Official Thread: AMT

[Khanduras]

Don't need to worry about glue being used anywhere. There is one thing, though... Plenty of electrical tape. That's what happens when you work with a tiny power supply to host a whole bunch of things that aren't normally found in a PC, though. Not to mention the custom electronics. Even considering, it's all nicely done. Everything's all nice and zip-tied off and out of the way. Well, except for in mine, but again. Blame UPS. They made one hell of a mess of my miner by the time it got here.

I'm going to see if I can't reroute some of the wires in mine, though, because mine seems a lot more cluttered in that. Probably simply because it's a larger miner and a lot more is going on. Either way, in the process of writing that review. It'll be pretty darn in-depth, so it may take a while to post, but it'll get there.

[descarte]

what is that thing dangling at the back?

[Khanduras]

what is that thing dangling at the back?

Power and ethernet cables. Since it's coming from a controler inside the chassis there's really no other place for it to come from.

[Puppet]

I dont understand how you guys can excuse this shoddy build. Keep in mind this is all AMT does.  I might be able to excuse it from Bitmain, KnC, Asicminer or whatever asic provider that assembles their own cases almost as an afterthought to turn their asics in to something customers can use. But AMT buys standard bitfury boards, some controller (pi?) and throws it in a standard (poorly suited and overpriced) case. Thats what they created the company for. And they cant do better than this ?

For the record, here are some examples of bitfury cases that the community came up with:











credits to foofighter to Spotswood.
Those cases were made available on a small scale, and sold for less than those Lian Li cases do.

Ill grant AMT that their prices are low compared to other bitfury suppliers, but please dont call the system "engineering" and build quality anything other than it is: embarrassing.

[Biomech]

honestly, Puppet, I like quirky, so the build doesn't bother me. I sure as hell wouldn't consider it a selling point, and I told Jim that.

But this miner works, out of the box, with almost no hassle. If it had come with proper documentation, that would be NO hassle. I got it for free and had to do a bit of digging to figure out how to set it up. That is the only problem I've so far encountered with it.

You wouldn't have thought much of the car I used to race in the Sierra's either. It was ugly and beat to hell. But it won. Regularly.

If the performance of this machine is typical of their product, and it keeps running like this, I wouldn't care if it looked like pure shit. It don't, it's actually a nice, unobtrusive case. I was supposed to be objective, so I made sure that the flaws were in the pictures as well as the pretty parts. Frankly, having the control boards screwed into asymetrical brackets kind of amuses me, though it was scary out of the box.

I am under the impression that the Coincraft series is going to be custom hardware, that they are just sourcing chips from Bitmine. I don't know if that's the case, but I think it is. Perhaps, given the timeframe, they'll be prettier. But I'm really hoping they'll be this easy to use, and as quiet. I kind of doubt the quiet

I agree with you guys that they should have used a bigger and cheaper case. But they didn't, at least for their initial run, and what they did do works.

[Khanduras]

I really don't mind the build quality, either. To be honest, you're not paying much extra for the case, and the most important part is that there's SHA-256 mining boards in there. And they work. Well.

Besides, how many of us honestly keep our miners in plain sight anyway? At least the Lian-Li cases look pretty as they are, so you can't even complain about that. If the insides bug you so much, don't look inside. Pretty simple, really.

[FrictionlessCoin]

I really don't even care they put it in a case.

Most folks always take the case off anyway and run it open!

If they sold a cheaper version without a case, then I would buy that one.

[ISAWHIM]

Sucks that the "power consumption" they used for a reference, was the "minimum draw"... not relative to the "maximum speed". (But you can blame the MFG for some of that. The rest is on them, for not "testing" the actual output themselves. BTW, you don't need a kill-a-watt to measure wattage. All electricians usually have an open-ring amp-meter. You clamp that onto the power-cord, and measure the voltage on that line, and do some math. Amps * Volts = Watts. Your electrician friend should be fired! Unless you just explicitly asked for a kill-a-watt, and didn't explain what you wanted it for.)

They will be in a tough spot if the 1.2THs machines end-up needing 1200W to run, and they only got 600W PSU's (Which only have about 400W available on 12v. SO they would need to use 3x 600W to provide the needed 1200W power. But the specs for the chips should work-out better than the other chips. Since they actually quoted the watts@speeds of the MFG chip, which is said to run now with less power@speed.)

Well, you should see my GPU-Miners... I don't mount anything! (Unless you count wire-ties through screw-holes, hanging off a file-cabinet-rack, a mount.)

As for those $500-$1000 "x-frames"... Sure, if they spent even more money...
As for those $200-$500 "laser-cut frames"... Sure, if they spent even more money...
As for that $25-$45 "mini-box"... It would house one 40Ghs board... 2x would be the same price as the over-priced PSU case... and the mini-box has no PSU-mount.

But I digress... lol. A $20 case would have been fine. For me, no case would be even better. (I have plenty more file-cabinet-racks and wire-ties left.)

A custom case doesn't make the miner work any faster, if anything, it would be slower. (Eg, KNC's design just wastes power by demanding more fans for the horrible design and lack of PSU-mounting.)

Love that pile of electronics. Looks like my garage, and my bedroom, and my work-room!

First thing I am doing with my 1.2THs machine is freeing it from that restrictive ez-bake aluminum oven, called a computer-case. (Worst design idea ever. All these years of "computer technology", and we still use such primitive designs that only impede operation, to save a few bucks. Even the expensive ez-bake ovens are just expensive ez-bake ovens!)

P.S. Aluminum "reflects" heat... Copper "absorbs" heat... Steel/plastic "insulates" heat... Air "reflects" heat... Humidity "absorbs" heat... Space/Vacuum "insulates" heat... Conclusion... Cases should be inner-lined with copper, structured with aluminum, restricted short-path exhaust, positive-pressure designs, with a humidity-booster... exhausting out into space! (Ok, the last two are luxury items!) Or be open-air designs, living outside, without a case. lol.

[MrTeal]

Sucks that the "power consumption" they used for a reference, was the "minimum draw"... not relative to the "maximum speed". (But you can blame the MFG for some of that. The rest is on them, for not "testing" the actual output themselves. BTW, you don't need a kill-a-watt to measure wattage. All electricians usually have an open-ring amp-meter. You clamp that onto the power-cord, and measure the voltage on that line, and do some math. Amps * Volts = Watts. Your electrician friend should be fired! Unless you just explicitly asked for a kill-a-watt, and didn't explain what you wanted it for.)

Strange, it sure looks like they're quoting the maximum draw on these units.

Also, you can't use a clamp meter around a standard power supply cable. You'd have to cut it open and isolate either the hot or neutral wire and just measure that. If you just measure the cable the fields cancel. Even if you do that, multiplying volts times amps only gives you power in an AC circuit if the power factor is 1. Luckily they're close enough in any decent computer power supply that you can get away with it, but for many of the things an electrician would wire like induction motors that is absolutely not the case.

[Puppet]

honestly, Puppet, I like quirky, so the build doesn't bother me.

Thats fine, when I mined I didnt even use cases. Cases only obstruct airflow and add to the cost. Who needs them ? First thing I would do with that miner is take it apart, properly mount the hardware in some open frame, and salvage the Lian Li case.
Point is that all AMT does is:
- sales  &  marketing (aka as lying through their teeth. 80W, right? Shipping first week of January, right Clenell?)
- support (for most paying customers apparently pretty much non existent)
- system design and assembly.  Mind if I laugh?

If the performance of this machine is typical of their product,

Its typical of Technobit boards, or any other 16 chip Bitfury board. No surprises there, including the 180+% powerdraw compared to advertised. I guess that will prove typical too.

As for reliability/QC, if my memory doesnt fail me, the only other confirmed AMT customer had issues with 2 of the 3 boards. so one working board out of 4 that should have been in there to achieve the promised performance of 192GH.

I am under the impression that the Coincraft series is going to be custom hardware,  that they are just sourcing chips from Bitmine.

If that is the case, I pity everyone who ordered one. With AMT's non existent technical skills, without chip samples until probably at least now, I wouldnt take bets they are able to bring up a custom PCB before 2015. Of course thats not what AMT will do. They will use off the shelve PCBs, either from Bitmine or from Technobit.

Perhaps, given the timeframe, they'll be prettier.

I dont care about pretty. But if I were a customer I would care how the they plan to remove  "300-600 AmtWatt" aka 1000+W from a case that supposedly measures 22 x 10 x 22 cm, smaller than a typical mATX case. Good luck with that.

[Biomech]

Sucks that the "power consumption" they used for a reference, was the "minimum draw"... not relative to the "maximum speed". (But you can blame the MFG for some of that. The rest is on them, for not "testing" the actual output themselves. BTW, you don't need a kill-a-watt to measure wattage. All electricians usually have an open-ring amp-meter. You clamp that onto the power-cord, and measure the voltage on that line, and do some math. Amps * Volts = Watts. Your electrician friend should be fired! Unless you just explicitly asked for a kill-a-watt, and didn't explain what you wanted it for.)

Can't exactly fire my father!

He has an Amprobe, and several other cheaper devices. I did specifically ask for a Kill-A-Watt, and he didn't know what it was after 40 years as a commercial lineman. He was a bit embarrassed by that. I didn't want to use the ring type, because they aren't that accurate at low draw like this (it's commercial equipment: He spent his life wiring commercial installations.). Also, I'm afraid of having expensive equipment that isn't mine, as my son likes to get into things. He's getting better about it, but he's cost me a lot of money in replacements over the last 7 years.

Anyway, yeah, I was a bit disappointed at the power draw myself. Were it me, I would have overstated the draw, as I believe in Scotty's engineering principle. If you want to be seen as a miracle worker, tell 'em it'll take twice as long and cost twice as much as you think it will.

Supposedly, the Coincraft A1 chip is within the range they predicted, whereas Bitfury chips have been kind of twitchy, so I think they'll do better on the 28nm range.

As for cases.. meh. For this little beast, the case it came in is nice looking and it operates just fine. I didn't have to do anything to the hardware. But if the case were an issue, I have plenty of old PC cases laying around. Not quite as cluttered as Puppet's picture anymore... Ten years ago maybe. I really think they should just go with an off the shelf PC case. Empty space doesn't hurt anything, it's cheap, and it's effective. Then they could make it more aesthetically pleasing, I suppose, without incurring great cost. To me, this simply doesn't matter. I build frankenstein PC's from castoff parts. Sometimes they look terrible, but if they work, who cares? It ain't like we're trying for style points here, it's about the hashing. And as it was shipped, this beastie makes it's specs in all but power consumption.

My only beef, and this could be just because I was sent a unit to evaluate, is the documentation. There wasn't any, except a handwritten note telling me how to log into the machine. I'm not a linux guy, so it took me around two hours to figure everything out. To actually get it working took five minutes, and that was just because I was being careful. With proper docs, this machine is a winner. At this point, unless the thing just goes tits up without warning, it is my intention to buy more miners from AMT as soon as I can afford it. I'm grateful to have been chosen for the free one, but if it were junk I wouldn't throw money at them. It's not. They could improve the casing issue, and should for marketing reasons, but to me it doesn't much matter. What does matter is a functional machine out of the box. I got that. Even at 1.5X power consumption over spec, this machine is making me money. It ain't gonna make me rich, no 80 GH/s machine will, but it's supplementing my job quite nicely, and at a good time too, as I am on leave for a few days while awaiting the birth of my daughter.

They got some serious rough edges on their business practices. I don't see any evidence of deliberate malfeasance here, just people who know more about machines than marketing. If they can successfully resolve that, and I think they will, then AMT will be a serious player. Especially if they can get to shipping from stock or close to it. A week from payment, for instance, would put them ahead of practically everyone. The only competition they would really have is Megabigpower, and they are way overpriced, known to be twitchy, and have had several serious QC issues. That's not a slam, they've been an outstanding company. But I think AMT can beat the hell out of them if they get their front of house in proper order.

I was very neutral towards this company from the beginning. I can't pretend this is still true. I'm not a shill, as I have been quite up front. They sent me free equipment to hopefully boost their image. Not sure how well that worked for them, but it did put me firmly in their camp. Which would not have happened if the equipment was shit. I wish them well, because I want more of their equipment. Well, I also have to admit that I rather like Jim. He's a friendly guy when he's not being hounded.

[russellthies]

Regarding the case:  What I would like to see (with the 1.2 th/s rig) is a shell that encases the system for shipping, but that can be easily removed when the unit is placed in a safe place for operating.  Once removed the chips are open to the air and a fan can be used to evacuate the warm air from around the rig.  This makes for a happy operating rig.  Forget the fancy shell, as long as it hashes, that's all that matters.

[FrictionlessCoin]

Regarding the case:  What I would like to see (with the 1.2 th/s rig) is a shell that encases the system for shipping, but that can be easily removed when the unit is placed in a safe place for operating.  Once removed the chips are open to the air and a fan can be used to evacuate the warm air from around the rig.  This makes for a happy operating rig.  Forget the fancy shell, as long as it hashes, that's all that matters.

+1

Let AMT know this!   We don't care about a case... we just want one just to protect it while shipping!

[freddyfarnsworth]

Regarding the case:  What I would like to see (with the 1.2 th/s rig) is a shell that encases the system for shipping, but that can be easily removed when the unit is placed in a safe place for operating.  Once removed the chips are open to the air and a fan can be used to evacuate the warm air from around the rig.  This makes for a happy operating rig.  Forget the fancy shell, as long as it hashes, that's all that matters.

+1

Let AMT know this!   We don't care about a case... we just want one just to protect it while shipping!

Agreed, they should have shipped in the lan li original boxes, thick and bulletproof. Like Antec boxes double thick.
I think someone threw the boxes away, or they got em all on pallet.

[NaranKPatel]

Regarding the case:  What I would like to see (with the 1.2 th/s rig) is a shell that encases the system for shipping, but that can be easily removed when the unit is placed in a safe place for operating.  Once removed the chips are open to the air and a fan can be used to evacuate the warm air from around the rig.  This makes for a happy operating rig.  Forget the fancy shell, as long as it hashes, that's all that matters.

You need a case with well designed flow, intake and exhausting, if its done right with cold feed and hot exhausting, appropriate ducting and dumping outside the case, it can work just fine, but most home's aren't designed for hosting. But if your hosting elsewhere the case can help contain and direct the air volume and flow, but the inside does need a clean design with air cooling in mind if that's whats implemented, there's talk of oil cooling on Bitmine this will very likely require a case to hold it all together. Also its very likely be a lot more expensive of an enclosure and cooling solution.

[fryarminer]

So I haven't checked the thread for a while, I've been traveling, but I did want to give an update.

So I received my 80gh miner a few weeks ago. Recently it has been crashing continuously. I turn it off, turn it back on again, and then it hashes for another hour or so and then shuts down again. To be totally honest, I'm not too impressed with the miner. It's a D-link board, a usb hub board, and technobit hex16a boards jammed into a cpu case with wires everywhere. I had to dismantle the case for airflow. Now it cuts out hashing every hour or so.

I'm not going to add praise or complaint to my statement, but just as I wanted to share with you when I went to the physical location (as a favor to those who do not live in the area), so also I want to share with you my experience after using the product for a couple weeks.

Maybe any of you have an idea how I can set up these boards to work with my Raspberry Pi? I have not gotten Minepeon to recognize them. Maybe if I ditch the case entirely, and plug the boards into my Raspberry Pi, it won't crash every hour. I don't have time to check on it constantly!

[Khanduras]

Regarding the case:  What I would like to see (with the 1.2 th/s rig) is a shell that encases the system for shipping, but that can be easily removed when the unit is placed in a safe place for operating.  Once removed the chips are open to the air and a fan can be used to evacuate the warm air from around the rig.  This makes for a happy operating rig.  Forget the fancy shell, as long as it hashes, that's all that matters.

You need a case with well designed flow, intake and exhausting, if its done right with cold feed and hot exhausting, appropriate ducting and dumping outside the case, it can work just fine, but most home's aren't designed for hosting. But if your hosting elsewhere the case can help contain and direct the air volume and flow, but the inside does need a clean design with air cooling in mind if that's whats implemented, there's talk of oil cooling on Bitmine this will very likely require a case to hold it all together. Also its very likely be a lot more expensive of an enclosure and cooling solution.

What? More expensive enclosure and cooling solution? You are aware that oil-cooled builds existed back in the PC days (as if they're over...), and just involve submerging everything in oil, right? Often, a small glass fish tank was used. It isn't expensive at all.

[Khanduras]

So I haven't checked the thread for a while, I've been traveling, but I did want to give an update.

So I received my 80gh miner a few weeks ago. Recently it has been crashing continuously. I turn it off, turn it back on again, and then it hashes for another hour or so and then shuts down again. To be totally honest, I'm not too impressed with the miner. It's a D-link board, a usb hub board, and technobit hex16a boards jammed into a cpu case with wires everywhere. I had to dismantle the case for airflow. Now it cuts out hashing every hour or so.

I'm not going to add praise or complaint to my statement, but just as I wanted to share with you when I went to the physical location (as a favor to those who do not live in the area), so also I want to share with you my experience after using the product for a couple weeks.

Maybe any of you have an idea how I can set up these boards to work with my Raspberry Pi? I have not gotten Minepeon to recognize them. Maybe if I ditch the case entirely, and plug the boards into my Raspberry Pi, it won't crash every hour. I don't have time to check on it constantly!

The actual lack of knowledge in this post sickens me. Did you do any research... at all? It sure doesn't seem like it.

1.) It isn't a D-Link board.
2.) These are NOT HEX16A boards. At all. Unless the 80GHash models are that gimped.
3.) Not sure about the 80GHash, but the 128 has decent airflow right out of the box. I still prefer open air cooling solutions, but that's irrelevant.
4.) You should have no problems at all setting it up with a Raspberry Pi, so long as you keep a power supply attached to it. I did so in order to test a board that was originally thought to be faulty.
5.) It shouldn't crash every hour. I noticed that the boards reset every so often, but it never takes long enough to even make a dent in the hash rate. You might want to take a closer look to see if something bad may be happening.

[Biomech]

So I haven't checked the thread for a while, I've been traveling, but I did want to give an update.

So I received my 80gh miner a few weeks ago. Recently it has been crashing continuously. I turn it off, turn it back on again, and then it hashes for another hour or so and then shuts down again. To be totally honest, I'm not too impressed with the miner. It's a D-link board, a usb hub board, and technobit hex16a boards jammed into a cpu case with wires everywhere. I had to dismantle the case for airflow. Now it cuts out hashing every hour or so.

I'm not going to add praise or complaint to my statement, but just as I wanted to share with you when I went to the physical location (as a favor to those who do not live in the area), so also I want to share with you my experience after using the product for a couple weeks.

Maybe any of you have an idea how I can set up these boards to work with my Raspberry Pi? I have not gotten Minepeon to recognize them. Maybe if I ditch the case entirely, and plug the boards into my Raspberry Pi, it won't crash every hour. I don't have time to check on it constantly!

The actual lack of knowledge in this post sickens me. Did you do any research... at all? It sure doesn't seem like it.

1.) It isn't a D-Link board.
2.) These are NOT HEX16A boards. At all. Unless the 80GHash models are that gimped.
3.) Not sure about the 80GHash, but the 128 has decent airflow right out of the box. I still prefer open air cooling solutions, but that's irrelevant.
4.) You should have no problems at all setting it up with a Raspberry Pi, so long as you keep a power supply attached to it. I did so in order to test a board that was originally thought to be faulty.
5.) It shouldn't crash every hour. I noticed that the boards reset every so often, but it never takes long enough to even make a dent in the hash rate. You might want to take a closer look to see if something bad may be happening.

The boards are HEX16B, actually, bitfury based. The 'a' is avalon. However, the firmware does list all variants. That could be where he got mixed up.

The constant reseting, though, that's odd. Mine has worked without error, except when I messed with it. The only time I've seen it reset without me turning it off is when I was messing with the power settings. Even then not a full reset, it just stopped Cgminer and restarted it.

I probably will eventually put it in a different case, as I'd like to get some more hashing boards. And cases are easy to come by. Airflow is fine on my 80. It LOOKS like it wouldn't be, but it's not getting particularly hot.

[fryarminer]

The actual lack of knowledge in this post sickens me. Did you do any research... at all? It sure doesn't seem like it.

1.) It isn't a D-Link board.
2.) These are NOT HEX16A boards. At all. Unless the 80GHash models are that gimped.
3.) Not sure about the 80GHash, but the 128 has decent airflow right out of the box. I still prefer open air cooling solutions, but that's irrelevant.
4.) You should have no problems at all setting it up with a Raspberry Pi, so long as you keep a power supply attached to it. I did so in order to test a board that was originally thought to be faulty.
5.) It shouldn't crash every hour. I noticed that the boards reset every so often, but it never takes long enough to even make a dent in the hash rate. You might want to take a closer look to see if something bad may be happening.

I guess I'm wrong then. The software the comes on with the miner says: "HEX16A | OpenWrt Barrier Breaker r38818 | Load: 0.48 0.42 0.21", hence my confusion. The board itself has "TECHNOBIT" printed on them. Maybe I don't remember correctly that I was told by Josh it was a D-Link board. And I have the latest version of Minepeon and it does not recognize these boards. I need to do more research and homework, sorry.