Bfl jalapeno failures and USB problems, SOLUTION FOUND

[lightfoot]

Morning all!

SOLUTION FOUND. REPLACE THE FT232 CHIP AND YOUR JALLY WILL LIVE AGAIN. GET SOMEONE WHO KNOWS HOW TO DO REWORK LIKE XBOXES TO DO THIS FOR YOU. THE PART IS $3.00.

I've been hacking away at my BFL Jalapeno and have been noticing that a number of people have been saying their Jalapenos (jallies) have been failing with either a power supply failure, or a failure to connect to their desktop computer with USB errors. Or both. Or they get a new supply and now their jally isn't talking.

This seems to be happening in the EU, England, and Hong Kong. After reading the reports and such I think I know what the problem might be, and will be updating this thread as it develops. I'll keep this post for summary advice, and put the details below.

NOTE: I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING YOU DO, DON'T DO, OR THINK! These are only the observations of a random Internet user, please don't take my advice as legal counsel, gospel, or whatever.

Anyway, what I would do if I was in another country with 240 volt mains is this:

1) Get another power supply on your Jally. Get one that is UL/CSA/Whatever your country considers a standard for grounding and tolerances. This would be a good idea IMO.

2) If you can get a true Isolation transformer, plug the jally into that depending on local codes and laws.

2) Put a USB Opto-isolator between your jally and your computer. Note I have not tried this yet, as I am in the US and this is not a problem, but I *think* this will prevent the USB from blowing up. Something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Multi-purpose-USB-Isolator-Built-in-DC-DC/dp/B00899UVGW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386683733&sr=8-1&keywords=usb+isolator

Back when I was working on high voltage DC electric car stuff, you would always use optoisolators on the RS232 segments to prevent a ground loop from causing problems.

3) If you have GFCIs (Ground Fault Circuit interruptors), plug your stuff into one of those. I don't know power in Europe, or if thes exist.

Regardless, if you have a Jally outside the US and want to comment, please feel free to do so. I'll update this thread with some thoughts.

Thanks!

[lightfoot]

This is a ground fault.

A GFCI or related unit will NOT protect your device.

A USB isolator might. It does prevent a ground fault from happening.

Someone confirmed that a GFCI trip happened, and now his device will not recognize.

If your jally comes up with the front LED flashing fast, the power supply can't provide enough current to pass the diagnostics. Unit isn't bad, the problem is the stupid supply is bad.

Likewise I'll bet the reason that singles are coming up without chips is due to power problems. Get a real 500 watt power supply.

These have been confirmed by experiments here at danger labs. Flat facts.

[HellDiverUK]

You don't need to do any of that crap.  Just swap the supplied Whooflugdung PSU with something better, be it LiteOn or whatever, or run it off an ATX PSU like I do.

[lightfoot]

Update: I've been getting reports that the power supplies are the US supplies with US cords, and people are plugging them into local power plugs with adapters.

Note: I think that this is not a good idea. Your local power supplies probably have 3 pin grounds, they are there for a reason. If *I* were there, I would use an adapter that provided full and proper isolation.

More to follow. Does anyone care by the way?

[lightfoot]

You don't need to do any of that crap.  Just swap the supplied Whooflugdung PSU with something better, be it LiteOn or whatever, or run it off an ATX PSU like I do.

That was option 1. However I don't think most people understand what is going on. And it's not a "better" supply, it's one certified to run properly in your country.

C

[HellDiverUK]

Does anyone care by the way?

No, because you're making a mountain out of an ant hill.  Please stop spreading FUD.

[lightfoot]

Does anyone care by the way?

No, because you're making a mountain out of an ant hill.  Please stop spreading FUD.

Really? If this is not an issue, I'll pull it.

Actually, you can help: If you know how to do it, and can check voltages between each of your power legs to "ground", I would appreciate it. Do you see 120/120 on each leg, or is it 240/0?

This image is what is bothering me:



I have at least one EU person who is seeing 120 volts on the ring of his jally power supply to ground. Either his picture is lying, or 120 volts is on the ground plane. If that were to happen, and the ground plane on a desktop attached via USB were to be grounded, then 120 volts would merrily go from the jally through the USB to ground. I think this would be tough on the Jally's USB chips.

I think this is why EU laptop power supplies have 3 wires, hot and explicit ground. But I have heard that the power supplies shipped are US supplies with two wires.

C

[Red_Wolf_2]

I wouldn't call the issue FUD, there have been a large number of reported unit failures, and in 9 out of 10 cases I suspect the blame can be pointed squarely at the power supplies. This is pretty simple really, the BFL units are purportedly tested before being sent out, so if they had any issues they would fail in testing rather than a few hours after customer unboxing. The power supplies however are not part of the testing. Look at the test rigs BFL showed in their video, they have a much bigger common PSU running everything instead.

My guess is the PSUs are not tested and are poor quality chinese products made as cheaply as possible.

[lightfoot]

Agreed. I just checked some threads at BFL, and there are a number of people with the same problem. All seem to be in the Europlug zones.

Now BFL is sending out RMAs and such, they're fine there and meeting their terms of support which is good. But if there is something that can prevent this from happening so you're not down for weeks, I would think some BFL buyers might be interested.

C

[HellDiverUK]

I have at least one EU person who is seeing 120 volts on the ring of his jally power supply to ground. Either his picture is lying, or 120 volts is on the ground plane.

It's not the problem you think it is.  There might well be 120V there, but there's probably insignificant current.  If there were, the RCD or RCBO in the house's electrical system would trip. 

[Red_Wolf_2]

I have at least one EU person who is seeing 120 volts on the ring of his jally power supply to ground. Either his picture is lying, or 120 volts is on the ground plane.

It's not the problem you think it is.  There might well be 120V there, but there's probably insignificant current.  If there were, the RCD or RCBO in the house's electrical system would trip.  

If you read the thread that photo came from, this is exactly what happened. The PSU killed the circuit and it needed to be reset to bring all the various household appliances and things online. The problem was traced to the PSU. This measurement was taken when the PSU was powered on, plugged up to the Jalapeno but not to the host PC. Connecting it to the host PC caused the circuit to trip, and with a potential like that between the ground, I can see why!

[HellDiverUK]

I have at least one EU person who is seeing 120 volts on the ring of his jally power supply to ground. Either his picture is lying, or 120 volts is on the ground plane.

It's not the problem you think it is.  There might well be 120V there, but there's probably insignificant current.  If there were, the RCD or RCBO in the house's electrical system would trip.  

If you read the thread that photo came from, this is exactly what happened. The PSU killed the circuit and it needed to be reset to bring all the various household appliances and things online. The problem was traced to the PSU. This measurement was taken when the PSU was powered on, plugged up to the Jalapeno but not to the host PC. Connecting it to the host PC caused the circuit to trip, and with a potential like that between the ground, I can see why!

So the PSU had a fault.  ANY PSU can have a fault.  I've had brand new, out-of-the-box Apple laptop chargers that have died, same with Dell, and HP. 

But, my sentiment still stands, just because there's mains potential between the output ground and mains ground, doesn't mean there's a fault, or that there is a danger.

[lightfoot]

So the PSU had a fault.  ANY PSU can have a fault.  I've had brand new, out-of-the-box Apple laptop chargers that have died, same with Dell, and HP. 

But, my sentiment still stands, just because there's mains potential between the output ground and mains ground, doesn't mean there's a fault, or that there is a danger.

Indeed. The problem isn't faulting, shit happens. The problem is the impact; does the device fail safe or fail destructive.

Fail safe would be if a fault shorts to a ground at the PSU, blowing a fuse (in the PSU) or a main breaker. If you have a grounded device and your wiring meets NEC (or whatever you use in your country that is not corrupt) your PSU dies and you get another one.

Fail destructive would be if a fault shorts, there is no ground, and the case goes hot (deadly), an exposed connector goes hot (painful), or the fault goes to ground through another device (destructive). In the US, BFL supplies can't fail deadly. Those same power supplies on a 240 volt hot hot ground system would fail destructive.

This thread is for information, not judgement. Given that bitcoin mining is on bitcoin time, and difficulty increases, it might be better to spend $40 on a power supply and not be down for a month than to risk failure and be down for a month on an RMA.

As I like to say in Bitcoin world, do the math :-)

C

[MrTeal]

I have at least one EU person who is seeing 120 volts on the ring of his jally power supply to ground. Either his picture is lying, or 120 volts is on the ground plane.

It's not the problem you think it is.  There might well be 120V there, but there's probably insignificant current.  If there were, the RCD or RCBO in the house's electrical system would trip.  

If you read the thread that photo came from, this is exactly what happened. The PSU killed the circuit and it needed to be reset to bring all the various household appliances and things online. The problem was traced to the PSU. This measurement was taken when the PSU was powered on, plugged up to the Jalapeno but not to the host PC. Connecting it to the host PC caused the circuit to trip, and with a potential like that between the ground, I can see why!

So the PSU had a fault.  ANY PSU can have a fault.  I've had brand new, out-of-the-box Apple laptop chargers that have died, same with Dell, and HP. 

But, my sentiment still stands, just because there's mains potential between the output ground and mains ground, doesn't mean there's a fault, or that there is a danger.

From https://forums.butterflylabs.com/jalapeno-single-sc-support/5989-safety-issue-jalapeno-causing-power-trips-sparking-usb-port.html

I had 2 Jallys arrive about 3 weeks ago. Last week one of them tripped the surge protector they were plugged in to. I reset the protector switch and as I plugged the second Jally back in, it tripped again. I suspected a failed power supply, so I disconnected the unit and took it to a friends house ( a licensed electrician,) to look it over.

When we plugged it in at his house, the unit ran fine. I didn't plug it into a computer at this point, nor did I have the USB cable plugged in. I took it home, plugged it in and ran it in the same state on the power board and it didn't trip. The unit booted normally so I plugged the USB cable into the rear of the Jally and picked up the other end to plug it into the computer and received a pretty solid DC shock from the metal end of the USB cable. I unplugged the Jally immediately, it did not feel to me like a little buzz from a faulty USB, the thing kicked like my car battery and it gave me pretty heavy muscle contractions up through my hand, arm and shoulder so I guessed I had the entire DC output of the power supply across the USB cable. I tested a different USB cable it it was live too.

I thought then I'd nailed the problem down, but the unit which seemed to be effected was the one with the better hashrate of the two, so I swapped the units over to be sure. The 1st Jally, the one that had been hashing away while I'd been testing the other faster one, connected to the 2nd Jally's power supply now had a hot USB plug. So somehow, the power supply is the source of the problem, but I can't for the life of me figure out how that works.

I've just read the Troubleshooting your Jally or SC post, but there's nothing in it that sounds anything like this. I did notice the part about posting screenshots with your request for an RMA, which presents a bit of a problem because I'm not about to knowingly jack 13v at 6 Amps into a USB port on the back of my computer. The weird thing is, both Jallys ran fine for a couple of weeks before one power supply went postal and started doing this.

Anyone else?

I don't have one of the failed ones here, but I'm not so sure they're failing in a safe way. A power supply that fails in such a way that gets a strong shock through their arm by touching it is extremely dangerous.  BFL needs to stop shipping those supplies, the reports of Jalapenos tripping home circuit breakers is disturbingly numerous.

[lightfoot]

I don't have one of the failed ones here, but I'm not so sure they're failing in a safe way. A power supply that fails in such a way that gets a strong shock through their arm by touching it is extremely dangerous.  BFL needs to stop shipping those supplies, the reports of Jalapenos tripping home circuit breakers is disturbingly numerous.

Hopefully (and some bitcoin later) I will be having one come in here for review. I think it is fail-destructive, which is not good. But I think any power supply could do this, the problem is the ground loop back to the computer which is grounded equals the usual boom.

C

[MrTeal]

I don't have one of the failed ones here, but I'm not so sure they're failing in a safe way. A power supply that fails in such a way that gets a strong shock through their arm by touching it is extremely dangerous.  BFL needs to stop shipping those supplies, the reports of Jalapenos tripping home circuit breakers is disturbingly numerous.

Hopefully (and some bitcoin later) I will be having one come in here for review. I think it is fail-destructive, which is not good. But I think any power supply could do this, the problem is the ground loop back to the computer which is grounded equals the usual boom.

C

Generally, a device should either be safety earthed o the chassis can't be energized, or be double insulated. In this case, it would be a double insulated device. They are designed so that no single fault can cause the mains voltage to be exposed. A good power supply should not fail this way even if it does die, it should just stop working. There is obviously something very wrong with these ones as they appear to be able to provide significant mains current at the output, and still function otherwise normally. It will be interesting to see what you find, do you have much experience with mains powered SMPS designs?

[lightfoot]

Generally, a device should either be safety earthed o the chassis can't be energized, or be double insulated. In this case, it would be a double insulated device. They are designed so that no single fault can cause the mains voltage to be exposed. A good power supply should not fail this way even if it does die, it should just stop working. There is obviously something very wrong with these ones as they appear to be able to provide significant mains current at the output, and still function otherwise normally. It will be interesting to see what you find, do you have much experience with mains powered SMPS designs?

Bit. My expertise is in PFC charging systems and the good old fashioned "Use the motor as a big coil" charging systems on electric cars with 50-80kw power drive systems. Thus I look at the 1 volt supply and think "If I replaced that with 500amp IGBTs, I would be in shape" then realize that would be insane.

But these problems are not unusual. When charging on 240 US you have to watch for ground faults that can cause 120 to appear in odd places. My guess is they have the neutral connected to 12 volt negative with a capacitor to improve the power factor. The PF on these supplies sucks rocks regardless; I can see that on my P3. That's why they get hot, that whole reactive power thing.

I just want to fix this so people will not send in their jallies for repair which will mean my jally will ship quicker.

C

[ScaryHash]

Have Cablez make you PCI-E power plugs for your Jally.

Problem solved, and excellent service.

That way, you don't have to deal with cheap power bricks of any kind.

[lightfoot]

Just did, takes a 16 gauge wire to really support the jally. Piggy power draw but mine has 5 chips.

Talking to two other people same problem. I hope I can get one of these to try fixing it.

C

[lightfoot]

Based on this post over at BFL I am virtually *positive* this is a ground fault. See:

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/jalapeno-single-sc-support/6812-jalapeno-bf0005g-trips-my-main-fuse-boards-residual-current-detectors-rcd.html

Note also that an isolator prevents the trip, I think it would save the jally.

C