Hey all.
Great to see this thread positive and exciting again! Even some nice productive stuff from you Voxelot
. Its great to see. Thank you all for your kind words. I really do appreciate it.
'It's all about sharing' put it really well in saying its exciting to be a part of one of the largest social experiments of our times, and potentially the beginning of a major upheaval of the corrupt money systems of the world today. It feels big and it feel exciting, and i think it will be very cool to look back at these times and tell our kids, friends, families that we were right there in the thick of it. Very well said IAS.
Loving all the heatsink porn. We're gonna play around with a bunch of options and see what gets the best results. We were also looking at these:
http://www.tglobaltechnology.com/datasheets/XL-25.pdf . In the end, if you are desiring to crank these up into overclocking crazy mode, heatsinks and fans will be crucial. The boards are built to have heatsinks attached and when we find the ones we like the best, we'll make them available as an added extra.
Thankyou jlsminingcorp for the cost comparison. It's nice to see it all laid out like that.
And thankyou Voxelot for the offer of assistance with coding. If i can think of a way to put you to work i will.
In terms of the open sourcing, once we have done our main board spin, everything will be open sourced and available to the community. On this topic, we will also be offering blank PCBs for a substantially reduced rate soon if anyone out there has chips of their own and wants blank boards. We have been getting some much better quotes on the boards lately, and if we do enough they will come out reasonably cheap.
Creatine, here's some answers to your questions:
You stated in your OP what the name of the dude was who designed your PCBs. Can we get some extra info on him?
The board designer is Dan Stocks. He is a highly skilled and experienced electrical engineer, and an awesome dude. He's been doing this stuff for a long time and really knows his shit. He currently works for Rode microphones. He has been a great guy to work with on this project; always calling me with new crazy ideas for things we can do with these boards. His enthusiasm is contagious. This project would be nothing without his skills and expertise. I know that's not really much more info than what is on the front page, but i'm not really sure what else to say. If you have specific questions, ask away.
Who is responsible for writing/compiling/flashing the microcontroller ROM?
Our programmers name is James Nichols, who as it happens just handed in his Mathematics PHD today! As soon as i finish writing this post, i'm going to go meet him for celebrations. A fine occasion indeed. He is a great programmer, again, has been doing it for years and knows his shit. We will also be getting Kano, one of the Cgminer Devs to help us out with the Cgminer side of the coding. We've already been in touch and he is itching to get his hands on the proto.
Are you including JTAG on the PCB so that we can recompile/reflash the microcontroller?
This one i'm not sure about. I'll run it by Dan. I'm pretty sure you will be able to reflash the microcontroller if you want to.
Will the microcontroller Binaries have open source so we can have a look/fork our own versions?
Yes, it will be open source.
Who are you using to manufacture/mount the PCBs?
We are getting the PCBs manufactured in China. The assembly will most likely be done here in Sydney, but we are also looking at possibly getting the manufacture done in the U.S. We are getting various quotes and still weighing up the different options.
Where geographically are you assembling/shipping from?
See above.
Hope those answers give you a bit more info. I know some of it is a bit vague, but we haven't got everything locked down yet. Getting there though.
Now off to the pub.
