[Setup Guide] Blackarrow Bitfury 16 chip board support and tuning thread

[dozerz]

The third and last controller burned up too.  Are these boards known to be troublesome?

Chad

i had exactly the same problem, i did have everything working fine and hashing but when i moved everything to my server room and reconnected the controller also burned up. i ordered a new one from black arrow and will try again once it arrives.

[chadtn]

What is causing them to burn up?  I never got anything hashing.

Chad

[dozerz]

i suspect its a power leak from a faulty board. i dont really have time to fully test until next week, but you can order replacement controllers from black arrow.

[chadtn]

I just had the first three individual boards I pulled out of the box burn up three controllers.  Is there some way to test them?  Otherwise I'm going to need a few dozen controllers to get any of these things running.

Chad

[btljuice]

Has anyone had luck getting the blue boards with the pins facing down hashing? All the green ones I hook up no problem, but haven't gotten a single blue board working no matter how I try and hook up the SPI cable.

[btljuice]

*sigh* Fried part of my controller... I suspect because the blue boards pins aren't labeled/done correctly. SPI3/4 don't work now. 1 & 2 still do. Going to steer clear of these blue boards until I can get some clarification on how to connect them properly.

[dozerz]

*sigh* Fried my controller... I suspect because the blue boards pins aren't labeled/done correctly.

i also had the same problem. word of warning that i also noticed this with some green boards so be careful. you can normally tell if a board will fry the controller by holding the ribbon cable which will heat up immediately after connecting it to the controller.

[btljuice]

*sigh* Fried my controller... I suspect because the blue boards pins aren't labeled/done correctly.

i also had the same problem. word of warning that i also noticed this with some green boards so be careful. you can normally tell if a board will fry the controller by holding the ribbon cable which will heat up immediately after connecting it to the controller.

I believe the controllers are getting fried by hooking up the SPI cables incorrectly. I'm guessing this because a lot of v1 H-cards got fried (or was it the m-boards? I forget) when people didn't insert the cards facing the correct way. That's why the v2.2 cards are PCI style slots, so people couldn't get it wrong. So I'm guessing it's the same deal here, if you don't connect pin 1 on the cable to pin 1 on a board.

[helipotte]

Hi,

Figured I would post my findings with one of the 17 board "kits" in this thread.

First off, it took me about a week of tinkering to get these things humming at 40Gh per board with all 17 connected to one pi/controller.

My reject/error rate is below 1%.  First thing you need to do to get rid of the rejects/dupes/error is OVERCLOCK your Pi to 900mhz.

The little Raspberry pi can't handle more than about 12 of these boards if you use Cgminer.

Next thing to do is edit the file driver-bab.c before you compile. Edit line 2124  from:

#define BAB_STD_WORK_DELAY_uS 900000

to:

#define BAB_STD_WORK_DELAY_uS 800000

Increasing the SPI bus from 96000 to about 165000 helped with the waiting for work messages. That is line 42.

This plus overclocking made CGminer run perfect with the 17 board kit.

Also for you electronic types, installing some tantalum caps on the 1.8V regulator helped a lot with SPI errors.  Grounding between the boards and controller is VERY important!

Hope this helps those who have these boards and are struggling with error/dupes/rejects.

Edit: Don't use the barrel connector/PCI express adapters that came with the kit.  Make your own out of 14 gauge or better wire. I had one catch on fire!  Estimate that each

board requires about 50W.  Safety first.

[nbtcminer]

Thanks helipotte for the info! I'm actually going to OC my pi and see how things work out; I'm finding that chain miner has worked way better for me than cgminer but I may try the mod you suggest and give it another try.


One of the things I'm finding that seems to be common about the frying of boards; this may be because of the SPI connector itself and plugging it in the wrong way (i.e.plugging it in the wrong way). Can you take a pic of the 1.8v regulator / where to put the cap you were talking about?

[helipotte]

I will post a picture next time I take it down for maintenance. But basically I soldered a SMD cap between pin 10 (1.8V) and the ground ring next to it.  Did this on two

SPI connectors.  This reduced the ripple measured considerably.

[chadtn]

There are only two ways the cable can be plugged in...right?  I'm certain that every board I plugged up had the same color wire on the side facing the number one pin.  Are the boards labeled incorrectly?  It won't do me any good to order a stack of controllers if they just burn up every time I hook a board up.

Chad

[helipotte]

There are only two ways the cable can be plugged in...right?  I'm certain that every board I plugged up had the same color wire on the side facing the number one pin.  Are the boards labeled incorrectly?  It won't do me any good to order a stack of controllers if they just burn up every time I hook a board up.

Chad

Check for shorts on your boards between ground (corner rings) and pin 10 on SPI connector.

[dozerz]

There are only two ways the cable can be plugged in...right?  I'm certain that every board I plugged up had the same color wire on the side facing the number one pin.  Are the boards labeled incorrectly?  It won't do me any good to order a stack of controllers if they just burn up every time I hook a board up.

Chad

Check for shorts on your boards between ground (corner rings) and pin 10 on SPI connector.

great info, thanks! look forward to your pictures.

[dozerz]

I will post a picture next time I take it down for maintenance. But basically I soldered a SMD cap between pin 10 (1.8V) and the ground ring next to it.  Did this on two

SPI connectors.  This reduced the ripple measured considerably.

what value cap did you use?

[helipotte]

2x 220 uF tantalum.  Might need more though.  It is important to use low esr caps.  The caps aren't required, but do reduce the errors somewhat.

Example: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/AVX/TPSC227M006R0125/?qs=nuh5PIvfcbyhUuXGL20cAA==

[dozerz]

2x 220 uF tantalum.  Might need more though.  It is important to use low esr caps.  The caps aren't required, but do reduce the errors somewhat.

Example: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/AVX/TPSC227M006R0125/?qs=nuh5PIvfcbyhUuXGL20cAA==

thanks, would love to see some pics and how you wired up the power/plugs.

[helipotte]

Well since these did not come with the outer 4-pin connector, I improvised!

I soldered 14 gauge wire directly to the tinned side of the board, then linked to other two pins to the next board.  Limited the chain to 5 boards.

Then I installed high current automotive type spade connectors on the first board in the chain.  These connected to terminals on a modified 750 watt

Dell XPS power supply.  Each power supply has 10 boards attached to it using 4 14 gauge wires.  All the wires are cold and I get ~12V at the board

connector.  17 boards Use about 700W supplied with 240V and hash at 678Gh.  Almost 1W per Gh!

[Polyatomic]

Can the cubieboard2 or cubietruck be used as the host instead of a pi?

[helipotte]

Can the cubieboard2 or cubietruck be used as the host instead of a pi?

My thinking on this is no.  But I am no coder.  I have been trying to get these to work on a BeagleBone black with no luck.  I think the driver in cgminer

(driver-bab.c) is written only for the spi interface on the pi.  Kano did a lot of work on this driver, maybe he can add support for non raspberry pi devices.

When I run CGminer compiled with this driver it states that it cannot access the SPI interface.  As far as the original chainminer, I have no idea.