GridSeed 5-chip USB miner voltage mod

[jamieb81]

Can someone post details/pictures of the 5v fan mod? Is there another point to solder the fan leads to? Is it dangerous in any way (dangerous in terms of load to the newly utilized power circuit)?

Speaking of Fan mod...for silent operation...:

With all my due respect to Wolfey's solution...There is another "Classic Silent fan" solution from the CPU overclocking experience...7V fan driving...between 12V and 5V power lines...

How...: Disconnect the GROUND/BLACK wire from the original position...and solder back to the 5V regulator uP1707 output...this is the small / medium size 8-pin chip to the left of the 12V PS supply connector...the easiest point to connect are to the big output SMD caps to the right of the IC...C201/C203...their pins towards the center of the board...facing the square inductor close to them...this is 5V output supply...uP1707 is rated for up to 3A...so the current load of the fan should not have any effect on the circuit...

Mine is running whisper quiet @ 6.69V...11.82V - 5.13V ...

IMHO this is better solution ...because of the higher voltage...better performance/cooling...but still silent/no noise...not creating ANY load to 5V USB supply, preventing possible issues with USB hub(s) with many Gridseeds...not having enough juice...etc...

As usual...try at your own risk...

Cheers,

ZiG  


P.S. I am assuming that everybody, interested in these mods, has already PDF schematics of the 5-chip Gridseed device from...:  https://github.com/gridseed/usb-miner/tree/master/hardware

Or you could just cut the wires and put them on 5V from an PC ATX PSU right?

[wolfey2014]

Can someone post details/pictures of the 5v fan mod? Is there another point to solder the fan leads to? Is it dangerous in any way (dangerous in terms of load to the newly utilized power circuit)?

Speaking of Fan mod...for silent operation...:

With all my due respect to Wolfey's solution...There is another "Classic Silent fan" solution from the CPU overclocking experience...7V fan driving...between 12V and 5V power lines...

How...: Disconnect the GROUND/BLACK wire from the original position...and solder back to the 5V regulator uP1707 output...this is the small / medium size 8-pin chip to the left of the 12V PS supply connector...the easiest point to connect are to the big output SMD caps to the right of the IC...C201/C203...their pins towards the center of the board...facing the square inductor close to them...this is 5V output supply...uP1707 is rated for up to 3A...so the current load of the fan should not have any effect on the circuit...

Mine is running whisper quiet @ 6.69V...11.82V - 5.13V ...

IMHO this is better solution ...because of the higher voltage...better performance/cooling...but still silent/no noise...not creating ANY load to 5V USB supply, preventing possible issues with USB hub(s) with many Gridseeds...not having enough juice...etc...

As usual...try at your own risk...

Cheers,

ZiG  


P.S. I am assuming that everybody, interested in these mods, has already PDF schematics of the 5-chip Gridseed device from...:  https://github.com/gridseed/usb-miner/tree/master/hardware

Personal preference, is what comes to mind. Tinkering is the other thought.
Someone just had to find a different method / solution to a problem that has already been solved.
Their solution is actually 'in reality' not a solution, but another PROBLEM! And potentially hazardous to the pods health! It could blow the whole smash and brick your pod!

There is little to no additional demand being put on the USB power supply end. .078 'Milli' Amps is NOTHING!
Yes, it adds up but still, even with 10 GS5's it's only 780mA, with 20 it's 1.56A which is nothing for a USB power supply, supplying 2.5A to 5A to the USB hub etc. Being fed 5V from the rail of a PC psu is even more robust power wise.

There is no noise on the fan line that can disturb or harm the USB drive circuit and definitely ZERO noise or EMI of any kind interfering with USB data operations either.
There is enough CFM of air being pumped by the fan at 5V to keep the pod cool enough while running in Scrypt only mode.

It is common knowledge as well as recommended by and instituted by the manufacturer that every USB hub should be powered by at least a 2.5A to 5A power supply due to all the pods it's powering in the first place. There is TONS of headroom for the addition of .078mA per pod, if properly powered in the first place.
USB power is MADE to do what it is doing by supplying 5V to the fan.

One other important observation is, the connections made via the 12V rail and the voltage regulator is what's called a floating ground or feedback LOOP which is why the power fluctuates as per your voltage measurements of "6.69V...11.82V - 5.13V" ...? This variance is an indication of improper and unstable power supply from the voltage regulator and most likely being caused by other electronics pulling power from it such as the processor chips themselves! DANGEROUS! BAD IDEA! DO NOT TRY IT! It's actually causing the fan to try to close the loop in its quest to find GROUND or +
The pretty quiet little fan is now in danger of making magic black smoke and bricking your pod!
DO NOT CONNECT POWER TO THE FAN THIS WAY THROUGH THE VOLTAGE REGULATOR!
It's not actually connected to a 'real' - ground source. It's floating and that is dangerous in itself and could harm the electronics of the pod if the fan goes bad or there is a short.
It's not a valid solution electrically speaking the way it is powered on the 12V rail side using the Voltage Regulator as a floating ground connection. That is not what it's made to do.

The USB power solution IS VALID because it's made to supply power to small DC motors as well as electronic driver circuits, such as it is! The air flow supplied by the fan via 5V USB power us perfectly fine and sufficient to do what ever little bit of cooling it has to do!

Please, just leave well enough alone! Words like "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" comes FIRMLY to mind!
How confident am I of the 5V USB solution? 100%!
And if powering your pod's fan via my 5V USB power mod bricks your pod or burns out your fan, I'LL BUY IT! Just make sure you use a good power supply to feed all those pods their USB juice in the first place.
It's required with or without the fan mod anyway.
But if you brick or break it while making the mod, it's $ALL$ on you!

[wolfey2014]

@ZiG

You mean something like this? :

DO NOT MAKE THIS MODIFICATION! It may burn out your fan or worse, brick your pod!

Keeping the fan running at a lower speed cools and keeps the GS5 at room temperature while overclocked/over-volted for increased hashing performance. I have 6 of them running this way off of 5V USB power and they are just fine! And ELECTRICALLY SOUND and CORRECTLY powered!

IF you absolutely must run your fan at a reduced speed/rate/cfm, use a Voltage Regulator Made To Do The Job between 12V and your fan.
There are plenty of them available on the net. An LM7806 6V regulator, with a 100nf cap connected between input and ground and output and ground, soldered together and wired according to its PDF datasheet.
Insulate as needed.

The regulator will not get hot, not hardly even warm except for the power it dissipates from dropping 12V, actually 13.8V to 14.2V DC to 6V DC.

There are also mini DC voltage regulators sold on eBay that wire in between the 12V +/- rail and the fan so you can manually adjust it's speed or automate it via temperature sensing.
You can search for it on eBay using '12v dc fan speed regulator'
They cost a few bucks.
Anyway, DO NOT make the suggested modification per this diagram in the picture!
It could ruin your fan, cause erratic operation, voltage fluctuations or worse, brick your pod!

Making any modification to your pod is strictly at your own risk and responsibility.

If you want a qualified technician to make your modifications for you, PM me and I will be happy to assist you in doing so!
 

[ZiG]

@ZiG

You mean something like this? :

Exactly...Right on...Thank you for the picture, buddy...!

[usao]

Regarding Wolfe2014, I reviewed his comments and I think that in this business (especially HR) things can get fuzzy quickly. You will always achive variable results depending on many things outside the control of the mods themselvs. There is no 100% guarentee in anything these days, least of all mining...
Almost every pool even sais that their HR isn't a clear indication of performance, only submitted shares count for anything.

That said, I feel comfortable enough to have him mod 10 of my GSDs so I can compare side-by-side at my location and using my pools.
I should be able to report back in a week on the results I am seeing, both at the GSD level as well as the pool-side return.
Other than reading what he has posted, I don't have any affiliation with Wolfe2014, so I hope you will consider me as reasonably independent.
Ill run both modded and un-modded GSD's side-by-side as different workers and compare the results (shares) at the same pool.

[ZiG]

Can someone post details/pictures of the 5v fan mod? Is there another point to solder the fan leads to? Is it dangerous in any way (dangerous in terms of load to the newly utilized power circuit)?

Speaking of Fan mod...for silent operation...:

With all my due respect to Wolfey's solution...There is another "Classic Silent fan" solution from the CPU overclocking experience...7V fan driving...between 12V and 5V power lines...

How...: Disconnect the GROUND/BLACK wire from the original position...and solder back to the 5V regulator uP1707 output...this is the small / medium size 8-pin chip to the left of the 12V PS supply connector...the easiest point to connect are to the big output SMD caps to the right of the IC...C201/C203...their pins towards the center of the board...facing the square inductor close to them...this is 5V output supply...uP1707 is rated for up to 3A...so the current load of the fan should not have any effect on the circuit...

Mine is running whisper quiet @ 6.69V...11.82V - 5.13V ...

IMHO this is better solution ...because of the higher voltage...better performance/cooling...but still silent/no noise...not creating ANY load to 5V USB supply, preventing possible issues with USB hub(s) with many Gridseeds...not having enough juice...etc...

As usual...try at your own risk...

Cheers,

ZiG  


P.S. I am assuming that everybody, interested in these mods, has already PDF schematics of the 5-chip Gridseed device from...:  https://github.com/gridseed/usb-miner/tree/master/hardware

Or you could just cut the wires and put them on 5V from an PC ATX PSU right?

Sure you can...but is more complicated...Keep it simple and easy...but effective...

[gbyg]

i read somewhere in this post my answer but cant find it anymore, so decide to ask ye....

how much power(amp or watt) GS take from usb at 5v without fan? and i just want to double check doing voltage mode don't increase the amp in 5v, its take from 12 volt.

thanks in advance.

[ajareselde]

wolfey , thanks for that pic of your mod, you actualy helped, coz i was unsure of other connection points for that yaba-daba r52, and place where resistor was, i .. well.. messed up one conn. point
in the end, managed to set everything straight, 1150 mhz seams the best for me (47kohm).

but guys, srsly, if u are not hand in hand with electronics, and dont have a realy realy steady hand, better give someone to do it for you, i mean this is insanely small smd, its just hard without the right equipment.

and fast question, do your pods get warm fast after the mod? much more than i expected.

[wolfey2014]

wolfey , thanks for that pic of your mod, you actualy helped, coz i was unsure of other connection points for that yaba-daba r52, and place where resistor was, i .. well.. messed up one conn. point
in the end, managed to set everything straight, 1150 mhz seams the best for me (47kohm).

but guys, srsly, if u are not hand in hand with electronics, and dont have a realy realy steady hand, better give someone to do it for you, i mean this is insanely small smd, its just hard without the right equipment.

and fast question, do your pods get warm fast after the mod? much more than i expected.

Thank you very much!
You are very welcome! Indeed!
Happy to help!
Yes, I'm finding mine are optimum at 1125 to 1200...gotta watch the stats to measure and adjust them all to their individual optimal frequencies / hash rates.
My pods didn't get over 85*F to just over room temp of around 98*F at any time with fans running in ultra quiet mode.
The mod rocks!
Wolfey2014 

[pandaisftw]

wolfey , thanks for that pic of your mod, you actualy helped, coz i was unsure of other connection points for that yaba-daba r52, and place where resistor was, i .. well.. messed up one conn. point
in the end, managed to set everything straight, 1150 mhz seams the best for me (47kohm).

but guys, srsly, if u are not hand in hand with electronics, and dont have a realy realy steady hand, better give someone to do it for you, i mean this is insanely small smd, its just hard without the right equipment.

and fast question, do your pods get warm fast after the mod? much more than i expected.

Well, you triple the amount of power going in, you're dissipating 3x as much heat. Make sure you use some kind of non-conductive paste on your chips as well as have some kind of active cooling.

[david123]

Is that heat-paste really that important? I mean, in BTC-mode they dissipate 8x the heat, so the stock cooling solution
should be sufficient (if the fan is not completely disabled..)

[wolfey2014]

Is that heat-paste really that important? I mean, in BTC-mode they dissipate 8x the heat, so the stock cooling solution
should be sufficient (if the fan is not completely disabled..)

Absolutely not necessary! Paste nut!
Stock solution is just fine with the screws torqued down correctly.
My miners don't need paste and I doubt anyone else's does, either.

[amix]

Is that heat-paste really that important? I mean, in BTC-mode they dissipate 8x the heat, so the stock cooling solution
should be sufficient (if the fan is not completely disabled..)

Absolutely not necessary! Paste nut!
Stock solution is just fine with the screws torqued down correctly.
My miners don't need paste and I doubt anyone else's does, either.

thevstock is crap has limited thermal propeties and is inefficient. not to mention the fan set up is totally ineffiecient blowing air on that heat sink so close. total waste of air and energy. do yourself and your grid a favor either replace the fan wiht a better more effiecent (and quiter one) , apply some thermal paste, or replace the thermal pads wiht better quality ones. if you really want to maximise the fan efficeny turn it around, so it sucks the air out.
While stock may seem fine these grid are still new and well lets see how many chips have burnt out that are overclocked in say 3 months time. anyone every had one of the avalon boards and ended up wiht a few dead chips - ok scrypt isnt as intensive so the heat generated isnt the same but still, a cooler chip - all chips partical the voltage regs - will perform BETTER and longer FACT. so feel free to improve the stock.

And if stock was fine this thread wouldnt even exist as we wouldnt be overclocking them in the first place we would be using the stock rate they are shipped with.

Actually dont overclock them or perfrom any mods :-  IF IT AINT BROKE DONT FIX IT LOL

[amix]

Is that heat-paste really that important? I mean, in BTC-mode they dissipate 8x the heat, so the stock cooling solution
should be sufficient (if the fan is not completely disabled..)

Absolutely not necessary! Paste nut!
Stock solution is just fine with the screws torqued down correctly.
My miners don't need paste and I doubt anyone else's does, either.

thevstock is crap has limited thermal propeties and is inefficient. not to mention the fan set up is totally ineffiecient blowing air on that heat sink so close. total waste of air and energy. do yourself and your grid a favor either replace the fan wiht a better more effiecent (and quiter one) , apply some thermal paste, or replace the thermal pads wiht better quality ones. if you really want to maximise the fan efficeny turn it around, so it sucks the air out.
While stock may seem fine these grid are still new and well lets see how many chips have burnt out that are overclocked in say 3 months time. anyone every had one of the avalon boards and ended up wiht a few dead chips - ok scrypt isnt as intensive so the heat generated isnt the same but still, a cooler chip - all chips partical the voltage regs - will perform BETTER and longer FACT. so feel free to improve the stock.

And if stock was fine this thread wouldnt even exist as we wouldnt be overclocking them in the first place we would be using the stock rate they are shipped with.

Actually dont overclock them or perfrom any mods :-  IF IT AINT BROKE DONT FIX IT LOL

Now all you have to do is, prove your goop and sandwich mod actually makes any frikkin difference!
Pictures help.
But unless your pods are running SHA or SHA/Scrypt mode, this mod is completely without merrit and the author is just trying to be right about wasting keystrokes and peoples reading time! LOL! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
TEE HEE HEE HEE HEE!

dont have to prove nowt. im happy wiht it. stated the facts about it, as was already stated few pages back. they can make up there own mind weather its worth it or not. considering itll take many hours hunderds of overclock run time, before you really see if it was worth it ie not killed a chip pictures are useless.if you want to know how to apply thermal paste or pads, check the manfuture web site sure it can help you on applying it.
oh seesh chill out man thoguht we was meant o be offering advice and want not, noty ripping everyone ides up cause you dont agree with them.
- and many i believe dont agree with using 1/8 resistors instead of the smd/smt resistors - but wantever works for you. old dogs and new tricks
 replace the stock fans, and or thermal pads isnt a bad idea. will it benfit yes i believe so will it benfit the overclocking and result in higher hash rate probably not, can it help them to be more stable and not result in hardware errors, yes maybe.  i seen how bad my gridseed chips where placed i reworked them and applied theraml paste afterwards to be on safe side - still not right get hardware errors EVEN at stock frequency.

Choice is yours use the info make your choice.

Oh flipping the fan had benfitted so much it really helps to cool my overclocked antminers

And one last important point to note. Whenever you remove a thermal pad its HIGHLY recommended that you clean the surface area and APPLY NEW FRESH thermal pad /or grease. VERY good practice

[smracer]

I bought these.

Yageo 47.5K ohm 100ppm SMD (Surface Mount) Thick Film Resistor 0402 1% 1/16W RC0402F (Continuous strip of 500)

I have modded 3 GS's so far and they are running fine at 1150Mhz for 4 hours.

I need to get a better magnifying glass to do the rest of these.  It's like soldering a grain of sand.  Are these OK to use?  Is 1/16 ok?

[amix]

I bought these.

Yageo 47.5K ohm 100ppm SMD (Surface Mount) Thick Film Resistor 0402 1% 1/16W RC0402F (Continuous strip of 500)

I have modded 3 GS's so far and they are running fine at 1150Mhz for 4 hours.

I need to get a better magnifying glass to do the rest of these.  It's like soldering a grain of sand.  Are these OK to use?  Is 1/16 ok?

think youll find that on SMD resistors its more the series that dicates the wattage. In this case 0402 is the correct series. 1% is great to. Should be ok.
Instead of usig a solidering iron i highly suggest getting access to a hot air station. i soldered smd before but never this small.
Hats off to ANYONE soldering these, thats serious skill. im using my hot air station on them

[simon66]

I bought these.

Yageo 47.5K ohm 100ppm SMD (Surface Mount) Thick Film Resistor 0402 1% 1/16W RC0402F (Continuous strip of 500)

I have modded 3 GS's so far and they are running fine at 1150Mhz for 4 hours.

I need to get a better magnifying glass to do the rest of these.  It's like soldering a grain of sand.  Are these OK to use?  Is 1/16 ok?

think youll find that on SMD resistors its more the series that dicates the wattage. In this case 0402 is the correct series. 1% is great to. Should be ok.
Instead of usig a solidering iron i highly suggest getting access to a hot air station. i soldered smd before but never this small.
Hats off to ANYONE soldering these, thats serious skill. im using my hot air station on them

Just watch out not to blow any SMD away. I use kapton tape but sometimes I see that a few caps/resistors blew off (Even at speed 1 on my rework station :S).

Also, I got a few 49.9k Resistors like Wolfey did ("His mod", or whoever found it). I'll post updates on Monday (That's when I get them)

[ajareselde]

I bought these.

Yageo 47.5K ohm 100ppm SMD (Surface Mount) Thick Film Resistor 0402 1% 1/16W RC0402F (Continuous strip of 500)

I have modded 3 GS's so far and they are running fine at 1150Mhz for 4 hours.

I need to get a better magnifying glass to do the rest of these.  It's like soldering a grain of sand.  Are these OK to use?  Is 1/16 ok?

think youll find that on SMD resistors its more the series that dicates the wattage. In this case 0402 is the correct series. 1% is great to. Should be ok.
Instead of usig a solidering iron i highly suggest getting access to a hot air station. i soldered smd before but never this small.
Hats off to ANYONE soldering these, thats serious skill. im using my hot air station on them

steady hand my friend, thats all it takes...   but i would love to see live video of someone whos new at soldering doing this, i would laugh so hard

[volum4]

Instead of usig a solidering iron i highly suggest getting access to a hot air station. i soldered smd before but never this small.
Hats off to ANYONE soldering these, thats serious skill. im using my hot air station on them

May i ask what's the safe temperature setting when soldering these using hot air station? I plan to use hot air station as well but i'm not so experienced on this stuff yet..

[jamieb81]

Instead of usig a solidering iron i highly suggest getting access to a hot air station. i soldered smd before but never this small.
Hats off to ANYONE soldering these, thats serious skill. im using my hot air station on them

May i ask what's the safe temperature setting when soldering these using hot air station? I plan to use hot air station as well but i'm not so experienced on this stuff yet..

I saw someone saying above that he used the lowest setting on his hot air station, and that it still blew some other parts almost off