[The Wasp] 28nm ASIC Miner Open Hardware Development Project

[Bicknellski]

The Wasp

The project team just finished our 1st meeting and are looking forward to the development of The Wasp for BTC, and hopefully LTC mining chips initially or more likely for a 2nd generation iteration of The Wasp. The Wasp will be based on the need to upcycle and provide mining operators with flexibility but also an unprecedented level of protection against the rapid obsolescence that current mining hardware is fraught with today.

The Wasp will be directly managed by S. Bailey with support from C. Decoster, D. Bicknell, J. Widajaya and J. Hudgins as well as others who have pledged both design, financial and other support for the duration of this project. Our first milestone will be to cost out the project and give a timeline that matches the availability of the 28nm ASIC's coming to market.

We are currently looking at 28nm chips the Hash Fast "Golden Nonce", Cointerra "Gold Strike", Black Arrow "Minion" and the Coincraft "A1" mining that can be used with our modular designed backplanes and boards. The Wasp being the board and The Hive being our backplane code name designations. We are confident that this approach will set this project apart as it would be able to mine either LTC or BTC and be able to swap out older chips with newer ones via our board configuration.

Our basic timeline after this post here is to garner more project members that can support the software / firmware end as well as bolster our pcb design team. We are always looking for members to help fund and financially support the project and as this is a collective effort there is always aspects like heatsinks, fans, cases and PSUs that can be sourced for kits for customers. We hope to provide a bare bones miner that can be configured on site with minimal effort and support. We are also looking at posting our project up as an asset on BitFunder to also further support our efforts.

We are currently open to more people joining us on this adventure and we will have a second open general meeting to follow up on a number of points raised in our first meeting. If you are interested in joining us and working on this project feel free to post below or pm or email me. We will do our best to update everyone as time passes. I understand that there is quite vague and not completely spelled out but as time goes on the project team will be updating me and I will in turn revise and amend things hopefully making the project more accessible. What is Open Source Hardware? http://www.oshwa.org/definition/.

Code:

Open Source Hardware (OSHW) is a term for tangible artifacts — machines, devices, or other physical things — 
whose design has been released to the public in such a way that anyone can make, modify, distribute, and use those 
things. This definition is intended to help provide guidelines for the development and evaluation of licenses for 
Open Source Hardware.

ADDITIONAL DESIGN NOTES:

The Hives (Mother Planes)

* On board USB hub with a port for each blade. Upstream port connects to linux board or box. At least one extra port for potential billboard display or local display & cooling-controller.

* On board 24-pin and 6/8 pin connectors for PC power supply (650-750W) provides 3.3, 5, and 12 V.

* Last blade connector can accept a server power supply (12V only) for higher power operation, not needed when system is tuned for low-power consumption, or when it has fewer than a full load of blades.

* 8 available connection points for the Wasps.

* Any Wasp no matter the type of the chip will work with the Hives.

* All blades driven through USB hub.

* Stand-alone hive is just a small card with sockets for power and USB.

* Hot swap.

* Linux embedded system to run cgminer/bfgminer bolts right down onto big mobo.


The Wasps (Blades)

* Wasps can slot into mother plane.

* Wasps can stand alone and be stacked FPGA style.

* Wasps are made to fit the Hive form factor.

* Wasps can be independently powered and controlled without mother plane.

[Bicknellski]

[RESERVED FOR UPDATES]

UPDATE NOTE 02/01/2014: Updates for timeline will be done via our WEBSITE first then updated here. Rough Timeline means just that.

Rough Timeline:

September

+ Post New Thread in Project Development.
+ Have a detailed development timeline with costs before 2nd Meeting.
+ Initial meeting with Black Arrow

October

+ Initial meeting with Bitmine.ch
+ Add more members with requisite skills to help progress this project.
+ 2nd General Meeting Saturday October 5th at 2130 WIB (Jakarta).
+ Initial meeting with Hash Fast
+ Initial meeting with BTCman
+ Do detailed cost analysis for the project including difficulty, ROI projections.
+ 1st Membership Meeting with progress report on project milestones due.
+ Initial design for the HIVE (mother plane) completed.
+ Initial meeting with BTER
+ Initial meeting with Cointerra
+ Initial designs completed and a revised development timeline with costs is prepared before the first membership meeting in November.
+ Revision of cost analysis for the project including difficulty, ROI projections.
+ Avalon Chips in Designers Hands
+ A1 chip deposit to Zefir for 50 chips.

November

+ Later in November prototype board is ready for chips and firmware / software being readied.
+ Later in November  Firmware and Software along with board and backplane testing is being carried out.
+ A1 Chips paid for by members to group account.


December
+ Designs for BitFury Wasp and BitMain Wasp completed.
+ Designs for BitFury/Bitmain Wasp and A1 Wasp completed.

January

+ A1 chips shipping to USA
+ Prototype board is ready for chips and firmware / software being readied.
+ A1 chips in hand in Seattle
+ A1 Chips paid for by members to group account.
+ Prototype initial testing with BitFury / Bitmain / A1 chips.
+ Prepare for small scale prototype production run.
+ Firmware and Software along with board testing is being carried out.
+ 3rd Party Production run BitFury BitMain Wasp and A1 Wasp

February

+ Late February Early March prototype test Minion Wasp.
+ Production run Minion Wasps.

March

+ New Chips?
+ Revisions?

[ASICs]

Coincraft "A1" https://bitmine.ch/?page_id=863  (Mass production available starting from the last week of November 2013, December shipping or February shipping)

Black Arrow "Minion" http://www.blackarrowsoftware.com/store/minion.html  (This is a PRE-ORDER, available for dispatch at end of February 2014, with protection)

BitMain "BM1380" https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=330665.msg3546362#msg3546362 (Chips available in January / February 2014.)

Megapower "BitFury"  https://megabigpower.com/shop/index.php?route=product/category&path=33 (Chips out of stock / Possibly February 2014)

---------

Standing Meeting Times on TeamSpeak3 Server

TS3 Server: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxx.xxx
Channel: The Wasp
Channel Password: xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Next Meeting



Location Time:

Seattle, USA 1030 PDT Saturday
London, UK 1830 GMT Saturday
Central Europe 1930 CET Saturday
Jakarta, ID 0130 WIB Sunday

Areas Reporting:

All Projects Overview
Wasp & Hive
Website
Mining Pool
PR & Marketing
Provisioning Server

[bobsag3]

Just want to post here my offer to host for cost is still available, and maybe help with distro once we have gone to production. I love community projects.

Also my warehouse has a 600sqft office space that wont be used... so If for any reason we need a space for people to work out of I have it!

[Bicknellski]

Just want to post here my offer to host for cost is still available, and maybe help with distro once we have gone to production. I love community projects.

Also my warehouse has a 600sqft office space that wont be used... so If for any reason we need a space for people to work out of I have it!

Noted Bob... I think we would love to work on something where we can host miners and come at this project with a variety of angles. I think that we can definitely fold that into our project scope in some way. Our second meeting will be in 1 week or so and we will hopefully have more people who are keen on offering up support. The next meeting will also be open to everyone beyond October though we will start formalizing the membership and expect more from those members as we set terms and conditions for The Wasp Project Team.

[jasinlee]

The Wasp

The project team just finished our 1st meeting and are looking forward to the development of The Wasp for BTC, and hopefully LTC mining chips initially or more likely for a 2nd generation iteration of The Wasp. The Wasp will be based on the need to upcycle and provide mining operators with flexibility but also an unprecedented level of protection against the rapid obsolescence that current mining hardware is fraught with today.

The Wasp will be directly managed by S. Bailey with support from C. Decoster, D. Bicknell, J. Widajaya and J. Hudgins as well as others who have pledged both design, financial and other support for the duration of this project. Our first milestone will be to cost out the project and give a timeline that matches the availability of the 28nm ASIC's coming to market.

We are currently looking at 28nm chips the Hash Fast "Golden Nonce", Cointerra "Gold Strike", Black Arrow "Minion" and the Coincraft "A1" mining that can be used with our modular designed backplanes and boards. The Wasp being the board and The Hive being our backplane code name designations. We are confident that this approach will set this project apart as it would be able to mine either LTC or BTC and be able to swap out older chips with newer ones via our board configuration.

Our basic timeline after this post here is to garner more project members that can support the software / firmware end as well as bolster our pcb design team. We are always looking for members to help fund and financially support the project and as this is a collective effort there is always aspects like heatsinks, fans, cases and PSUs that can be sourced for kits for customers. We hope to provide a bare bones miner that can be configured on site with minimal effort and support. We are also looking at posting our project up as an asset on BitFunder to also further support our efforts.

We are currently open to more people joining us on this adventure and we will have a second open general meeting to follow up on a number of points raised in our first meeting. If you are interested in joining us and working on this project feel free to post below or pm or email me. We will do our best to update everyone as time passes. I understand that there is quite vague and not completely spelled out but as time goes on the project team will be updating me and I will in turn revise and amend things hopefully making the project more accessible. What is Open Source Hardware? http://www.oshwa.org/definition/.

Code:

Open Source Hardware (OSHW) is a term for tangible artifacts — machines, devices, or other physical things — 
whose design has been released to the public in such a way that anyone can make, modify, distribute, and use those 
things. This definition is intended to help provide guidelines for the development and evaluation of licenses for 
Open Source Hardware.

ADDITIONAL DESIGN NOTES:

The Hives (Mother Planes)

* On board USB hub with a port for each blade. Upstream port connects to linux board or box. At least one extra port for potential billboard display or local display & cooling-controller.

* On board 24-pin and 6/8 pin connectors for PC power supply (650-750W) provides 3.3, 5, and 12 V.

* Last blade connector can accept a server power supply (12V only) for higher power operation, not needed when system is tuned for low-power consumption, or when it has fewer than a full load of blades.

* 8 available connection points for the Wasps.

* Any Wasp no matter the type of the chip will work with the Hives.

* All blades driven through USB hub.

* Stand-alone hive is just a small card with sockets for power and USB.

* Hot swap.

* Linux embedded system to run cgminer/bfgminer bolts right down onto big mobo.


The Wasps (Blades)

* Wasps can slot into mother plane.

* Wasps can stand alone and be stacked FPGA style.

* Wasps are made to fit the Hive form factor.

* Wasps can be independently powered and controlled without mother plane.

Community projects ftw.

[darkfriend77]

Community projects ftw.

+1

[cad_cdn]

good news, sounds awesome.

[nachius]

I wasn't able to make the meeting and have Pm'd you.  It seems we have community support and my main question is has contact been made directly to the chip manufacturer at this point about possibly getting a few chips to mock up and prototype with?

[JLM]

Hi!!!
This is the same product as BlackArrow?

[Darktongue]

Hi!!!
This is the same product as BlackArrow?

As per the OP

We are currently looking at 28nm chips the Black Arrow "Minion" and the Coincraft "A1" and an undisclosed design of an FPGA for LTC mining that can be used with our modular designed backplanes and boards. The Wasp being the board and The Hive being our backplane code name designations. We are confident that this approach will set this project apart as it would be able to mine either LTC or BTC and be able to swap out older chips with newer ones via our board configuration. 

Can't say it any better then that right now bud.

[Bicknellski]

"We are all given a short time, and I think the biggest mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make is that they design and optimize their vision to provide the largest financial return possible. Now, making money is not a bad thing, but what should be known and understood, is that in the end, our salaries, the cars we drive, the square footage of our homes… none of that matters. What matters is the legacy that our business and our vision can leave behind – a legacy that has the ability to shape, disrupt, or destroy, a familiar system. When you disrupt a familiar system, you change perspective – you change the way a community can define themselves to inspire future innovation. Just because things are the way they are does not mean they should remain that way. I want to invite you all to leave your mark on something, and don’t be afraid of ignoring what you are brought up thinking is natural." - Matthew Manos @ TEDx, 2012

http://www.good.is/posts/five-reasons-to-give-half-your-work-away?utm_medium=tdg&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=readon&utm_content=Five%20Reasons%20to%20Give%20Half%20Your%20Work%20Away

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/how-to-give-half-of-your-work-away-for-free

[Bicknellski]

I wasn't able to make the meeting and have Pm'd you.  It seems we have community support and my main question is has contact been made directly to the chip manufacturer at this point about possibly getting a few chips to mock up and prototype with?

Doing that now... just putting out feelers as it were so we can then discuss what we get back at next weeks meeting. Please email me again and I will try and add you to the hangout.

For now we are looking at the Minion and A1 chips and as suggested I also added Cointerra. None of these chips are produced yet so not sure at this point if we can mock up a prototype.

---------

Emails Sent:

Black Arrow (24th September)
Cointerra (24th September)
Bitmine (24th September)

Replies Received:

Black Arrow YES (24th September) We will arrange a meeting online soon.
Cointerra YES (25th September) The current price and lack of real incentives from Cointerra means we should just wait to do any pre-ordering from them when the prices will drop significantly in December should their chips be viable at that point.
Bitmine (28th September) We will arrange a meeting online soon.

[Sinewayv]

Afternoon all, great stuff on the project timeline and work so far everyone!

Community working together really can do amazing stuff.

Regards the next meeting, Ive been asking if we can do it at a ECT/GMT friendly time!

How does Thursday (26th Sept) @14.30 UTC (Universal Time) sound?

This would be at local times:
WIB: 21:30
BST:  15:30
EST:  10:30

Cheers, hope this is good for everyone.

[cad_cdn]

works for me, pm me info on what I need to connect\where

Afternoon all, great stuff on the project timeline and work so far everyone!

Community working together really can do amazing stuff.

Regards the next meeting, Ive been asking if we can do it at a ECT/GMT friendly time!

How does Thursday (26th Sept) @14.30 UTC (Universal Time) sound?

This would be at local times:
WIB: 21:30
BST:  15:30
EST:  10:30

Cheers, hope this is good for everyone.

[Bicknellski]

Works for me see you then.

The meeting is open to everyone just PM me or email if you want to get included in the meeting.

[darkfriend77]

great .. works for me too :-)

[Sinewayv]

great .. works for me too :-)

Great stuff, see you all tomorrow

[Bicknellski]

Cointerra:  Given the responses so far they seem keen on getting "sales" on the books rather than providing this project any incentives to use their chips. Best we just steer clear of them until their chip prices drop and they have them in stock. I am sure all of us have learned our Avalon Chip lesson haven't we?

[abacus]

This is a fantastic project! Gone directly in my watch list.

Cointerra:  Given the responses so far they seem keen on getting "sales" on the books rather than providing this project any incentives to use their chips. Best we just steer clear of them until their chip prices drop and they have them in stock. I am sure all of us have learned our Avalon Chip lesson haven't we?

What a pity to steer clear of them so fast.
If I well remember, they said they will open source their mobos (was Cointerra, right?).
It should simplify the development of the project, isn't it?

Furthrmore, on paper they are among the best in GH/$ and W/$ ratios.

[Sinewayv]

Is this meeting right now?

everyone seems to be offline...

yup the meeting got rescheduled, as we had a few late cancelations.

if you check tomorrow, the OP is planning to post a draft agenda before the meeting, and someone should be online here before hand too.

[Bicknellski]

Sorry all.

I am at a conference right now and bit swamped to post the agenda. I will have a quick 1 on 1 with Sean right now and we will reschedule for midweek for a general meeting.

[Bicknellski]

Got in contact with Bitmine.ch... we will update everyone at the rescheduled meeting next week. Please check the google hangout for the latest info.

[Bicknellski]

Doing Skype meeting with Bitmine this week. Will provide details of the conversation in the Group Hangout soon after it is complete.

[Bicknellski]

Met with Black Arrow last night. Very positive results I have elaborated more in the Group Hangout. I am available for Q & A on what I learned just ask away if you see me online in the group hangout.

We are planning the next meeting for this Friday or Saturday.

[Bicknellski]

Was supposed to meet with Bitmine.ch on skype last night but was not contacted before I logged off around 8:30pm. I will follow up tonight and try to get this meeting done.

Completed meeting with Bitmine.ch. Went well have posted info in our Group Hangout on google. Review the info and prepare for the meeting on Saturday at 2130 WIB (Jakarta)
Sunday at 0030 Sydney time.

[Bicknellski]

Agenda

1. New Members Profiles
2. Review of Black Arrow, Bitmine and Cointerra Chip proposals
3. Membership, IPO / Investment and Sales Discussion
4. Prototype Discussion
5. Delegation of project duties.
6. Planning for next meeting.

This is an open meeting. so contact me by PM or Email and I will add you to the Google group hangout.

-----

Minutes for 2nd meeting are posted in the Zoho Project page.

[Bicknellski]

Developing an ASIC platform for the future of DIY mining.

1. The Hive (Mother plane)

Microcontroller
Power Supply
8 Hot swap connections for 4 chip modular Wasps (blades)
Daisy chaining possible for higher density with a basic Hive (Mother plane) without microcontroller and power supply.

2. The Wasp (Blades for various 28nm Chips)

1 - 4 chips on a single Wasp.

A1 Wasp
Bitmine *80 Gh/s Overclocked (Wasp will have 4 chips)
8 units would be 0.64 Th/s per Hive

* https://bitmine.ch/?page_id=863

Minion Wasp
Black Arrow **520 Gh/s (Wasp will have 4 chips)
8 units would be 4.16 Th/s per Hive

** http://www.blackarrowsoftware.com/store/minion.html

Golden Nonce Wasp
Hash Fast ***400 Gh/s (Wasp will have 1 chip)
8 units would be 3.2 Th/s per Hive
Additional PDU / PSU required

*** https://hashfast.com/shop/baby-jet-upgrade-kit/

Gold Strike Wasp
Cointerra 28nm ****500 Gh/s (Wasp will have 1 chip)
8 units would be 4 Th/s per Hive
Additional PDU / PSU required

**** http://cointerra.com/product/terraminer-ii-1ths-networked-miner-january-batch/

Just some rough ideas we are working on currently and we are hoping to get one of these prototypes going this year or early next year. Looking at the current timeline for these companies Bitmine is selling chips so they would be first for us to prototype. We are also considering using some older Gen1 ASIC chips to test The Hive as well give how cheap these chips might be in the next few months. Note we are always looking for more people to join The Wasp Project Cooperative so drop me a PM if you are interested in working with us on this project.

[dddbtc]

This brings that same warm fuzzy feeling to my heart that the klondike project did (before Yifu ruined it).  I'll be watching this thread.  Can anyone listen in on a meeting, or is is only "important project people"? If anyone can listen in, I'd love to join you guys.

[Bicknellski]

This brings that same warm fuzzy feeling to my heart that the klondike project did (before Yifu ruined it).  I'll be watching this thread.  Can anyone listen in on a meeting, or is is only "important project people"? If anyone can listen in, I'd love to join you guys.

We are all important. Drop me an email or PM and I will add you to the google hangout.

Thing is we want to get people on board and in the project over the longer term so if you want to be in on the meeting just make the pledge you will be in it for the longer term. At this point we are looking to have members put in 1 BTC to make that pledge coming soon and from that we are looking to move this project forward with the sweat equity of all of us plus those that can invest money will. The plan is for the members to share the Intellectual Property equally as well as the revenue generated from the Open Source Hardware and Software that might come out of the project.

So bottom line I can add you to the google hangout area just drop me an email. You can have a look at the chats and decide if you are keen to keep helping or just wait for us to update this thread or when our website goes up you can follow along there. We will be working on the articles / bylaws for The Wasp Project Cooperative and when we are set then membership will be open to anyone willing to pay the membership fees and agree to the terms. We are also looking at shares in the cooperative in 3 tiers but that is still under discussion.

I think anyone who is really interested in pushing a DIY project would be very interested in joining this Coop and supporting it. Given the challenges with difficulty increases of 90% per month these sorts of projects really have to be mindful of the fact that mining is incredibly risky at the moment and that such projects really need a lot of sweat equity to cut costs down. There could be a really fine range of products come from this Coop but the times are tough and chip manufacturers need to be aware of that fact. I don't know if profitability is possible given the numbers but this is also for the DIY community, and most of us in this area are hobbyists, we also believe that this is worth pursuing even it is just break even of a small loss to keep the community interested in mining. Diversity is still important and this could be one offering to keep that going.

[Bicknellski]

The Wasp Project Cooperative - 1st Membership Meeting Agenda

Location: Zoho Project Group Chat
Time: Saturday 12th 2130 (Jakarta WIB)

1. Introduction of New Members with Profile.
2. Update Progress on Design Team on The Wasps and Hive.
3. Update on Bitmine A1 Chip Purchase.
4. Update on Other Chips.
5. Update on Website Team.
6. Update from Software Team.
7. Membership Fees, NDA, Articles & Bylaws for TWPC.
8. Prototype / Production Capital Required.
9. New Business / Use of Zoho Project Site.
10. Next Meeting.

[600watt]

watching.

good luck, guys.

[Bicknellski]

watching.

good luck, guys.

We see you watching us, watching you

[Bicknellski]

1st Membership Meeting Completed.

Highlights.

We will be pushing forward for the A1 Wasp and Hive prototypes.
Website will be up next week.
We will be working on designs as soon as chip specification for A1 are released by Bitmine.
Membership is open and we are continuing to formalize The Wasp Project Cooperative.
The next meeting time will be posted soon.

As always we are looking for other like minded DIYers with or without hardware / software design backgrounds. Just drop me an email and I will add you to the google hangout.

Next Meeting

Timer removed. End time: 2013-10-12+14:29:59UTC

[driksson]

Great project!
Look at the hp hot swap 1000w psu, dirt cheap and tons of quantity..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-379124-001-ML350-ML370-DL385-G2-DL380-G5-1000w-Power-Supply-/111147129865?pt=US_Server_Power_Supplies&hash=item19e0e29c09

[Bicknellski]

Great project!
Look at the hp hot swap 1000w psu, dirt cheap and tons of quantity..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-379124-001-ML350-ML370-DL385-G2-DL380-G5-1000w-Power-Supply-/111147129865?pt=US_Server_Power_Supplies&hash=item19e0e29c09

Interesting option. I think we have also looked at a psu that is integrated right into our Hives so we can power the Wasps through the Hive or Wasps can be powered independently should people just want to stack their miners FPGA style. We are currently working on the Hive design and will probably release some teasers about this soon. The A1 Wasp is next and potentially a BitFury Wasp that will show the capability of the Hive to accept modular Wasps using different chips sets. Also as always we are keen to have more members join us as we develop the project feel free to contact me and I can add you to the google hangout and then our Zoho Project tracking site.

[Bicknellski]

Membership, Options  & Capitalization Proposals

+ 1 BTC as a one time payment for memberships is being discussed currently.
+ Options to buy into projects like the WASP / HIVE are currently open to members and will fund the prototypes and chips buys for those prototypes.
+ Shares will be offered in a longer term development of the cooperative as we formalize the arrangement in an offshore jurisdiction.

Note: If you are interested in joining The Wasp Project Cooperative to discuss membership, funding and capitalization of the cooperative then pm or email me so I can add you directly to the Zoho Project page. We are keen on moving forward. Sean has already roughed out a design for the Hive and is moving on to the A1 Wasp as soon as the chip specifications drop on the 15th of October. So we are moving forward and funding is a priority right now for us. Note that we are interested in sweat equity as a way of funding project as well so that we can cut down on prototype costs and what not so even if you can't pony up funds readily we are keen on exploring alternatives that will help push our projects forward.

[Bicknellski]

Let the A1 Wasp work begin: https://bitmine.ch/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Bitmine-CoinCraft-A1.pdf  

"A1 IC spec is released, still no reference implementation yet (so) don't know how far we can get from the spec alone but I will get started" - A Member of The Wasp Project Cooperative.

Fancy supporting us be it technical, sweat or in capital then drop me an email with your profile and I will add  you to our Zoho Project page.
 
The lead designer will set the time and date for the next meeting this week or early next and I will post that here as soon as I know.

[Bicknellski]

Next Meeting set by Wasp & Hive lead designer for Saturday 19th OCTOBER 8:30 AM (Mountain Time Zone UTC-07:00)

Location: Zoho Chat "2nd Membership Meeting"

Agenda:

1. Update on A1 Wasp & Hive from Lead Designer.
2. Update on Avalon Gen1 Wasp proof of concept.
3. Overview of the opt in for the Wasp & Hive project deadline.
4. Coop membership fees.
5. New business.
6. Set time for a mid-week special Cooperative formation meeting.
7. Set time for next Wasp & Hive update meeting.



Note: If you are new to the Zoho Project pages please update your profile picture and post your profile to files section as soon as possible. If you are interested in getting involved with the project to help with design hardware or software as well as other things like website design then drop me an email and I will add you to the zoho project page. In the near future we will be closing the project page to members who have paid their 1 BTC membership fee but for now we are still open to all while we work out the details.

[GrapeApe]

I love the name of this project. Just sent a pm to Bicknellski. I'm in, I don't how I can help but I'll help in any way I can.

[Bicknellski]

I love the name of this project. Just sent a pm to Bicknellski. I'm in, I don't how I can help but I'll help in any way I can.

I had no internet all yesterday with a faulty cable. Got your pm and pm'd you back with details.

[Bicknellski]

RESCHEDULED MEETING

Next Meeting set by Wasp & Hive lead designer for Sunday 20th OCTOBER 10:30 AM (Mountain Time Zone UTC-07:00)

Location: Zoho Chat "2nd Membership Meeting"

Agenda:

1. Update on A1 Wasp & Hive from Lead Designer.
2. Update on Avalon Gen1 Wasp proof of concept.
3. Overview of the opt in for the Wasp & Hive project deadline.
4. Coop membership fees.
5. New business.
6. Set time for a mid-week special Cooperative formation meeting.
7. Set time for next Wasp & Hive update meeting.

Note: If you are new to the Zoho Project pages please update your profile picture and post your profile to files section as soon as possible. If you are interested in getting involved with the project to help with design hardware or software as well as other things like website design then drop me an email and I will add you to the zoho project page. In the near future we will be closing the project page to members who have paid their 1 BTC membership fee but for now we are still open to all while we work out the details.

[Bicknellski]

The Hives (Mother Planes)

* On board USB hub with a port for each blade. Upstream port connects to linux board or box. At least one extra port for potential billboard display or local display & cooling-controller.

* On board 24-pin and 6/8 pin connectors for PC power supply (650-750W) provides 3.3, 5, and 12 V.

* Last blade connector can accept a server power supply (12V only) for higher power operation, not needed when system is tuned for low-power consumption, or when it has fewer than a full load of blades.

* 8 available connection points for the Wasps.

* Any Wasp no matter of the chips will work with the Hives.

* All blades driven through USB hub.

* Stand-alone hive is just a small card with sockets for power and USB.

* Hot swap.

* Linux embedded system to run cgminer/bfgminer bolts right down onto big mobo.

The Wasps (Blades)

* Wasps can slot into mother plane.

* Wasps can stand alone and be stacked FPGA style.

* Wasps are made to fit the Hive form factor.

* Wasps can be independently powered and controlled without mother plane.

[Bicknellski]

About Us
 
The Wasp Project is owned and managed by it's members. Whether we are customers, employees or simply members in good standing our co-operatives acts together to build a stronger community and in the process a better world. We are currently foccused on helping the Bitcoin and alternative cryptocurrencies by working together to provide solutions for these communities. As a group which decided to look at the community first projects that are open source and we are excited to be working together to bring about much needed change.
 
Guiding Principles
 
The Wasp Project, has accepted seven principles that guide all cooperative organizations:
 
Voluntary and open membership
Democratic member control
Member economic participation
Autonomy and independence
Education, training and information
Co-operation among co-operatives and like minded projects in the Bitcoin community
Concern for community
 
Balanced Job Complexes
 
Our project uses job complexes which are organized so that every member will be regularly involved in both conception and execution of tasks, with comparable empowerment and quality of life circumstances for all. The precision of the balance depends on many factors, and would improve over time. At any rate, no individual would ever permanently occupy a position that would present himself/herself unusual opportunities to accumulate undue influence or knowledge. Every individual is welcomed to occupy a position that guarantee's him or her an appropriate amount of empowering tasks.
 
In essence, the human cost and benefit of work would be equally distributed. We share the work and spread it around throughout the coop. We, as members, are free to choose to work on any project and learn from mentors to help support the development of the project.
 
Greater personal sacrifice made in the production of socially beneficial goods and services is legitimate grounds for greater access to those goods and services if the members agree. This idea allows our members the widest range of teaching/learning internships within the Wasp Project. We learn to be generalists not specialists so that we can better ourselves and others.
 
Areas of Economic Interest
 
As Wasp Project members we are interested in a number of diverse areas related to Bitcoin and alternative cryptocurrencies. The list includes, but is not limited to, the following:
 
Mining
Mining Hardware
Mining Hardware Accessories
Mining Hardware ASIC Chip Development
Mining Hardware ASIC Board Development
Mining Software Development
Cryptocurrency Exchange
Cryptocurrency Online Escrow Services
Cryptocurrency E-Commerce
Mining Pools

[Bicknellski]

RESCHEDULED:

Note we are having a mid week weekend meeting to discuss the formation of the Cooperative.

Agenda:

1. Membership
2. Bylaws / Articles
3. Formation
4. Revenue / Capital

Saturday 26th OCTOBER 9pm (WIB Jakarta UTC+07:00)

Location: Zoho Chat "Coop Organizational Meeting"

[Bicknellski]

Hope to see a few more at the meeting tonite.

18 members on the Zoho Project so far please feel free to join us.

[Bicknellski]

We will be closing access to members only soon on the Zoho Project page and opening up a forward facing website. Of course we will continue to support this thread so anyone with questions can ask here. Membership fees are 1 BTC and is a lifetime membership. November is going to be a very interesting month and likely at some point in a few weeks where a prototype Avalon Gen I Wasp and Hive mother plane will be tested. We are still on schedule for A1 Wasp development so as soon as the A1 chips drop we could be up and mining shortly after they arrive.

Contact me if you are keen on supporting this project and developing the future Open Source Hardware and Software of Bitcoin mining for the benefit of the entire community.

[Bicknellski]

Next meeting:

Wasp & Hive Development Update

Date: November 2nd SATURDAY 2000h MST (GMT - 6:00)
Location: Zoho Chat

[bigbeninlondon]

We will be closing access to members only soon on the Zoho Project page and opening up a forward facing website. Of course we will continue to support this thread so anyone with questions can ask here. Membership fees are 1 BTC and is a lifetime membership. November is going to be a very interesting month and likely at some point in a few weeks where a prototype Avalon Gen I Wasp and Hive mother plane will be tested. We are still on schedule for A1 Wasp development so as soon as the A1 chips drop we could be up and mining shortly after they arrive.

Contact me if you are keen on supporting this project and developing the future Open Source Hardware and Software of Bitcoin mining for the benefit of the entire community.

Hey Bicknellski,

What does the membership fee entitle someone to?  I'd like to support the project, but don't have a lot of time to assisting with software development.

[Bicknellski]

We will be closing access to members only soon on the Zoho Project page and opening up a forward facing website. Of course we will continue to support this thread so anyone with questions can ask here. Membership fees are 1 BTC and is a lifetime membership. November is going to be a very interesting month and likely at some point in a few weeks where a prototype Avalon Gen I Wasp and Hive mother plane will be tested. We are still on schedule for A1 Wasp development so as soon as the A1 chips drop we could be up and mining shortly after they arrive.

Contact me if you are keen on supporting this project and developing the future Open Source Hardware and Software of Bitcoin mining for the benefit of the entire community.

Hey Bicknellski,

What does the membership fee entitle someone to?  I'd like to support the project, but don't have a lot of time to assisting with software development.

The membership fees have been discussed at the last meeting and this is what we have come up with:

1. Fees cover the costs of registering our group legally 'offshore'.
2. Fees cover the costs of websites for the group.
3. Members are given full access to the development pages for the various projects that are being developed.
4. Members are able to opt into current projects and share in development and royalties based on putting in capital or design work or other equity.
5. Members are able to put together sweat equity proposals to subsidize capital investment if you do not have BTC / USD or design skills.
6. Members can offer up alternative ways to support projects other than software / hardware design.
7. Members are able to get mentoring from more knowledgeable members in the cooperative. Members want to share knowledge.
8. Membership fees do not go to project development.
9. Members will be able to purchase preferred shares in the group when they become available.

We are currently discussing the bylaws and future capitalization plans for the group. We are keen on share offerings when we have a few projects completed and generating some returns for our members. Open Source Hardware and Software is the goal but if we are all putting in time, effort and capital we also need to look at ways to at least cover that effort.

[Bicknellski]

Features of the Quad A1 Wasp (Prototype)

+ Has 4 Bitminer A1 asics, with individually configurable power and hashing rates, resulting in 100 - 160 GH/s per blade.

+ Has front and back mounted water cooling. If oil immersion is desired, the front and back coolers can be omitted. Blades will monitor  
   temperatures continually in any case, and Safe-Operating-Area will be enforced.

+ Has push-to-plug button for safe hot-plug/unplug to protect expensive hashing chips.

+ Has built-in self-test (BIST) that can be run at any time, even while hashing. Upon entering Test mode, normal ongoing hashing operations  
   will be suspended, the suspension/resumption reported to the USB driver, and BIST results displayed via LEDs. A header is provided, for the
   attachment of a serial control panel and display. This allows a technician to take the blade offline without removing it, run diagnostics and
   access the BIST results and the on-blade failure log, with the same control panel that can be used for the entire rack (or a battery-powered
   hand held one just like it, if the rack-control is not mounted).

+ Has two USB configurations - one for normal operation, and one for debugging and testing. This allows a technician to (once he has
   identified a failed blade visually or programmatically) place the blade in Test mode, which automatically disconnects it from the controller's  
   mining software, and allows him to connect to the card with a debugging/test program without moving the card, in order to diagnose.
   Blades can be placed into Test mode manually, with an on-blade pushbutton, or under software control, from the mining software or
   debugging software (can be made invisible to the mining software). This allows for remote management of an unattended rack.

+ Has LED indicators for Blade-Ready/Configured/Operating, as well as for successful share detection. Operational state is indicated by a
   multi-colored LED, so distinctions between Operating/Degraded/Sick/Failed can be discerned on visual inspection.

+ Has an LED indicator for remote blade identification. A tech can tell a blade to blink its ID LED, either from the controlling computer, or  
   from the backplane connection to the debug/monitoring console. The backplane that it is plugged into also has similar remote-visual-ID
   capability. This allows a technician to easily identify one blade out of a whole rack, for servicing or testing.

+ Has power-on indicator LED for each of 3.3V, 5V, 12V, and 5Vsb.


As always we are looking for members to support the development of this project drop me a PM or email. We will be adding the life time 1 BTC membership fee starting this month. Members can set up their own payment plans that include immediate full payment or periodic payments over the next 12 months.

[Bicknellski]

Update we have had a number of discussions with members and we are confident that we will have enough chips from a variety of sources to demonstrate a working prototype in November of the Hive and Wasp. Boards are being printed at this time.

Chips that are or will be available to the EE:

+ A1's ordered. (December)
+ KnC chip. (Now)
+ Avalon Gen I chips. (Now)
+ BitFury chips. (Now)
+ Minion chips. (February)

Given the design we are able to integrate pretty much any ASIC chip into a Wasp.

We will be prototyping 3 Hives.

1. Small Hive for single Wasp for DIY, hobbyists.
2. Mid Sized Hive for multiple Wasps for DIY, hobbyists and datacenters for testing configurations using multiple ASICs.
3. Full Sized Scalable Hive for larger mining operations looking to replace aging inefficient miners.

[aminorex]

How can I find the Zoho project page?
How can I send membership fees?

[Bicknellski]

How can I find the Zoho project page?
How can I send membership fees?

You can PM me your email address and I will add you to the project page. From there you can work with Cedric or myself to pay your membership fees. We are still looking for members to opt into the development of the Wasp and Hive since the project is moving forward and we have prototype boards coming off the fab soon we will need to pony up for our A1 chips this month and we will be reimbursing our EE's for their out of pocket development expenses as well.

[atmclikk]

I've been watching this project with some interest.  It seems to me that this could be the model that really allows the smaller miner to scale out and save money where he can.

Are you considering making BFL chips compatible Wasps? 

I am a Web Developer/Programmer and would be interested in helping out with building/hosting a website for the group if something like that is needed.

[andrei.u]

Great Work!
I am interested in the project!

[atmclikk]

I've been watching this project with some interest.  It seems to me that this could be the model that really allows the smaller miner to scale out and save money where he can.

Are you considering making BFL chips compatible Wasps? 

I am a Web Developer/Programmer and would be interested in helping out with building/hosting a website for the group if something like that is needed.

Duh, I get it - the 28nm ASIC Miner Open Hardware Development Project.  So no BFL chips...  Ahhhh.  Sorry for the dumb question

[Bicknellski]

I've been watching this project with some interest.  It seems to me that this could be the model that really allows the smaller miner to scale out and save money where he can.

Are you considering making BFL chips compatible Wasps?  

I am a Web Developer/Programmer and would be interested in helping out with building/hosting a website for the group if something like that is needed.

Personally I am not particularly interested in Avalon Gen II or BFL Gen I because of the millions of dollars both companies have cost their customers but I am one person and do not speak for the whole group. One could design BFL chips and or pretty much any ASIC can be adapted to the Wasp design. Of course if you have a reel of BFL chips ready to go I bet the EE's would give it a go but we wouldn't ever consider pre-ordering BFL chips or Avalon chips given our collective experience with those companies. We are prototyping Avalon Gen 1's, and BitFury chips into Wasp right now. We have a design nearly ready for the A1s but we are still waiting on Bitmine to drop all the relevant info on the chips. We are keen also to learn more about the Minion Black Arrow chip and their chip data sheet should be coming soon. We even have a KnC chip or two that we could get to our EE's since of few of our members have a couple bad KnC boards.

All the help you can offer and provide is welcome.

[atmclikk]

Totally understandable, just was wondering because I know there are people out there with BFL chips that would love to have a home for them.  I agree though, I have no intention of supporting BFL - just the miners who may have gotten screwed holding a reel of 100 chips they can't get rid of.  I truthfully don't understand the architecture of these chips and the protocols for feeding them hashes to know how inter operative a single board could be designed to be.

What I really like is that it looks like you are really trying to make this modular, which hasn't been a real trend with the big manufacturers (aside from AsicMiner and Bitfury).  Modular means good for the little guy and the big guy.  Its truly something that has been missing from many designs.

Any reason these asic chips can't be fitted with pins, so that boards and asics aren't tied together?  Wouldn't it be nice to be able to buy a wasp and take a handful of A1's you had at home and place them yourself, rather than having to hardwire (some fairly tricky soldering, depending on the chip) the chip to the board, which means logistics can get fracked up due to board manufacturers having to track, mount and ship individual's asic orders as well as the boards they manufactured on their own....

[Bicknellski]

Totally understandable, just was wondering because I know there are people out there with BFL chips that would love to have a home for them.  I agree though, I have no intention of supporting BFL - just the miners who may have gotten screwed holding a reel of 100 chips they can't get rid of.  I truthfully don't understand the architecture of these chips and the protocols for feeding them hashes to know how inter operative a single board could be designed to be.

I am sure if people wanted us to try BFL chips and they had enough kicking around we could have one of the EE's look at them but at this point people I think would be better off doing the Chili or the other DIY BFL design groups right?

What I really like is that it looks like you are really trying to make this modular, which hasn't been a real trend with the big manufacturers (aside from AsicMiner and Bitfury).  Modular means good for the little guy and the big guy.  Its truly something that has been missing from many designs.

I think it is good for the big guys as well if you are in the game longer term you can swap in newer Wasps with the latest chips onto the existing Hive and no need to wait for software to be designed as well. But yes certainly the DIY would have ample room for people to come up with their own solutions.

Any reason these asic chips can't be fitted with pins, so that boards and asics aren't tied together?  Wouldn't it be nice to be able to buy a wasp and take a handful of A1's you had at home and place them yourself, rather than having to hardwire (some fairly tricky soldering, depending on the chip) the chip to the board, which means logistics can get fracked up due to board manufacturers having to track, mount and ship individual's asic orders as well as the boards they manufactured on their own....

We looked at socketed Wasps where you could do that but the changes in chips would make it too expensive and not really practical. A reasonably well skilled person with a reflow oven could bump ASICs and do just that with the Wasps. If you followed the Alten, Bkkcoins and Burnin builds for the DIY Avalon chips you had the potential to do Alten's as DIY kit. Bkkcoins did his pick and place by hand for all the components on the K16 I believe. But to be honest the level we are talking here is the DIYer could come up with their own Wasp design and slot it into these Hives but really with SMT technology you need a pick and place machine etc to do things properly. You couldn't do a lot of boards by hand.

[Bicknellski]

Update from the EE in Seattle

+ Full schematic/BOM ready for review for BitFury, A1 chips this weekend.

+ Firmware is progressing - the 8-bit AVRs are being used to emulate the various target hashers, by acting as slave SPIs and passing the work info to a PC. Right now, we're just reading and writing, but shortly we should be able to pretend to be a hashing chip by doing the hashing on a GPU and sending the results back... will be very slow, but will verify the firmware even before we get boards back.

+ 32-bit AVRs should be in today, and the test setup running shortly thereafter.

+ Please keep pressing Zefir / Bitmine for A1 data - there are a lot of questions critical to the design that Bitmine hasn't answered yet!

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

Meeting on Teamspeak server will be at 7pm on Saturday Utah time with both EE's and support team. All members on the Zoho Project page are welcome to attend.

[Bicknellski]

Note: With the runaway BTC / USD exchange we are going to fix membership fees (lifetime) 1 payment at $100 USD. So if you pay your membership it is 0.3BTC today based on the BitStamp prices at $340.00 USD/BTC.

Note: We now have the domain www.thewaspproject.com and will be adding content soon. We need helpers so please join us if you want to do some work on our payment gateway, store etc. and don't forget the big meeting with the EE's tomorrow it looks like a VPN could get set up so people can watch tests live as the prototypes take shape!

[Bicknellski]

Meeting slightly delayed... will start on Teamspeak in about 1 hour and 10 minutes at 8:30 pm Utah Time. One of the EE's still on the road heading home.

[Bicknellski]

Update:

Our BitFury Wasp prototype should be testing by the end of next week. Next meeting 6pm Pacific Time Seattle on the teamspeak server. Minute notes from today's meeting will be posted later in the Zoho Project page. Members welcome anytime on the teamspeak channel to talk with the EE's. The current designs are being done in PCB123® - Free PCB Design Software from Sunstone found here: http://www.sunstone.com/pcb123.aspx

Notes on Chips Order of Prototype Development for the Wasp:

1. BitFury chips in hand will be arriving this week and will be put into prototype boards by end of the week and live development update will be available via VPN for members interested in the design process.

2. Our EE in Utah will work concurrently on the Avalon chips he hasin hand already the development of this Wasp will be over the next few weeks updates will follow at the next meeting.

3. A1 chips still from what we know will ship in December but we are still waiting on chip specifications. Designs can be modified with in a few hours of specs being dropped and we have contingencies already in place for a variety of different specs of the A1 chips.

4. BA Minion chips are still on schedule to ship in February and chip specs should drop soon.

As always we are still open to anyone willing and interested to join our group we have a $100 USD membership fee and if you want to create a new project or support the current Wasp / Hive development a 2 BTC opt in will cover the costs of the prototype development as well as chip purchases. Drop me your email and I can add you to the Zoho Page.

[Bicknellski]

Update News:


A1 "final" design specs for the chip have dropped and still looks likely December will be the ship date for the chips.

Avalon Gen I Chips looks like we have access to about 140 chips so we definitely want to push the envelope on cooling and density of the hive with these chips.

We will get some Bitfury chips to the EE in Seattle after the 19th so during that time the EE plenty of time to work on a number of items before the BF chips get mounted to the prototype.

Also as a side note one our members is keen on tracking down some ztex boards so if anyone has like 100 he is willing to take em off your hands. Contact me if you are keen to offload... they will have a great new home and be put to good use.

[Bicknellski]

Additional Project Update:


The Wasp Project Mining Pool.

As mining hardware is only a small portion of the future of our group we are looking for other ways to expand our scope. We will need our own mining pool for our hardware and potentially in BTC and Alt Coins should there be interest by our members. The pool we are planning will require a number of key components.

1. Server and hosting.
2. Pool software with excellent security.
3. Kick ass web interface.

The focus of this project will be to sell opt in shares to cover the costs of the server hardware, hosting set up and the development of the pool software, security, and web interfaces. A number of our members are currently available to provide everything we need in as little as 30 days so we have a deadline of December 30th for this project to go live.

[rimbit]

Note: With the runaway BTC / USD exchange we are going to fix membership fees (lifetime) 1 payment at $100 USD. So if you pay your membership it is 0.3BTC today based on the BitStamp prices at $340.00 USD/BTC.

Note: We now have the domain www.thewaspproject.com and will be adding content soon. We need helpers so please join us if you want to do some work on our payment gateway, store etc. and don't forget the big meeting with the EE's tomorrow it looks like a VPN could get set up so people can watch tests live as the prototypes take shape!

I can setup the website and store that can accept bitcoins

[kfruit]

Being from Indonesia this interests me. Anyway I can get involved?

[Bicknellski]

We have one member working on the website if you want to join us and work with him that would be great Rimbit.

Kfruit... if you want to join... then email me. Doesn't matter where you are members welcome from across the planet.

$100 USD lifetime membership fee to join us based on BitStamp prices for BTC/USD.

Access to the Zoho Project page is open until the 15th of December for those who have not paid their membership fees or have discussed a payment plan.

Email me darin.bicknell@gmail.com for access up to the 15th of December. We hope to have the website set up beyond that for membership payments.

[Bicknellski]

Update:

From the last meetings we had on Saturday and Sunday our project EE has clarified some the issues that could have potentially caused prolonged delays in redesign of our own boards or would have caused reliability issue with our units. This is a direct result of heat and power  issues related with the chip packages of all newer 28nm chips that are soon to hit the market next month and early in 2014. We are now more confident in our prototype potential release dates.

BitFury Wasp Prototype

+  16 to 24 chips  for 300 gh/s to 440 gh/s depending on the configuration.
+  4U Server configuration
+  Design for the power on the Wasp currently being down so 3d renders for the prototype are a week away.
+  By December the prototype testing video should be out.
+  By December the prototypes shipped to a datacenter for longer term testing and troubleshooting.
+  The DIY & Licenced Production could start as early as January for these units should there be a market for them.

Avalon Gen I Wasp Prototype

+  16 to 24 chips for 50 gh/s to 75 gh/s depending on the configuration. (Gen II chips would be higher)
+  4U Server configuration.
+  Design for the power on the Wasp currently being down so 3d renders for the prototype are a week away.
+  By December the prototype testing video should be out.
+  By December the prototypes shipped to a datacenter for longer term testing and troubleshooting.
+  The DIY & Licenced Production could start as early as January for these units should there be a market for them.

A1 Wasp Prototype

+  A1 designs will be applied to the BitFury Wasp design and should take less than a week.
+  4U Server configuration
+  Design for the power on the Wasp currently being down so 3d renders for the prototype would occur in late December.
+  By Late December the prototype testing video should be out.
+  By Late December or Early January the prototypes shipped to a datacenter for longer term testing and troubleshooting.
+  The DIY & Licenced Production could start as early as January for these units.

Minion Wasp Prototype

+  Minion designs will be applied to the lessons learned from the A1 Wasp design and should take less than a week.
+  4U Server configuration
+  Design for the power on the Wasp currently being down so 3d renders for the prototype would occur in January or earlier.
+  By Late February the prototype testing video should be out.
+  By Late February or Early March the prototypes shipped to a datacenter for longer term testing and troubleshooting.
+  The DIY & Licenced Production could start as early as Late February or Early March for these units.

We are keen on working with chip manufacturers to get their chips into our modular design as well as working with group buys, diy'ers or EE's who have previously handled production of Avalon, BFL, BitFury or others boards that have made it to the marketplace. Our intention is to put out the wasp and hive as open source software and hardware and provide support for those who wish license our units for production. Given that our modular system does have a number of other uses depending on the design of the Wasp mining bitcoin will not be the only thing in the designs repertoire. There are also future plans in the near future to adapt the basic design with add ons to allow for scrypt mining but there is functionality well beyond cryptocurrencies such as a robotic controller.

Our modular miner design strengths include:

+  No requirement to change firmware for each new Wasp.
+  Firmware will be loaded during fabrication for each new Wasp.
+  Multiple varieties of Wasp chip set mining together in the same modular unit.
+  Short lead time to production of new chips with the modular design.
+  Scales easily and a rapid deployment of hash-power.
+  Protection against obsolescence.
+  Resale value of the components for other purposes beyond mining bitcoins.

If you are keen on getting a sneak peak at our designs that are up on the Zoho page before we close the pages to paid members... then drop me an email and I will add you to the Zoho Project page. Membership to the The Wasp Project Collective is always open and investment in the Wasp and Hive is ongoing and we welcome paid members to join either the design or project management team on this project. We welcome questions and we hope to provide evidence of our prototype miners hashing soon. Come join us.

[Bicknellski]

Correction:


We will have to update the firmware each time there is a new chip - as they will have different configuration patterns and so forth.

However we won't have to update the cgminer/bfgminer/waspcollectiveminer software for each new chip and that is essentially how we get all the Wasps to play nice in the same chassis. The same software runs them all.

[Bicknellski]

DESIGN TEAM MEETING

We have recently added some new EE's to the collective since our last meeting. We now have 6 EE's who are currently consulting on the his project and we hope to see them all at this meeting this Saturday. As always all 30+ registered members on the Zoho Project page are welcome to attend and engage in a Q & A with our EE's.

Agenda:

+ Review of progress made on BitFury and Avalon Wasp designs.
+ EE Requests for documentation, parts etc to help them proceed with their part of the project.
+ Delegate the development of the hive and other wasp designs to the new EE's
+ Revise milestones.
+ Q&A Session.

Location:

Our TeamSpeak3 Server
Channel: The Wasp

Time:  

1800 PST (Seattle, USA)


Days: Every Saturday

[Bicknellski]

20 days to a prototype? Possibly. I will just leave this here.

[albinosincave]

This looks like an awesome community project!

[Bicknellski]

This looks like an awesome community project!

Come join us... the more the merrier!

We are working on the firmware.


The Wasp Firmware Architecture

Summary

The Wasps are a collection of mining blades customized to individual hashing ASICs or FPGAs, all of which conform to a single architecture in firmware, communications protocols, and drivers. This document discusses the architecture and subsystems comprising the firmware on each Wasp. Any Wasp variant can be plugged into a Hive (backplane+power supply) beside other Wasps of different design, and all run simultaneously, communicating with one or more mining controller programs at the same time.

In addition, any Wasp can be the target of a remote debugger, or a maintenance program without affecting any other resident of the Hive.
Wasps are compound USB devices, with multiple endpoints in support of mining, configuration/management, In-System-Programming, field maintenance, diagnostics, and firmware debugging.

Firmware Objectives:

1. Safely start up the Wasp, controlling bus voltage sequencing, on-board configuration, power-controllers, hashing engines, monitoring subsystems, and USB (full speed, 12 Mb/s) communications with the mining controller.

2. Safely shut down the Wasp in the event of various continuously monitored problems being detected, including temperature excursions or bus voltage failures, or as a result of commands from the mining controller or the hot-plug button.

3. Interact with the mining controller's USB system to identify the Wasp type and capabilities.

4. Interact over USB with the mining controller to characterize the on-board hashers with regards to functionality, range of clocking, and total output, and collect that configuration data into a block of information passed to the mining controller as an opaque data block, as well as storing the parameters in resident non-volatile memory. On startup, we must be able to detect a valid configuration, or its lack, and adjust the various on-board resources accordingly.

5. Interact over USB with a program on the mining controller to provide diagnostic, logging, and maintenance operations.

6. Download and install firmware updates and hot-patches, and firmware "overlays" - temporary programs sent to the Wasp for specific, non-mining purposes.

7. Configure, command, and monitor the power-controllers on the Wasp.

8. Configure, command, and monitor the hashers on the Wasp.

9. Configure and monitor the environmental sensors on the Wasp.

10. Maintain a non-volatile log of actions and events, which can be requested by the mining controller or maintenance program, or which can be reported on a regular basis to those programs.

11. Perform comprehensive diagnostics and Built-In-Self-Test, displaying the summary results on LEDs and communicating those results through the USB connection.

12. Interact with the mining controller to generate staged local work items for the hashers, and present them over the SPI ports to the hashers. Queueing the local work items for those hashers able to maintain an internal queue must be supported.

13. Regularly poll the hashers for nonces found to meet the presentation criteria, re-construct the local work that resulted in those hashes, and present the resulting share submissions to the mining controller.

14 Interact with the mining controller to shift to new work items, once the controller has commanded a shift in the local work configuration. Introduce these new work items to the hashers with as little latency as possible.

15. Manage a cryptographically signed device certificate, for use in compatibility checking on firmware updates, as well as for licensing protection.


Firmware Subsystems:

... to see the rest on the document become a member on the Zoho Project Page.

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

Do you want to help work out the Firmware with us? PM or email me to join The Wasp Project Collective today.

[kr105]

This looks incredible awesome, I want to join for sure. I will be PM'ing you soon

[Bicknellski]

This looks incredible awesome, I want to join for sure. I will be PM'ing you soon

 

Check it out... waiting for your PM.

Tell all your buds!

[kr105]

This looks incredible awesome, I want to join for sure. I will be PM'ing you soon

 

Check it out... waiting for your PM.

Tell all your buds!

PM'd 

[Bicknellski]

What is a HIVE?

The Hive - A Home for Wasps

Summary

The Hive is a collection of small and large circuit boards whose purpose is to provide power, as well as command, control, and testing signals to one or more Wasps.

Objectives:

+ Develop a line of products that span the realm of installations ranging from the home-user's single blade to oil-immersed racks of industrial hashing systems, making trade offs of cost versus features to fully address both ends of this range.

+ Provide power and communication between one or more Wasp blades and the linux-based controller which runs the mining program.

+ Allow for hot-plugging of Wasps of any type into the same backplane, providing automatic overload prevention - new Wasps will not be enabled unless the Hive can provide sufficient power.

+ Provide a range of backplanes, from a simple, single-Wasp connector to a rackable backplane for multiple (8-10) Wasps.

+ Provide connectors for multiple, redundant, and hot-pluggable power supplies to supply power to a multi-blade stack, or to a rack, self-adjusting as the blades are plugged in.

+ Provide manual controls for system power-on/off, audible and visual feedback for individual blade readiness/status, and control of individual blade power feed.

Features:
 
Single board Hive

+ Has sockets for a standard ATX power supply - 24-pin motherboard connector plus two, 6-pin PCIe 12V connectors.

+ Has push-on/push-off button for power control.

+ Has power-on indicator LED for each of 3.3V, 5V, 12V, and 5Vsb.

+ Has standard USB B-receptacle for cabling to controlling computer.

 
Stacked-board Hive

+ Accepts any mixture of Wasp implementations, in any number of arbitrarily provisioned slots with no manual configuration required.

+ Has sockets for a standard ATX power supply - 24-pin motherboard connector plus two, 6-pin PCIe 12V connectors.

+ Has push-on/push-off button for power control.

+ Has power-on indicator LED for each of 3.3V, 5V, 12V, and 5Vsb.

+ Has standard USB B-receptacle for cabling to controlling computer.

 
Rack-mounted Hive

+ Has connectors for a local control panel with buttons and display.

+ Accepts any mixture of Wasp implementations, in any number of arbitrarily provisioned slots with no manual configuration required.

+ Has sockets for a standard ATX power supply - 24-pin motherboard connector plus six, 6-pin PCIe 12V connectors.

+ Has one or more high-power edge connectors for server-style pluggable 12V-only power supplies.

+ Has buttons for system power control and reset, with operation similar to standard PC.

+ Has power-on indicator LED for each of 3.3V, 5V, 12V, and 5Vsb.

+ Has mechanical position and connectors for mounting a Raspberry-Pi (R-Pi) or Beagle Board Black (BBB) controlling computer, as well as connectors for USB and power so that those controllers can be attached from remote mountings.

+ Has a position for audible-feedback "speaker" (piezo transducer) to be plugged into.

+ Provides circuits for automatic slaving of server power supply(s) to the PC controls, providing single-point manual control of all system power.

+ Provides individual manual enable/disable controls for each slave supply.

+ Provides individual, software assisted enables for each Wasp slot's power, with visual indicators of status.

+ Provides fully automated Manufacturing Acceptance Test capability.

+ Provides significant, partially automated Operational Diagnostic Test capability.


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

Interested in working on the HIVE? Come join The Wasp Project Collective today!

[Bicknellski]

From the last EE meeting potential prototype using BitFury Wasps.

*  32 chips per Wasp.
*  8 Wasps per Hive.
*  +/- 588 Gh/s. (2.3 gh/s per chip)
*  Prototype likely hashing in December.
*  Production could start early January.
*  We are currently reaching out to the community for those who might be interested in the BitFury versions as well as A1 and Minions.

Other notes.

* A1 / Minion designs for Wasps will be a very short turnaround based on rework of the BitFury / Avalon Wasp configurations.
* Remote hot patches for firmware will be available.
* Remote diagnostics on the hardware will be available.
* VPN to the prototype boards will be available for Firmware design and testing live for members of the design team.
* First 3D render on the Bitfury Wasp was released internally at the meeting and it was great to visualize the Wasps for the first time.

It was certainly an informative meeting and as always the meeting was recorded so members can listen to the full meeting in the coming days once it has been uploaded.

From our ever growing document pages on the Zoho Project you can see that this Open Source project is really trying to bring some much needed conveniences to miners.

Wasp Controller and Maintenance Software

Wasp Firmware Patching and Upgrading

PatchPanel is another snap-in based utility intended to manage Wasp firmware and hot-patch state. As such, it uses many of the snap-ins from CDMpanel, in order to identify, isolate, read status, and install overlays on the selected Wasp (no batch mode is proposed at this time, though manufacturing might need such a program). It has unique snap-ins for querying status of patches and firmware releases, and for installing new versions of each. It can also revert hot-patches and remove them from the program-FLASH image.

.
.
.


Wasp Remote Debugger

Wasp's remote debugging facility is provided by Atmel's (the MCU manufacturer's) remote debugger, with the assistance of on-board ADB support through its own dedicated set of endpoints. Remote debugging is enabled by flags in the opaque data block downloaded when the Wasp is started, after it identifies itself and its capabilities.

[Bicknellski]

Wasp Controller and Maintenance Software

Summary

The Wasp Project Collective Wasps are self-contained hashing blades utilizing various hashing ASICs, and adapting each of them to a single unified power, command, and control structure. Several programs residing on the controlling PC or embedded computer interact with the Wasps through the common protocols for:

+ Mining eCoins, not limited to BTC
+ Testing and configuring the Wasps, both individually and "Collectively" (of course )
+ Performing in-place firmware patching or upgrading.
+ Purchasing and managing licenses for the Wasps
+ Debugging firmware on the Wasps, while running one of the above programs in parallel.

Come join us and help develop some truly disruptive innovations in mining hardware as well as being part of a dynamic SHIFT in the DIY / Open Hardware community. 40+ members and growing and many are software and hardware engineers. We are building a better community with this project and we need your help. To see more on our Wasp Controller and Maintenance Software drop me an email or a PM to get added to our Zoho Project page.

[Bicknellski]

Just finished a short formative meeting about a new project for the collective.

The Wasp Project Collective Mining Pool

WPC Mining Pool Development Team Meets this Friday the 29th November
Jakarta, Indonesia 1200 WIB (+7 GMT)

We should have an operational pool ready by December 7th, 2013.

The meeting will provide an overview for the shares and costs involved and key members involved in the oversight of the pool hardware and software.

---

Interested in working on our collective mining pool? Drop me a PM or Email to be added to the Zoho Project page.

[bigb159]

Looking forward to seeing what you guys put together - I'm no engineer so I'll stay out of this conversation.

[Bicknellski]

Looking forward to seeing what you guys put together - I'm no engineer so I'll stay out of this conversation.

We need everyone in ... engineers, and hobbyists all are welcome.

[gamersglory]

Don't forget a wasp for this chip  http://alpha-t.net/product/scrypt-asic-miner/    A Litecoin (Scrypt)  wasp would be awesome. I would love to be involved in anything i can do to help the project. Testing would be cool too. I live in chapel hill, nc  right in the research triangle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle home of redhat and more tech cos. Also I would fall into the hobbyist category 

[Bicknellski]

Don't forget a wasp for this chip  http://alpha-t.net/product/scrypt-asic-miner/    A Litecoin (Scrypt)  wasp would be awesome. I would love to be involved in anything i can do to help the project. Testing would be cool too. I live in chapel hill, nc  right in the research triangle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle home of redhat and more tech cos. Also I would fall into the hobbyist category  

We haven't "forgotten" we just need the chip specs, chips and one of the half a dozen EE's in the collective, or a new EE keen on scrypt to join us and then go mental on the design based off our existing templates. Also we already discussed plans for scrypt hashing Wasps as evidenced in the following page in our project. Ideally we would love to see our Hive mining both Sha256 and Scrypt at the same time.

Code:

Wasp Controller and Maintenance Software

Summary

The Wasp Project Collective Wasps are self-contained hashing blades utilizing various hashing ASICs, and adapting each 
of them to a single unified power, command, and control structure. Several programs residing on the controlling PC or 
embedded computer interact with the Wasps through the common protocols for:

+ Mining eCoins, not limited to BTC
+ Testing and configuring the Wasps, both individually and "Collectively" (of course )
+ Performing in-place firmware patching or upgrading.
+ Purchasing and managing licenses for the Wasps
+ Debugging firmware on the Wasps, while running one of the above programs in parallel.
 
Specific Programs:

Mining Controller

The primary function of the Wasp is to mine eCoins. A standard miner such as cgminer or bfgminer can manage Wasps 
of any variant that supports double-SHA256 hashing. In the future we expect to also simultaneously handle SCRYPT 
Wasps, with a second mining controller running in parallel, using the same driver for both mining programs. Since the 
Wasps self-identify, mining programs can determine which of the resident Wasps's endpoints can support the type of 
mining the program was configured for, and only connect to those endpoints, leaving the others available for mining 
programs with different configurations.

Each Wasp is designed within the overarching project so there could actually be a team we put together now to run with the Scrypt hashing Wasp. All we need are keen people to push it forward. Do you want to help us develop the first Scrypt Alpha-T Wasp? PM or Email me and I can add you to the project page. If you want to see more documentation for Wasps and Hives and the current state of the prototype and even discuss that with our EE's then being a member is a good option.

[dplusf]

Does one who is from the wasp project licensed Manufacturer will get the schematics from the pcb with finished gerber files for the manufacturers?
I think this would be necessary so to get more manufacturer in the boat, because not everybody has the knowledge to design pcb.

[Cheshyr]

What else is needed on this project?

[Bicknellski]

Does one who is from the wasp project licensed Manufacturer will get the schematics from the pcb with finished gerber files for the manufacturers?
I think this would be necessary so to get more manufacturer in the boat, because not everybody has the knowledge to design pcb.

This is an open source hardware project. All the gerbers and bom will be released to all, and anyone can make their own Wasps and Hives.

We do want fabricators, diy builders and users to license with us so we can provide support for troubleshooting the design, software as well as  firmware updates. The design will help the collective recoup some of the substantial investment of our time and capital while we bring these various Wasps to prototype and finally to production. We welcome people to join the collective and support the project but really anyone out there who is interested in the designs can build this. As part of our design we layering in a number of features including a pretty robust License Enforcement Subsystem. This subsystem's responsibility is to use the device certificate and keys to ensure that the Wasp is properly licensed for its firmware. If anyone is keen on learning more about licensing you can contact me via email or join the group and join in the discussion.

Currently we have had interest from several people in the community who have already provided other types of mining rigs but we are also interested  in supporting smaller efforts and possibly some of our collective members will want to own some Wasps and Hives after all most of us are keen on hobbyists at heart even if a few of the people in the collective have advanced degrees and have a lifetime of experience in electronics and robotics.

[Bicknellski]

What else is needed on this project?

Where to start?

That is a great question and best answered in the Zoho Project page as there are quite a few items directly in need of immediate attention and we welcome other EEs and Software and Firmware designers to join us. There is a growing list of documents that outline what is required so drop me an email or PM and I can let you into the Project page for a look.

Current Work is focused on a BitFury and Avalon V1 and V2 Wasp prototypes to provide us a baseline for 28nm chips in the form of the A1 and Mininon Wasps in December and February. We are likely to have some working prototype before the New Year and likely mid December. I will post more as I get more information on that.

[albinosincave]

How to get involved? Keen hobbyist looking to get involved

[dplusf]

Does one who is from the wasp project licensed Manufacturer will get the schematics from the pcb with finished gerber files for the manufacturers?
I think this would be necessary so to get more manufacturer in the boat, because not everybody has the knowledge to design pcb.

This is an open source hardware project. All the gerbers and bom will be released to all, and anyone can make their own Wasps and Hives.

We do want fabricators, diy builders and users to license with us so we can provide support for troubleshooting the design, software as well as  firmware updates. The design will help the collective recoup some of the substantial investment of our time and capital while we bring these various Wasps to prototype and finally to production. We welcome people to join the collective and support the project but really anyone out there who is interested in the designs can build this. As part of our design we layering in a number of features including a pretty robust License Enforcement Subsystem. This subsystem's responsibility is to use the device certificate and keys to ensure that the Wasp is properly licensed for its firmware. If anyone is keen on learning more about licensing you can contact me via email or join the group and join in the discussion.

Currently we have had interest from several people in the community who have already provided other types of mining rigs but we are also interested  in supporting smaller efforts and possibly some of our collective members will want to own some Wasps and Hives after all most of us are keen on hobbyists at heart even if a few of the people in the collective have advanced degrees and have a lifetime of experience in electronics and robotics.

Thank you Bicknellski
Glad that im also in this project. Looking really forward, exiting project wich will the Community Push further!

[Operatr]

This is one hell of a project! As one looking for bladed mining solutions currently, I will be watching this intently. Even better that you plan to open the design specs to the community in the true spirit of this industry.

It will be awesome to watch how many derivative Hives and Wasps come out of this too. Awesome work Bicknellski and crew

[Useless1d1ot]

I will purchase one.

[Bicknellski]

How to get involved? Keen hobbyist looking to get involved

Drop me an email address and I will add you to the project pages. Standing meetings.

Management Team Meets Fridays
Canberra, Australia 2000 ACT (GMT +11)

Design Team Meets Saturdays
Seattle, USA 1800 PST (-8 GMT)

WPC Mining Pool Development Team Meets Fridays
Jakarta, Indonesia 1200 WIB (+7 GMT)

[Bicknellski]

This is one hell of a project! As one looking for bladed mining solutions currently, I will be watching this intently. Even better that you plan to open the design specs to the community in the true spirit of this industry.

It will be awesome to watch how many derivative Hives and Wasps come out of this too. Awesome work Bicknellski and crew

Thank-you.

The group we have is certainly one to watch. Personally I am just a hobbyist and teacher by trade but the team that has come together is really good. I mean really good. When this is released people are going to be gobsmacked.

[Bicknellski]

I will purchase one.

Me too.

[Mentaso]

Tell me exactly what you need and I will place an article on our website. mentaso.com
If its really needed, I can also add a banner on our pages for you.

Good work!

[Bicknellski]

Tell me exactly what you need and I will place an article on our website. mentaso.com
If its really needed, I can also add a banner on our pages for you.

Good work!

I will discuss that with the EE this Saturday at the meeting and get you a "press - release" about what we need help with directly.

We pay for work on the project in shares so this is not volunteerism just for people to note.

[Kontakt]

This is a very interesting project.
I'd be happy to help out if you could use it.
I'm a second year EE at university, so I could theoretically be of use.

[Bicknellski]

This is a very interesting project.
I'd be happy to help out if you could use it.
I'm a second year EE at university, so I could theoretically be of use.

Drop me an email I am sure our EE's would love to help mentor new EE's like yourself. Some of them have over 40 years experience!

[Bicknellski]

What does the Hive & Wasp Modular Miner bring to our community?
 
 
It will deliver, for the first time to the community, some form of obsolescence protection. Our prototype Wasps are designed and will prototype with legacy chips, as well as cutting edge chips soon to be released on the market. Imagine a fully populated Hive (backplane) that accept a variety of Wasps using Bitfury, V2 Avalon or other legacy chips as well as Wasp designed with the A1, Minion or future chips planned for Q2. Not only will we be able to produce Wasps with future SHA256 ASIC chips but our own designers have plans to demonstrate the first SHA256 and Scrypt mining configuration in the same modular design. That will truly be disruptive innovation for the those doing DIY as well as established resellers looking to create a truly lasting following base of end users. Our modular design will live on for years growing with the needs of the community.
 
 
What will the Hive & Wasp Modular Miner cost?
 
We are carefully designing our system to match or provide additional savings over "retail", "pre-order" systems currently available. The one factor that holds back real saving are the costs of the ASIC chips and their availability. We avoid some of the vagaries of the marketplace as we are able on a moments notice to react and design based on chip prices and availability. We can provide some of the shortest turnaround time in designs of new miners in the market, whether it is a new or older chip and based on our ability to redesign our current PCB with minimal changes. The Hive remains the same no matter what Wasp slots in and the software doesn't change just new firmware which is ready at production time you won't be waiting for firmware or software.
 
 
When will you be ready to mass produce your Hives & Wasps?
 
We will be testing our designs in the next few weeks. A fully populated prototype Hive hashing with 8 Wasps is probably ready in late December or Early January. We will be showing the community some of our work on the prototype in a video to be released before Christmas. Ideally we would hope to see Wasps and Hives being put through production at volume sometime in January 2014.
 
 
What chips will be available?
 
Your guess is good as ours, but we have put our effort into acquiring the following ASIC chips and are working on Wasps for them: Avalon A3255, BitFury, A1 and Minion chips. If the BitFury, A1 and Minion chips are available in sufficient quantity anyone will be able to build our hardware as it is open source and license it to get its full hashing potential. Some basic numbers for the fully populated Hives we are currently working toward prototypes:
 
Hive with 8 x 24 Avalon A3255 55nm chips per Wasp would mine at over 230 Gh/s.
Hive with 8 x 24 BitFury 55nm chips  per Wasp would mine at over 440 Gh/s.
Hive with 8 x 6 A1 28nm chips per Wasp would mine at over 1.68 Th/s.
Hive with 8 x 2 Minion 28nm chips per Wasp would mine at over 1.8 Th/s.
 
Any questions with this revision?
 

[Bicknellski]

The WPC is looking for a logo. We will be starting a contest later next week where our lifetime members will vote for a new logo designed by someone in bitcointalk and the winner gets 1 share in any ongoing WPC project and a free membership in the WPC. Keep your eyes peeled for the design brief in the threads and in the Services area.

[gamersglory]

Hello world I'm Paul and I will be handling Wasp Project updates as Darin has his hands full and then some   With other things in the coop. I am hoping to have the first benchshots of a working wasp very soon and will love to share them with you as soon as I get them. If you have questions you can Pm me or post them here in the thread. We are also always looking for new members if you want to join PM me or Darin. I think he still lurks in the shadows around here. EE's and Firmware programmers are still in need. also our logo design contest will be coming soon.


Update: the contest is up: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=364115 

[darkfriend77]

Some numbers about "The Wasp Project Collective":

Snapshot 09.12.2013

Members: 32 - (full members, paid lifetime membership fee)
Members: 48 - (joined the collective no fee)

and growing ...

[GeorgeA]

Update: the contest is up: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=364115 

I can't draw, but how about a strapline:

Wasp Collective Mining: All the buzz without the sting.

G

[Bicknellski]

"Nevermind the Buzz. It's all about the Sting." - WPC delivers.

[driksson]

"Nevermind the Buzz. It's all about the Sting." - WPC delivers.

"No Buzz - All Sting"

[GeorgeA]

"Nevermind the Buzz. It's all about the Sting

No Buzz - All Sting

My thinking was that as people have been/are being stung in this 'industry' already we don't need any association with stings, that's why I suggested Buzz as in activity/industry, rather than Sting as in causing pain.



G

[Bicknellski]

Given the logos being offered we are suggesting that... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=364115

The sting is cracking a block.
The sting is delivering on time.
The sting is delivering disruptive innovation.
The sting is a collective working together to change the community with Wasp & Hive Modular Miner.

As opposed to talking or buzzing around and doing little or nothing.

[cryptrol]

This project is very interesting. I would rather invest my money/time/skills in an open source project than a any of the other offerings.
Also the concept of the hive/wasp is great for long term. I admit I have not read the full thread, but how could I get involved ?

[Bicknellski]

This project is very interesting. I would rather invest my money/time/skills in an open source project than a any of the other offerings.
Also the concept of the hive/wasp is great for long term. I admit I have not read the full thread, but how could I get involved ?

Drop me your email address I can get you in for the last 3 days of the trial membership. After the 15th we are closed to non-paying members.

[gamersglory]

The Wasp

The project team just finished our 1st meeting and are looking forward to the development of The Wasp for BTC, and hopefully LTC mining chips initially or more likely for a 2nd generation iteration of The Wasp. The Wasp will be based on the need to upcycle and provide mining operators with flexibility but also an unprecedented level of protection against the rapid obsolescence that current mining hardware is fraught with today.

The Wasp will be directly managed by S. Bailey with support from C. Decoster, D. Bicknell, J. Widajaya and J. Hudgins as well as others who have pledged both design, financial and other support for the duration of this project. Our first milestone will be to cost out the project and give a timeline that matches the availability of the 28nm ASIC's coming to market.

We are currently looking at 28nm chips the Hash Fast "Golden Nonce", Cointerra "Gold Strike", Black Arrow "Minion" and the Coincraft "A1" mining that can be used with our modular designed backplanes and boards. The Wasp being the board and The Hive being our backplane code name designations. We are confident that this approach will set this project apart as it would be able to mine either LTC or BTC and be able to swap out older chips with newer ones via our board configuration.

Our basic timeline after this post here is to garner more project members that can support the software / firmware end as well as bolster our pcb design team. We are always looking for members to help fund and financially support the project and as this is a collective effort there is always aspects like heatsinks, fans, cases and PSUs that can be sourced for kits for customers. We hope to provide a bare bones miner that can be configured on site with minimal effort and support. We are also looking at posting our project up as an asset on BitFunder to also further support our efforts.

We are currently open to more people joining us on this adventure and we will have a second open general meeting to follow up on a number of points raised in our first meeting. If you are interested in joining us and working on this project feel free to post below or pm or email me. We will do our best to update everyone as time passes. I understand that there is quite vague and not completely spelled out but as time goes on the project team will be updating me and I will in turn revise and amend things hopefully making the project more accessible. What is Open Source Hardware? http://www.oshwa.org/definition/.

Code:

Open Source Hardware (OSHW) is a term for tangible artifacts — machines, devices, or other physical things — 
whose design has been released to the public in such a way that anyone can make, modify, distribute, and use those 
things. This definition is intended to help provide guidelines for the development and evaluation of licenses for 
Open Source Hardware.

ADDITIONAL DESIGN NOTES:

The Hives (Mother Planes)

* On board USB hub with a port for each blade. Upstream port connects to linux board or box. At least one extra port for potential billboard display or local display & cooling-controller.

* On board 24-pin and 6/8 pin connectors for PC power supply (650-750W) provides 3.3, 5, and 12 V.

* Last blade connector can accept a server power supply (12V only) for higher power operation, not needed when system is tuned for low-power consumption, or when it has fewer than a full load of blades.

* 8 available connection points for the Wasps.

* Any Wasp no matter the type of the chip will work with the Hives.

* All blades driven through USB hub.

* Stand-alone hive is just a small card with sockets for power and USB.

* Hot swap.

* Linux embedded system to run cgminer/bfgminer bolts right down onto big mobo.


The Wasps (Blades)

* Wasps can slot into mother plane.

* Wasps can stand alone and be stacked FPGA style.

* Wasps are made to fit the Hive form factor.

* Wasps can be independently powered and controlled without mother plane.

Update: To join The Wasp Project You now will have to contact me as Darin is doing other things now.

[gamersglory]

We Should have a few great updates coming in the next few weeks. Before the end of the year! 2014 will be the year of the Wasp     

[Bicknellski]

We Should have a few great updates coming in the next few weeks. Before the end of the year! 2014 will be the year of the Wasp     

We wish you a merry hashmas?

[Bicknellski]

The Zoho Project area is now closed to unpaid members. We will open up membership payments in the coming weeks.

Thank-you for all the interest we will continue to update here and we should have a website, a mining pool and working prototype ready before Christmas.

[Bicknellski]

UPDATED:

Click link below to directly enter IRC Channel:
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#WPC-Public

[cczarek123]

Doing that now... just putting out feelers as it were so we can then discuss what we get back at next weeks meeting. Please email me again and I will try and add you to the hangout.

[cczarek123]

Works for me see you then.

The meeting is open to everyone just PM me or email if you want to get included in the meeting.

[redmonski]

I think this project will provide a sustainable model for the miners. I'm not an EE, but I'd love to take part in the project.

[gamersglory]

Right Now we have 51 full paid members! So we are growing membership will open back up sometime in the near future 

[tntdgcr]

Right Now we have 51 full paid members! So we are growing membership will open back up sometime in the near future 

count me in , someone already shared me to Darin , just waiting

[Bicknellski]

Right Now we have 51 full paid members! So we are growing membership will open back up sometime in the near future 

count me in , someone already shared me to Darin , just waiting

Did you need help tntdgcr? Drop gamersglory a PM.

[Bicknellski]

Big meeting tomorrow... as we are going to received a number of important project updates on the Wasp and the Mining Pool as well as a pre-meeting to go over the the plans for a large production run for Wasps that will take place in January. All the members are keen on having modular miners on shelves before any sales start so we will be focused on the logistics challenges so that when Wasps and Hives are in stock we can ship direct in days thus given the community what is wants miners off the shelf.

Note to members we are moving off Zoho for most things administrative to our own forum over the next week or two so that we can communicate more directly with the WPC members. Please check your emails for the latest information on that move. We will phase out Zoho for all communications by January 2014 although we will retain some of the unique functions it has for project management over 2014 until we can integrate everything into our WPC servers.

We will post an update for everyone here before Monday.

And if anyone missed it at this time we are not accepting new members. Membership will reopen in Q1 2014 at some point in conjunction with a payment gateway for membership on our Website.

[bitpop]

This guy needs you https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=379935.0

[Bicknellski]

This guy needs you https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=379935.0

Thanks he contacted us bitpop most appreciated.

[Bicknellski]

Update:

The time frame for the following items would be from now up to first or second week of January 2014.

The WPC Prototype Wasps

• We have in hand enough BitFury chips to produce 8+ prototype waps.
• We will have in hand enough BitMain chips to produce 8+ prototype wasp.
• We should have a first Hive prototype that is able to house wasps but as early prototype that will evolve.
• Target is to build a minimum of 20 total prototype boards in BitFury and BitMain configurations.
• If we have an odd assortment of chips we will also look at mixing and matching chips on the same Wasp.
• Video of the prototypes hashing will be made available to everyone.
• The gerbers and bom for the Wasp will be released only when we are confident that we have functional units.
• WPC will likely produce a small sample prototype run for testing and proof of concept purposes beyond the 20 initial boards.

The WPC Mining Pool

• We will have a functional mining pool up and running before the new year or possibly within the first week of January.
• Full testing of the mining pool will start after Christmas.
• Tentatively 20 Th/s to 300 Th/s range for this pool is estimated by the end of January 2014.

The WPC Website

• Site is ready except we want to have Wasp and Hive prototype pictures before we launch the site
• Site will add more and more functionality after it is live.
• Site will be a work in progress and feedback from WPC members and the community will undoubtedly be taken into account as we edit and modify the site.

The WPC Forums

• We already have a public facing forum for the community but will open that up after we post some basic information.
• News & Announcements - "Official News & announcements of the WPC"
• Publications - "Publications of The Wasp Project Collective"
• Apply for Membership - "Learn about the options available for membership in the the WPC"
• Hardware Support - "Hardware support forum for our products"
• Software Support - "Software support forum for our products"

[MANofthePEOPLE]

Fun thread and project!

Will this be plug and play or you need to put the thing together yourself? Might be in for the minion if I just need to plug it into the wall. Never gonna get it up and running otherwise 

Also, any ball park numbers what the price will be?

[bitpop]

Very nice

[Bicknellski]

Fun thread and project!

Will this be plug and play or you need to put the thing together yourself? Might be in for the minion if I just need to plug it into the wall. Never gonna get it up and running otherwise  

Also, any ball park numbers what the price will be?

Code:

The Hive and Wasp System

Wasps and their hives are USB-connected peripherals to eCoin mining computers. 
Those computers might be as small as a RaspberryPi, or as large as a fully rack-mounted 
industrial server PC. Each Wasp is a potentially stand-alone mining assembly, with its own 
local work generation, hasher configuration monitoring, and Stratum-II reporting. As a 
peripheral, a Wasp can communicate over its USB 2.0 compatible, Full Speed (12Mb/s) 
link to a program such as bfgminer, running on either a dedicated linux-board 
(R-Pi, BBB, etc) or a consumer PC with one of linux or Windows or Mac OS-X.

Some features of a Hive and Wasp system:

Wasps can be put into service as stand-alone hashing peripherals, in which case the 
stand-alone-Hive is a simple board to apply power and provide a connector for the USB cable.

Wasps can be stacked - they have mounting holes for things like brass standoffs, and up to 
four Wasps can be attached to a stacker-Hive, which would provide both power and USB hub 
for consolidating the 4 USB connections into a single USB peripheral.

Hives usually, however, are full industrial rack-mountable containers for Wasps and their power 
supplies. These containers allow multiple varieties of Wasp to live and work together 
(unlike the real-life wasps!), providing scalable, redundant power for up to 8 Wasps, with full 
hot-plug capabilities, graceful, programmable degradation in the case of power supply failures,
and full industrial strength monitoring and control of Wasps, down to individual or small groups 
(4) of hashing chips.

Current Hives are designed for air cooling; water- and oil-cooled assemblies are proposed, 
which will increase density somewhat.

Wasps are currently designed as USB peripherals to a 'mining computer', but the hardware 
is designed to allow in-place upgrading to fully stand-alone headless blades, using a 10/100Mb
Ethernet link built into each Wasp. Firmware space for this mode of operation is also already 
present on the current design.

Ballpark... as we stated before all we have currently are just internal prototype base calculations for us to produce 20 Wasps prototypes and nothing yet for the hives. As soon as the Gerbers and BOM are released anyone will be able to get a quotation on these units so rather that post a number that will ultimately be superseded in a few weeks we will just wait for those to be released after we have working prototypes. That is expected in Late December or Early January 2014 and will be BitFury Wasps and BitMain Wasps varieties and a beta version of our Hive. Sorry we can't be of more help yet on pricing but we really do not want to put out anything that isn't 100% accurate.

[Bicknellski]

Note we are building a team to handle the PR / Marketing for all of the WPC because we all agree that multiple contact points are much better than a single point failure. The website will be going up soon to have most of our communication and updates there and post here only on a weekly basis.

Remember we have the IRC Channel is located on the freenode IRC network.

#WPC-Public (public)

If you don't have an IRC client, click here to visit the channel with your web browser.
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#WPC-Public

Downloads

Windows or Linux:  http://xchat.org/
Colloguy for Mac:  http://colloquy.info/
All: http://hexchat.github.io/downloads.html

[Bicknellski]

Quick Note:

We are likely to get hold of Edit: The 2 x A1 chips are shipping and will be in the hands of our EE by next week. We will try and update progress on the A1 Wasp as well as the BitMain and BitFury Wasp prototype versions as we have actual demonstrable progress. All major announcements with regards to the release date of the Software, Firmware and the Hardware being created by the Wasp Project Collective will take place on our website only after we have tangible product to demonstrate like the working emulator or prototype Wasps actually working on the test bench. Once the website is up we will post news here for all but at this point only basic information on where we are in development will be made here. When the A1 chips are in Seattle we will drop another note here for all those following this project. Also note we will update the winner of the LOGO contest here as soon as most members have voted on our forums.

[bigbeninlondon]

The WPC Mining Pool

• We will have a functional mining pool up and running before the new year or possibly within the first week of January.
• Full testing of the mining pool will start after Christmas.
• Tentatively 20 Th/s to 300 Th/s range for this pool is estimated by the end of January 2014.

Will this mining pool be open to all?  Do you have a fee structure in place?  How will rewards be calculated?  Any other info?

[bitpop]

Please put cexio out of business

[Bicknellski]

The WPC Mining Pool

• We will have a functional mining pool up and running before the new year or possibly within the first week of January.
• Full testing of the mining pool will start after Christmas.
• Tentatively 20 Th/s to 300 Th/s range for this pool is estimated by the end of January 2014.

Will this mining pool be open to all?  Do you have a fee structure in place?  How will rewards be calculated?  Any other info?

We just had a meeting today about the pool.

Yes. When we have it up and running and fully tested it will be open to all but we will release information on when it opens as soon as we have fully implemented everything. Right now we are working on the servers, software back end but the front end is pretty much complete.

Fees will be posted on the pool when it opens and other information of rewards etc will be posted. We are also going to work on referral programs for those who bring in more hash power.

We are holding all details close to the vest at this point and when we actually have a working pool we will let everyone know via our website and the pool website obviously. Then we will announce it here.

Note I will keep people updated as we progress but not post timelines as such because we simply want to have products and services up and ready for customers then we will do a full on marketing and promotion. I hope that is ok with everyone we just want to avoid the trend to over promise and under perform. We would rather people come and experience our products and services and then weigh in on how we can improve them rather than pre-sell things or hype it to no real purpose.

We are fully funding all our products and services in house through our 52 members. We do want to work with others though and partner on production or working together with others to provide services but we will fund everything and test everything as best we can before anything is released.

[Bicknellski]

Please put cexio out of business

Do we have the model that can do that? I suppose many of us in the collective have already talked about a better or more equitable model for cloud mining but then again that is an entirely new project for the WPC. Right now we are focused on:

1. Wasp and Hive Modular Miner Prototypes
2. WPC Mining Pool
3. WPC Website / Media
4. Internal Administration & Communication for projects and infrastructure for the WPC

I think that is a good topic for discussion here with the community here bitbop.

What is exactly about Cex.io makes you want them to lose market share and go out of business?
What do you think you would like to see as a competitor to Cex.io?

WPC will have the Wasp & Hive modular miner designs which could be used as the basis for the rapid implementation of a "cloud" mining operation that a mining center business or private individuals or other groups outside the WPC could build and we could support with technical / design assistance given our large base of Software / Firmware and Hardware Engineers number in the teens now. There are plenty of opportunities and we are always looking to work with the community to support new efforts.

What would you propose?

[gamersglory]

Please put cexio out of business

I know more then one of our members wants us to get into a CEX.io like cloud hashing service. Me being one   Right now though we are focused on getting are prototypes done and we will share it with all of you and getting partners on board to build end user units. BTW If you build Miners we want you! PM or E-mail me and I will get you the info you need when it is ready. We really want to know how much interest there is out there for our little upgradeable miner.   

[Bicknellski]

Next Meeting:

Saturday 11th January 2014



Location Time:

Seattle, USA 1030 PDT Saturday
London, UK 1830 GMT Saturday
Central Europe 1930 CET Saturday
Jakarta, ID 0130 WIB Sunday

Agenda:

Wasp & Hive Prototype Update
Mining Pool Update
Website Update
Project Group Administrator Update

Members Reporting:

Lead EE - Wasp & Hive
Project Manager - Website
Project Manager. - Mining Pool
Project Manager - Wasp & Hive
Project Manager - Provisioning server to sell and install the WPC licenses
Team Leader - PR & Marketing, CRM
Site Leader - RMA Center USA (Return Merchandise Authorization Center)

[Bicknellski]

Update Mining Pool:

Looks like the pool team are finally getting things moving server wise that means the tinkering can begin. We will have more details to post next week on the mining pool.

Chips, chips and more chips

In a recent round of discussion with various members, we will have even more chips than we originally intended on the prototype side.
A1's, BitFury and BitMain all should be well "overstocked" in the coming weeks as some of our members are having their orders being filled and more samples are sent out.

WPC Logo

Still a day or two left on first round of voting we are keen to announce the winner of the contest but still need more members to chime in on the designs.
Voting is pretty tight and at least 3 designs are now in the running and I suspect we might have to do a run-off vote to break a tie.

[grabber]

Looking forward to get this done! Nice job still!

[Bicknellski]

As are we, we are so hyped to see a working prototype we can taste it.

As we get close we are focused on developing our network so we can work with and support anyone interested in fabrication and sales of these Open Hardware units. We are readying our RMA facilities should any in the US need repairs or maintenance we can support you there stateside. We are hopeful that most of the production of our units will be done through 3rd party fabricators following our designs, using our software and firmware that are licensed and can provide users with an unparalleled support of these units. But even if we see 3rd party production we are keen on offering, at customer cost of course, RMA services and we are also working hard to put together multiple hosting service sites for units worldwide.

[Bicknellski]

Logo Competition

We are working through a 2nd round voting now.

Members still in the running for our logo are:

medUSA https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=106054
dzarmush https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=176058
W-M https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=88832
Operatr https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=92499

We hope to announce the winner next week.

Winners will be given life time membership in the WPC and 1 share in any project of their choice currently offered.

[Bicknellski]

Logo Competition

Poll runs till Tue Jan 14, 2014 3:35 am

A1 Sample Chips

Scheduled to arrive Monday on the west coast at our EE's. Some lucky developers already have their chips.

[hattra]

Hi - just discovered this project - are you still accepting new members?

[Bicknellski]

We will open up membership payments in the coming weeks.

Thank-you for all the interest we will continue to update here and we should have a website, a mining pool and working prototype.

[Swimmer63]

Also looking to become a paying member.

[btmtb]

Agreed, would like to become involved as I've mentioned.

[Bicknellski]

Logo Competition:

We will announce a winner this week.

A1, BitMain and BitFury Chips

The 2 - A1 samples got delivered today. Our feeling is that a Metal-core PCB for the A1s and their buck controllers is necessary, and then cutting slots in the FR4 Wasp will allow us to attach copper heatsinks to the metalcore, and Bergquist pads to the tops of the chips and the passives, filling the gap for an aluminum sink for the top. Hoping this initial prototype design keep the temps down in the 40s, with air. All this is necessary so as to increase the potential lifetime of these A1 first run prototype chips. This all takes time so the A1 prototype will be later than the prototype PCB's for the BitMain / BitFury Wasps. Soon as we have working prototypes we will release that information on our website. BitFury will be the first prototype to be built followed closely by the BitMain and then A1. We plan on a Minion Wasp prototype beyond these 3 initial chips. The members have put in all the funding required to pay for all the components, chips and fabrication.

WPC Mining Pool

Latest update is that the whole pool team now has access to the servers and that means it is only a matter of days before we have the pool up for testing.

Membership:

We are keen to find more firmware people to help develop a range of functions we have planned for the Wasp & Hive. If you have experience in the following areas or are keen to learn and have some background in firmware please PM me with your skills set and experience. I will push that information to our EE and see if that is what we require. If he is good with that then we can expedite your membership on that basis. As for those without those skills sets at this time we are going to hold off any new members until at least February and all membership will be through the website at that point.


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


Firmware Objectives by System

This system has the following objectives:

• provide initialization of MCU resources in a safe sequence, and configuration of pin assignments that connect processor resources to their off-chip nets as specified
• provide safely sequenced initialization of off-chip resources such as CPLD programming, bus-power distribution fail-safes, and regulator initial configuration
• provide safe access abstractions for use of on-chip and off-chip resources, once they have been initialized
• provide a launch service for tasks of both classes, allowing them to register for scheduling, and to perform any requisite initialization on their data structures prior to scheduling startup
• schedule real-time bounded tasks in a fixed priority rotation
• schedule background tasks in round-robin dispatch mode, whenever no real-time tasks are ready
• preserve non-real-time context when a background task is preempted , and restore that context after the real-time tasks have all been serviced
• provide a single-shot timed event service with a minimum interval approximating 256 uS, and allow those events to be cancelled before they occur
• provide a watchdog service that prevents firmware failures from rendering the device inaccessible
• provide a fail-safe power distribution system controller, and keep it running
• provide services for driving multi-color LEDs with on-board Pulse Width Modulators, both hardware and firmware implementations
• provide safe shutdown services that can rapidly bring the system to a known-safe operational state

Operating Environment Layer Subsystems

• Initialization Subsystem
• Thread Launcher Subsystem
• Low Level I/O Subsystem
• Task Scheduler and Timer Subsystem
• Watchdog Subsystem
• Fail-safe Power Distribution Subsystem
• Shutdown Subsystem
• Registry Subsystem

Communications Layer Subsystems


Objectives

The communications layer has the following objectives for providing services to the application:

• provide an API for sending and receiving SPI messages
• provide an API for sending and receiving TWI messages
• provide an API for sending and receiving PMBUS messages, using the TWI transport
• provide an API for using the USB client link, including device descriptors and multiple endpoints
• provide the necessary management of an endpoint for Device Firmware Update (DFU) protocols

Communication Subsystems

• SPI Subsystem
• TWI Subsystem
• PMBUS Subsystem
• USB Subsystem
• DFU Subsystem

Firmware Development Guideline

Developers please note the following process for source code management.

GIT Repository Guidelines

To avoid chaos in the production and developer (a.k.a. examples) source repositories, please follow these guidelines:

• code for Atmel dev boards or non-production hardware belongs in xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• code for production and pre-production hardware belongs in xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• your development code belongs in a personal branch of the appropriate repository. The master branch is used ONLY for polished bug-free code.
• the tip of the master branch of all repositories must always build and be as bug-free as possible. I.e. DO NOT check into the master branch development code with known bugs or that does not compile and run on device hardware. Again, development code belongs in a personal branch of the appropriate repository.

Following these guidelines will minimize the time wasted by developers chasing bugs that have been introduced into the source tree by another's unfinished code. They should easy be easy to follow since creating and managing code branches is what GIT is all about.

How to Add a New App to the Codebase

In the wasps repository there is an Atmel Studio solution with a library and two application projects. To add a new application that uses the library:

• create new debug and release solution configurations in visual studio with the name of the application in the configuration; e.g. 'Debug_bitfury' and 'Release_bitfury'
• add a new application project to the solution with name that matches or can be identified with the new configuration names; e.g. 'bitfury' or 'bitfuryWasp'
• in Configuration Manager specify that only the library and new application project are built for each new build configuration
• modify library and application project settings:
• for library project in Toolchain >> Compiler >> Symbols add APPID=<new app name>; e.g. APPID=BITFURY
• for app project in Toolchain >> Linker >> Libraries >> 'Library search path' add path to directory where the linker will place the library built for this configuration
• add any other symbols needed to compile the library for the specific to the app. The number of these definitions should be few to none since every special case introduced into the library makes it more fragile and harder to maintain.
• in the library project compiler symbols define LIB_BUILD

APPID can be used in library code to build anything needed in the library for this specific app. Again, this should be done VERY sparingly and only when absolutely necessary.

LIB_BUILD is used in the library header file so that the header can be included in both the library and app builds.

Atmel Dev Tools

To develop firmware and learn firmware development for AVR-based Wasps, we use the following tools:

JTAGICE3
UC3-A3 Xplained dev board
XMEGA256-A3BU Xplained dev board
Atmel Studio (free download)

Atmel tools and development kits are available from Atmel, Mouser, DigiKey and other sources. Mouser and Digikey are recommended over Atmel since they usually ship more quickly.

The following videos provide a good introduction to the development process for Atmel parts and boards using Atmel Studio and Atmel Software Framework (ASF).

A software design process for the ASF
ASF Getting Started 1
ASF Getting Started 2

These videos describe how to use Atmel Studio to create a customized ASF-based library for specific hardware and a single firmware application. Follow the described processes to learn how to write firmware for Atmel dev boards or non-wasp hardware.

For production wasp firmware, we will need to modify the processes described in the video since we want to create a single ASF-based library customized for wasp hardware, but this library will be used by many firmware applications: namely, one application for each for type of wasp and probably (a) test/diagnostic application(s) for each wasp as well.

MAX V CPLD Dev Tools

Tools for CPLD firmware are a development board, downloadable development software and tutorial pdf and video. Downloads may require login to free Altera account:

DK-DEV-5M570ZN" development board
Quartus II Web Edition" development software (free download)
‎ "My First FPGA" Tutorial (login to free acct may be required)
"Introduction to Quartus II" and the FPGA (or CPLD) design process

[h@shKraker]

Looking to become a paying member.  I have experience in PCB fabrication with PnP assembly, BOM tracking, refreshing and version control as well as firmware load-up and bring-up testing and verification.  I've done some Diptrace work and designed, built and verified various DIY projects (aircraft audio panel, aircraft LED position light driver, aircraft strobe driver).  Count me in for this one.  If you find yourself needing a LAMP developer I can sling some code as well.  PM and email heading your way.

H@shKraker

[Abinito]

Anyone think its possible to build 1 th/s Coincraft A1 28nm based mining rig for $4 gh/s (or lower) considering the asics costs are $3 gh/s each (5000k)? This excluding labour, just raw materials.



 

[Bicknellski]

Anyone think its possible to build 1 th/s Coincraft A1 28nm based mining rig for $4 gh/s (or lower) considering the asics costs are $3 gh/s each (5000k)? This excluding labour, just raw materials.

If you buy 10,000 A1 chips that is $2.80 / Gh/s.
Estimate the cost for a fully populated hive with PSU's, casing etc...

8 Wasps from 500+ USD / Wasp up is my guess given the complexity of the boards and components but could be higher.
1 Hive again what maybe 300+ USD up is my guess
48 A1 Chips do you calculations based on what volume of chips you purchase here http://bitmine.ch/?product=coincraft-ai-asic
PSU's 200+ USD up is my guess
4U Case 100+ USD up is my guess
Licensing unsure yet what our fee will be?

1.2 Th/s miner air-cooled.

You can figure out the costs roughly I guess?

But if you want to know exactly just wait until we release the Gerbers and BOM and build it yourself or get a costing from a fabricator near you or in China. All this will be available on our site once everything is working on the prototypes.

[Bicknellski]

Looking to become a paying member.  I have experience in PCB fabrication with PnP assembly, BOM tracking, refreshing and version control as well as firmware load-up and bring-up testing and verification.  I've done some Diptrace work and designed, built and verified various DIY projects (aircraft audio panel, aircraft LED position light driver, aircraft strobe driver).  Count me in for this one.  If you find yourself needing a LAMP developer I can sling some code as well.  PM and email heading your way.

H@shKraker

At this point we are not open to new members unless you have the firmware skills we have an immediate need for. We will reopen membership in February and you can find that on  website when it goes up.

[Abinito]

Anyone think its possible to build 1 th/s Coincraft A1 28nm based mining rig for $4 gh/s (or lower) considering the asics costs are $3 gh/s each (5000k)? This excluding labour, just raw materials.

If you buy 10,000 A1 chips that is $2.80 / Gh/s.
Estimate the cost for a fully populated hive with PSU's, casing etc...

8 Wasps from 500+ USD / Wasp up is my guess given the complexity of the boards and components but could be higher.
1 Hive again what maybe 300+ USD up is my guess
48 A1 Chips do you calculations based on what volume of chips you purchase here http://bitmine.ch/?product=coincraft-ai-asic
PSU's 200+ USD up is my guess
4U Case 100+ USD up is my guess
Licensing unsure yet what our fee will be?

1.2 Th/s miner air-cooled.

You can figure out the costs roughly I guess?

But if you want to know exactly just wait until we release the Gerbers and BOM and build it yourself or get a costing from a fabricator near you or in China. All this will be available on our site once everything is working on the prototypes.

Thanks for your answer. Since this is nowhere near $4 tot $4.2k per 1 th/s machine, and it seems possible to manufacture a 1 th/s machine for less than that (http://cointerra.com/product/terraminer-ii-1ths-jan-soldout/), do you have other suggestions? The problem for me is delivery time for plug and play machines and want to spend max 4 to 4.2k per rig.

Thanks for your time!

[Bicknellski]

Anyone think its possible to build 1 th/s Coincraft A1 28nm based mining rig for $4 gh/s (or lower) considering the asics costs are $3 gh/s each (5000k)? This excluding labour, just raw materials.

If you buy 10,000 A1 chips that is $2.80 / Gh/s.
Estimate the cost for a fully populated hive with PSU's, casing etc...

8 Wasps from 500+ USD / Wasp up is my guess given the complexity of the boards and components but could be higher.
1 Hive again what maybe 300+ USD up is my guess
48 A1 Chips do you calculations based on what volume of chips you purchase here http://bitmine.ch/?product=coincraft-ai-asic
PSU's 200+ USD up is my guess
4U Case 100+ USD up is my guess
Licensing unsure yet what our fee will be?

1.2 Th/s miner air-cooled.

You can figure out the costs roughly I guess?

But if you want to know exactly just wait until we release the Gerbers and BOM and build it yourself or get a costing from a fabricator near you or in China. All this will be available on our site once everything is working on the prototypes.

Thanks for your answer. Since this is nowhere near $4 tot $4.2k per 1 th/s machine, and it seems possible to manufacture a 1 th/s machine for less than that (http://cointerra.com/product/terraminer-ii-1ths-jan-soldout/), do you have other suggestions? The problem for me is delivery time for plug and play machines and want to spend max 4 to 4.2k per rig.

Thanks for your time!

The numbers that I am proposing are 'prototype' numbers or small batches 10 - 100 units. Again if you want to do an accurate pricing with say 1000+ units then I suspect you might be able to hit your target but that depends solely on A1, BitFury or BitMain chips... possibly others. We are building 4 prototype boards. A1, Minion, BitFury and BitMain. Given the cost of the chips you might be able to build sub 5K easily but that depends on the fab as well. China is the cheapest by far but control, time to market etc is more of the concern in that respect. Drop me an email we can help support anyone interested in developing a production run of our modular miners.

Also you can build 5 Wasps rather than 8 and have a cheaper build cost and let your customers buy more blades later with newer chips... as it is modular. Unlike the competition out there we are not restricted to a single chip and we can mix and match Wasps in a single Hive. We can even design and prototype Wasps with multiple chip profiles where you could have A1 and BitFury together on a single Wasp. Depending on your needs we can develop Wasps specific to a coin as well say a PPCoin or TRC or FRC only miner.

[Bicknellski]

ASIC Chip P0rn:

How many A1's to BitFury's you might ask?

[WASPJoe]

Hello everyone, I do not believe most of you know me, I'm Joe (obviously) and I've been tasked for the last few months with assisting with this project. I have run a mining pool for close to a year now and have developed a number of different methods for running a pool. I also have developed my own private mining pool server code, however for everyone on this project's sake I am going to be using the stratum protocol (although I am a fan of GBT and wish we could see everyone switch on over from stratum)

My part (running the actual pool server) is coming along. Infrastructure is being implemented by the end of this weekend (hopefully if everything continues to go as I plan) and test mining should begin within that time period. As others are involved more heavily in the time frame aspect i will just leave it at that, they can give more information on live updates.

If you need help with the wasp project please direct it to one of the individuals who are part of public relations. This will give me time to focus on coding.

[Bicknellski]

Tight tight deadlines... thanks for jumping in and posting here Joe.

Meeting Yesterday:

All Projects Overview

• We are still moving forward on a number of areas and from the meeting yesterday there has been significant progress on most of the projects currently going on in the WPC. The 0.1 beta hive (backplane) will be ready in time and sent to the EE in Seattle. Firmware has progressed and will be available for prototyping with hand assembled bringup boards and further use with the first prototype boards from the fabricator.
• The WPC Pool set a hard deadline for the testing of the pool as we near completion of that project. Our website will be reworked as we wait for pretty pictures / video and other media from the EE's working on firmware and hardware and our WPC internal share exchange has started development.
• Licensing story lines have been created and are being work on currently for use on the provisioning server where the firmware / licensing will be released and will be ready before sales begin.
• At this stage we are now reaching out to the community and finding partners outside the WPC who are interested in building our designs and have included a few of these people in our recent meetings so that they can see first hand where the team is in development and ask questions to the EE's. We want to open this up to those with the resources, time and focus to build our modular miners so that they can hit the ground running. We are here to support the mining community so big or small if you are keen and have time we want to include you in this Open Source project.
• We will have A1, BitFury and BitMain available at first and when we get our hands on the Minion we will provide that as well. If you are keen on using our designs then please contact me with your questions.

Logo Winner

• dzarmush is the winner of a really close vote by our members. We want to thank everyone who participated.
• Please contact me via PM or email darin.bicknell@gmail.com
• You have won a share valued at $250 USD as well as a free lifetime membership in the WPC valued at $100 USD.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=364115.msg3901162#msg3901162

[Bicknellski]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=422243.0 <--- Moving to our new single thread!