Liquid Synergy Designs Inc. -ASIC mining hardware

[driksson]

7 refunds processed today. Cant find any of the batch addresses of steamboat:
https://blockchain.info/address/1JrwWrt3TYUzMYFEBLX5hTo1zFsEY6tWZN

[ppcko]

anyone in batch 1 & 2 still considering refunds?  I got 64 chips in batch 1 and 64 in batch 2 both with full assembly.  Considering a refund, not sure if we can ROI, anyone got some good estimates?

I've lost my trust in avalon/k16/whatever related project.
Asked for refund for 320 chips in batch 2 (no assembly though).

[driksson]

anyone in batch 1 & 2 still considering refunds?  I got 64 chips in batch 1 and 64 in batch 2 both with full assembly.  Considering a refund, not sure if we can ROI, anyone got some good estimates?

Did he even get the k16 to fully work? BKKcoins were struggeling, and he was the creator of the design..

[jml25]

Did he even get the k16 to fully work? BKKcoins were struggeling, and he was the creator of the design..

It's in the email that was sent this morning (and quoted in this thread) - K16 works for half the chips (it will hash with 8 chips at full speed). Hashing on all 16 doesn't appear to be working at this time.

[suva]

Appreciate the update, can't be easy to try and manage $500,000+ in possible refunds spread across hundreds of people.

[TomKeddie]

It's in the email that was sent this morning (and quoted in this thread) - K16 works for half the chips (it will hash with 8 chips at full speed). Hashing on all 16 doesn't appear to be working at this time.

Seems to me the real problem now is lack of incentive to get it working.  Most of the people experienced with the design and so downhearted they've downed tools.  I think the design is likely to be working in a week or so.  I feel for those chips have been delivered for a few weeks now but they have no working design (not in this group buy).

[TomKeddie]

Why are we not pursing a full refund for all batches?

You need to re-read the email.  If everyone requests a refund, then all batches will be refunded.  "We will process any orders for those that wish to continue with assembly, and our policy of not forcing anyone to accept a refund still stands."  This is a group buy, by participating you need to accept that you're somewhat bound by the decisions of the group.

I think from his email it is clear he is recommending we ask for refunds (as he has for his chips).

[jml25]

Seems to me the real problem now is lack of incentive to get it working.  Most of the people experienced with the design and so downhearted they've downed tools.  I think the design is likely to be working in a week or so.  I feel for those chips have been delivered for a few weeks now but they have no working design.

Agreed. That's and the 'who knows when we'll get our chips' timeline are why I finally decided to refund, but will keep my ears to the ground on future endeavors. Everyone's heart was in the right place and I want to encourage that spirit next time again

[Boxman90]

Steamboat, great that you replied and all, I'm sure you can answer some simple small questions.

Mainly this one: how do we, the users, verify whether our refund request was accepted by your scripts?

You say yourself, a lot of them were rejected because of reasons.

[driksson]

Did he even get the k16 to fully work? BKKcoins were struggeling, and he was the creator of the design..

It's in the email that was sent this morning (and quoted in this thread) - K16 works for half the chips (it will hash with 8 chips at full speed). Hashing on all 16 doesn't appear to be working at this time.

exactly. but collect  money for assembly is easy! but to assemble it working, different story.
I dont want to get involved, i never participated in parts/assembly, only chips. This was the main reason, the maker of the boards didnt even get it working, then how could steamboat..

[silicont]

It's unsettling to think the 'crowd sourced' funds for this massive project somehow are to be consumed for the good of the project with nothing to show for us.  We didn't pay an assembly set up fee, we paid an assembly fee.  It's a bizarre business model to take customer funds to prepare for a production run that doesn't mature, then tell customers China can't supply the last part so they're out of luck.  Granted, nonrefundable setup fees are typical with many products--but they're separate fees and the customer commits knowingly.  Meanwhile, the business has what we're led to believe is a nearly complete production line for future customers.  We are now invested in the production line that future customers will pay for a product with lower setup costs (since we already paid for the setup costs).  That could mean more profit for steamboat on future products.

Steamboat made decisions for his business without consulting those who funded his coffers.  If consulted, who knows what we may have decided.  I would have said don't spend our funds preparing for assembly, I'll risk longer assembly time and secure a 100% assembly refund if the deal goes south.  Instead steamboat spent our funds, hoping for the best, which typically is a business expenditure/risk.

It's a solemn situation and I'm not going to make any demands outside of the refund being offered. I imagine steamboat, yufi, BFL and everyone else involved in paying for vapor products has learned a lesson (or ten).  I've submitted full chip and assembly refund requested from batch 5. I'll use the heat sink as a business card holder.

Regardless, thanks for the effort, steamboat, et all.  A monumental attempt was made.

[ik2013]

With no set date to receive chips and the current state of the K16 project I am left with no choice but to refund. My investment was not large to begin with so the hash rate I would receive is now worthless. I will take what I can get back from assembly, but if it is only 25% then I definitely want the boards and components I paid for...maybe I can use them for soldering practice...

[andrewsg]

exactly. but collect  money for assembly is easy! but to assemble it working, different story.
I dont want to get involved, i never participated in parts/assembly, only chips. This was the main reason, the maker of the boards didnt even get it working, then how could steamboat..

My thought process was the same. Everyone should understand that bitcoin, and bitcoin mining is a risky investment, and then take a risk they are comfortable with.

My risk assessment was that Avalon chips were proven technology and basically just a matter of manufacturing them in a larger quantity, therefore low risk. I was wrong on that assumption.

However, getting these chips to mine is a different story. I assumed it was low risk to go for assemblers using Avalon's reference design (there are at least 3 of them out there). Going with one of the new designs (burnin, klondike) was always high risk, as their designs were unproven. Paying for assembly on an unproven design (steamboat, terrahash, etc) was always a risk too far for me. From following the development threads it was always clear that burnin was ahead in terms of progress on his design. A fully populated board was demonstrated working overclocked with extremely low error rates, months ago. Burnin proved his design and then proved he could assemble it in large quantities. He probably lost out the most on potential income because of Avalon's failure to deliver. But for the Klondike design, according to steamboat, we still do not have a fully populated board mining, and we still have the step of proving it can be assembled in large quantities. Maybe, if sample chips would have been sent out earlier the situation would have been different. But I don't think the lack of sample chips slowed down design (at least I never got that idea from bkkcoins). Maybe if tens of thousands of chips had shown up at steamboat's door, development would have been accelerated. Maybe as suggested, the delays (and falling ROI) caused developers to slow down their efforts. Maybe. But how big a difference that would have made is a matter for debate. Just my 2c.

[miner_btc]

This whole thing has turned into an utter disaster. One point that most people seem to be ignoring is that even is ships HAD shipped on time, we still would not have a working board to put them on. I'm refunding my order with assembly from batch 4 as I have no confidence that any of the proposed or in progress solutions will bear fruit. Avalon has lost all credibility. Steamboat I believe tried to do the right thing in spending the required cash to have everything ready for chip arrival. Unfortunately for all of us, the chips just aren't coming and we have no working board design even if they do. We are all losing money on this deal. At least we can wash our hands of it, Steamboat doesn't have that option.

[Galli]

Why are we not pursing a full refund for all batches?

You need to re-read the email.  If everyone requests a refund, then all batches will be refunded.  "We will process any orders for those that wish to continue with assembly, and our policy of not forcing anyone to accept a refund still stands."  This is a group buy, by participating you need to accept that you're somewhat bound by the decisions of the group.

I think from his email it is clear he is recommending we ask for refunds (as he has for his chips).

You're missing the point, why is delivery even an option when it's becoming more and more liekly the chips will never arrive?  Just seems odd with all the management of the refund process AND also managing the distribution of chips if they arrive (probably in Jan'14) that will have negative ROI...  If 90% ask for refunds (which I expect it to be), why not just refund all batches to the original senders bitcoin address instead of monkeying around for dozens of hours trying to process everyone's individual needs?  The odds are 1 batch will be stuck with a small group of trolls/afks not caring about a refund at all.

The extra 5% commission on 1 batch of delivery definitely wouldn't outweigh the work involved with processing all these each refund individually so i'm not sure why steamboat is going this route, I sure as hell wouldn't.

[ionstorm]

would love some news on what steamboats plan is on getting these boards hashing 16 chips, and some news on when we'll gets chips.  At this point even if chips ship they'll be stuck with steamboat for god knows how long until he gets the board hashing correctly.  

[Rakessh]

would love some news on what steamboats plan is on getting these boards hashing 16 chips, and some news on when we'll gets chips.  At this point even if chips ship they'll be stuck with steamboat for god knows how long until he gets the board hashing correctly.  

As far as I've seen, the issue of making both banks hash on the (the banks are actually both hasing at the moment, the problem is they are working on the same data) K16 is a software issue and should be solvable by making changes and additions to the current firmware code/drivers.

If you study BkkCoin's project in his thread you will be able to answer your own question.  Didn't do any reasearch before shouting 'shut up and take my money'? ;-) (Just pun intended, no offense)

It's a DIY project guys (DO-IT-YOURSELF) :-D

[cardcomm]

If 90% ask for refunds (which I expect it to be), why not just refund all batches to the original senders bitcoin address instead of monkeying around for dozens of hours trying to process everyone's individual needs?  The odds are 1 batch will be stuck with a small group of trolls/afks not caring about a refund at all.

Good point. It's almost certain that batch one will get "stuck" as you say with die-hards and people that just don't care.

It's been stated that no one will be forced to take a refund. It would be nice to see it explicitly stated that one one will be denied a refund either.

[andrewsg]

Good point. It's almost certain that batch one will get "stuck" as you say with die-hards and people that just don't care.

It's been stated that no one will be forced to take a refund. It would be nice to see it explicitly stated that one one will be denied a refund either.

Common sense should tell you that that is impossible (or mathematically exceedingly unlikely).

The sebastianju / zefir approach, was to refund a batch if more than 50% wanted to refund. They are effectively screwing some people who wanted chips or boards instead of a refund (i.e. forced refunding) in favour of a majority who asked for a refund. Steamboat is doing the opposite, he is only refunding batches once requests cover an entire batch, therefore practically guaranteeing that some people who ask for a refund will not get one, in favour of some who either want chips / boards or cannot be bothered to reply. Either way someone gets screwed. (Unless the number of people who want chips / boards adds up to a multiple of 10,000).

[alfabitcoin]

Good point. It's almost certain that batch one will get "stuck" as you say with die-hards and people that just don't care.

It's been stated that no one will be forced to take a refund. It would be nice to see it explicitly stated that one one will be denied a refund either.

Common sense should tell you that that is impossible (or mathematically exceedingly unlikely).

The sebastianju / zefir approach, was to refund a batch if more than 50% wanted to refund. They are effectively screwing some people who wanted chips or boards instead of a refund (i.e. forced refunding) in favour of a majority who asked for a refund. Steamboat is doing the opposite, he is only refunding batches once requests cover an entire batch, therefore practically guaranteeing that some people who ask for a refund will not get one, in favour of some who either want chips / boards or cannot be bothered to reply. Either way someone gets screwed. (Unless the number of people who want chips / boards adds up to a multiple of 10,000).

But fact is that majority (more then 50%) want to have refund because that chip is refunded in original btc paid amount. Those chips now does not worth such money and majority agree in such. Also chip count matters and not individuals buyers. Buyer who bought 1000 chips has maybe different approach of somebody who bought 16 enough for one board.
There is another issue to consider; those who wanted thir chips were disguided by another yifu news of 400k on wedensday. Zefir GB send chips to burnin who has working board with great overlocking capability. Steamboat does not.

btw
sebastianju got a email stating that his batch will be shippied within 12hrs