Say. If somebody built another small miner...

[sidehack]

Nothing real to report, just doing some testing and figured I'd check to see if people would care if that test turned into gear.

May be something, may be nothing. Depends on markets and other projects.

[DaveF]

So now you have a baseline of what is going to be coming, futurebit who has been making LTC stuff for years is now going to be making a BTC miner.

https://www.futurebit.io

Going to be interesting to see if they actually make that price point & deliver but they have been doing it for years so I guess they know what they are doing at this point.

Edit: The 2T board is $349, the board + PS + controller with full node is $600

-Dave

[achtung082]

I think $349 is for a hash board only.

[fyoung55]

yeah, it's going to be $600 for the whole deal.  He set it up so you can add on the extra hashboards to the main unit or run it off of a raspberry pie with ha separate psu.

[sidehack]

Guess I need to step up dev on my end. I'm way behind on R&D on account of manufacturing backlog and being shorthanded what with the plague we got going on. VH and I are working on some fun stuff, which includes having recently proved a USB connection like we use on NewPac and Terminus can exceed 4TH, but it takes more time than I have right now.

[yxt]

I'm basically interested too.
Which chip?

[in2tactics]

@sidehack I am interested. I am still holding on to my old S1/S3 units in case you ever finish your upgrade kit idea.

[reactor]

I'm down if you put up orders.

[gt_addict]

So whats this 200GHs+ USB stick sidehack?

Newpac with new chips? Does it need extra juice? Will the GS hub handle it?

[sidehack]

That's a work in progress. We might be able to hit 300GH.

Also, the original idea mentioned in this thread has largely petered out. I was looking at a thing with a butt-ton of cheap 1397 running at bottom clock that I could put together quickly, but I think I'll move forward with new chips instead. The new Futurebit gear raises the stakes a little.

[achtung082]

An S5 size package that can reuse the heat sinks and controllers would be awesome, I'll take 20-30 S5 worth lol..

[gt_addict]

That's a work in progress. We might be able to hit 300GH.

Also, the original idea mentioned in this thread has largely petered out. I was looking at a thing with a butt-ton of cheap 1397 running at bottom clock that I could put together quickly, but I think I'll move forward with new chips instead. The new Futurebit gear raises the stakes a little.

Yea it has got a decent efficiency for us home miners (although awful compared to industrial gear).

Have you got any sort of time frame for the usb sticks or the new chip pod (assuming its a pod/R606 style)?  I know some would hold you to a date but I’m just wondering if its this year or next lol

[wndsnb]

Also, the original idea mentioned in this thread has largely petered out. I was looking at a thing with a butt-ton of cheap 1397 running at bottom clock that I could put together quickly, but I think I'll move forward with new chips instead. The new Futurebit gear raises the stakes a little.

Did you mean 1387?

I was wondering why you wouldn't just use the 1397, seems like the pin functions are pretty close to identical. Do they mess with the commands over the serial interface enough to make switching a hassle?

Might double your BOM cost, but also doubles efficiency....

[sidehack]

Yes I did mean 1387. Had 1397 on the mind lately for, oh, no particular reason.

From 1387 to 1397 they use the same footprint but from what I can tell, entirely different pinouts, power levels, even the protocol has changed somewhat. It's definitely not a drop-in replacement.

[wndsnb]

Of course ... why make it easy when you can arbitrarily just switch everything around....

Are you able to get datasheets for these or do you have to reverse-engineer all the details?

[sidehack]

Well I don't know about the protocol. VH is working on that. My job is the hardware, and I gotta say, all the hardware improvements to the chip are AWESOME. Like when I saw a spec sheet I was really confused about a lot of things because it was all so different, but when I saw 'em on a board it started making sense and now I'm genuinely impressed at how well thought-out these chips are. It'll mean a lot of design changes from the old stuff, but it also means the new designs will be a heck of a lot easier.

At least the footprint is the same, so the various iterations of stenciling and process changes we figured out for BM1387 will still apply.

[stripminer]

I just joined this forum literally / specifically because of THIS thread, and the future potential product(s) being discussed here.

@sidehack I just found out about your products, and it is truly awesome and appreciated that you do this type of work.

I wish I had known about the previous products when they were first released, as those latest ones being from Q4 2018 are slightly dated now... which is exactly why I just joined here: to be among the first to find out when the next product(s) get released (especially those based on the 1397)!

(I also looked into the FutureBit gear and as sidehack said it raises the bar... )

Looking forward to your next generation of ASIC USB and pod products... (hopefully this year?)  ;-)

Cheers.

[wndsnb]

What isn't awesome is how they attached heatsinks on these... they missed the mark there big time.

If you can find a way to avoid soldering the heatsink to the top of the chip, do it. I've been repairing 17 series hashboards and it seems like nearly all issues are related in one way or another to those heatsinks. The chips have a film on top to interface between the chip -> solder -> heatsink. Many times the film fails and delaminates from the chip. Then the chip overheats to the point of melting solder and there ya go.

Also see a lot of problems with excess solder from the application of the heatsinks falling down onto the board. Little balls of solder precariously held in place by remaining flux residue... just waiting to short out pins after the right nudge shakes them free.

[sidehack]

I'll be doing some testing with soldering heatsinks, but I'm already using a low-temp soldering process for chips so it'll take a lot of experimenting to be safe/reliable. Most likely I'll stick to my screwed-on heatinks. The biggest thing there will be that surface plating is connected to power ground, so heatsinks from adjacent voltage nodes must remain isolated. But that copper plating should be the next best thing to an exposed die for reducing thermal resistance, assuming it doesn't delaminate. But I don't want the kind of heat density and total temperature that should cause that.

[-doubleU-]

I'm interested, depending on the price, fan noise and whether it will be available in Europe.

Another option is make it fit mini ITX motherboard mounts so it could go in a mini-itx case for easy cooling - like this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T94W9YS.

A mini itx case is a good idea. I have some metal plates in this form factor with mounting holes to build an adapter plate. I hope that if the new miner should show up, they will have some holes to attach to an adapter plate with spacers.