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

[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?
 

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[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