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

[tempestb]

One TH is going to get you a Bitcoin in how long?  Three weeks with the coming difficulty increase?  Or they can sell the unit in a day's time and make that $500, and another $500, etc.   Mining is for suckers like me.  The hardware is the real gold mine.  They'd be fools to mine with it.

[1715188627]

1715188627

[1715188627]

1715188627

[ChuckBuck]

They don't need to mine with our hardware.  There have been so many refund requests and I'm certain they ordered more than just the initial orders worth of parts.  So they probably have hundreds of unclaimed units they can build, rack, and mine with for themselves.  That would not slow down their ability to ship you your unit.  Sure, they could rack and mine with your unit as well, but it would likely take them a lot of time to rack and mine with so many units.  They'd be just as successful, in my opinion, shipping and racking.

The real money is to ship, then cut the price, and sell to all the other people waiting for in-stock machines.  They'd make way more money than they would mining.  Faster by far...

It doesn't take long for them to hash with our chips.  They don't have build out the full miners just use the hashboards and connect them up.

Don't you remember their bitfuries?



Easy peezy, voila!  Profit!

[PurpleDino]

For some reason I can't take my eyes off this train wreck in progress. I am among the lucky who managed to salvage something through a refund (kudos to Minersource). Is there any other business where this level of incompetence can keep on trucking with customers still remaining, except in the world of crypto currencies?

[blackarrow]

Bitcoin Miners progress update – 22 May 2014

Prospero X3
We experienced a few serious technical issues with the backplane PCB which unfortunately delayed the completion of the Prospero X3. Our engineers spent the whole week debugging the problem without finding yet a working solution. We solicited expertise from 3rd parties and we are now having 3 different teams working on the issue around the clock. Please note that we are not in the position to estimate a completion time. It is possible that the fix could be solved as early as tomorrow or as late as next week. We decided as a safety measure to start redesigning 2 extra versions of the backplane PCB. The first complete bug free version will be used in production.
Deadline delays are never welcome news therefore we decided to offer the following optional packages available immediately which might be suitable for a minority of anxious customers who are able to build their own miner based on the Minion chip:
Option 1: Replace each Prospero (2 Thash) including the compensation package (1Thash) with 50 Minion ASICs (up to 7 Thash)
or
Option 2: Replace each Prospero (2 Thash) including the compensation package (1Thash) with 20 Hashboards (each PCB includes 2 x Minion ASIC, heatsinks, power chips, inductors, capacitors) – 4.5 Thash. Note that due to the lack of a backplane these boards have not been intensively tested therefore further rework might be required (e.g: add some capacitors); should this work be required we will only provide documents on what needs to be done. The customer will be responsible of executing it and purchasing the parts.
Note: Opting for any of these options will not cancel your 25% discount for your next Minion orders.
We would also like to ask from help from the technical community to help speed up solving the issues that we have encountered or to design a new backplane. The solicited work will be rewarded accordingly (money, products, etc.)

Prospero X1
Prospero X1 miners are not affected by the issue mentioned above and we should start shipping next week once the cases will be delivered.
Note: To avoid any further delay we have the option to deliver the case-less X1 if any of the customers will choose so.
Please contact out customer support should you choose any of the options above.

[drewage]

For some reason I can't take my eyes off this train wreck in progress. I am among the lucky who managed to salvage something through a refund (kudos to Minersource).

This ^^^

I feel for everyone who still has a stake in this.

[Biffa]

Oh shit

[raskul]

Oh shit

i refrained.

[david105396]

22 May 2014
 
Prospero X3
We experienced a few serious technical issues with the backplane PCB which unfortunately delayed the completion of the Prospero X3. Our engineers spent the whole week debugging the problem without finding yet a working solution. We solicited expertise from 3rd parties and we are now having 3 different teams working on the issue around the clock. Please note that we are not in the position to estimate a completion time. It is possible that the fix could be solved as early as tomorrow or as late as next week. We decided as a safety measure to start redesigning 2 extra versions of the backplane PCB. The first complete bug free version will be used in production.
Deadline delays are never welcome news therefore we decided to offer the following optional packages available immediately which might be suitable for a minority of anxious customers who are able to build their own miner based on the Minion chip:
Option 1: Replace each Prospero (2 Thash) including the compensation package (1Thash) with 50 Minion ASICs (up to 7 Thash)
or
Option 2: Replace each Prospero (2 Thash) including the compensation package (1Thash) with 20 Hashboards (each PCB includes 2 x Minion ASIC, heatsinks, power chips, inductors, capacitors) – 4.5 Thash. Note that due to the lack of a backplane these boards have not been intensively tested therefore further rework might be required (e.g: add some capacitors); should this work be required we will only provide documents on what needs to be done. The customer will be responsible of executing it and purchasing the parts.
Note: Opting for any of these options will not cancel your 25% discount for your next Minion orders.
We would also like to ask from help from the technical community to help speed up solving the issues that we have encountered or to design a new backplane. The solicited work will be rewarded accordingly (money, products, etc.)
Prospero X1
Prospero X1 miners are not affected by the issue mentioned above and we should start shipping next week once the cases will be delivered.
Note: To avoid any further delay we have the option to deliver the case-less X1 if any of the customers will choose so.
Please contact out customer support should you choose any of the options above.

[blackarrow]

Please explain the situation with your Rent-a-Minion service, there has been zero information so far about how that fits into this whole situation. People have been repeatedly asking throughout this thread.

Our facility is ready, will start Rent-A-Minion as soon as we solve the issue with the backplane.

[ChuckBuck]

I hate being right....

I can smell an "unforeseen electrical, production, software/hardware, or performance issue" coming up just like the LCD excuse coming up...

[Biffa]

Ugh don't run it in David

[blackarrow]

So just for clarification there is no plan to increase the current compensation plan at this time? If the X1 Does not ship starting next week will we told (by tuesday?)

You can get 7 Thash in ASICs instead of 2Thash in miners. We can ship tomorrow.

[ChuckBuck]

In laymen's terms, if you're an X-3 user, here's some chips and build them yourself, if you screw up it's not on us.


If you're an X-1 user, here's the bare ass, case less miner.  Ugly, yes, but if you plug it in it'll hash even though that's not what we paid for.

[tempestb]

They can't figure out how to build their miner.  So you can have a pile of chips and some boards and try to build it yourself.

Oh brother...

I'm sure they are very frustrated and upset that their board isn't working.  Unfortunately this update really doesn't tell us much.  I spent over $6,000 (And have to pay more for a PSU and shipping) on a total of 3th that I have no idea when I may get it.  This is really bad.  

I hope you guys are working on this 24/7 and haven't just thrown your hands up in the air and given up.  If you know for sure that you won't ship until two weeks from now you should say so.  I don't want to keep checking this forum every day for a total lack of updates.

[sorehammer]

Airfix any one I got some glue.

[raskul]

They can't figure out how to build their miner.  So you can have a pile of chips and some boards and try to build it yourself.

Oh brother...

I'm sure they are very frustrated and upset that their board isn't working.  Unfortunately this update really doesn't tell us much.  I spent over $6,000 (And have to pay more for a PSU and shipping) on a total of 3th that I have no idea when I may get it.  This is really bad.  

I hope you guys are working on this 24/7 and haven't just thrown your hands up in the air and given up.  If you know for sure that you won't ship until two weeks from now you should say so.  I don't want to keep checking this forum every day for a total lack of updates.

hashfast take2

[ChuckBuck]

How does an asic manufacturer not know how to construct a miner?

Isn't that what they do for a living?

[SunnyIgor]

EDIT:  Why not ship all caseless X-1's now, then ship the case when they come in next week?

Is this possible? blackarrow?

[sorehammer]

Yes but you will have to pay for more shipping and no mention of the lcd

[blackarrow]

How does an asic manufacturer not know how to construct a miner?

Isn't that what they do for a living?

We do know how to build a miner. Our hashboards are running at 250Ghash with no problems or errors. The issue is the SPI communication fails on the current backplane as soon as you attach more than 1 hashboard. We've been trying to fix the current backplane in order to save time.