[ANN] Happy Farmer - planning new device to keep the GPU farmers happy

[lumberinvestments]

Hi everybody !
I would like to start by telling you how this idea came into my mind.

I have two GPU farms 10 000 kilometers away and it is a pain to manage those when switching coins, especially with scrypt-jane. Power outages and also rig crashes will make the farms lose a lot of money until another 6-8 hours when someone will reach the location to power on/reset the rigs.
So, my idea was to design and build an USB Device that will stay connected to an always on server (on a UPS). The device will be accessed through a web interface or just a SSH to the server and it will have the option to reboot/power ON-OFF the rigs. For the start I will make a device that can connect to 8 rigs for testing purposes but it can be unlimited devices. Basically you just pull jumpers with wires to your motherboard's power on/reset connectors.

Would anyone that has farms and will not live in the same location be interested  in buying such a device using BTC/LTC ? Shipping will be from Europe.
Of course, there will be no pre-orders or scammy business involved, the devices will only be sold after being tested and when they will be in stock (with pictures of the real device).
I want try selling these in order for my father to have some kind of job to work on, as his pension is not enough and it would mean extra income for him.

If anyone would be interested, it's good to PM or reply with the amount of BTC you would be willing to pay for such a device for 8 rigs.


Thank you !

[notlist3d]

Depending on price and how well they work I know I would be interested.  My dream is to be able to SSH to my rigs power when away on my phone.  

Personally I want a product that does it like you mentioned I really don't like building things with electricity.  There are some expensive options and DIY options.  But if you come up with a decent priced pre-made option that would be great for me.  I have a feeling for a few others.  Show us a prototype please!

Also all kinda depends on price.  It's one of those things if it cost's more then a bit of downtime costs then its hard to justify.

[lumberinvestments]

Depending on price and how well they work I know I would be interested.  My dream is to be able to SSH to my rigs power when away on my phone.  

Personally I want a product that does it like you mentioned I really don't like building things with electricity.  There are some expensive options and DIY options.  But if you come up with a decent priced pre-made option that would be great for me.  I have a feeling for a few others.  Show us a prototype please!

Also all kinda depends on price.  It's one of those things if it cost's more then a bit of downtime costs then its hard to justify.

Well, depending on the size and number of videocards on the GPU Farm.
One of my farms has 12 Mh/sec and sometimes it can pull 0.8 BTC/day mining some coins (not always). When all the rigs will go down for some reason for 6 hours, that is easily 0.2 BTC. It happened to me countless of times, I expect i have lost over 1 BTC in two months because of this. Certainly the device will not be anywhere near 1 BTC unless it will be custom made for 50 rigs or more.

I will have to gather all the parts and check how much the total cost would be and then make the prototype which might be probably next week.

Thanks a lot for the opinion, it really matters.

[bobthelurker]

Depending on price and how well they work I know I would be interested.  My dream is to be able to SSH to my rigs power when away on my phone.  

Personally I want a product that does it like you mentioned I really don't like building things with electricity.  There are some expensive options and DIY options.  But if you come up with a decent priced pre-made option that would be great for me.  I have a feeling for a few others.  Show us a prototype please!

Also all kinda depends on price.  It's one of those things if it cost's more then a bit of downtime costs then its hard to justify.

http://www.surplusserver.com/products/Computer-Equipment/228/APC_AP9210_Master_Switch.html


taaadaaaaaaaaa
>.>
<.<
set your mobo to power on automaticaly and log into your apc strip and power it off and on

[lumberinvestments]

Depending on price and how well they work I know I would be interested.  My dream is to be able to SSH to my rigs power when away on my phone.  

Personally I want a product that does it like you mentioned I really don't like building things with electricity.  There are some expensive options and DIY options.  But if you come up with a decent priced pre-made option that would be great for me.  I have a feeling for a few others.  Show us a prototype please!

Also all kinda depends on price.  It's one of those things if it cost's more then a bit of downtime costs then its hard to justify.

http://www.surplusserver.com/products/Computer-Equipment/228/APC_AP9210_Master_Switch.html


taaadaaaaaaaaa
>.>
<.<
set your mobo to power on automaticaly and log into your apc strip and power it off and on

taaadaaaaaaaaaaaaa
quoted from the manual:

-------------------------------
OUTPUT

    Max. total current draw: 15 A (CSA rating)
-------------------------------

Try powering with your device 20 pieces of power hungry R9 290 and see what happens. Hehe, I guess you can't. And some people have more than 20 cards.

[bobthelurker]

Are people running several rigs off of one breaker ? It seems kinda bunky to do that. If you get a serge  on one  machine and trip the breaker all your machines go down instead of that one rig. I have each rig on individual circuits just in case.
I didn't do too much research into that product but I have used a beefy one on a ccie rack which is about 6 routers 4 switches,a controller with some Asa's and an ips  so I'm pretty sure they have heavier duty ones as well cause they run these units in data centers.

Edit: on second thought it should still work because you'd only need to set the psu on the mainboard if you're running auxiliary psu's because it's only the one that's actually plugged into the mobo that would need to be reset to restart the machine 

[hostmaster]

good idea.

[hulk]

It is always better to have someone close watch over the farm then do everythin remotely right?

[akaCash]

Sounds like an excellent idea. I could absolutely see a market for this. For pricing, I'd build them to be able to work with 'x' amount of machines for 'x' amount of money. Purely examples, but maybe like 0.1 BTC for up to each 5 machines. So if you had up to 5 machines/rigs going you coudl grab that. Then if you had say 8 or 9 rigs, you'd get the 10 machine/rig model for maybe 0.195 BTC and so-on. Obviously you'd have your own pricing based on actual cost of parts and labor, but I definitely think you would find a welcoming market for any kind of remote control/monitoring devices for that matter. Good luck with it though, hope you get it up and going.

[lumberinvestments]

Sounds like an excellent idea. I could absolutely see a market for this. For pricing, I'd build them to be able to work with 'x' amount of machines for 'x' amount of money. Purely examples, but maybe like 0.1 BTC for up to each 5 machines. So if you had up to 5 machines/rigs going you coudl grab that. Then if you had say 8 or 9 rigs, you'd get the 10 machine/rig model for maybe 0.195 BTC and so-on. Obviously you'd have your own pricing based on actual cost of parts and labor, but I definitely think you would find a welcoming market for any kind of remote control/monitoring devices for that matter. Good luck with it though, hope you get it up and going.

Well, the price of a reed relay is close to 1 dollar, for 8 computers it needs at least 18 pieces. There are also other parts to consider, like the board, microcontrollers, cables, box,  usb connector, jumpers. The cost of manufacturing the minimum 8 computers controller would be higher than 0.1 BTC at the price of BTC now. I am not including the labor though .. We will see what is the price it comes at. Of course as you add another 8 computers to the same device, the price would go lower per computer. It will not reach though hundreds of dollars that you need in electrical devices to control 16 computers total though.

Thanks for your input !