Hi guys,
Here's the latest update:
- We went to Metabank late yesterday evening to pick up our sample unit (a single).
- After 1 hour wait in the reception, legkodymov came down with our unit.
- We opened it up, 1 motherboard type A , 5 hashing cards, 1 raspberry pi, 1 power cable, and (first) surprise... a 230V-only power supply (no 110V/120V switch on it).
- Over the course of an hour we waited there, another 7 or 8 people showed up, and we saw at least 4 or 5 other units go out the door. So they are definitely starting to ship.
- I asked legkodymov how many units worth of components I could pick up tomorrow (Tuesday) and he said, we can't pick anything up until the 20th (surprise #2) and they can only ship triple units to us (surprise#3), and that any spare parts would only be available after the next weekend or probably october (surprise#4) - some of these are obviously a deal breakers.
- Obviously this is not what we had agreed to on Friday, and so I immediately asked to speak to Timur. He wandered off, and never came back.
- After waiting a long while, we tried to call Timur directly (we have his cell), and nothing, no response.
- Another Metabank employee was also there helping to deliver units and get signatures of confirmation from customers that they received units. When I asked him where was Timur, he said he did not come in today and that at this hour (around 9Pm or so) he is sleeping as he was supposedly programming all day and working long hours. I also learned that he only comes into the office maybe twice a week, which they neglected to tell us before, but that he expected him to be at the office tomorrow (Tues).
- Once we got to our place, I immediately tried to power up the box and (surprise #5), the box was DOA. The power supply would not even power on.
- Thinking it was a short with one of the cards, I disconnected one at a time from the motherboard, then after that still didnt work, the fans, then tried different wall outlets, power cables etc. Needless to say after 1 hour of troubleshooting, I gave up and called Metabank.
- Surprisingly, I got a call back from legkodymov. I asked him why he wandered off and didn't tell me TImur was not even in the office that day, he appologised and that he misunderstood what I had said. In regards to the DOA unit, he was surprised it didn't work as he explained they had just finished testing it. He requested I take a picture of the unit, which I've done, and am now waiting for his reply (after 11AM Moscow time).
- We have also in the mean time found a store with anti-static bags, and are going to buy a few this morning to confirm they fit properly.
All in all not a great experience (understatement), most troubling was the change of direction in what they said from Friday; however, I am going to talk to them again ASAP, specifically Timur if I can to sort this out, as obviously this is not a good situation for any of us.
Some other things we learned:
- Weight of a single unit is 4.61 Kg (without packing material).
- Width = 45cm by 44.5 cm length and 10 cm height - this is the same as was posted a couple weeks back in the PDF file provided by Metabank in this thread.
- How the raspberry Pi is powered isn't confirmed since the box was DOA, but only the IDE cable was provided, so I am assuming it is through that.
- All the hashing cards are very loose in the box, any tilting of the box and you can hear things drag around, especially the raspberry Pi.
- The hashing cards don't have to be installed in sequence. There can be gaps in between. Below in pics you can see how metabank delivered it to us. They set it up so each card was in front of a fan.
- Another miner at Metabank reception mentioned to us that the triple units come with more powerful fans. Not sure on the power supply. They said ours was 500W, which is way overkill for a single, but there was no easy way to verify this as there was no sticker indicating this. We didn't remove the power supply out to see if there were stickers on the bottom side.
- Here's 3 additional pictures we took of our DOA sample box:
1. Top View: https://i.imgur.com/7tJTo6J.jpg2. Raspberry Pi & power view: https://i.imgur.com/AXuyuBF.jpg- Note the carrugated cardboard under the motherboard. The motherboard is not screwed down either, but doesn't move too much due to the weight of the hashing cards unless you tilt the box.
- Legkodymov at one point explained that if anyone unplugs the raspberry Pi IDE cable and puts it back backwards (observe the red line on one side of the cable), it *will* kill the Raspberry Pi and possibly kill the motherboard. So users beware!
3. Top view of hash cards: https://i.imgur.com/GLCfWr1.jpg- Note that on the flip side of the PCB, just under each capacitor, the heat sink for that card has been drilled or sanded down forming 3 concave grooves. In this picture it is very evident on the left most card, but this has been done to every heat sink on each card. I imagine this has been manually done to prevent some kind of a short with a connector on the PCB. Stuff like (drilling/sanding holes, not to mention cutting out pieces of cardboard to put under the motherboard) is probably adding to the labour required to prepare each unit. Also note that the cards sitting right beside each other have the heat sinks touch the capacitors. This happens at the top (seen in the picture), but also to the capacitors below the heatsink (not visible in picture). I dont imagine this is a problem unless the heatsink gets excessively hot.
Overall, this definitely looks like something that came out of a workshop, rather than any kind of professional fabrication.
Regards,
Luis
