Ultra-Low-Cost DIY FPGA Miner - 175MH/s @ $1/MH

[daphreak]

What is that program you are running?  Looks neat and cool!

It's called mpbm and it's GPL'd. It's pretty sweet!

-rph

Any way to get a link for this? I've been hacking around with the pyminer v0.0.2 but this looks much more polished

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[uglybuddy6]

Hey, rph do you think it be possible for a Arduino to do the same as that modified Leaf Maple board (well i assume its a Leaf Maple). If so then the cost could be cut and it could be made much smaller.

[rph]

An Arduino would work as the USB interface/controller but I prefer the ARM Cortex-M3 - it's $2, 48MHz+, 32 bit, and has native USB
leading to a very powerful, compact, low-part-count design.

-rph

[tnkflx]

Hey, rph do you think it be possible for a Arduino to do the same as that modified Leaf Maple board (well i assume its a Leaf Maple). If so then the cost could be cut and it could be made much smaller.

Is the Leaf the controller? Does anyone have more information about this?

[uglybuddy6]

An Arduino would work as the USB interface/controller but I prefer the ARM Cortex-M3 - it's $2, 48MHz+, 32 bit, and has native USB
leading to a very powerful, compact, low-part-count design.

-rph

Is the added power of the ARM Cortex-M3 needed that the Arduino doesn't have?

[allinvain]

have you decided to sell these yet?

If you're interested in a 10GH/s+ cluster - that could start to make sense - PM me and we can discuss.
I don't want FPGAs to become too widely available.. I want to compete with 45nm GPUs forever  

-rph

How much it would cost for a 10GH cluster? PM you?

[Valalvax]

An Arduino would work as the USB interface/controller but I prefer the ARM Cortex-M3 - it's $2, 48MHz+, 32 bit, and has native USB
leading to a very powerful, compact, low-part-count design.

-rph

Is the added power of the ARM Cortex-M3 needed that the Arduino doesn't have?

I don't think so, I think the fact that it's 2 dollars is the reason he's using it

[Geir]

Verry cool project, are you using seedstudio for your FPGA adapter boards?? Two layer??

[tinman951]

A side comment, but earlier in the posts it was mentioned that someone was booting off of a SD card.  I was wondering how that would work, or even if it could be used like a cheap ssd.

[sadpandatech]

A side comment, but earlier in the posts it was mentioned that someone was booting off of a SD card.  I was wondering how that would work, or even if it could be used like a cheap ssd.

here, let me google that for you. =)

[tinman951]

A side comment, but earlier in the posts it was mentioned that someone was booting off of a SD card.  I was wondering how that would work, or even if it could be used like a cheap ssd.

here, let me google that for you. =)

Thanks. I hadn't actually seen that before.
But I could rephrase my question to how can I actually boot from it and run it.  I can boot from a usb drive, but the sd card slots that I have used were never a bootable option in the BIOS.  Would it just be easier to use the usb drive on the mobo?

[DeepBit]

A side comment, but earlier in the posts it was mentioned that someone was booting off of a SD card.  I was wondering how that would work, or even if it could be used like a cheap ssd.

here, let me google that for you. =)

Thanks. I hadn't actually seen that before.
But I could rephrase my question to how can I actually boot from it and run it.  I can boot from a usb drive, but the sd card slots that I have used were never a bootable option in the BIOS.  Would it just be easier to use the usb drive on the mobo?

"SD card slot" (reader) looks like a USB device to the BIOS.

[sadpandatech]

A side comment, but earlier in the posts it was mentioned that someone was booting off of a SD card.  I was wondering how that would work, or even if it could be used like a cheap ssd.

here, let me google that for you. =)

Thanks. I hadn't actually seen that before.
But I could rephrase my question to how can I actually boot from it and run it.  I can boot from a usb drive, but the sd card slots that I have used were never a bootable option in the BIOS.  Would it just be easier to use the usb drive on the mobo?

"SD card slot" (reader) looks like a USB device to the BIOS.

truth, this man(?) speaks it. The only exception being some of your built in notebook sd slots do not show up in bios as 'native' usb. As long as your pc/netbook has an sd slot that is recognized as usb storage and assuming you format the sd card correctly, it will work.


On Topic; For the love of god, will someone please release some schematics for building low cost fpga mining boards already? Even if you sold them for a few BTC or started a thread and asked for donations. I'd happily pay. And would imagine many more would as well.

cheers

[Dexter770221]

Schematics were published by ngzhang in his topic about Icarus.

[ngzhang]

Schematics were published by ngzhang in his topic about Icarus.

 and you can use them as your own risk under GPL license.

[sadpandatech]

Schematics were published by ngzhang in his topic about Icarus.

and those are very nice, but very expensive design for diy. 

[chungenhung]

Would the OP be selling these eventually?

[tf101]

Hey guys,

I might start a new thread for this, but though I would gage interest here first. I too am very keen on a DIY FPGA mining kit. I have a few designs conceptually done up and am actively working on a "low cost" rig. Currently I am mining on a number of x6500's, and while these are great, I think there is a place in the market for a rig that people can assemble themselves (at their own risk). The basic concept is:

• The design should be compatible with current FPGA Mining software and bitstreams - atleast initially.
• The FPGA will be mounted on a daughterboard - to allow for upgrades, or if the baseboard supports multiple FPGA's, will allow for incremental adding of them.
• All components should be mounted on the top side of the board only (less header pins).
• All components should be capable of being hand soldered. - Less the FPGA to daughterboard - although skillet soldering is an option
• As many component functions should be put to daughterboards as possible - to allow for component re-use and ease of upgrade (eg the communications could be provided by an USB FTDI to JTAG board, maybe one of the sparkfun boards - or a bus pirate board)
• Would be interested in having the power regulators as daughterboards as well - I note that the x6500 does have these as daughterboards, but I am unsure if these are COTS or a custom board.
• I am keen to see as many pins brought forward as possible - from the FPGA - to allow for other uses of the board

If there is keen interest in this - I willing to share the work load and outcomes, if not I will develop alone. If it does work, I would be interested in selling the boards as kits - or even just the PCB's individually (I imagine most of the cost for this will be in the PCB fab, less the FPGA... larger orders = lower cost, all other components should be able to be sort cheep from digikey/mouser/rs). I understand some people might have already started work on something similar - if you have I am keen to here from you, I hate laying out PCB's.....

PM me if your interested in working on this...

[pusle]

I've been toying with the idea of making as sort of FPGA socket, just using board vias.
By using redundancy for the communication it can tolerate some balls not having proper connection.

For the FGG484 package the balls are 0.6mm +/-0.1mm . Perhaps 0.4mm vias (finished hole) would be best.
A test board with 0.3, 0.35, 0.4 and 0.45mm via "sockets" would be nice and then try some cheap parts having the same package.
The board must have gold surface coating. Don't worry it's not expensive and only applied to open areas in the soldermask.

Then take an aluminium sheet slightly thinner than the FPGA height with squares cut out slightly larger than the FPGA.
This is screwed in place on top of the PCB to take care of the package alignment and provide additional thermal coupling.
Next is one large sheet of thermal heat pad say 3mm thick (compressing to ~1.5mm).
Then a heat sink on top for cooling and to apply pressure, squeezing the FPGA balls down into the vias.

There is of course the question of longevity, but since the current per ball is not that high and using gold plating I think this could work.

[ummas]

I`m on it
PM send