Hacking a BFL Jalapeno to 32GH and beyond....(???)

[lightfoot]

From what I've seen and done the mineral has to be moving in order to adequately cool anything serious.  (*Imagine the glass tank in a snowbank, I'll look for pictures)

Which means my proper solution would be to re-rig the water cooling units with bigger pumps and pump water straight from the rain barrel. Which means heat exchanger as that water is of questionable quality. Which means WELDING TIME!

It's never a dull moment at Danger labs.

C

[miaviator]

From what I've seen and done the mineral has to be moving in order to adequately cool anything serious.  (*Imagine the glass tank in a snowbank, I'll look for pictures)

Which means my proper solution would be to re-rig the water cooling units with bigger pumps and pump water straight from the rain barrel. Which means heat exchanger as that water is of questionable quality. Which means WELDING TIME!

It's never a dull moment at Danger labs.

C

Junkyard = Car Radiator = Cheap heat exchanger.

Plastic tubing with a reduction fitting all held together by clips and screw on clamps.

[lightfoot]

Junkyard = Car Radiator = Cheap heat exchanger.

Plastic tubing with a reduction fitting all held together by clips and screw on clamps.

Yep. The other thought is to use the existing radiator and just mount it outside in the shade. I might need a larger pump to move the water longer distances, maybe.

Another thought would be to stick an AC unit in the water with it, then pull the heat off that way. Or something even weirder.

C

[miaviator]

Yep. The other thought is to use the existing radiator and just mount it outside in the shade. I might need a larger pump to move the water longer distances, maybe.

Another thought would be to stick an AC unit in the water with it, then pull the heat off that way. Or something even weirder.

C

AC units can be expensive.  I could see an old window shaker AC unit or a dehumidifier off craigslist working really good for this though.

[vapourminer]

lightfoot

maybe its in the thread but I missed it.. but..

how do you preheat the bottom of the board?

I get the rework station on low air and a set temp for so long on the top of the chip but what do you use to preheat it? toaster oven ??

[ManeBjorn]

Have you though of using a Peltier plate?
They are excellent at moving heat and keeping stuff cool.

Junkyard = Car Radiator = Cheap heat exchanger.

Plastic tubing with a reduction fitting all held together by clips and screw on clamps.

Yep. The other thought is to use the existing radiator and just mount it outside in the shade. I might need a larger pump to move the water longer distances, maybe.

Another thought would be to stick an AC unit in the water with it, then pull the heat off that way. Or something even weirder.

C

[Drug5bitz]

lightfoot

maybe its in the thread but I missed it.. but..

how do you preheat the bottom of the board?

I get the rework station on low air and a set temp for so long on the top of the chip but what do you use to preheat it? toaster oven ??

If you don't want to buy a specialized pre heater, an electric skillet works great. Something that can get up to 400F. Make sure it's not placed directly on it, prop it up on some screws or what ever you deem suitable. It may not be necessary but it has given me nothing but 100% success putting chips on. Good luck bud, and remember the flux.

You want to preheat the board to prevent flexing cracking large temp differences that break things. Warping or breaking your board would probably ruin your day.

[vapourminer]

how do you preheat the bottom of the board?

If you don't want to buy a specialized pre heater, an electric skillet works great. Something that can get up to 400F. Make sure it's not placed directly on it, prop it up on some screws or what ever you deem suitable. It may not be necessary but it has given me nothing but 100% success putting chips on. Good luck bud, and remember the flux.

You want to preheat the board to prevent flexing cracking large temp differences that break things. Warping or breaking your board would probably ruin your day.

thanks

figured it wasnt rocket science. and low tech is my style when possible.

my jally is a very early one with the "hot mosfets" buts its been running fine flashed to 8.2 ghz with a 120v 20 watt muffin fan on it for 6 months now. it doesnt owe me a thing at this point I guess.  time to add some heatsinks to the mosfets and push it.

[lightfoot]

If you don't want to buy a specialized pre heater, an electric skillet works great. Something that can get up to 400F. Make sure it's not placed directly on it, prop it up on some screws or what ever you deem suitable. It may not be necessary but it has given me nothing but 100% success putting chips on. Good luck bud, and remember the flux.

You want to preheat the board to prevent flexing cracking large temp differences that break things. Warping or breaking your board would probably ruin your day.

I love the skillet bit. What I use is an aoyue 853a

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aoyue-853A-Quartz-Preheating-Station-/110803086034?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19cc60ead2

The reason I use it is more because it heats up the incredible amount of ground plane in these boards. Also activates the flux. With pre-heat, the amount of time on the chips is a lot less. Skillet would be better, 5-10 minutes at 360-370 waiting till the flux just starts to set is it. Then use the air low pressure (just enough to heat under the nozzle) and go 60 seconds.

Don't forget to get the chip right on the balls, I use a 6x loupe to watch as I move it into place.

C

[lightfoot]

Just as a side note: After perking up the speed of Delarock's single I bought it and now I have a single to do more interesting (read possibly destructive) testing on. I'm in Boston this weekend (if you're local say hi) and will work on a new thread about what we can do with singles over the weekend.

In the meantime it's nice to take Amtrak through Mystic CT in the early morning...

[otsaku]

On the cooling front, I'm resurrecting an old freon unit I used on an overclocked quad board 10 or so years ago.

Freon? Wow.

I pulled apart an old refridgerator and I mean old, got it regassed and ran the pipes over the cpus and inside the case. First draw back was condensation on the insde of the case walls, solved with case fans turned round to pull air out of the case. Second drawback is power, I couldn't find a smaller compressor / pump that was rated for freon so it cost a small fortune to run.

I have solar heating in my house and wondering if it would be possible to run the "cold" return pipes across the heatsinks give my central heating an extra boost in the winter

[godsdog]

A satisfied lightfoot client here! submitted for your approval :
exhibit A:Ezminer stats
exhibit B: 4 chip jalapeno 2 installed by lightfoot with 2 heatsinks on some of the power FETs,1 gate driver(copper)
http://https://i.imgur.com/63OYcIu.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/fYexzqJ.jpg

2 morrow will post bfgminer stats with rma power supply 13v 6a ,going to run my other 4.2gh jalapeno with this !....2nite
thank's lightfoot u da man

[ManeBjorn]

Awesome!!!

A satisfied lightfoot client here! submitted for your approval :
exhibit A:Ezminer stats
exhibit B: 4 chip jalapeno 2 installed by lightfoot with heatsinks on 2 power FETs,1 gate driver(copper)



2 morrow will post bfgminer stats with rma power supply 13v 6a ,going to run my other 4.2gh jalapeno with this !....2nite
thank's lightfoot u da man

[vapourminer]

exhibit B: 4 chip jalapeno 2 installed by lightfoot with heatsinks on 2 power FETs,1 gate driver(copper)

https://i.imgur.com/fYexzqJ.jpg

hmm. this image does not bode well for upgrading my jally. my board is different(?). there are 6 MOSFETS under the 2 bigger copper heatsinks shown on the above image (not two as quoted above) on mine. and 6 more along another side.

mine is a very early jally, board says BitFORCE SC rev C.

[Drug5bitz]

exhibit B: 4 chip jalapeno 2 installed by lightfoot with heatsinks on 2 power FETs,1 gate driver(copper)

https://i.imgur.com/fYexzqJ.jpg

hmm. this image does not bode well for upgrading my jally. my board is different(?). there are 6 MOSFETS under the 2 bigger copper heatsinks shown on the above image (not two as quoted above) on mine. and 6 more along another side.

mine is a very early jally, board says BitFORCE SC rev C.

I think you might be overreacting as even though you can't see it there are 6 fets under those two sinks. Every board i have seen or heard of have 6 in on corner and another 6 in the other corner. The difference is the "Hot mosfet" design where they're all the same size. I'm assuming he's summing up the sink count. Also all of my boards including the blackfriday special are rev. c just my observations.

[lightfoot]

Right. Also remember that with FETs the loads are not spread symmetrically. The ones I have sinks on tend to be hotter on 4 chip diamond designs, the other FETs really don't get very warm because they are not carrying too much of the load.

Once you get to 6 chips you will start to load up the other set of FETs, at which point you put sinks on everything. Get to 7-8 and you had better have sinks on both sides of the board; they do wick a lot of their heat into the board itself.

That little heat sink on the center chip is there for the FET gate driver control; it's a high frequency chip that is driving the gates directly for all FETs. As you put more and more power on the board, the driver on that ship has to work harder to switch the FETs. So putting some cooling on it with anything over 4 chips is probably a good idea, very important with 6-8 chips.

The right way to design the board would have been for that to drive a 2708 FET driver/op amp, that is what we use for IGBT circuits. But that's ok, we do with what we have.

C

[godsdog]

bfgminer stats

On a side note ♪ I changed power supply from bfl replacement 13v 6amp to 12v 10amp overnite from my last post as the heat on the psu was uncomfortable to me probably 130º f+
with the 12v it, a little more than piss warm.
also running it sideway's with cheap usb laptop cooler blowing the bottom plate it get's 5 º cooler it varies from 55 c to 64 c but will stabilize to 55 c if irun it without interuption....
http://https://i.imgur.com/00plNq1.png

[godsdog]

exhibit B: 4 chip jalapeno 2 installed by lightfoot with heatsinks on 2 power FETs,1 gate driver(copper)

https://i.imgur.com/fYexzqJ.jpg

there are 6 MOSFETS under the 2 bigger copper heatsinks shown on the above image (not two as quoted above)

fixed it

[vapourminer]

Right. Also remember that with FETs the loads are not spread symmetrically. The ones I have sinks on tend to be hotter on 4 chip diamond designs, the other FETs really don't get very warm because they are not carrying too much of the load.
...
That little heat sink on the center chip is there for the FET gate driver control; it's a high frequency chip that is driving the gates directly for all FETs.

ah shiny. I was worried they changed it; apparently not.

with the hot mosfet units Josh recommended heatsinking the 1850 anyway as its runs hotter in that design. when I flashed it to 8.2 I just put a ubar fan on it and called it a day. been 6 months so its worked heh.

Ill order a hot air rework station, some heatsinks, and some chips and start practicing then.

[lightfoot]

Ok, I'm building a thread for the single. With a speed of 8 I have it running at a solid 28gh, and with a resistor in line with the big fan I have the noise level down to quiet with a temp of 65 on the board. Not too bad. The trick is to keep the fan over the chips running at full speed; the end fans just need to get the air out of the box and around the heat sinks.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=424604.msg4624265#msg4624265

On a side note it looks like Flikr is being an ass and doesn't want to give me the raw embed URLs for my photos. Anyone got a better site to share photos?

C