Notes from my journey to Beijing & visiting Canaan Creative in March 10-15, 2018

[NotFuzzyWarm]

I love the technician Certification program Canaan are running, great that Avalon's actually being extremely transparent with their machines and they're willing to actually certify people to repair machines instead of a MyRig and Bitmain Warranty repair service (with some people like Lightfoot, of course) on Bitmain's side, and that they're actually concerned about customer satisfaction unlike Bitmain. This only increases my trust in Canaan, and I'm personally interested in how to troubleshoot and possibly repair these things now.  

I concur but with 1 caveat: I would not exactly call it 'certify people to repair machines'. To me 'repair' means able to do component-level diagnosis/replacement by having a fairly deep understanding of the circuits involved. Part of that being knowing locations of test points and voltages/signals to be expected at them. API's may relay a lot of information but hardware test points can present a lot more.

What they are so far offering is the information needed to diagnose problem areas and then do module replacement to get it running again. Certainly works and considering the skills needed to do depot-level board repairs makes it doubtful even a large farm would do in-house board repairs when the miners are modular by-design. As long as Canaan provides timely stocking/delivery of needed modules, with the 2-year warranty I certainly am not going to complain!

[fanatic26]

Once I have accurate stats  on failure rates and modes ( stats iwas one of my side gigs-- field failure on autoparts)
I will start to include free spares on larger orders..

small sample stats is hard..LOL

You guys have already done that for me, so thank you for that! My last order of 1000 Avalon 741s came with 20 spares, of which we have only had to use 13 in the last 9 months.

Canaan has no equal in this industry as far as the reliability of the units go. The issue for me has always been efficiency and price. While I dont mind paying for quality, its hard to take a hit on the efficiency side when you are talking thousands of units like I work with.

In my experience, the reliability has not made up for the power usage. It looks like with the 8 series you guys are on track to be at least competitive in that regard and I cant wait to get my test 841 and put it through the gauntlet.

[Raymond_B]

I hope the Canaan folks are still reading this thread because I want to reiterate what the others have said. This genuine concern for the customer is almost non-existent in *any* industry, not just miners. This cements my decision to buy Avalons the next time I am ready to purchase!

[StevenMosher]

I hope the Canaan folks are still reading this thread because I want to reiterate what the others have said. This genuine concern for the customer is almost non-existent in *any* industry, not just miners. This cements my decision to buy Avalons the next time I am ready to purchase!

I'm old school, bro. Customer comes first. I wish I could do more. At some point once I have enough guys from this forum trained. I will set them lose to train others.

You guys have already done that for me, so thank you for that! My last order of 1000 Avalon 741s came with 20 spares, of which we have only had to use 13 in the last 9 months.

Canaan has no equal in this industry as far as the reliability of the units go. The issue for me has always been efficiency and price. While I dont mind paying for quality, its hard to take a hit on the efficiency side when you are talking thousands of units like I work with.

In my experience, the reliability has not made up for the power usage. It looks like with the 8 series you guys are on track to be at least competitive in that regard and I cant wait to get my test 841 and put it through the gauntlet.

Thanks. I have  tested this out with a few people and  no news is good news. Once the repair guide and troubleshooting guide is done. Then I will feel better about shipping free spare parts  with every order.

[HagssFIN]

Thank you all for your comments and merit points in this thread. 

Btw I'm trying out this new platform and I released this document in the Steemit blogging website as well
https://steemit.com/avalonminer/@hagssfin/notes-from-my-journey-to-beijing-and-visiting-canaan-creative-in-march-10-15-2018

[VoskCoin]

Bitmain has been offering this same type of training for over a year now, so saying they arent concerned really isnt true :/ They are doing things at 10x the scale of everyone else and the company has been suffering growing pains. For example they were out of space in their Beijing offices before the building was even finished due to the rapid expansion of the company.

How was the process to apply to be a part of this training? whether it was Bitmains or Avalons?

Excellent post OP very cool to see into this through your POV - also upvoted and commented on steemit

[HagssFIN]

@VoskCoin

Thanks for your comments.

This is all about Canaan Creative and their AvalonMiner hardware. No Bitmain here.

I also have created a separate thread for the AvalonMiner troubleshooting and repair guide. If you are interested to have a look at that, I have the link in my signature space.

Vosk, you should definitely send a message to Steven Mosher (Head of Sales & Marketing) and see if you can work something out with him.

Steven said he is going to have more training sessions like this in future.

[QuintLeo]

Canaan has been better for the most part with service to me.

This is why buysolar and I will be looking forward to working with them.

We are east coast maybe we could get a west cost person and a middle of the country person involved with this.

Matti would do Europe.  Well we will see what Canaan has in plan for us.

I'm based out of Central Washington, right in the biggest cluster of cryptocoin mining in the US (and pretty much on the West Coast as Seattle is only about 2 hours driving time away). I have over a decade of work experience each as an Electronic Tech and a Computer Tech.

[philipma1957]

I'm based out of Central Washington, right in the biggest cluster of cryptocoin mining in the US (and pretty much on the West Coast as Seattle is only about 2 hours driving time away). I have over a decade of work experience each as an Electronic Tech and a Computer Tech.

buysolar is going on the 14th and will be back on the 19th.

Should be nice.

[HagssFIN]

buysolar is going on the 14th and will be back on the 19th.

Should be nice.

Great!

I'm excited to hear more about his trip after he's back home.  

[taserz]

I am glad to see the trip worked well for you.

My partner buysolar will be making the trip for training.

Both of us will be doing USA support  if all works out.

I look forward to this trip that  Sky (buysolar)  takes and look forward to a new step into the cryptoworld as a support rep/trainer for Canaan.

Buysolar is due to do trip in early April  and I will also be posting here  with his impressions.

I am hoping Steve  would send us  some spare parts  to cover the USA service needs once we get this fully going.

We have room  at the solar array for parts storage and even actual working on gear.

The goal would be to end the slow asic  rma issues that hurt the industry.

Curious how you went about asking cannon to be a rep/trianer. I have approx 50 asic miners with more on the way and I work with a hosting facility that manages a few thousand machines. I figure venturing into the repair business seems like a smart move being that there are only a few in the usa alone working on asics and if the training is going to be given then people who are fully invested in the field are interested like myself. Crypto is my full-time job. Actually, I never showed you the photo of my basement when I had 150 amps of power for asics... but the majority are in a new home now.

I will say my favourite thing about the Avalon's is how modular they are which is nice compared to bitmain plus they won't let you touch the damn thing if it is a sha256 miner. Downtimes for months if you got to ship it back.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Curious how you went about asking cannon to be a rep/trianer. I have approx 50 asic miners with more on the way and I work with a hosting facility that manages a few thousand machines. I figure venturing into the repair business seems like a smart move being that there are only a few in the usa alone working on asics and if the training is going to be given then people who are fully invested in the field are interested like myself. Crypto is my full-time job. Actually, I never showed you the photo of my basement when I had 150 amps of power for asics... but the majority are in a new home now.

I will say my favourite thing about the Avalon's is how modular they are which is nice compared to bitmain plus they won't let you touch the damn thing if it is a sha256 miner. Downtimes for months if you got to ship it back.

Contact Canaan's Global Sales Director Steven Mosher. Info is on Canaan.io site and he is here as StevenMosher.

[taserz]

Contact Canaan's Global Sales Director Steven Mosher. Info is on Canaan.io site and he is here as StevenMosher.

Will do! Thanks for the info. Figure this could be a decent service to offer here and build a basic website for those looking to get their machines repaired that are out of warranty or however they would want to do it. From my experience in the past, with bitmain they will not inform the buyer or give any data sheets on the boards what is the policy with the new avalons. For example I have seen a few s9 where they bords had enough corrosion that and abuse from the heat that a leg of a transistor fell off. Actually, I have seen it a few times. Now with an electronic zoom it is next to near impossible to put a leg back on. Is there any situation you would disclose certain chips on the board if they are failing. I am not sure if you already do because I actually have not seen one yet granted most miners in the farms are s9 until recently with the new 84x series the efficiency makes it really worth leaving bitmain.

[andresrp]

Have to say i was honored to be invited to the same training Sky was (phillipma partner).
I'm based in South America, and my post in the spanish section should be up later today.
Thanks again Steven for considering me for this i can say unique opportunity.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Have to say i was honored to be invited to the same training Sky was (phillipma partner).
I'm based in South America, and my post in the spanish section should be up later today.
Thanks again Steven for considering me for this i can say unique opportunity.

Congratulations! Yes, it is very refreshing to see a miner manufacturer be so open to their customer base. Halong/Little Dragon LLC -- ya paying attention?

Considering the modular design it makes sense to train people to be able to work as regional or local parts/repair-exchange depots and do it at Canaan's expense. After all - it *is* a deductible marketing cost so why not Given the 2-year warranty there WILL be things that go bad from time to time. For me it was 1 dead fan on a 1 year old 721. Fan/shroud replaced no charge.

This does wonders further building up the already pretty much sterling Brand name. To me so far Canaan's design & build quality, service, and openness with customers has been exemplary, the massive order fup last August being a prime case in-point. They handled that overload marvelously.

[offordscott]

Steve, I'm interested in knowing more about your training program.

[HagssFIN]

September, 2018:

Steve, I'm interested in knowing more about your training program.

Hi Scott,
You can send him an email, steve@canaan.io



March 19, 2019:

This thread is back in business.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments about this journey.

[Canaan Online Shop]

Nice journey blog

[HagssFIN]

Nice journey blog

Thanks. It was nice meeting with the Canaan people back in 2018.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Nice journey blog

Thanks. It was nice meeting with the Canaan people back in 2018.

Too bad that most of those folks are no longer there after the major re-org a year or so ago.