[ANN] Bitfury is looking for alpha-testers of first chips! FREE MONEY HERE!

[cchan]

Any open source design file now? I'm seeking the doc based on 1 chip.

[itod]

cool machine & cool board!

[vulgartrendkill]

Any update on october chip delivery to other vendors?

[punin]

Any update on october chip delivery to other vendors?

Get yours right away!

[erk]

Running at ~20GH/s

speed:1257 noncerate[GH/s]:53.386 (2.224/chip) hashrate[GH/s]:55.205 good:3729 errors:205 spi-err:2 miso-err:0 jobs:297 cores:97% good:23 bad:1 off:0 (best[GH/s]:54.360) Sun Sep 29 05:45:42 2013
0:   825   33.086   34.637   2311   138   2   0   15   1   0   (2.068/chip)   95%
4:   432   20.301   20.569   1418   67   0   0   8   0   0   (2.538/chip)   100%

Not bad for my first attempt at (re)drawing a PCB =P

A few pages back I remember some folks complaining about hand placing 0402's...have a look at this cheap DIY pick and place: http://vpapanik.blogspot.com/2012/11/low-budget-manual-pick-place.html
even though I made one, I still ended up hand placing some of the 0402s because it was actually faster. but the pick and place helped a lot when you're really frustrated and hands are shaking.

It's running with R01F @ 4320 ohms (0.8492 V). It's using a TPS53353 (20A) regulator instead of the 30A (just a drop in replacement for the default TPS53355).

Is this board designed to go into the M-board like a normal H-board or do you have some other way of driving it?

The reason I ask is I am looking for some other way of driving a H-Board, I can't justify the cost of the M-board starter kit, it would kill the ROI on my 1 H-board setup I am currently looking for. I know some people were experimenting with driving a H-board directly and was wondering if you had conquered that?

[klondike_bar]

i would buy these if it makes sense to compared with a 16-chip board.

[vs3]

Running at ~20GH/s

speed:1257 noncerate[GH/s]:53.386 (2.224/chip) hashrate[GH/s]:55.205 good:3729 errors:205 spi-err:2 miso-err:0 jobs:297 cores:97% good:23 bad:1 off:0 (best[GH/s]:54.360) Sun Sep 29 05:45:42 2013
0:   825   33.086   34.637   2311   138   2   0   15   1   0   (2.068/chip)   95%
4:   432   20.301   20.569   1418   67   0   0   8   0   0   (2.538/chip)   100%

Not bad for my first attempt at (re)drawing a PCB =P

A few pages back I remember some folks complaining about hand placing 0402's...have a look at this cheap DIY pick and place: http://vpapanik.blogspot.com/2012/11/low-budget-manual-pick-place.html
even though I made one, I still ended up hand placing some of the 0402s because it was actually faster. but the pick and place helped a lot when you're really frustrated and hands are shaking.

It's running with R01F @ 4320 ohms (0.8492 V). It's using a TPS53353 (20A) regulator instead of the 30A (just a drop in replacement for the default TPS53355).

Is this board designed to go into the M-board like a normal H-board or do you have some other way of driving it?

The reason I ask is I am looking for some other way of driving a H-Board, I can't justify the cost of the M-board starter kit, it would kill the ROI on my 1 H-board setup I am currently looking for. I know some people were experimenting with driving a H-board directly and was wondering if you had conquered that?

Erk - it depends on how much DYI do you want and are capable of doing. I'm not sure how familiar are you with bitfury's chip and electronics in general so let me know if I'm being too technical - I'll try to put it in a bit more general terms below:

The Bitfury chips (fortunately) are very easy to put in a chain. On the H-card that's exactly what you have - a power converter module (to get from 12V to 0.8-0.9V at high amperage) and a bunch of chained BF chips, and the card provides (through the slot connector) pins for connecting to the previous card and also to the next card (so that you can chain cards as well). So, if you have one working device that can control (at least one) BF chip you can chain another H-card after it (and another after it, etc). All you'll need to do is hook the 3 data signals (SCK/MOSI/MISO) and 1.8V reference voltage from the "control" board to your H-card, and provide 12V to the H-Card.

If you already have means to provide the 12V (e.g. not afraid to solder two thick wires on the H-Card) then I guess the rest of your question is a "control board". The M-board is one such example. It connects to the RasPI and provides the necessary voltage conversion so that it can talk to one or more H-cards. The voltage conversion is really not much of a big deal and if you have some DYI experience you could make your own (that converts from the RasPI 3.3V to the 1.8V needed for BF chips).

If you're looking for a non-RasPI solution then any other self-contained miner (like c-scape's) could possibly be used - that one has a processor, the voltage conversion part and a bunch of BF chips, so you'll have to find the last chip in the chain and if the 3 data signals are accessible wire them to your H-Card.

Another solution would be any of the USB miners. There are several such designs (like the BiFury, RedFury and mine - NanoFury). I don't know for sure the details of the other ones (although I guess it's a similar story across all of them) so I'll speak just about my design - the NanoFury NF1 device has those 3 signals available at 3 small pads (test points). So in order to use a NF1 as the "control board" you would connect 5 wires (GND/1.8V/SCK/MOSI/MISO) from the NF1 to your H-card and then cgminer (or whatever miner you use) would detect the multiple BF chips at that port and drive them all.

[erk]

Erk - it depends on how much DYI do you want and are capable of doing. I'm not sure how familiar are you with bitfury's chip and electronics in general so let me know if I'm being too technical - I'll try to put it in a bit more general terms below:

The Bitfury chips (fortunately) are very easy to put in a chain. On the H-card that's exactly what you have - a power converter module (to get from 12V to 0.8-0.9V at high amperage) and a bunch of chained BF chips, and the card provides (through the slot connector) pins for connecting to the previous card and also to the next card (so that you can chain cards as well). So, if you have one working device that can control (at least one) BF chip you can chain another H-card after it (and another after it, etc). All you'll need to do is hook the 3 data signals (SCK/MOSI/MISO) and 1.8V reference voltage from the "control" board to your H-card, and provide 12V to the H-Card.

If you already have means to provide the 12V (e.g. not afraid to solder two thick wires on the H-Card) then I guess the rest of your question is a "control board". The M-board is one such example. It connects to the RasPI and provides the necessary voltage conversion so that it can talk to one or more H-cards. The voltage conversion is really not much of a big deal and if you have some DYI experience you could make your own (that converts from the RasPI 3.3V to the 1.8V needed for BF chips).

If you're looking for a non-RasPI solution then any other self-contained miner (like c-scape's) could possibly be used - that one has a processor, the voltage conversion part and a bunch of BF chips, so you'll have to find the last chip in the chain and if the 3 data signals are accessible wire them to your H-Card.

Another solution would be any of the USB miners. There are several such designs (like the BiFury, RedFury and mine - NanoFury). I don't know for sure the details of the other ones (although I guess it's a similar story across all of them) so I'll speak just about my design - the NanoFury NF1 device has those 3 signals available at 3 small pads (test points). So in order to use a NF1 as the "control board" you would connect 5 wires (GND/1.8V/SCK/MOSI/MISO) from the NF1 to your H-card and then cgminer (or whatever miner you use) would detect the multiple BF chips at that port and drive them all.

Yep that all makes sense, so it basically an SPI bus, what's the function of the 1.8v ref voltage?

Good idea about using the NF1 as a controller, saves having to work on firmware which I am novice grade unless I am using something like Arduino dev environment, I am comfortable with C style languages.

[cscape]

The 1.8V is not a reference voltage, but the supply power for the SPI I/O circuitry on each chip.

[itod]

speed:1257 noncerate[GH/s]:53.386 (2.224/chip) hashrate[GH/s]:55.205 good:3729 errors:205 spi-err:2 miso-err:0 jobs:297 cores:97% good:23 bad:1 off:0 (best[GH/s]:54.360) Sun Sep 29 05:45:42 2013
0:   825   33.086   34.637   2311   138   2   0   15   1   0   (2.068/chip)   95%
4:   432   20.301   20.569   1418   67   0   0   8   0   0   (2.538/chip)   100%

Not bad for my first attempt at (re)drawing a PCB =P

It's working! What are your plans for this board? Manufacture it, opensource it, both maybe?

[gingernuts]

Does anyone have a multi-chip board working stably on a 2-layer PCB?

I'm just about done on my 8 chip PCB design, but I'm wondering whether I really need to add a couple more layers for VDD & GND. At the moment I have >90% planes on the top and back sides, so I'm tempted to just try 2-layer, but the cost and turn around time of getting it wrong and having to respin are making me tempted to chicken out and go for the more expensive 4-layer option straight away!

[vs3]

Does anyone have a multi-chip board working stably on a 2-layer PCB?

I'm just about done on my 8 chip PCB design, but I'm wondering whether I really need to add a couple more layers for VDD & GND. At the moment I have >90% planes on the top and back sides, so I'm tempted to just try 2-layer, but the cost and turn around time of getting it wrong and having to respin are making me tempted to chicken out and go for the more expensive 4-layer option straight away!

Ginger - I got the NanoFury on a single layer
The entire back side is just GND. I am dealing with one chip though. 

With some manual routing I think I could fit a bunch of chips the same way and keep the back clean from any tracks. Maybe that will cost a few 0 ohm resistors to do act as a "bridge", but that's very likely going to be cheaper than a 4-layer board.

[DrZeck]

Hi Guys,

Nice to be here again,

Can anybody tell me which cgminer to use with single and/or chained bitfury chips on raspberrypi gpio ports ?

My boards are finished everything works fine but when i solder one chip on board and start chainminer it detects 256 chips and nothing happens. cgminer 3.5.0 dont detect chip at all ...

Here are some pics of finished 2 layer boards ( for testing only ) final will be 4 layer ...



Cheers,

[GandalfG]

Hi Guys,

Nice to be here again,

Can anybody tell me which cgminer to use with single and/or chained bitfury chips on raspberrypi gpio ports ?

My boards are finished everything works fine but when i solder one chip on board and start chainminer it detects 256 chips and nothing happens. cgminer 3.5.0 dont detect chip at all ...

Here are some pics of finished 2 layer boards ( for testing only ) final will be 4 layer ...



Cheers,

Did you start raspi with image from Dave or Punin thread  ?
Cgminer required compilation with parameters --enable-bitfury

More info here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=287590.0

[DrZeck]

Hi Guys,

Nice to be here again,

Can anybody tell me which cgminer to use with single and/or chained bitfury chips on raspberrypi gpio ports ?

My boards are finished everything works fine but when i solder one chip on board and start chainminer it detects 256 chips and nothing happens. cgminer 3.5.0 dont detect chip at all ...

Here are some pics of finished 2 layer boards ( for testing only ) final will be 4 layer ...



Cheers,

Did you start raspi with image from Dave or Punin thread  ?
Cgminer required compilation with parameters --enable-bitfury

More info here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=287590.0

Hi,

yes i used V1 image from dave's thread, and then i compiled cgminer with --enable-bitfury on arch linux.

i didn't try anything else yet but i recheck all connection 5x and everything is ok, i change the chip and still the same ...

Does chainminer can work with 1 chip

Cheers,

[KNK]

Use cgminer from here: https://github.com/legkodymov/cgminer

[DrZeck]

Use cgminer from here: https://github.com/legkodymov/cgminer

Thanks,

i will try it now, does it need to be compiled or just cloned ?

[GandalfG]

Hi Guys,

Nice to be here again,

Can anybody tell me which cgminer to use with single and/or chained bitfury chips on raspberrypi gpio ports ?

My boards are finished everything works fine but when i solder one chip on board and start chainminer it detects 256 chips and nothing happens. cgminer 3.5.0 dont detect chip at all ...

Here are some pics of finished 2 layer boards ( for testing only ) final will be 4 layer ...



Cheers,

Did you start raspi with image from Dave or Punin thread  ?
Cgminer required compilation with parameters --enable-bitfury

More info here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=287590.0

Hi,

yes i used V1 image from dave's thread, and then i compiled cgminer with --enable-bitfury on arch linux.

i didn't try anything else yet but i recheck all connection 5x and everything is ok, i change the chip and still the same ...

Does chainminer can work with 1 chip

Cheers,

You use lvl shifter from 3V3 on raspi to 1V8 for BF chip on SPI bus ?
If you have chip connected in chain, make sure the last chip have  MISO signal tied 1k ohm to GND.
No matter how many chip you have in chain for miner software. You can work with 1 up to xx chip in chain.

[DrZeck]

Hi Guys,

Nice to be here again,

Can anybody tell me which cgminer to use with single and/or chained bitfury chips on raspberrypi gpio ports ?

My boards are finished everything works fine but when i solder one chip on board and start chainminer it detects 256 chips and nothing happens. cgminer 3.5.0 dont detect chip at all ...

Here are some pics of finished 2 layer boards ( for testing only ) final will be 4 layer ...



Cheers,

Did you start raspi with image from Dave or Punin thread  ?
Cgminer required compilation with parameters --enable-bitfury

More info here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=287590.0

Hi,

yes i used V1 image from dave's thread, and then i compiled cgminer with --enable-bitfury on arch linux.

i didn't try anything else yet but i recheck all connection 5x and everything is ok, i change the chip and still the same ...

Does chainminer can work with 1 chip

Cheers,

You use lvl shifter from 3V3 on raspi to 1V8 for BF chip on SPI bus ?
If you have chip connected in chain, make sure the last chip have  MISO signal tied 1k ohm to GND.
No matter how many chip you have in chain for miner software. You can work with 1 up to xx chip in chain.

Yes, i am using txb0104 on spi bus, and i have only one chip mounted on board at the moment ...

So the chainminer should work with one chip too ? and up to 256 in chain ?

Does anybody have rpi connector diagram for V2 M boards ?

[gingernuts]

Does anyone have a multi-chip board working stably on a 2-layer PCB?

I'm just about done on my 8 chip PCB design, but I'm wondering whether I really need to add a couple more layers for VDD & GND. At the moment I have >90% planes on the top and back sides, so I'm tempted to just try 2-layer, but the cost and turn around time of getting it wrong and having to respin are making me tempted to chicken out and go for the more expensive 4-layer option straight away!

Ginger - I got the NanoFury on a single layer
The entire back side is just GND. I am dealing with one chip though. 

With some manual routing I think I could fit a bunch of chips the same way and keep the back clean from any tracks. Maybe that will cost a few 0 ohm resistors to do act as a "bridge", but that's very likely going to be cheaper than a 4-layer board.

Thanks - well, that's one vote for 2-layer