Black Arrow 28nm 100Ghash Bitcoin ASIC from $0.49/GH/s

[m4rk]

I requested a refund in April, which was approved after I provided all the requested information. I have been waiting patiently since then.

Today, I received a notification on my refund order ticket (the same one that contained confirmation that my refund had been approved) that my order "is already scheduled for dispatch and will be shipped in the next few days."

Exactly same for me. I did' get same mail today...

I really don't want any BA shit on my table, just refund on BTC and that's it...

[Atomar]

Got my X-1 2 Weeks ago. Allready sold it 

[JoeGruff]

Got my X-1 2 Weeks ago. Allready sold it 

For how much, and what country?

Thx.

[Atomar]

Got my X-1 2 Weeks ago. Allready sold it 

I guess PT Barnum was correct.

?? What's "PT Barnum" ?? Correct with what ??

[Atomar]

Got my X-1 2 Weeks ago. Allready sold it 

For how much, and what country?
Thx.

Switzerland / CHF 200.00 Bether than nothing, I guess ...

[Flying Hellfish]

Got my X-1 2 Weeks ago. Allready sold it 

I guess PT Barnum was correct.

?? What's "PT Barnum" ?? Correct with what ??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_minute

[Atomar]

Got my X-1 2 Weeks ago. Allready sold it 

I guess PT Barnum was correct.

?? What's "PT Barnum" ?? Correct with what ??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_minute

Nope!! I'm NOT this way !! I like FAIR trade!!

[JoeGruff]

Got my X-1 2 Weeks ago. Allready sold it 

For how much, and what country?
Thx.

Switzerland / CHF 200.00 Bether than nothing, I guess ...

That's good!

I know these cost more that that to make though. What a painful half a year this has been.

[Specialkey]

Isnt there any possibility to get a chinese lawyer to get them on their balls?

I had issues in America and BBB has helped me.

[TrekRider]

Had enough of Minersource. (I need to rant)
Dan Murtha has started to ignore all my messages at Minersource.

I was speaking with him to a couple of weeks ago because I was complaining that even though bogsag3 himself told me somewhere in the thread, my order was valued at $100 for the customs, when I got my order I had to £53+ in customs duties (equivalent in $90+) and his response was apparently some slipped through at the full retail price.

But Dan himself was genuinely polite and promised me that if I was looking for more hardware that he would come up with a favourable deal. (Completely ignoring the fact that technically he should of reimbursed me for the additional fees I paid as it should of come to about £12 in duties).

So I began talking to Dan to see what kind of deal he could do for me, afterall I am willing to spend more money at Minersource for a decent miner in stock. So I asked what does he have/recommend as I dont want to spend a massive amount considering the delay has screwed me and many hundreds more people.

He recommended the BTC Garden 610gh. I was happy with that and made the suggestion about making this a deal worth while for me, but he has basically ignored the fact of coming up with any kind of deal when giving me a price. I said because I am spending more money with Minersource, I think a fair deal would have been somewhere in the region of a $200 discount, as I would ideally like to pay no more than $400 and he could consider all future compensation from this BA fiasco complete and he can even keep the raspberryPI and just send the SD card with the software. But no, I am ignored and he clearly doesnt care.

I haven't criticised Minersource at all during this whole thing, but I am beginning to feel like he/minersource is on purposely shitting on me. He even tells me that he cant work out a deal based on the compensation because its seperate. (But Dan, I asked for a bloody exchange long before my order shipped and you said no, and I still didnt argue) Based on that comment alone, I doubt very much Minersource is going to be giving anyone who ordered 1 X1 any kind of compensation that would reflect anything of value. I said to him surely in my situation as I only bought one as voucher is the logical option.

Dan ignored the fact that even though I requested a refund (which was ignored) and even though I requested an exchange of item for the price I paid - I would of even paid a bit more for something else (that was also ignored). I pleaded my case that if we could deal at $400 for the BTC Garden, that would be fair because Minersource exchanged plenty of other peoples miners and even refunded others (when he refused mine), even pointing out others on this forum took completely destroying their name of minersource because they were unhappy.

I have done none of this (unless this counts), but I can only assume that because I have been nice, Dan and the others at minersource dont give a shit about me. They have shipped my order, lied to me, made me pay for it and now ignore every email I send and thats me trying to arrange something where I pay them more money.

I think I am broken. End rant.

Same issues here. Minersource is clearly full of shit as well as BA. The two companies are very similar in my books. I've been attempting communication now for TWO MONTHS but the only email I've ever received back from them is the bullshit mass email of sorry, no refunds, we are shipping. What a load of shit.

I sadly don't think we'll see our money back and I don't want to see the piss poor excuse of a miner, the X1 anymore because it's way beyond useless. The only shining light in this whole drama is I bought S3's direct from Bitmain and had no issues at all; they know how to treat a customer

Yea, seems to me they're more closely aligned than all of us know...  I personally will not be doing business with Minersource in the future.  I KNOW for a FACT bobsag3 was involved with BA way back when they fucked up the assembly of the Drillbit boards using parts that were not specified resulting in a significant delay and having to find someone to fix EVERY board they assembled.

Everyone was warned back then not to do business with BA and nobody listened...

[cdog]

People screaming about injustice here need an attitude adjustment, seriously.

"OMG I didnt get my magic internet money making machine in time to make money wahhhhhhh wahhhh"

BOO FING HOO. File Black Arrow among the countless businesses people have invested in that failed. Shit happens.

We gambled and lost. Thats it. Dont act like a baby.

Accepting personal responsibility for making a poor choice to preorder a product which wasnt even fully designed rests squarely on YOU.

Acknowledge your role in this fiasco. Stop blaming everyone else for YOUR failure to make a good investment.

[TrekRider]

People screaming about injustice here need an attitude adjustment, seriously.

"OMG I didnt get my magic internet money making machine in time to make money wahhhhhhh wahhhh"

BOO FING HOO. File Black Arrow among the countless businesses people have invested in that failed. Shit happens.

We gambled and lost. Thats it. Dont act like a baby.

Accepting personal responsibility for making a poor choice to preorder a product which wasnt even fully designed rests squarely on YOU.

Acknowledge your role in this fiasco. Stop blaming everyone else for YOUR failure to make a good investment.

You're gonna make people cry...

[Syke]

People screaming about injustice here need an attitude adjustment, seriously.

"OMG I didnt get my magic internet money making machine in time to make money wahhhhhhh wahhhh"

BOO FING HOO. File Black Arrow among the countless businesses people have invested in that failed. Shit happens.

We gambled and lost. Thats it. Dont act like a baby.

Accepting personal responsibility for making a poor choice to preorder a product which wasnt even fully designed rests squarely on YOU.

Acknowledge your role in this fiasco. Stop blaming everyone else for YOUR failure to make a good investment.

Blaming the victims is really lame.

[TrekRider]

People screaming about injustice here need an attitude adjustment, seriously.

"OMG I didnt get my magic internet money making machine in time to make money wahhhhhhh wahhhh"

BOO FING HOO. File Black Arrow among the countless businesses people have invested in that failed. Shit happens.

We gambled and lost. Thats it. Dont act like a baby.

Accepting personal responsibility for making a poor choice to preorder a product which wasnt even fully designed rests squarely on YOU.

Acknowledge your role in this fiasco. Stop blaming everyone else for YOUR failure to make a good investment.

Blaming the victims is really lame.

Playing the role of "victim" is even more lame.  Should have done your research...

[jimmothy]

People screaming about injustice here need an attitude adjustment, seriously.

"OMG I didnt get my magic internet money making machine in time to make money wahhhhhhh wahhhh"

BOO FING HOO. File Black Arrow among the countless businesses people have invested in that failed. Shit happens.

We gambled and lost. Thats it. Dont act like a baby.

Accepting personal responsibility for making a poor choice to preorder a product which wasnt even fully designed rests squarely on YOU.

Acknowledge your role in this fiasco. Stop blaming everyone else for YOUR failure to make a good investment.

Blaming the victims is really lame.

Playing the role of "victim" is even more lame.  Should have done your research...

Thanks captain hindsight.

I think the bitching and complaining is justified and will make sure nobody buys from this company again.

Bitching and complaining about the bitching and complaining is just silly.

[lajz99]

Is it now okay to say "I TOLD YOU SO!!!"?

I wish you all the best with obtaining products that actually work, however, based on how bad Black Arrow fucked up the Drillbit board production using sub-par components I wouldn't plug in anything produced by this company.  Good luck!!

Barntech / bobsag, can you please confirm or deny this?

Drillbit / Bobsag3 they both had production runs through BlackArrow for their relative boards correct?

That is correct. They built my bitfury boards, and assembled the drillbit boards.

From Barntech,while BTCtalk was down:

Hey guys.

So we believe we have discovered the source of the problem. Basically we are looking at a bad inductor at LP1 which in turn in causing the regulator at U20 to fail and in some cases burn up. The fix is to replace the inductor, and if the regulator chip has failed, replace it also. All the boards out there that are experiencing the ?no green light? symptom have had the regulator fail and will need both components replaced. The good news is that this issue is isolated and doesn?t affect the rest of the boards. Everything else is solid.

We?re really sorry for the inconvenience this causes, and we?re determined to make it right. The bad components weren?t present in our original prototypes, and as you know the boards often mine successfully for hours or days before failing so the problem didn?t show up when the factory tested the pre-production boards or when we tested them before sending them out. In the interest of getting everyone mining quickly we chose to only test the boards for about 15 minutes and in that 15 minute none of them failed.

Now though, with the boards being run for longer, under different conditions, we are seeing it. Sigh. At least we know what it is and how to fix it, so that?s the next step.

First things first, stop running your boards. If they haven?t failed now, there is a pretty good chance they will at some point. Swapping out the LP1 inductor is a reasonably simple task. Swapping out the U20 regulator after it fails is not so simple. The more of these boards we can get to before the regulator goes the better. Its not worth getting a few extra days of hashing to potentially make the boards harder to repair and lose more time in the long run. STOP RUNNING THEM UNTIL THIS PART IS REPLACED.

We are coming up with a couple alternative solutions for replacing these parts.

Replacing just the inductor (green light on)

This is the good news option - you?ve powered off the board while the green light was still coming on.

Option 1 - DIY Inductor Replacement

Once we have selected and tested a suitable replacement inductor we?ll publish it for you all. Those of you we feel confident with a soldering iron, or have a friend who is handy with soldering can replace it yourselves.  We will publish a detailed instructional video on how to do this. This will be the quickest and cheapest way, but please only choose to do this if you are confident that you know what you?re doing. We can?t take responsibility for your boards once you start tinkering with them.

Option 2 - Send the board back

For those of you who don?t feel confident replacing the inductor yourselves, we will get them shipped either back here to us for repair or to a local repairer closer to you. We?re currently looking into overseas repair options so boards won?t necesarily have to come all the way back to Australia, though it may be easier in the long run. I?ll see what i can come up with.

Replacing inductor and regulator (no green light)

If your boards have already lost the regulator chip (no green light) then you will need to send them in so both the inductor and regulator can be replaced, unless you are VERY capable replacing chips on PCB boards, if you believe you are, then you are welcome to have a go at this too, but just know that the regulator chiup has 16 tiny little feet that all need to be soldered.

Source:
http://drillbitsystem.com/forum/index.php?topic=196.45

Hey guys.

Have updated the first page. It looks a little something like this: ... (in short, good news!   )

**** Update 10-12-13****

Hey guys. OK i'm back, had a great weekend away and came back to good news! The team have implemented the fix into 30 boards and they have been running successfully for two days. Looks like we're in business. I am shipping out those 30 boards now and the rest will be ready and tested tomorrow. We have passed the info on to our repairers in the states and the U.K. so we are ready to go into full repair mode.

Can everyone who is keen on doing the fix themselves please write to me so i can make note of who you are and pass on the relevant information.

Thanks everyone for your patience in this. We are truly almost out of it now. Can't wait to get this done so we can move onto future plans!!

I've noticed tensions have been running high and i understand it completely. It certainly has been a frustrating situation. But please don't take it out on the people helping make all this happen. This has been an amazing community effort and has been so wonderful to see everyone band together and solve this situation as a group. Massive thanks to TK1337 and Milkbottlec for stepping up to help out with repairs and going way above and beyond. Massive thanks to Lajz for keeping the forum running smoothly. And to everyone for chucking in your thoughts to help get to the bottom of it all.

As for what actually went wrong here, unfortunately we don't really know. Could have been bad or fake parts, could have been bad workmanship putting the parts on. As for the design, we are almost 100% sure that the chosen parts were right and the design sound, but i guess its possible that they just weren't up for the job. On paper there was plenty of overhead in there. Its kind of impossible to say really. But hey, we've found a way around and the boards now work. Thats the main thing.

Now i imagine things are going to get a bit messy with packages all over the place so please make it easier for me and let me know the status of your stuff. First thing i need to know is everyone doing their own repairs.

Oh and there is a new firmware that is running very smoothly indeed. More on that soon.  

Thanks guys.

Barntech

Source: http://drillbitsystem.com/forum/index.php?topic=206.msg1332#msg1332

Just so you all are aware...every single board had to be fixed by hand due to them either using fake/bad parts or shitty assembly. 

[abdullahadam]

Just so you all are aware...every single board had to be fixed by hand due to them either using fake/bad parts or shitty assembly. 

So the devil or the deep blue sea?

Burn down your house or take a $6000 loss?

[eXOBeX]

I requested a refund in April, which was approved after I provided all the requested information. I have been waiting patiently since then.

Today, I received a notification on my refund order ticket (the same one that contained confirmation that my refund had been approved) that my order "is already scheduled for dispatch and will be shipped in the next few days."

Now they're just liars, too.

That's standard excuse-of-the-month, I had exactly the same.

[Unacceptable]

Yea,I was there with the Drillbit fiasco,but figured they learned from that (like BFL    ).

BUT when the delay was announced in Feb,I put in for & got my refund for 4 X1's from Minersource.

I finally made a good decision!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   

You folks should have done the same,hope you all get back as much as you can 

[abdullahadam]

You folks should have done the same,hope you all get back as much as you can 

Lot of us are direct orders and totally stuck.