Butterfly Labs - Bitforce Single and Mini Rig Box

[rjk]

6" or 8" or so? 

I think he meant "how much time did it take before something went poof".

[1715021203]

1715021203

[1715021203]

1715021203

[1715021203]

1715021203

[Inaba]

I'm not sure, I didn't notice the burnt connectors at first - but no more than a couple days.

[abeaulieu]

Is it just me or does this logo look pretty close to BFL's. This venture also stopped in Mar 2011... interesting.
http://asynclabs.com/

[rjk]

Is it just me or does this logo look pretty close to BFL's. This venture also stopped in Mar 2011... interesting.
http://asynclabs.com/

You might be interested in the 2 old BFL threads that are now locked. That similarity was discovered months ago, but doesn't seem to be relevant.

[Inaba]

Pretty sure the logo is a stock clipart logo, so it's in use in a number of places in one form or another I'd imagine.

[abeaulieu]

Seemed like a strange coincidence to me. Especially since it's a related technical sector and it closed its doors around the time that BFL appeared.

[Cablez]

Actually I was curious about the cable length.     
So you had less than 2% voltage drop on it but it couldn't handle what around 6.5 Amps.  Was it poor quality wire?

18AWG should be good for twice than length or more.

[TheSeven]

I'll have to snip the leads to the bottom fan

For simplicity in testing, I'd recommend just taping down the fan blade to keep it from spinning, or another low-tech method of restriction (a piece of chewed gum?).  If you get some thermal throttling, it's easy to make it spin again.

I would advise against that - a stuck motor can draw a multiple of the wattage that it normally draws, and thus overheat, even burn out.

Well, a piece of paper across the air intake should do the trick for testing, but I generally advise against trusting in any kind of thermal shutdown, especially if the unit is known to not have on-die temperature sensors and just measure the board/air/case temperature.

The singles do have on-die temp sensors, and they can be read with cgminer.

How can one read those? The usual "read temperature" command only returns one value that seems to be a board temperature, and that's the only command mentioned by the "specification".
I don't have a BFL myself, so I can't test this, but I'd be very interested in the commands for die temperature reading. Might be a useful addition to MPBM.

[SgtSpike]

Actually I was curious about the cable length.     
So you had less than 2% voltage drop on it but it couldn't handle what around 6.5 Amps.  Was it poor quality wire?

18AWG should be good for twice than length or more.

Interesting indeed... maybe it wasn't really 20 gauge?

This wire chart seems to indicate that 5 amps on 20 gauge should be able to run 9.5 feet without any trouble.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/ocdropzone/electrical/WireChart.jpg?t=1242308611

[rjk]

Actually I was curious about the cable length.     
So you had less than 2% voltage drop on it but it couldn't handle what around 6.5 Amps.  Was it poor quality wire?

18AWG should be good for twice than length or more.

Interesting indeed... maybe it wasn't really 20 gauge?

This wire chart seems to indicate that 5 amps on 20 gauge should be able to run 9.5 feet without any trouble.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/ocdropzone/electrical/WireChart.jpg?t=1242308611

That chart.... is for what voltage? It might be correct for 120 volts, but not 12.

[TheSeven]

Actually I was curious about the cable length.     
So you had less than 2% voltage drop on it but it couldn't handle what around 6.5 Amps.  Was it poor quality wire?

18AWG should be good for twice than length or more.

Interesting indeed... maybe it wasn't really 20 gauge?

This wire chart seems to indicate that 5 amps on 20 gauge should be able to run 9.5 feet without any trouble.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/ocdropzone/electrical/WireChart.jpg?t=1242308611

That chart.... is for what voltage? It might be correct for 120 volts, but not 12.

Amps are completely independent of voltage though.

[rjk]

Actually I was curious about the cable length.    
So you had less than 2% voltage drop on it but it couldn't handle what around 6.5 Amps.  Was it poor quality wire?

18AWG should be good for twice than length or more.

Interesting indeed... maybe it wasn't really 20 gauge?

This wire chart seems to indicate that 5 amps on 20 gauge should be able to run 9.5 feet without any trouble.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/ocdropzone/electrical/WireChart.jpg?t=1242308611

That chart.... is for what voltage? It might be correct for 120 volts, but not 12.

Amps are completely independent of voltage though.

There are a large number of factors that affect wire ampacity. Here is a good calculator: http://circuitcalculator.com/wordpress/2007/09/20/wire-parameter-calculator/

You can see from that that it can support about 6 amps on 20 awg for a single wire at 25 degrees C. However, that ampacity is cut in half when the wire is in a bundle.

[kano]

I'll have to snip the leads to the bottom fan

For simplicity in testing, I'd recommend just taping down the fan blade to keep it from spinning, or another low-tech method of restriction (a piece of chewed gum?).  If you get some thermal throttling, it's easy to make it spin again.

I would advise against that - a stuck motor can draw a multiple of the wattage that it normally draws, and thus overheat, even burn out.

Well, a piece of paper across the air intake should do the trick for testing, but I generally advise against trusting in any kind of thermal shutdown, especially if the unit is known to not have on-die temperature sensors and just measure the board/air/case temperature.

The singles do have on-die temp sensors, and they can be read with cgminer.

How can one read those? The usual "read temperature" command only returns one value that seems to be a board temperature, and that's the only command mentioned by the "specification".
I don't have a BFL myself, so I can't test this, but I'd be very interested in the commands for die temperature reading. Might be a useful addition to MPBM.

I'm wondering if the cgminer temp is completely unrelated to the throttling temp?
(the cgminer temp is what BFL gave details about - so if there is some other then no one appears to know it
I have also asked in email to BFL details about other commands to the BFL ... since I now own one ...)
Re: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=78256.msg883149#msg883149

[Fuzzy]

Does the MiniRig require a computer to run it, or can it work as a standalone with nothing but power and an internet connection?

[rjk]

Does the MiniRig require a computer to run it, or can it work as a standalone with nothing but power and an internet connection?

It supposedly will have a Raspberry Pi included as the host, but with their limited availability I assume they will also be able to connect to an external host.

[Inaba]

No, I don't think the Raspberry Pi is included... there's space for it, but I think that's something you have to add on your own.

It's my understanding it will be like a giant single, and you can address the internal individual units individually or treat it as one giant single through a switch.

[jddebug]

No, I don't think the Raspberry Pi is included... there's space for it, but I think that's something you have to add on your own.

It's my understanding it will be like a giant single, and you can address the internal individual units individually or treat it as one giant single through a switch.

Happen to know if you can have a raspberry pi in one mini rig and have it run your other mini rigs and your singles? Having to obtain a raspberry pi for each one would be very costly to impossible. Ebay selling them for $400 buy it now and auctions are going over $200+.

I ordered a Pi a month ago but the order status seems to indicate many months to get it. Are they really in that much of a demand? Worse than the lead time on singles.

[abeaulieu]

I ordered my raspberry pi a few days after they came out. It just shipped earlier this week. Now that they are in mass production they shouldn't be incredibly hard to acquire. And for $35 it's probably the cheapest, power efficient solution.

[bitpop]

use an htpc

[Fuzzy]

I ordered my raspberry pi a few days after they came out. It just shipped earlier this week. Now that they are in mass production they shouldn't be incredibly hard to acquire. And for $35 it's probably the cheapest, power efficient solution.

Wonder how many MH/s it gets