Introducing the newest quiet consumer miner from GekkoScience, the newest addition to the Terminus pod-miner line, the R909.
It may not look like much right away, but it's a significant improvement over the R606 in almost every way.
This miner is built with the same physical dimensions as the R606 so anything built around them would still fit this unit. Airflow ducting is the same, same 80mm fan. However, you'll notice ports and jacks are located at the exhaust end instead of accessible from the side.
This makes the unit more readily stackable, as you no longer have to keep three sides clear - two for airflow and one for cabling.
It also allowed us to expand the circuit board by 15%, making room for a better main regulator and improved thermal management. Heatsink area over the chips is increased by 40% over the R606, and we've added more board mounting legs for improved stability especially during shipping.
The miner runs on the S17's BM1397 ASIC, as used in our Compac-F USB stick miner. Kano has been hard at work improving the driver, and has added several features that will be very attractive to tuning enthusiasts, though the stock settings will already be fairly excellent.
The miner is guaranteed to run at 1.5TH from under 100 DC watts at stock voltage and do it nearly silently. Better performance isn't guaranteed, but is probably attainable. Take for example the test unit I had running 1.8TH at 70 watts, or the above-photographed machine which pulled down almost 2.1TH from 88 watts (on stock voltage, no voltage tuning) for over a week:
The Terminus R909 needs an external controller running cgminer, with USB connection to the miner (a 6-foot USB cable will be included with purchase). The driver has been tested extensively on linux PC and Raspberry Pi. Like previous Terminus models, the miner runs on 12V power from either a standard 2.1/5.5mm barrel jack (rated for 8A) or a PCIe 6-pin jack.
The "stock" speed will be set to 400MHz, expected to see 1.6TH, but higher frequencies are possible. Kano will explain the details, but he's been working on adding tuning features which include setting individual chip frequencies. Core voltage is adjustable in the range of 1.4V-1.6V per chip, same as on the Compac F, and though the R606 had a fancy push-button interface, we've rolled back to a basic knob you turn with a screwdriver on this one. That may be improved on future versions but I won't make promises just in case.
This miner also features Blinky Lights, but they're not as intrusive as previous models of pod or stick. The rate of blinking is proportional to hashrate. The base light color is a delightful pink-magenta.
The BM1397 chips have a significant temperature coefficient, which means that they pull noticeably more power as they get warmer. Nobody at GekkoScience will be offended if a tuner or enthusiast upgrades the fan, as more airflow could mean reducing power consumption by 5-10% just from maintaining lower temperatures. These units take a standard 80mmx25mm 3/4-wire 12V case fan.
And like all GekkoScience products, the Terminus R909 is Made In The USA.
Approximate dimensions: 3.5 x 4.2 x 6 inches.
SALES
So far, two resellers have confirmed to stock this machine, and should have stock in time to start delivering orders by Christmas. Production is already well underway on the first batch. This post will be updated as more sellers are added.
bitcoinmerch.com shipping from California
419mining.com shipping from Ohio
bitshopper.de in Europe/Germany (forum user MacEntyre)The Terminus R909 will include a 6ft USB cable. It'll be up to resellers to provide any extras, power supplies or anything.
