Block Erupter USB - Overclocking/ hacking ?

[bitzip]

I'm interested in this project.  Great job.

I can't wait until there is a final parts list and instructions.

There are a lot of these usb sticks out there, someone could make some money starting a service that upgrades these little puppies.
 

[mjgraham]

I wouldn't mind going over 500
Someone earlier stated, 16.384mhz, 1.2kohm R1 gets you 440, is there an easy 2 part replacement to get to 500+ ?

Edit - Ah just saw the chart. So, still only two parts to change, but you have to give it an external power source and ground ?

While I fed the power directly to the chip, you will have to feed separate 5V to the usb stick if your going to keep the on board regulator, my thought would be to cut a usb cable and just solder the signal wires to the jack on the BE and feed power in the header on the end. I had the regulator pulled to no need to chop a cable. As for the other DC-DC regulator this one might work I don't know someone else could check and see. As for an inductor I am not sure. there is a ground plane under the regulator from ping 1 to 3 the solder mask would have to be removed and some kind of attempt to solder the pad on the bottom of the regulator down. As for how much power a rough guide would be to take the power column and divide it by 5 would get you a round amperage. I'll see what I can find for an inductor but it is most likely not going to fit.

http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DKSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&itemSeq=135412759&uq=635133162195198885

I'm interested in this project.  Great job.

I can't wait until there is a final parts list and instructions.

There are a lot of these usb sticks out there, someone could make some money starting a service that upgrades these little puppies.
 

This might be true I would be worried about them self destructing. I was just lucky to have access to good equipment to just see what could be done. I feel the regulator is going to have to be moved off board, that thing makes a lot of heat I am not having to deal with in this setup. Plus the stock metal slab while pretty just adds a little more mass and area I don't feel that it is very effective unless you want to burn you hand

I have a plan that I want to build but  if only we could but the ASICs, of course they basically already built what I had wanted to do with the BE Blade. I have two final plans on it going to be finding the maximum junction voltage I am sure trying to go higher and the other is to build a schematic of the board and move to a board with more area.
I'll feel better if I can run it outside of the "lab" environment.

[vapourminer]

this is the best read ever here. only other one that comes close is the "pictures of your mining rigs" thread. Kudos!

wonder how easy it would be to just whip another simple board up with the power and freq generator and wire it to a stick (or possibly multiple sticks).

ie, something external to the stick (with its own power supply and signal generator), with leads that you just solder to the stick(s). just need to cut some traces on the stick(s), solder some leads, pull some parts and off you go. something you could do fairly easily to a stock stick with no mad scientist skills needed. Im thinking 555 timer , LM317/mosfet skill level. (not those exact chips maybe but you get the idea)

course, need some cooling mods but thats easy compared to the work youve done.

[Bluestreak66]

OK here is the chart I have been working on, green areas are possible with stock regulator , yellow I think I have found a replacement but going to have to change inductor also and red is external only. Now this is just for reference this is what worked for me, I did not go to far on the cooling aspect, no soldermask removal or anything other than the stock thermal pad. I am amazed that this chip can even handle this much power.

I'm curious as to how much of an effect cooling would have on stability at those high frequencies? My suspicion is that those voltages could be a bit lower starting @ around 20Mhz if better cooling is implemented. Not that it really matters because there is no practical way to power it. I do have one of the AOZ1036PI chips I had contemplated epoxying a thin copper sheet in the pad area so that it contacted the bottom LX pad then the LX area on the board. That chip is rated for 5A and would otherwise be a direct replacement, although the inductor may need to be swapped out as I'm not sure what current it is rated for. That may be out of the scope of some but it's an idea.

Anyway, Great work and thanks for posting up your results. I can confirm that your results match mine @ 14 16 and 18 as those are the one I've tried. I haven't had 20mhz working yet.

[mjgraham]

this is the best read ever here. only other one that comes close is the "pictures of your mining rigs" thread. Kudos!

wonder how easy it would be to just whip another simple board up with the power and freq generator and wire it to a stick (or possibly multiple sticks).

ie, something external to the stick (with its own power supply and signal generator), with leads that you just solder to the stick(s). just need to cut some traces on the stick(s), solder some leads, pull some parts and off you go. something you could do fairly easily to a stock stick with no mad scientist skills needed. Im thinking 555 timer , LM317/mosfet skill level. (not those exact chips maybe but you get the idea)

course, need some cooling mods but thats easy compared to the work youve done.

My though was to just buy dc-dc converters off  eBay, it is going to be hard to make a power supply that will work at these low voltages and currents, be cheaper also I think. If you did have many sticks you could use one clock and buffer it with like an 74act14 or something maybe. These make work for a power supply. I don't like the fact they are using aluminum caps but it is $7, plus I don't know how efficient they will be all the way at one end of their output range, might get some to test with.
 
 http://www.ebay.com/itm/180824739993?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

I'm curious as to how much of an effect cooling would have on stability at those high frequencies? My suspicion is that those voltages could be a bit lower starting @ around 20Mhz if better cooling is implemented. Not that it really matters because there is no practical way to power it. I do have one of the AOZ1036PI chips I had contemplated epoxying a thin copper sheet in the pad area so that it contacted the bottom LX pad then the LX area on the board. That chip is rated for 5A and would otherwise be a direct replacement, although the inductor may need to be swapped out as I'm not sure what current it is rated for. That may be out of the scope of some but it's an idea.

Anyway, Great work and thanks for posting up your results. I can confirm that your results match mine @ 14 16 and 18 as those are the one I've tried. I haven't had 20mhz working yet.

Yes I am curious to, I think it would drop the voltages some and I am going to try to work on it a little more. Interesting idea on the regulator, I did look at those as for the stock inductor it might only be 2-3A I mean they most likely just cut it close.

Edit - well I removed the thermal pad and used heatsink grease and now my errors dropped from 5.5% to 1.2% so a foolish mistake on my part not to just do that in the first place. Still has the solder mask of course.

[ktbken]

Hi
Any one know of a replacement for the AOZ1021?  I am in the uk and have (due to my own stupidity) managed to pop it on one of my erupters and the stock part only seems to be avalable from china with 60 days delivery or from digikey and i dont want to have to pay £12 delivery + customs charge for a £1 regulater  

[Scorpia]

has anyone played with the --icarus-timing option in cgminer?
I have got cgminer 3.3.1 and currently running --icarus-timing short and it seems the reported hash rate on my 13.5Mhz unit has gone from about 350-360Mh/s to 365-375Mh/s.

[pugano]

Just wanted to say awesome work in here I got my miners averaging 447 MHs. I am going to put together a noob tutorial once I get some more stuff in from digikey.

[funkymunky]

Just wanted to say awesome work in here I got my miners averaging 447 MHs. I am going to put together a noob tutorial once I get some more stuff in from digikey.

I and many others would appreciate this.

Thank you

[Ridicuss]

Just wanted to say awesome work in here I got my miners averaging 447 MHs. I am going to put together a noob tutorial once I get some more stuff in from digikey.

I and many others would appreciate this.

Thank you

Looking forward to it!

[ct1aic]

As I could read through the thread, if I just replace the 12 MHz crystal and no other component, I am limited to 13 MHz am I wrong?

Does anyone have a photo of a USB Block Erupter without the 12 MHz crystal soldered on it to see if I can do the work with only a soldering iron and a desoldering pump?

[Roger100]

As I could read through the thread, if I just replace the 12 MHz crystal and no other component, I am limited to 13 MHz am I wrong?

Does anyone have a photo of a USB Block Erupter without the 12 MHz crystal soldered on it to see if I can do the work with only a soldering iron and a desoldering pump?

Page 6 of this very thread, at the bottom.

[Beans]

I'm still waiting for the "Erupter Overlocking for Noobs" book to come out.

[newfrozzen]

Waiting to ...
I can do soldering etc...
but i would be nice if someone could summarize the whole procedure.  

-------------

Must the heatsink been removed and replaced with a better one ?
I personally would build a water cooling suotion or
only take a long heatsink and stick the USB-Erupters with their little heatsinks on the big one (thermalpaste between the heatsinks)

[ooxtcoo]

As I could read through the thread, if I just replace the 12 MHz crystal and no other component, I am limited to 13 MHz am I wrong?

Does anyone have a photo of a USB Block Erupter without the 12 MHz crystal soldered on it to see if I can do the work with only a soldering iron and a desoldering pump?

here in my tread you can see (bad) photos of my complete desoldered usb erupters.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=270367.0


btw. fuses are set... i cant read firmware dump from attiny. (but maybe there are some sticks with open fuses?)

[tombs]

Looking for two recommendations

Link to suitable resistors that isn't coming from china. preferably something in the usa
for use with the 16mhz crystal

recommendation on a decent hot air station.

Thanks

[ct1aic]

As I could read through the thread, if I just replace the 12 MHz crystal and no other component, I am limited to 13 MHz am I wrong?

Does anyone have a photo of a USB Block Erupter without the 12 MHz crystal soldered on it to see if I can do the work with only a soldering iron and a desoldering pump?

here in my tread you can see (bad) photos of my complete desoldered usb erupters.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=270367.0


btw. fuses are set... i cant read firmware dump from attiny. (but maybe there are some sticks with open fuses?)

Thanks for the link, ooxtcoo.

[mjgraham]

here in my tread you can see (bad) photos of my complete desoldered usb erupters.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=270367.0


btw. fuses are set... i cant read firmware dump from attiny. (but maybe there are some sticks with open fuses?)

I wondered about the fuses, I guess it would be back to bus capturing, I was right about to do this when some people brought to my attention about the mining software being the issue with the slow down. Would still like to make a schematic of the device but until I kill one I guess I'll wait.

[ooxtcoo]

if i dont get working asics for my demaged miners, i send you one pcb if you like.
at the moment it looks good that i get some asics now for repair.
but maybe i have then one pcb free to send to you.


for now, i can make better resolution photos for you.
most lines you can track on the picture...
all the other lines in the leyer, i can tell you where it goes...


the parts on the miner are easy to solder... (no bga´s)
so its easy to desolder and resolder it back... its done in 5 minutes...


when my demaged sticks are back to work, i use it for overclocking tests...
then this tuned sticks will get blue led´s
i have already one modeficated with a blue led... looks mutch better then the green one.

[ElitePork]

What do you all used to remove the R1 and 12MHz crystal?
A hot air gun + soldering paste?
Regards
EP