[ANN] Spondoolies-Tech - carrier grade, data center ready mining rigs

[klondike_bar]

Mines are running at 250W, cable just a bit warn...

what awg and room themp?
thx

poor quality 16awg can handle around 250-270W. high quality 16awg can handle about 300-320W. (18awg is only good for about 150W). having a bit of airdlow over your wires allows them to carry 20-30W more before getting as warm

[1714154078]

1714154078

[1714154078]

1714154078

[1714154078]

1714154078

[mavericklm]

i have one of my sp20 feeded by 3 psu with 18awg: corsair 550w for 2loops, 2 nonames for the other 2 loops. settings as posted yesterday:

Temp Front / Back T,B    12 °C / 55,54 °C
Fan Speed    70
Start Voltage    0.67 / 0.67 / 0.67 / 0.67
Max Voltage    0.72
Max Watts    220 / 220 / 220 / 220
Mining Rate: 1439.78Ghs

is true that ambient is pretty low, like 5-10C. cable might be warm a bit, can't really say for sure

got an dps2000bb with special board and 16awg cables. full load ~300w and cables still at room temp!

[takagari]

Please explain, WHY are we still using PCIe connectors?

Why not give terminal points, insert wire and secure, Let me run 8awg wire straight in, less wire.

Time we move away from crappy pcie

[takagari]

I have 6 sp20 coming in this week! Fast shipping and these guys take credit card, so no risk!

I wish you guys would bring the price.of the 30s down to compare with the sp20, such a huge price jump??

rack mount isn't worth the nearly double cost..

When's the next Gen coming???

The SP20 Nanofarm is 4.8TH/s and $1195, while the SP35 is 5.5TH/s and $2235. So while it is almost double the price, keep in mind you get two 1600W server power supplies with it. I'm guessing SP doesn't get to buy their supplies as used pulls off eBay, so that's probably ~$500 in extra cost right there that they can offload to the consumer with the SP20. If you've already got PSUs or have the time to deal with adapting cheap server PSUs that's one thing, but even if you're going with a nanofarm and ATX PSUs you're looking at $500 worth of power supplies to get the SP20s up and running, plus the extra space of having three SP20s and three PSUs to power them. You're also getting 30 ASICs vs 24 in the
The SP35 should probably come down a bit in price, but I'd say at ~$2k it'd be easily be superior to the SP20 for anyone who doesn't have PSUs sitting around.

Okay this is very true, but hard to justify for me, Some who have less interest in ROI. I guess.

Could still push them down a bit, I'd buy a bunch

[klondike_bar]

Please explain, WHY are we still using PCIe connectors?

Why not give terminal points, insert wire and secure, Let me run 8awg wire straight in, less wire.

Time we move away from crappy pcie

i agree in part, but then home user would need to cut wires or buy some sort of pcie->8awg adapters

the pcie connector is a good standard and easily clips/unclips. and if you are doing server supplies, you can buy them from me for <$2/ea in bulk with 24" length and quality 16awg wires

[Biomech]

i have one of my sp20 feeded by 3 psu with 18awg: corsair 550w for 2loops, 2 nonames for the other 2 loops. settings as posted yesterday:

Temp Front / Back T,B    12 °C / 55,54 °C
Fan Speed    70
Start Voltage    0.67 / 0.67 / 0.67 / 0.67
Max Voltage    0.72
Max Watts    220 / 220 / 220 / 220
Mining Rate: 1439.78Ghs

is true that ambient is pretty low, like 5-10C. cable might be warm a bit, can't really say for sure

got an dps2000bb with special board and 16awg cables. full load ~300w and cables still at room temp!

For that matter, why can't you just buy the connectors and make your own with say 14 or 12 gauge? Or is that going to cause problems with the PSU? Physically doing it is easy.

EDIT: Not sure what I did, but this was supposed to be a reply to:

Please explain, WHY are we still using PCIe connectors?

Why not give terminal points, insert wire and secure, Let me run 8awg wire straight in, less wire.

Time we move away from crappy pcie

[samsonn25]

Probably because physically the connectors are manufactured to accept 16 guage as the largest size and being able to be handle the power and transfer to/ from the male female housing and metal of the crimps.

It can be done with 14 guage or larger wire, just have to force the crimp and a little tight into the female side on input.  Thats the way the standard is.

In industrial they dont use many connectors. Just straight wire.   LOL

[seriouscoin]

Please explain, WHY are we still using PCIe connectors?

Why not give terminal points, insert wire and secure, Let me run 8awg wire straight in, less wire.

Time we move away from crappy pcie

a better question would be WHY should anyone gives a shit about home mining. The industry has already moved away from bunch of PSU lying around with wires everywhere.

SP20 is the last home miner. Look at SP10-SP3x. Not a single wire, all straight from PCB.

[Searing]

Does spondoolies still take paypal or is that gone now? (1st msg in thread here shows paypal taken on sp20)

Still tempted to get an SP 20 on the off chance as a hedge if BTC goes back to around 150 usd and hovers
about like it has at 250 for 2 or so months....if they had free shipping i'd prob get one as a "hobby toy' and the fact I owe them  a purchase for a refund they
really did not have to give me (class act) ....but at 598 w/ship at 119 to usa....still can't quite pull the trigger...but if BTC goes low...in price usd wise ..difficulty
will follow...would be hell on them large data miner operations I doubt they would work in 'hobby' mode like myself at 150 usd coin

anyway watch and wait ...btc will either break out 100 bucks up or drift down to 150 usd in fits and starts and linger as has been the pattern I would prefer
that btc price go up...but getting a toy miner for difficulty and price tanking is a lame option ...but still an option (assuming you believe as in the past btc
will bounce back as it has done)

imho we will be the first to know pain/gain so to speak

(bitcoin never a dull moment)

[RoadStress]

Does anyone know how is the physical Reset button working? Does it needs a long press? A short press? Does it resets to factory defaults or it's something else?

[zefir]

SP20 bulk setup mini-HOWTO
While setting up my SP20 mini-farm, I tried to figure a process to speed up the config steps usually required to perform over the Web-UI. The following might be useful for you if you need to configure a batch of SP20 devices with the same configuration.

Please ignore if this has been posted already.


Step 1: FW upgrade
If your units are freshly delivered, upgrade all to latest (mine was 2.6.1)

Step 2: configure your reference unit
a) If you need non-standard cgminer configuration (e.g. API access from your monitoring server), ssh into unit and modify /etc/cgminer.conf.template to your needs.
b) configure the reference unit; this scheme covers: root password, UI password, pool settings, HW settings
c) start cgminer and ensure the unit is mining according to the desired configuration

Step 3: grab reference config files
a) on your (Linux) PC, create a fresh directory and cd into it
b) scp from your reference unit the following files

• /etc/cgminer.conf
• /etc/cgminer.conf.template
• /etc/mg_custom_mode_sp20
• /etc/shadow
• /etc/ui.pwd

Step 4: bulk clone configs
a) scp all files to your remaining units (root/root)

Step 5: start the farm
a) open each unit in Web-UI (use the UI password set in step 2)
b) start cgminer


The process improvement is marginal for up to 5 units, but worth if you deal with 10+. It is also less error-prone and can serve as template for automated processing.


Happy mining!

[GenTarkin]

For the SP20, don't get PCIe connectors start to melt when you are running them? Arent they pulling 300W each?

Wasn't this a huge issue with the KNCMIners in the past and it was a fire hazard.

If ur using a quality PSU the gauge of the wire will be large enough to allow around 300-350w. Also the PCIe 6pin connectors are rated by molex up to 23A, for 12v thats 276w ... so yeah the 288w setting on SP20 is pushing it. I think most electronics ur allowed a 10% delta far as safety goes. So, that gives u up to 305w safely on a 6pin PCIe connector.

Also, it would be nice if these manufactures that want to push limits, start using the 8pin. That can handle more current.

Also, if using the molex -> PCIe converters, those will for sure most likely melt. One of the grounding holes is left blank, Im pretty sure that causes more stress. Also the molex cables themselves cant handle that sort of current. Im sure people have done this in the past and it lead to fires on bitcoin ASICs

[Guy Corem]

SP20 bulk setup mini-HOWTO
While setting up my SP20 mini-farm, I tried to figure a process to speed up the config steps usually required to perform over the Web-UI. The following might be useful for you if you need to configure a batch of SP20 devices with the same configuration.

Please ignore if this has been posted already.


Step 1: FW upgrade
If your units are freshly delivered, upgrade all to latest (mine was 2.6.1)

Step 2: configure your reference unit
a) If you need non-standard cgminer configuration (e.g. API access from your monitoring server), ssh into unit and modify /etc/cgminer.conf.template to your needs.
b) configure the reference unit; this scheme covers: root password, UI password, pool settings, HW settings
c) start cgminer and ensure the unit is mining according to the desired configuration

Step 3: grab reference config files
a) on your (Linux) PC, create a fresh directory and cd into it
b) scp from your reference unit the following files

• /etc/cgminer.conf
• /etc/cgminer.conf.template
• /etc/mg_custom_mode_sp20
• /etc/shadow
• /etc/ui.pwd

Step 4: bulk clone configs
a) scp all files to your remaining units (root/root)

Step 5: start the farm
a) open each unit in Web-UI (use the UI password set in step 2)
b) start cgminer


The process improvement is marginal for up to 5 units, but worth if you deal with 10+. It is also less error-prone and can serve as template for automated processing.


Happy mining!

Good and useful HOWTO

[klondike_bar]

For the SP20, don't get PCIe connectors start to melt when you are running them? Arent they pulling 300W each?

Wasn't this a huge issue with the KNCMIners in the past and it was a fire hazard.

If ur using a quality PSU the gauge of the wire will be large enough to allow around 300-350w. Also the PCIe 6pin connectors are rated by molex up to 23A, for 12v thats 276w ... so yeah the 288w setting on SP20 is pushing it. I think most electronics ur allowed a 10% delta far as safety goes. So, that gives u up to 305w safely on a 6pin PCIe connector.

tbh, a lot of quality PSUs wont be safe at 300W+. My EVGA 1300 G2 wires get uncomfortably warm when anything over 240W is drawn over them. Im sure they could handle 260-280, but 300W might be dangerous. Part of the problem is that the wires are sheathed, which doesnt allow them to cool as easily as open wires.

my 1200W PSU (corsair?) also gets quite hot PCIe cables over 240W/ea, and they are not sheathed. My guess is they could start failing around 280W

[alh]

I thought the original spec from Molex for the pins in the PCIe socket was the same as the original ATX socket, and I thought that was 5 amps. Does anybody have a more accurate recollection or specification on that? At 240W, that's 20 amps split across 3 pins, and also 3 wires. That's just shy of 7 amps per pin/wire, assuming all is well balanced.

[opentoe]

Is it safe to say anyone that is running their Sp2/3's at a data center right now, is losing money? (users with free electric not allowed to answer).

[takagari]

Please explain, WHY are we still using PCIe connectors?

Why not give terminal points, insert wire and secure, Let me run 8awg wire straight in, less wire.

Time we move away from crappy pcie

a better question would be WHY should anyone gives a shit about home mining. The industry has already moved away from bunch of PSU lying around with wires everywhere.

SP20 is the last home miner. Look at SP10-SP3x. Not a single wire, all straight from PCB.

Agreed, that being said, why can't both be offered? a few 40amp terminals on the back as well would be nice.

Building pcie cables is a pain in the ass, especially for larger gauge,

[mavericklm]

For the SP20, don't get PCIe connectors start to melt when you are running them? Arent they pulling 300W each?

Wasn't this a huge issue with the KNCMIners in the past and it was a fire hazard.

If ur using a quality PSU the gauge of the wire will be large enough to allow around 300-350w. Also the PCIe 6pin connectors are rated by molex up to 23A, for 12v thats 276w ... so yeah the 288w setting on SP20 is pushing it. I think most electronics ur allowed a 10% delta far as safety goes. So, that gives u up to 305w safely on a 6pin PCIe connector.

tbh, a lot of quality PSUs wont be safe at 300W+. My EVGA 1300 G2 wires get uncomfortably warm when anything over 240W is drawn over them. Im sure they could handle 260-280, but 300W might be dangerous. Part of the problem is that the wires are sheathed, which doesnt allow them to cool as easily as open wires.

my 1200W PSU (corsair?) also gets quite hot PCIe cables over 240W/ea, and they are not sheathed. My guess is they could start failing around 280W

in the summer time, i think we are fucked, unless we underclock a lot!

no terminals because it eliminates user error and 6pin is already a standard in mining

[Syke]

Also, it would be nice if these manufactures that want to push limits, start using the 8pin. That can handle more current.

Not when wired as a standard pcie connector. There are only 3 hot wires in both 6pin and 8pin configurations.

[wh00per]

Is it safe to say anyone that is running their Sp2/3's at a data center right now, is losing money? (users with free electric not allowed to answer).

Usually you pay for hosting in advance. If you paid last May for a year of hosting, you're not loosing anything if you keep your accounts in BTC. If you pay monthly about $80/KWh/Month .. you're still making something ..

With a  SP30 on Eligius you're at 0.04734934 BTC/day. That is 1.42BTC in 30 days .. that is .. $311/mo, while an SP30 is about 3kW at the wall .. aka $240/mo.

By now my SP30 made 9.19100781 BTC since powerup and I received about 2BTC back from SPT as compensation. Overall ~1 BTC more than I paid for it. It still has to run a while to cover the hosting .. or I might sell it for something and get the ROI.

With another one on the paycoin route .. everything ROI'd already.