Liquid Synergy Designs Inc. -ASIC mining hardware

[warhawk187]

I have 240 Avalon Gen1 chips that never made it to assembly. Is steamboat still offering assembly services?

[eroxors]

I have 240 Avalon Gen1 chips that never made it to assembly. Is steamboat still offering assembly services?

It probably is not financially sensible to produce these at the prices SB originally quoted, which is why a market for those who purchased assembly but refunded chips should happen.

[Rakessh]

I have 240 Avalon Gen1 chips that never made it to assembly. Is steamboat still offering assembly services?

I should think so, he's litterally sitting on 'tons' of parts for miners with no chips to go onto them.

[TomKeddie]

I should think so, he's litterally sitting on 'tons' of parts for miners with no chips to go onto them.

Except that there is a setup cost with a production run that you wouldn't want to pay for just a few boards.

[Rakessh]

Anyone happen to know the thermal conductivity of the thermal grease used?

[Rakessh]

I should think so, he's litterally sitting on 'tons' of parts for miners with no chips to go onto them.

Except that there is a setup cost with a production run that you wouldn't want to pay for just a few boards.

Well, might be they're not yet rigged down/still producing boards? Should check quick without pause.

[Rakessh]

Anyone know if it's possible to jump the voltage from v1.18-v1.22 to v1.20-v1.25 using pencil trick/mod on resistors, or if the voltage is programmed in the firmware?

What parts/resistances should I get/use if I'm going to attempt to replace the resistors to get the desired voltage for the avalon chips?

[cardcomm]

I should think so, he's litterally sitting on 'tons' of parts for miners with no chips to go onto them.

Except that there is a setup cost with a production run that you wouldn't want to pay for just a few boards.

Well, might be they're not yet rigged down/still producing boards? Should check quick without pause.

Considering that he's still offering them for sale here: http://liquidsyndesigns.com/shop/

I'd assume that he'd be willing to produce them for you. Gee, I wonder why SB is refusing to allow for transfers of assembly? Could it be because wants to sell even MORE miners, while keeping our funds as well?

BTW, why ARE you still offering miners for sale when we have yet to get ours refunded?!?!?! If that's not against the law, it should be. Especially if you won't allow assembly sales / transfers. It seems to me you're selling something I've already paid for. My assembly order was WELL under 100. You've clearly sold my miners to someone else.

So where's my money?

[cardcomm]

Anyone know if it's possible to jump the voltage from v1.18-v1.22 to v1.20-v1.25 using pencil trick/mod on resistors, or if the voltage is programmed in the firmware?

What parts/resistances should I get/use if I'm going to attempt to replace the resistors to get the desired voltage for the avalon chips?

You might be better off asking this on the K16 thread. I'm pretty sure resistors control the voltage, but I have no idea which ones, or what values.

[kimosan]

Given the unlikelyhood of a USB boot loader being developed, It seems as though the process is kind of backwards. Seems like SB should tell folks he's shipping the miners as-is unless they insist on waiting.

Just in case anyone out there is still confused about if they should wait for a boot loader - my personal opinion is that it's impossible to fit the bootloader AND the firmware code in the limited PIC16 memory. If you are waiting for a USB bootloader to have your miners shipped, don't. Get them ASAP.

NOTE: as soon as i say "impossible", someone will do it. lol. Lets just say getting all the code to fit in 16k memory is VERY unlikely. As with certain other components in the K16 design, the choice of that specific component (PIC16) may have been ill-advised.

Can I ask how many of you guys agree with this?

I've been holding out for the bootloader but I'm $#@%! tired of waiting on these things to be honest. (my BFL's have been lonely for months...)

The K16 work well enough after some tweaking for the people who have gotten them already?

[fasmax]

Anyone know if it's possible to jump the voltage from v1.18-v1.22 to v1.20-v1.25 using pencil trick/mod on resistors, or if the voltage is programmed in the firmware?

What parts/resistances should I get/use if I'm going to attempt to replace the resistors to get the desired voltage for the avalon chips?

Have you measured the 1.2 volt supplies on your miners?
My miners are running at about 1.23 volts.
What would you like to set your 1.2 volt supply to be?
Currently the voltage is set by a voltage divider circuit 4.02K ohm and 2.87k ohm.
If the 2.87K ohm resistor was smaller the voltage would go up.
If the 2.87K ohm resistor was replaced with a 2.5K ohm resistor the 1.2 volt supply would go to about 1.3 volts.

[Rakessh]

Given the unlikelyhood of a USB boot loader being developed, It seems as though the process is kind of backwards. Seems like SB should tell folks he's shipping the miners as-is unless they insist on waiting.

Just in case anyone out there is still confused about if they should wait for a boot loader - my personal opinion is that it's impossible to fit the bootloader AND the firmware code in the limited PIC16 memory. If you are waiting for a USB bootloader to have your miners shipped, don't. Get them ASAP.

NOTE: as soon as i say "impossible", someone will do it. lol. Lets just say getting all the code to fit in 16k memory is VERY unlikely. As with certain other components in the K16 design, the choice of that specific component (PIC16) may have been ill-advised.

Can I ask how many of you guys agree with this?

I've been holding out for the bootloader but I'm $#@%! tired of waiting on these things to be honest. (my BFL's have been lonely for months...)

The K16 work well enough after some tweaking for the people who have gotten them already?

The K16's I received 'as-is' worked straight out of the box. Of course I had to install cgminer and WinUSB (zadig) first for Windows, but I moved them to linux and there I just compiled cgminer and off they went.

You should *not* wait for the usb bootloader if you won't be flashing the firmware anyway.  It works now and any fixes will have a marginal impact on performance. i2c chaining will not work, so you'll need to attach each one with USB instead. Other than that, they're good to go.

[wawaloo]

Given the unlikelyhood of a USB boot loader being developed, It seems as though the process is kind of backwards. Seems like SB should tell folks he's shipping the miners as-is unless they insist on waiting.

Just in case anyone out there is still confused about if they should wait for a boot loader - my personal opinion is that it's impossible to fit the bootloader AND the firmware code in the limited PIC16 memory. If you are waiting for a USB bootloader to have your miners shipped, don't. Get them ASAP.

NOTE: as soon as i say "impossible", someone will do it. lol. Lets just say getting all the code to fit in 16k memory is VERY unlikely. As with certain other components in the K16 design, the choice of that specific component (PIC16) may have been ill-advised.

Can I ask how many of you guys agree with this?

I've been holding out for the bootloader but I'm $#@%! tired of waiting on these things to be honest. (my BFL's have been lonely for months...)

The K16 work well enough after some tweaking for the people who have gotten them already?

The K16's I received 'as-is' worked straight out of the box. Of course I had to install cgminer and WinUSB (zadig) first for Windows, but I moved them to linux and there I just compiled cgminer and off they went.

You should *not* wait for the usb bootloader if you won't be flashing the firmware anyway.  It works now and any fixes will have a marginal impact on performance. i2c chaining will not work, so you'll need to attach each one with USB instead. Other than that, they're good to go.

I thought i2c chaining was still being worked on?
Edit:
I might have read that wrong. So only current as is units can't be i2c chained but in the future will that be resolved?

[Rakessh]

Anyone know if it's possible to jump the voltage from v1.18-v1.22 to v1.20-v1.25 using pencil trick/mod on resistors, or if the voltage is programmed in the firmware?

What parts/resistances should I get/use if I'm going to attempt to replace the resistors to get the desired voltage for the avalon chips?

Have you measured the 1.2 volt supplies on your miners?
My miners are running at about 1.23 volts.
What would you like to set your 1.2 volt supply to be?
Currently the voltage is set by a voltage divider circuit 4.02K ohm and 2.87k ohm.
If the 2.87K ohm resistor was smaller the voltage would go up.
If the 2.87K ohm resistor was replaced with a 2.5K ohm resistor the 1.2 volt supply would go to about 1.3 volts.

Thanks for the info. Yeah, one of mine is running 1.23v like yours, the rest are running 1.27v and I'm having trouble with a bank dropping out on the 1.23v one while overclocking, the others do not do this. I might resolve it by moving this one miner onto a different host pc, so I can run the rest at 350MHz.

[Rakessh]

Given the unlikelyhood of a USB boot loader being developed, It seems as though the process is kind of backwards. Seems like SB should tell folks he's shipping the miners as-is unless they insist on waiting.

Just in case anyone out there is still confused about if they should wait for a boot loader - my personal opinion is that it's impossible to fit the bootloader AND the firmware code in the limited PIC16 memory. If you are waiting for a USB bootloader to have your miners shipped, don't. Get them ASAP.

NOTE: as soon as i say "impossible", someone will do it. lol. Lets just say getting all the code to fit in 16k memory is VERY unlikely. As with certain other components in the K16 design, the choice of that specific component (PIC16) may have been ill-advised.

Can I ask how many of you guys agree with this?

I've been holding out for the bootloader but I'm $#@%! tired of waiting on these things to be honest. (my BFL's have been lonely for months...)

The K16 work well enough after some tweaking for the people who have gotten them already?

The K16's I received 'as-is' worked straight out of the box. Of course I had to install cgminer and WinUSB (zadig) first for Windows, but I moved them to linux and there I just compiled cgminer and off they went.

You should *not* wait for the usb bootloader if you won't be flashing the firmware anyway.  It works now and any fixes will have a marginal impact on performance. i2c chaining will not work, so you'll need to attach each one with USB instead. Other than that, they're good to go.

I thought i2c chaining was still being worked on?

Yes, but for those who get their miners shipped as-is, i2c chaining will not work. (unless you get a pickit3 and reprogram the firmware once and if i2c chaining enabled firmware is released)

Edit:
I might have read that wrong. So only current as is units can't be i2c chained but in the future will that be resolved?

Edit: Correct

[wawaloo]

Given the unlikelyhood of a USB boot loader being developed, It seems as though the process is kind of backwards. Seems like SB should tell folks he's shipping the miners as-is unless they insist on waiting.

Just in case anyone out there is still confused about if they should wait for a boot loader - my personal opinion is that it's impossible to fit the bootloader AND the firmware code in the limited PIC16 memory. If you are waiting for a USB bootloader to have your miners shipped, don't. Get them ASAP.

NOTE: as soon as i say "impossible", someone will do it. lol. Lets just say getting all the code to fit in 16k memory is VERY unlikely. As with certain other components in the K16 design, the choice of that specific component (PIC16) may have been ill-advised.

Can I ask how many of you guys agree with this?

I've been holding out for the bootloader but I'm $#@%! tired of waiting on these things to be honest. (my BFL's have been lonely for months...)

The K16 work well enough after some tweaking for the people who have gotten them already?

The K16's I received 'as-is' worked straight out of the box. Of course I had to install cgminer and WinUSB (zadig) first for Windows, but I moved them to linux and there I just compiled cgminer and off they went.

You should *not* wait for the usb bootloader if you won't be flashing the firmware anyway.  It works now and any fixes will have a marginal impact on performance. i2c chaining will not work, so you'll need to attach each one with USB instead. Other than that, they're good to go.

I thought i2c chaining was still being worked on?

Yes, but for those who get their miners shipped as-is, i2c chaining will not work. (unless you get a pickit3 and reprogram the firmware once and if i2c chaining enabled firmware is released)

Thanks. One of the reasons why I have been waiting since I have no skills on pickit3 and was afraid of bricking the miners. Also i2c chaining was important for my situation. I wanted to refund but apparently my request was never "received". So I'm still stuck waiting.

[Rakessh]

Even if you disonnect during programming you can never brick it with pickit3. Might be possible to brick them with usb boot loader tho, if the bootloader is part of the data being overwritten in the programming process.  In that case, it would require a pickit3 reprogramming to unbrick it.

So if you have a number of miners, I'd go get a pickit3 on ebay and get those miners hashing asap worry bout firmware later

[ScaryHash]

Even if you disonnect during programming you can never brick it with pickit3. Might be possible to brick them with usb boot loader tho, if the bootloader is part of the data being overwritten in the programming process.  In that case, it would require a pickit3 reprogramming to unbrick it.

So if you have a number of miners, I'd go get a pickit3 on ebay and get those miners hashing asap worry bout firmware later

I ordered a PickIt3 just for kicks, but the miners work pretty well out of the box. In other words, the PickIt3 is not necessary at this time.

It might be in the future. The miners work fine. If you have to restart them up, you have to unplug them, and I at least hotplug them 2 at a time into CGminer, those 2 start hashing and once they get up to max Gh/s, at 325 Mhz, I hotplug 2 more, and so on.

It seems that CGminer gets confused sometimes, or it may be a driver issue, even with the changed parameters in CGminer recompile. Sometimes, one KLN will get stuck at 0.00 Gh/s for a while, and it needs to be re-plugged in.

But overall, they work fine. They do suck down power though. Take about 55 watts each at 325 Mhz. I have 10 running + a BFL single, and that whole setup + 2 fans sucks down 712 Watts at about 86-90 Gh/s. (off a killawatt meter). The computer is not included in that figure.

I have the window totally open, and it's been below freezing outside. The room is still nice and toasty with the miners next to the window.

[cardcomm]

Even if you disonnect during programming you can never brick it with pickit3. Might be possible to brick them with usb boot loader tho, if the bootloader is part of the data being overwritten in the programming process.  In that case, it would require a pickit3 reprogramming to unbrick it.

So if you have a number of miners, I'd go get a pickit3 on ebay and get those miners hashing asap worry bout firmware later

I can't agree with this strongly enough!

Unless you simply cannot mine without i2c chaining please do not wait for the USB boot loader! If you read between the lines in SB's last update, he was trying to tell y'all this...

BTW, if you're bored, do a Goole search for "PIC16 USB boot loader code" and see how many code examples you can find  

[Duetschpire]

Are we still getting the miners delivered before 2014?