Antminer S9 replacement hash board

[alex1560]

Hey guys,

I almost finished my hashboard design which is going to be compatible with antminer s9 using bm1387 chips.

Here's a screenshot from altium designer:




I run a small farm and I have some clients with burned hashboards so I am going to move the chips
from the burned boards to my new replacement board. My first batch will be of 20 boards and I want to know
if there's interested people to buy this replacement boards in the future after I test everything and make sure
they are 100% working.

Will make some videos of the replacement process in about 2-3 weeks.

Leave a reply in case you are interested and I can give you more info about this.

Alex

[1715120952]

1715120952

[1715120952]

1715120952

[1715120952]

1715120952

[whohackedme]

I am interested & I have some NEW 1387 chips
I could not send you a PM, since my new userid is a newbie

[alex1560]

Hi,

That's cool. You can get in touch on skype, my id is Alexander1560 , I am also a newbie on this forum so I guess PM won't work for me either.

Will keep this topic updated when I get my first trial batch.

[TOMTESci]

interested in your boards. keep us updated

[Turbo2]

Replacement cost of 1 S9 board through you? Parts + labour.

[spunkybd]

snip

Are you in the US?

[fanatic26]

If your board works and is proven to be compatible with the s9 controller I have a couple thousand chips available.

[alex1560]

Replacement cost of 1 S9 board through you? Parts + labour.

Hi,

Prices are not available yet. I only know how much work would be to do it manually. I need to check the prototype board then discuss with
manufacturers to automate the process and get the pricess to something that's affordable and it's worth producing. I will keep this
post updated.

[alex1560]

If your board works and is proven to be compatible with the s9 controller I have a couple thousand chips available.

Sounds interesting. I will keep you guys updated and make a video of the board once I get them. Still running the last minute checks on the
design before sending to manufactre the first PCB's for prototyping.

I expect to have a working copy in about 2 weeks.

[alex1560]

snip

Are you in the US?

No, somewhere in Europe.

[alex1560]

Hey guys, here's a video of the finished PCB layout. I submitted the files for manufacture and by the end of this week I should have the first 5 boards ready for testing.

https://youtu.be/IrT0e0pYGMo

I will make another video once everything is tested and proven to be working fine.

Will keep you guys updated.

[alex1560]

Hey guys,

I just received the prototype boards today and here's how it looks:

https://ibb.co/nuZQY7

In a few days I s hould have an update about the performance and make some videos if all works fine.

[alex1560]

Hey guys.

Quick update on the project.

I have found multiple small issues which I have fixed on the prototype board. I managed to get it connecting with the original controller board
and we are also working on making a rasp pi controller version which will allow controlling more than 3 boards on the same machine.

I will make the changes on the design and update the parts list and will order a fully assembled board this time, as it took me 20 hours
to manually place the parts (1465 parts) on the board and a lot more to inspect and test everything.

It will take another 2-3 weeks to get the new prototype board automatically assembled to remove the error of bad soldering or applying uneven
heat to the chips.

I have made a workflow for servicing these boards using a DIY reflow oven with my arduino controller and will test this further on the future boards.

The main problem I faced so far was that I was using chips from other boards as I did not wanted to distroy any new chips, and some of those
were bad from the begining and as you know, the chain will stop working if a chips is bad, and there's no easy way to know which chip doesn't work.
I will have to develop a testing gear to know which chip is bad or good. If there's someone with more knowledge about IC's, drop me a message, I would
love to have a chat about how to debug these things.

Lot's of things to take care of, but I am optimistic that this will work and there's soo much room for improvement on these and will begin working
on that after the first batch. We already planed some changes to the cooling system, looking into using water blocks instead of air cooling, see
some design pictures attached.

https://ibb.co/fYCN2c
https://ibb.co/kSBFNc
https://ibb.co/foSBvx

The truth is that I intended finishing this project without asking for money from the comunity, but it took me already 2 months to make the design
and I think that it will take another 30-40 days for a finished product including the extra features for efficiency.

I am thinking to setup a crowdfunding campaign to help pushing through with this and enable me to get the first batch of 50 boards made.

I will keep you updated.

[alex1560]

Hello everyone,

Here's the crowdfunding I am rising for the first 50 boards batch and control software development. The boards will work with the default s9 controller, but I believe we can do it using a rasp pi or something similar which is available for everyone.

Here's the indie gogo link, if you have any questions, let me know.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bitcoin-mining-hashboard-4-5-th-per-board/x/18235457#/

[amir.ebrahimi66]

Hello everyone,

Here's the crowdfunding I am rising for the first 50 boards batch and control software development. The boards will work with the default s9 controller, but I believe we can do it using a rasp pi or something similar which is available for everyone.

Here's the indie gogo link, if you have any questions, let me know.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bitcoin-mining-hashboard-4-5-th-per-board/x/18235457#/

Hello, can we replace bm1385 with bm1387 in s7 to have s9?

[alex1560]

Hello everyone,

Here's the crowdfunding I am rising for the first 50 boards batch and control software development. The boards will work with the default s9 controller, but I believe we can do it using a rasp pi or something similar which is available for everyone.

Here's the indie gogo link, if you have any questions, let me know.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bitcoin-mining-hashboard-4-5-th-per-board/x/18235457#/

Hello, can we replace bm1385 with bm1387 in s7 to have s9?

Hi Amir,

The IC's are very different, even the footprint is dissimilar between the chips. There's no way this could be done.

[amir.ebrahimi66]

Are your boards ready for sale? What is your best suggestion to improve s7 to s9? We have many S7 which is not profitable now.

[alex1560]

Are your boards ready for sale? What is your best suggestion to improve s7 to s9? We have many S7 which is not profitable now.

Hi, the boards are not ready for sale yet. I am waiting for the second prototype board to be assembled, in about 2 weeks should be ready.

I have not had the chance to look into S7 so far, but we are trying to improve the cooling of S9 to be more efficient in terms of power consumption.

If you would be interested to donate an S7 machine so we can have a crack at it, we could try different cooling systems and see if there's any chance of
overclocking if it would run cooler in liquied or with a waterblock.

Today I am going to a factory to check the waterblock I have designed for the S9 machine, I will do some tests as soon as I have the system working.

You can get in touch on skype Alexander1560 is my id if you are willing to send an S7 machine. I can look into improving it and then I can send it back or send you a free cooling
system for the machine in exchange.

Alex

[zwilla]

pm me, please.

thx

zwilla

[alex1560]

pm me, please.

thx

zwilla

Hi,

You need to enable the "allow newbie to contact" I also enabled it. You can get in touch on skype as well, Alexander1560

[jimbo215]

Hi, I am very interested in these replacement boards, and if you have working models, we would be interested in purchasing them.

[alex1560]

Hi,

We should have the second board prototype in about a week. Will inspect, test and come with a video showing the pefromance.

One thing I want to let you know is that's not going to be cheaper than what you get from Bitmain, the reason is that the IC's BM1387
are much more expensive than what Bitmain is paying to produce them, 3-4 times more expensive actually.

So expect one board to be $1000+ for low quantity order and a slight discount if ordering a big batch.

Will keep you posted.

Alex

[alex1560]

Hey guys, I can confirm that the design is proven by the second prototype board.

The issues I had with the first board were fixed and I will make a video with the working board on Monday.

The board is hashing with 4.5 TH/s . I will now continue the work on the waterblock and install it on the board
then begin tweaking settings to see what kind of overclock can be made.

[CryptoStash]

Please contact me with your info as we'd be interested in carrying these in stock.

[alex1560]

Hey guys,

Here's the proof I promissed. It took some time as I was getting the board working outside the aluminum case and when I was putting it inside it was showing 0 Asics found.

I had to find out that the uncovered vias used for prototyping are not very happy touching the aluminum case. I used some electrical tape to insulate the margins and it works fine.
Glad it didn't burn anything.

In the manufacturing version all the vias will be covered with solder mask so this issue will disappear.

Here's a video showing how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a70ns3xpKUk

In case you have any ideas on overclocking this unit, what needs to be changed, voltage, frequency or both. I plan to experiment on this after the waterblock is completed for both sides, to make sure I
get to use this board a little longer.


Have a great day!

[alex1560]

Hey guys, a few photos of the finished board:

https://ibb.co/dy2NNS
https://ibb.co/mB6hNS
https://ibb.co/bBnBGn

[anonron]

Hi, I just saw this thread. Are the boards ready for sale yet? I have a lot of BM1387 chips, would I be able to use them with this board to make an antminer s9? Please contact me: nikhilooga@gmail.com

[alex1560]

Hi, I just saw this thread. Are the boards ready for sale yet? I have a lot of BM1387 chips, would I be able to use them with this board to make an antminer s9? Please contact me: nikhilooga@gmail.com

Hi, yes, the board is working properly at 4.5 TH/s. I replied you by e-mail, will continue the conversation there.

Alex

[ark02]

Just saw your waterblock testing video!

Looks like you've made a lot of progress very quickly.

Have you figured out how to test the I2C chain efficiently to figure out which chips are faulty?

[alex1560]

Just saw your waterblock testing video!

Looks like you've made a lot of progress very quickly.

Have you figured out how to test the I2C chain efficiently to figure out which chips are faulty?

Hi, thanks!

We did some work on the i2c which is talking with the PIC to enable the voltage for the IC's, we made it enable the board so we can
communicate with the BM's, but we stopped there as we managed to modify the original firmware to obtain the things we were after, like modifying frequency and board voltage
so we can overclock the board properly.

The controller talk via UART with the BM's. There are 2 ways to talk with the IC's.. One option which looks a bit simpler is shown on this page:
http://mightydevices.com/?p=615 .

The second way to talk is the Bitmain way which is quite complex due to the lack of docs and the not very clean code they written for the firmware.

Given the time we could put together a tool to test the IC's individually and come with a good or bad report, but we are focusing our efforts on something else right now.

In the future we might look into this as well.

BTW, for others who did not see the waterblock video, check it out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj-qNBYHM0w

It turned out better than I was hoping, it keeps the local temp of the board to 41 degreese celsius just with a water radiator and a fan. I plan on installing an active water chiller
and attempt to overclock and get the most of these boards as I think they can be run at at least 8TH/s per board in normal conditions by using these dual water block system.

The best part is that these water blocks can be installed on any antminer s9 board with not too much skill required.

If you are interested to discuss more, you can join this discord channel: https://discord.gg/5Eq5hUB

[alex1560]

Hey guys, made an overclock to 850 Megs and the board is running at 6 TH/s . Check this video for more details:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY4_iP1i2Gs

Alex