted with PMs and Emails I am sure there are a lot that get ignored and/or forgotten about.

[Bicknellski]

Just a guess here, but he's probably a student?  The falling off the grid so to speak seems to correlate with school starting.  Believe it or not most of the people on here probably have real jobs and/or school of which have nothing to do with their bitcoin projects on here.  Fall time (at least fall time here in the US) is a pretty busy time of the year for most people.  Getting blasted with PMs and Emails I am sure there are a lot that get ignored and/or forgotten about.

Retired.

And I suspect like everyone else crest fallen given the monumental cock up that is Avalon chips not shipping. As suggested we all need to give BKK time to regain his feet, and get that floor done then when he is good and ready he will resurface. I to hope he is well and no matter what I want to thank him for all the work he has put in a better effort could not be asked for to be honest. Let the man recoup his sanity and come back at his own pace and terms.

[Newar]

Is the K1 fully functional?

[southerngentuk]

Is the K1 fully functional?

I could be wrong but I do not think the revisions where ever tested. Last Word from BKK was his wife going to pick up the new K1 pcb's. He was waiting on these before mailing orders, then my order arrived -k1 pcb's so am guessing there may have been an issue with them.

Am not aware of a third party testing them Bicknellski may have further info on the K1's..

[cardcomm]

Is the K1 fully functional?

I could be wrong but I do not think the revisions where ever tested. Last Word from BKK was his wife going to pick up the new K1 pcb's. He was waiting on these before mailing orders, then my order arrived -k1 pcb's so am guessing there may have been an issue with them.

Am not aware of a third party testing them Bicknellski may have further info on the K1's..

You are the only person I've heard of that actually got anything from him. I even asked him to just ship a tiny portion of my order, but got no response. This after I also donated funds to the project :/

He either needs my money WAY more than I do, or he's had an emergency of some sort (beyond this Yifu fiasco). I just hope he's ok.

[LordTheron]

Am not aware of a third party testing them Bicknellski may have further info on the K1's..


You are the only person I've heard of that actually got anything from him. I even asked him to just ship a tiny portion of my order, but got no response. This after I also donated funds to the project :/

He either needs my money WAY more than I do, or he's had an emergency of some sort (beyond this Yifu fiasco). I just hope he's ok.

I haven't heard either that anyone got anything shipped. Also this situation has nothing to do with Yifu and Avalon cock up. Ive told BKK at the beginning August that I have already chips on my shelf and to send my order, at least pcbs, which didn't happen. Throughout August Ive  exchanged number of pm's with him and every time Ive heard different excuse so I cant be happy bunny. Its only around $200 but I'd rather spend it somewhere else and I think most of us would.

The way I see it is that the minute the money exchanged hands we have entered  into commercial agreement.  My part of the agreement was to pay for goods and his to deliver. Simple as  that. Either Avalon fiasco or tiling the floors.. shouldn't matter here and I should get my order as promised or money back.

I don't want to sound pessimistic but I got a feeling that we will never see our orders or money and I hope Im wrong. 

[bassclef]

I don't want to sound pessimistic but I got a feeling that we will never see our orders or money and I hope Im wrong. 

I hope you're wrong too. It's not like he'd stand to gain a lot by running with our money, especially since he worked so tirelessly on this project for months. My guess is that he's taking some time for himself. That's totally fine by me, however I'd eventually like at least a partial refund.

His sudden disappearance is uncharacteristic, and in that regard I worry about his safety. He was checking in regularly, then poof, gone. He hasn't even logged in since his last message.

[mokahless]

I may have to file a claim with paypal if Chris doesn't respond to my email. We'll see where that goes.

I have not kept up to date with what is going on so from an objective standpoint, someone disappearing suddenly with a message like that... There is clearly something wrong and risk-wise, I want my money back if he cannot ship my products immediately.

From an objective standpoint, I do not understand all the people in this thread after a month of him gone saying stuff like "he has a good reason" or "maybe he is taking some time to himself" or "I think he has his reasons". Seriously? I made an investment and he has disappeared with my money without so much as a PM, forum post or email explaining and I have nothing in return. Someone tell me why you are all still behind him. Please keep in mind I have not been keeping up with the goings-on since I ordered at the end of July. (The smallest free-shipping amount, with the intention of ordering more once I received my first.)

Maybe I am missing something from reading only a couple pages back? Would someone like to enlighten me?

[sensei]

I have 2 boards with 16 chip each hashing at 350 MHz. The hardware error rate is high and we are working to solve that issue. We believe it to be SW related. There is a group of 6 or 8 of us working on this.

I'm sorry I've been off line for a while, but have been busy trying to work out the build and debugging boards.

I've also been trying to communicate with bkkcoins, send emails every week with updates. He too also owes me (k1 heat sinks), but I am the eternal optimist and believe to hear from him again. I do believe he is a good man.

In one of my last conversations with bkkcoins, he stated he was about to work on and complete the K1 firmware.

If there are any who asked for refunds from me, I will process them. I am sorry for the delay. I am an honest man and you will get your money.

[Biomech]

I may have to file a claim with paypal if Chris doesn't respond to my email. We'll see where that goes.

I have not kept up to date with what is going on so from an objective standpoint, someone disappearing suddenly with a message like that... There is clearly something wrong and risk-wise, I want my money back if he cannot ship my products immediately.

From an objective standpoint, I do not understand all the people in this thread after a month of him gone saying stuff like "he has a good reason" or "maybe he is taking some time to himself" or "I think he has his reasons". Seriously? I made an investment and he has disappeared with my money without so much as a PM, forum post or email explaining and I have nothing in return. Someone tell me why you are all still behind him. Please keep in mind I have not been keeping up with the goings-on since I ordered at the end of July. (The smallest free-shipping amount, with the intention of ordering more once I received my first.)

Maybe I am missing something from reading only a couple pages back? Would someone like to enlighten me?

There was an increasingly despondent tone in his more recent posts, plus it has been his character to never be gone more than a few days.

In addition he had stated that he had a number of personal issues that needed resolving in his home. Him disappearing without even logging in is out of character, thus the concern. To this point his behaviour has been above reproach, even exemplary. For somebody like that to just vanish raises a lot of questions, but also a fair degree of tolerance because it IS out of character.

[cardcomm]

I may have to file a claim with paypal if Chris doesn't respond to my email. We'll see where that goes.

I have not kept up to date with what is going on so from an objective standpoint, someone disappearing suddenly with a message like that... There is clearly something wrong and risk-wise, I want my money back if he cannot ship my products immediately.

From an objective standpoint, I do not understand all the people in this thread after a month of him gone saying stuff like "he has a good reason" or "maybe he is taking some time to himself" or "I think he has his reasons". Seriously? I made an investment and he has disappeared with my money without so much as a PM, forum post or email explaining and I have nothing in return. Someone tell me why you are all still behind him. Please keep in mind I have not been keeping up with the goings-on since I ordered at the end of July. (The smallest free-shipping amount, with the intention of ordering more once I received my first.)

Maybe I am missing something from reading only a couple pages back? Would someone like to enlighten me?

#1: You probably already missed your paypal dispute window.

#2: I've followed this thread from the beginning. I also exchanged pm's on occasion with BkkCoins. During that time I came to trust him, and believe his disappearance to be totally out of character.

#3: I was an internet early adopter. Believe me, I've seen some scams. If BkkCoins is a scammer, he wasted his time on a thread like this, because he's the best I've ever seen.

#4: I've personally experienced more than one medical emergency during my lifetime that would have caused be to be absent from a thread like this for well more than a month. I know first hand that people can be left wondering what happened to you.

So again, I hope everything is ok with BkkCoins. If he scammed me, he deserves every penny. LOL

[TheDroid]

I also wanted to confirm that the K16 board is hashing well but with high error rate.  I too think its firmware.

BkkCoins disappearing has also got me concerned for his well being.  I've had personal (email) contact with him, received several hundred K16 boards as promised and him vanishing is totally not in character.  A scam of any kind doesn't even make sense given the massive amount of time he's put into the project.  He'd be better off flipping burgers on a $/hour basis.

For those that don't know I'm the contract assembler for one of the group buys.  I've got no personal stake in this other then the group buy I'm trying to get built.  The current dev team is making good progress (I'm on it) and I'm getting more confident each day.  It looks like the design is good but the firmware needed significant work to finish (from where Bkk left off).

I'll try to provide what information and updates I can.

[scotjam]

I have 2 boards with 16 chip each hashing at 350 MHz. The hardware error rate is high and we are working to solve that issue. We believe it to be SW related. There is a group of 6 or 8 of us working on this.

I'm sorry I've been off line for a while, but have been busy trying to work out the build and debugging boards.

I've also been trying to communicate with bkkcoins, send emails every week with updates. He too also owes me (k1 heat sinks), but I am the eternal optimist and believe to hear from him again. I do believe he is a good man.

In one of my last conversations with bkkcoins, he stated he was about to work on and complete the K1 firmware.

If there are any who asked for refunds from me, I will process them. I am sorry for the delay. I am an honest man and you will get your money.

Thanks sensei - really appreciate your hard work and honesty around this. Best of luck with the boards, and sorry I have had to opt for the refund rather than joining you guys with the boards, but given the delays and disappointing group buy organisers for the chips (not to mention BKKCoins' disappearance), it just didn't add up for me anymore.

Cheers

scotjam

[ScaryHash]

I have 2 boards with 16 chip each hashing at 350 MHz. The hardware error rate is high and we are working to solve that issue. We believe it to be SW related. There is a group of 6 or 8 of us working on this.

I'm sorry I've been off line for a while, but have been busy trying to work out the build and debugging boards.

I've also been trying to communicate with bkkcoins, send emails every week with updates. He too also owes me (k1 heat sinks), but I am the eternal optimist and believe to hear from him again. I do believe he is a good man.

In one of my last conversations with bkkcoins, he stated he was about to work on and complete the K1 firmware.

If there are any who asked for refunds from me, I will process them. I am sorry for the delay. I am an honest man and you will get your money.

Well, if you guys get the K16 firmware sorted out, I will personally send you BTC for beer. Pls post a donation address.

I think one of the group buys that I'm in on, Steamboat's, is also working on the firmware issue.

I looked at the firmware, but there seem to be problems that I'm way out of my league on, so, I'm offering beer coins to whoever gets it solved.

[mokahless]

I'm not saying if he is a scam or not. It doesn't matter. What I care about is my investment. Whether he disappeared due to personal matters and comes back in 2 months or if this was some elaborate scheme (unlikely) doesn't change the situation on my end.

I know I am past the paypal limit and I know there are ways around it. I just need to decide over the next little while if all the effort will be worth $50 or not.

To double check, Chis was the only one involved with the web store for the boards, correct?

Also, it seems the project is progressing well without him. I originally wanted this as a personal project for fun, anyway. So how are the K1's progress? What information would I need to give to a board manufacturer to have the unpopulated boards custom made?

[sensei]

I actually have 2boards now hashing with cgminer (Ubuntu in virtual box) now, although each is hashing 20% less than if they were standalone plus the hardware errors are still there. The temperature displayed by cgminer seems to be correct now also.

Although I am also an assembler, I have also been working with Steamboat on this issue for some time. I purchased my own boards from a different pcb manufacturer and purchased my own smt equipment for this project.

[sensei]

So how are the K1's progress? What information would I need to give to a board manufacturer to have the unpopulated boards custom made?

I made 2 K1's a couple of months ago, but I have no firmware to test them with to see if the HW is correct. Some of my last conversations with Chris was about his work on that software.

I haven't even plugged them in a USB slot yet.

[hchc]

I have 2 boards with 16 chip each hashing at 350 MHz. The hardware error rate is high and we are working to solve that issue. We believe it to be SW related. There is a group of 6 or 8 of us working on this.

By chance is Terrahash one of the ppl you are working with?