The Wasp Project Collective Information thread.

[megahz2]

@ Lucko

yup a store is what I was thinking, but not just a store but a hobbyist store..

I am hooking up with local bitcoin groups, and I have a webpage to play with here http://highline.net/yellowzinger/index.html

people seem to want store front a place to go hobby together and share help and ideas with on premise's workshop and storing/running of there miners that they are working on..
people in apartments cant provide enough electricity..

anyone?

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[Bicknellski]

Like the agenda

I have another idea that might be interesting for you. What about having Wasp ASIC store? Since in most cases you need to buy a lot of ASIC to get them or get close to good price. I'm ready to run it with minimal mangers for EU or whole world if that would need to be the case... Something we can also talk about if this is something you think your collective needs.

We definitely want people open their own Wasp ASIC stores, that is fine and we are willing to support anyone interested in fabrication, as this project is not a one off and will be a long term prospect for anyone looking to retail or wholesale Wasps & Hives and potentially other accessories as we move forward. Note we are not fabricating Wasps or Hives directly as the WPC. The exception is for our own prototypes and proof of concept using A1s and BitFuryII chips currently. And future plans for the Minion and Asicminer chips due out next.

At our last meeting we did discuss how our products could be marketed to those still looking to do the DIY kits and home mining particularly altcoins can as this is a modular system and massive mining operations looking for more control over their farms with the ability to tune each chip via the software along with the ability to upgrade / maintain Wasps without taking whole Hives offline.

[Lucko]

I'm was thinking just about chips. A big GB for anyone... And probably PCB would also be something interesting... It is also hard for someone to invest let say 43.000$ in A1 minimal order...

[loshia]

I'm was thinking just about chips. A big GB for anyone... And probably PCB would also be something interesting... It is also hard for someone to invest let say 43.000$ in A1 minimal order...

43 000
No way. If they wanna sell chips they have to lower the prices. Ready  to mine assembled units are just behind the corner at  3 usd per GH
So?
You can buy a couple of chips for fun but the chip price should be around  30-40 right now. More over it needs to be adjusted with difficulty also. Let them sell them at 90 bugs I do not mind.....
Just mu two cents

[Bicknellski]

Well there are more ways to skin the cat given there could be 4 or more ASIC chips that we push through as a Wasp. So that gives you a lot more freedom to explore price points especially if you have fabrication in a local setting. That will save you time and get miners in hand faster.

[loshia]

Well there are more ways to skin the cat given there could be 4 or more ASIC chips that we push through as a Wasp. So that gives you a lot more freedom to explore price points especially if you have fabrication in a local setting. That will save you time and get miners in hand faster.

true  but:
1. Fabrication is not what it looks like. Even having Pcb bom schematics and everything a lot of experience is needed. For instance famous amt manufacturer
2. For a fun project everyone is ok to loose some bugs but for business and profit I prefer miner which is ready to mine at reasonable price delivered tomorrow. Such miner does not exists still. All ants and whatever come from mother china are priced just around roi point if you are lucky. So my point is if you can get ready to mine unit from somewhere priced at x usd per GH chip price per GH should be around 30% tops.
That is all. Let them sell their chips though to whoever wants them

[Bicknellski]

Well there are more ways to skin the cat given there could be 4 or more ASIC chips that we push through as a Wasp. So that gives you a lot more freedom to explore price points especially if you have fabrication in a local setting. That will save you time and get miners in hand faster.

true  but:
1. Fabrication is not what it looks like. Even having Pcb bom schematics and everything a lot of experience is needed. For instance famous amt manufacturer
2. For a fun project everyone is ok to loose some bugs but for business and profit I prefer miner which is ready to mine at reasonable price delivered tomorrow. Such miner does not exists still. All ants and whatever come from mother china are priced just around roi point if you are lucky. So my point is if you can get ready to mine unit from somewhere priced at x usd per GH chip price per GH should be around 30% tops.
That is all. Let them sell their chips though to whoever wants them

The options for self build or group build are a lot more desirable over most of the alternatives. If you are DIYing ROI really isn't why you would be building these. If you do have the cash and are looking for an alternative the modular design we are providing will be cost effective for large mining operations especially if you are looking to tune each chip to their maximum via software.

Given what passes for "pre-orders" these days this project could pay off depending on the chips and the coins you choose to mine. Experience is definitely required no one should be sinking thousands of dollars and up into this sort of thing unless you know what you are doing or have a team in place that has the experience to carry it through.

The WPC is not going to be fabricating for sale we will let others who have the drive and experience take that on. We are pretty confident there will be multiple fabricators for that will make them available to the community given the interest we have had already.

[Bicknellski]

Meeting Notes from 15 / 03 / 2014

A1 Wasp 2 chip test boards will be picked up in Seattle Monday.
BF2 Wasp prototype boards will be fabricated next week.
Minion Wasp is minimally 6 weeks out given chips from BlackArrow will be that long.
AM2 Wasp no news on chips release date.
More progress on firmware has been made.
Hives have been built. Busbars to be built this week.
WPC Pool working on server and security issues.
Website, Share Exchange and Provisioning server still progressing.

Hive BP-1 Rev0 (Back Plane - 1. Revision 0.)

[silver71]

Meeting Notes from 15 / 03 / 2014

A1 Wasp 2 chip test boards will be picked up in Seattle Monday.
BF2 Wasp prototype boards will be fabricated next week.
Minion Wasp is minimally 6 weeks out given chips from BlackArrow will be that long.
AM2 Wasp no news on chips release date.
More progress on firmware has been made.
Hives have been built. Busbars to be built this week.
WPC Pool working on server and security issues.
Website, Share Exchange and Provisioning server still progressing.

Hive BP-1 Rev0 (Back Plane - 1. Revision 0.)

On several other threads you said - stay away from Innosilicon...so where you plan to source chips from then ?
And what chips you plan to put in WASPS for HIVES for all this to be usable ?

[Bicknellski]

Meeting Notes from 15 / 03 / 2014

A1 Wasp 2 chip test boards will be picked up in Seattle Monday.
BF2 Wasp prototype boards will be fabricated next week.
Minion Wasp is minimally 6 weeks out given chips from BlackArrow will be that long.
AM2 Wasp no news on chips release date.
More progress on firmware has been made.
Hives have been built. Busbars to be built this week.
WPC Pool working on server and security issues.
Website, Share Exchange and Provisioning server still progressing.

Hive BP-1 Rev0 (Back Plane - 1. Revision 0.)

On several other threads you said - stay away from Innosilicon...so where you plan to source chips from then ?
And what chips you plan to put in WASPS for HIVES for all this to be usable ?

Let me clarify my own personal view on the alleged IP theft of the A1 chips.

First off, I suggested that in future people do not use Innosilicon for their ASIC production if they have issues with selling Bitmine.ch IP to pirates.

Secondly people should buy A1 Chips directly from Bitmine.ch or approved resellers not from companies that are stealing the IP.

I hope that clarifies my stance on that issue and I am basing this on what Bitmine.ch has posted as their position. I have not seen any post from Innosilicon on this issue.

We have very few companies out there willing to fabricate ASIC chips for resale and we should support reputable companies that do supply ASICs. Bitmine.ch / Zefir has supplied the WPC with our chips without delay or incident and we are happy to purchase our chips from Bitmine.ch in future. I would urge others to do the same who are licensing our products.

[Bicknellski]

Recent email exchange with the Fabricator and our EE. Testing will continue the rest of the week. Then our main EE will be off for a needed and long planned vacation next week. He will resume production and testing in the first week of April. The firmware / software and hive teams continue work on their areas as well as the WPC Mining Pool, Website, Share Exchange and Provisioning Server. Pictures of the board being hooked up for the first electrical tests coming tomorrow.

From: Fabricator
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 9:15 AM
To: WPC EE
Subject: Pick up for Dual A1 Rev 1.0
 
Hi WPC EE,
 
The boards and remaining kit are ready for pick up. You can pay by cash or money order.
 
Thanks,
Fabricator

From: Fabricator
To: WPC EE
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 9:15 AM
Subject: RE: Pick up for Dual A1 Rev 1.0

Hi WPC EE,
 
Forgot to mention that the total is $xxx.xx.
 
Thanks,
Fabricator

Wow - that's wonderful. There's more business coming, in 3-4 weeks, depending on the board house. Prototypes (2 each) for BitFury x32 and A1 x4, and probably the rest of the DualA1's. Sometime after that, we will send you the Minion x2 prototypes, and probably the rest of the batch of the prior two prototype runs.

Thanks, for making the deadline, beating the price, and tackling a tough board.

WPC EE

 

[volosator]

Are you planning to make this opensource?

[Bicknellski]

Are you planning to make this opensource?

Yes

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=422243.msg4593829#msg4593829

Introduction

The WASP miner collective (WPC) is working on designing open source hardware that can be used to run multiple different asic chips off the same device.

[Bicknellski]

It's ALIVE!

A note from the WPC EE:

I am blinking the lights!

So:

1. 3.3V regulator working
2. JTAG interface to UC3C working
3. Processor is initializing
4. ASF now working (took moving to Studio 6.2, since all UC3C was broken in 6.1)
5. 12MHz oscillator is working
6. Can do one LED - all 3 colors are working

Yay! (Finally!)

Download the Wasp P0rn movie here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3u-c97pGdlfdlI4Mk1SdE5NVFE/edit?usp=sharing

[Lucko]

Is that Atmel?

[Bicknellski]

Is that Atmel?

Would have to ask the EE... or I have to listen through the minutes again to find that out for you Lucko. I'll see what I can dig up on that.

EDIT:

Dug this up on our internal repository... hope that helps Lucko.

Atmel Dev Tools

To develop firmware and learn firmware development for AVR-based Wasps, we use the following tools:

TAGICE3
UC3-A3 Xplained dev board
​XMEGA256-A3BU Xplained dev board
​Atmel Studio (free download)

Atmel tools and development kits are available from ​Atmel, ​Mouser, ​DigiKey and other sources. Mouser and Digikey are recommended over Atmel since they usually ship more quickly.

The following videos provide a good introduction to the development process for Atmel parts and boards using Atmel Studio and Atmel Software Framework (ASF).

Software design process for the ASF
Getting Started 1
​ASF Getting Started 2

These videos describe how to use Atmel Studio to create a customized ASF-based library for specific hardware and a single firmware application. Follow the described processes to learn how to write firmware for Atmel dev boards or non-wasp hardware.

For production wasp firmware, we will need to modify the processes described in the video since we want to create a single ASF-based library customized for wasp hardware, but this library will be used by many firmware applications: namely, one application for each for type of wasp and probably (a) test/diagnostic application(s) for each wasp as well.

MAX V CPLD Dev Tools

Tools for CPLD firmware are a development board, downloadable development software and tutorial pdf and video. Downloads may require login to free Altera account:

​DK-DEV-5M570ZN development board
​Quartus II Web Edition development software (free download)
​My First FPGA Tutorial (login to free acct may be required)
​Introduction to Quartus II and the FPGA (or CPLD) design process

[Lucko]

So I would guess yes. It looks like it and sounds like it but I have no idea why you have 2 of them...

That is good news since I have all needed for working with them...

[Bicknellski]

So I would guess yes. It looks like it and sounds like it but I have no idea why you have 2 of them...

That is good news since I have all needed for working with them...

Multiple people working on this so there were options to choose from the list above I think.

[stan258]

Do you have a list of vendors or means to purchase? I can purchase a tray of Bitfury 2 Chips and see this as viable.

[Bicknellski]

Do you have a list of vendors or means to purchase? I can purchase a tray of Bitfury 2 Chips and see this as viable.

No list of vendors yet as we need to get a working Wasp Hive system as bug free as possible and release it. We do have a number of people keen on fabrication but until we have released the Firmware/Software/Hardware details in a working format we just have to wait. We will only be working on the firmware and Hives over the next week. The BF2 Wasp should be in at the fabricator this week and prototype boards will be in the EE's hands by early April. The A1 Wasp will go through more rigorous testing after the Main EE gets back from the tropics!