ROCKMINER ASIC miner official thread

[mc_lovin]

Is there a reason you always "sandwich" the PCB between two heatsinks?  I see that in every product so far.  Friedcat & Co only put the heatsink on the back, leaving the top of the chips exposed.  Never a problem. 

[mstrongbow]

Is there a reason you always "sandwich" the PCB between two heatsinks?  I see that in every product so far.  Friedcat & Co only put the heatsink on the back, leaving the top of the chips exposed.  Never a problem. 

I've been wondering the same thing. Also noticed gridseed orbs are similar to this as well.

HUGE savings could be had using less material.

[klondike_bar]

You told us there will be a Raspberry Pi for every two units.

I got my ten Rocket Boxes today but there were NO Raspberry Pi!

I also saw that Pi's were not included in the shipment to minersource.  Not very pleased about that.

@roxsie please confirm this.

I was explicitely told over email that my order of two units would include an Rpi/hub/SD/power cable as detailed on the website. however, I was also told it would ship on the 25th and it didn't.

This needs to be confirmed ASAP - If i need to go out and buy an RPi to operate the units that is something i need to know BEFORE the box shows up. I would also be pretty pissed either way if one doesnt come with it since i paid to get an RPi with my units, which is a $50 peice of hardware that would take a day or two to find locally.

edit: have a tracking number now and was informed my box will include an RPI - presumably minersource got none because they are a reseller

[mc_lovin]

You told us there will be a Raspberry Pi for every two units.

I got my ten Rocket Boxes today but there were NO Raspberry Pi!

I also saw that Pi's were not included in the shipment to minersource.  Not very pleased about that.

@roxsie please confirm this.

I was explicitely told over email that my order of two units would include an Rpi/hub/SD/power cable as detailed on the website. however, I was also told it would ship on the 25th and it didn't.

This needs to be confirmed ASAP - If i need to go out and buy an RPi to operate the units that is something i need to know BEFORE the box shows up. I would also be pretty pissed either way if one doesnt come with it since i paid to get an RPi with my units, which is a $50 peice of hardware that would take a day or two to find locally.

ps: still no tracking number despite multiple requests. looks like the order that was supposed to ship last friday probably wont arrive until next week

You can plug them into a Windows PC without a Pi, and it works great.  (just so you know in advance you dont need a Pi right off the bat.)

[mstrongbow]

You can plug them into a Windows PC without a Pi, and it works great.  (just so you know in advance you dont need a Pi right off the bat.)

^^^THIS!

Any details on this mate? I have ZER0 exp. running miners on Pi, not that I don't plan on giving Pi a go

[mc_lovin]

You can plug them into a Windows PC without a Pi, and it works great.  (just so you know in advance you dont need a Pi right off the bat.)

^^^THIS!

Any details on this mate? I have ZER0 exp. running miners on Pi, not that I don't plan on giving Pi a go

Well, the Raspberry Pi is just a linux computer.  The premade image is easy to flash to the SD card, and it is ready to mine when you plug in the miner because it has cgminer configured and ready to go.  But you can just run cgminer on your computer, and they detect the same on windows as they would on linux.  All four "blades" plug into the included 4-port USB hub and then back to the Pi, so you can plug that hub into your PC and see the blades that way, or you can plug in one blade at a time, they work independently.  If you have ever gotten an R-Box to work, these are pretty much just 4 huge R-Boxes. 

[mstrongbow]

You can plug them into a Windows PC without a Pi, and it works great.  (just so you know in advance you dont need a Pi right off the bat.)

^^^THIS!

Any details on this mate? I have ZER0 exp. running miners on Pi, not that I don't plan on giving Pi a go

Well, the Raspberry Pi is just a linux computer.  The premade image is easy to flash to the SD card, and it is ready to mine when you plug in the miner because it has cgminer configured and ready to go.  But you can just run cgminer on your computer, and they detect the same on windows as they would on linux.  All four "blades" plug into the included 4-port USB hub and then back to the Pi, so you can plug that hub into your PC and see the blades that way, or you can plug in one blade at a time, they work independently.  If you have ever gotten an R-Box to work, these are pretty much just 4 huge R-Boxes. 

Thanks for this explanation. I do have some Linux experience but I am an A+ Certified tech. and have been tinkering on/with Windows for far too long!
Shouldn't take much to get these working with MultiMiner 

[Rotorgeek]

Sorry if this is not the correct place for this, but I think I have my 2nd failed R-Box. I bought 6 a few weeks ago and had a lot of trouble getting them set up. I tried BFGMiner, CGMiner and now I'm running the R-Box software on a R-Pi. I was only able to get them stable after a lot of troubleshooting and taking one offline about a week ago. The remaining 5 were running fine until tonight when another one seems to be giving me the same issues.

If someone from R-Box can PM me and give me some help fixing or replacing these.

you can get software on that web:
http://forum.rockminer.com/

I'll try this to cover all the bases, but I think I have some bad miners.
Edit: After looking at the suggested page, that is what I am using.

[Billbags]

Rocket Boxes been mining for 24 hrs now. I'm having same ghs/watts as setup video. Seems real stable with pi image. I'm gonna replace fans tonight because of noise level. I'll post once I find a quite fan solution. By the way these fans suck air through miner, they do not push.

[Aureum_Coffee]

Original plan was to get RX box and joint the ROI 60 project.  When I found out there would be no RX box and would be getting many more RK box instead, I PMed Rockxie on the forum for refund.

Rockminer Alex gave me the full refund within a day.  Good customer service.   Thumbs up. 

[Billbags]

I'm getting an extremely large number of duplicate shares with one of my Rocket Boxes on the Rockminer pi image. About 19%. I remember Avalon 1's and Knc had this problem until firmware updates. If anyone is using cgminer on a computer with the Rocket Box could let me know what your duplicates look like.

Edit: Dont get me wrong, these Rocket Boxes are hashing great. Just a high number of duplicate shares on one that in the end doesn't really effect your earnings, just that miner has to work harder.

[klondike_bar]

Rocket Boxes been mining for 24 hrs now. I'm having same ghs/watts as setup video. Seems real stable with pi image. I'm gonna replace fans tonight because of noise level. I'll post once I find a quite fan solution. By the way these fans suck air through miner, they do not push.

absolutely this.  PWM feature clearly not present as fans run at 100% all the time. i also ex;pected a push configuration, and as such set up in the wrong direction

a lot of work is needed - PWM working, better stats, used/pass for the RPi, and a LOT less aluminum.

[Trends]

what size is the SD card you loaded (or was supplied). I can't seem to load the image onto a 8GB (not enough sectors)?

Trends

[bobsag3]

what size is the SD card you loaded (or was supplied). I can't seem to load the image onto a 8GB (not enough sectors)?

Trends

using Class 10 8GB sandisk cards. Some 8GB cards come labeled at 8GB but are more like 7.8GB, hence the sector issue.

[Trends]

Thanks, back to the store! and I thought Kingston was a good brand.

Trends

[jjdub7]

First of all you should publish more pictures and a video with it hashing.
Second, what makes you think that "Actually, the price of S3 is not cheaper than our R3"?
The S3 costs 0.74 BTC, it includes everything needed to operate and looks like a finished product
with great build quality.
On the other hand R3 looks like something a noob would create if you provide him the boards and the heatsinks.
It doesn't look like a finished product, manufactured by a professional, it doesn't include the Raspberry Pi and it costs 0.99BTC

It will be interesting to see what happens here with the price given that the Antminer S3 is .74 btc.
Plus it does not require a rpi.

Actually, the price of S3 is not cheaper than our R3,but the power consumption is really good.

R3-BOX,will ship out on 5th July:

These critcisms emphasize why I think Rockminer should go for a much simpler product. 

If it doesn't look like a storebought product, it won't sell as well.  So just put the PCB with chips attached to a heatsink in a pizza box like AM did and call it a day, shipping + manufacturing costs would be a fraction of what they are, plus it would be a lot less testing on your end. 

Can't agree more. I have a few suggestions

• Why spend time to produce 2 products with similar hash rates and price?
• Give more attention to releasing the right software. There is UX there as well.(before kano/ckolivas released cgminer 4.4.1/4.4.0 with RM support, it was tough to get rbox working on nix. Also give attention to kano's guidelines on miner design (queues, USB1.1 etc).
• Simplify Simplify Simplify hardware! Like said above, sell boards if needed
• More product info & photos on the website.
• Responsive staff - but I wont push as long as you have a rocking product & have enough time to expand
• Stick to shipping schedule
• Last, not least: Downplay rbox LED blinking (like the gridseeds). Too bright blue light at night. Some of us mine from home too :-) (But absolutely love the silent fans)
  

Hope this of some help.

Idk, I just set up the rbox in the living room...that flashing blue LED gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling at night

[mstrongbow]

First of all you should publish more pictures and a video with it hashing.
Second, what makes you think that "Actually, the price of S3 is not cheaper than our R3"?
The S3 costs 0.74 BTC, it includes everything needed to operate and looks like a finished product
with great build quality.
On the other hand R3 looks like something a noob would create if you provide him the boards and the heatsinks.
It doesn't look like a finished product, manufactured by a professional, it doesn't include the Raspberry Pi and it costs 0.99BTC

It will be interesting to see what happens here with the price given that the Antminer S3 is .74 btc.
Plus it does not require a rpi.

Actually, the price of S3 is not cheaper than our R3,but the power consumption is really good.

R3-BOX,will ship out on 5th July:

These critcisms emphasize why I think Rockminer should go for a much simpler product. 

If it doesn't look like a storebought product, it won't sell as well.  So just put the PCB with chips attached to a heatsink in a pizza box like AM did and call it a day, shipping + manufacturing costs would be a fraction of what they are, plus it would be a lot less testing on your end. 

Can't agree more. I have a few suggestions

• Why spend time to produce 2 products with similar hash rates and price?
• Give more attention to releasing the right software. There is UX there as well.(before kano/ckolivas released cgminer 4.4.1/4.4.0 with RM support, it was tough to get rbox working on nix. Also give attention to kano's guidelines on miner design (queues, USB1.1 etc).
• Simplify Simplify Simplify hardware! Like said above, sell boards if needed
• More product info & photos on the website.
• Responsive staff - but I wont push as long as you have a rocking product & have enough time to expand
• Stick to shipping schedule
• Last, not least: Downplay rbox LED blinking (like the gridseeds). Too bright blue light at night. Some of us mine from home too :-) (But absolutely love the silent fans)
  

Hope this of some help.

Idk, I just set up the rbox in the living room...that flashing blue LED gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling at night

Leave the LEDS! They are excellent for being able to glance at my miners and know they are working...without the flashing blue LED I would need to physically check my PC just to see if they are working properly.

[rockxie]

Update:

Thank you for addressing all of your concerns here.  & Thank you So Much for waiting, Let me answer these one by one!!

#1: Reference to Raspberry Pi
This will depend on who you purchased the Rocket Box or R-Box from.  If you happened to purchased our products via bulk discount such as the resellers, they were given options to purchase the miner with or without Raspberry Pi.

When you purchase Rocket Miner products from our website at http://www.shop.rockminer.com  you will receive 1 Rasberry Pi per every 2 Rocket Box Miner purchased and 1 Rasberry Pi per every 10 R-Box you purchased.
If you purchased 1 Rocket Miner on one check out process, then placed another order for the 2nd Rocket Box for 1 item, you will not qualify for the free Raspberry pie. (2 Rocket Box or 10 R-Box have to be purchased at a time)
When you purchase Rocket Box from any retail outlet other than http://www.shop.rockminer.com , the product could be the same Rocket Miner or R-Box, however, the sales terms may not be the same as our online store.  (We noticed some resellers are selling Rocket Box on their webs, but Raspberry Pi and the Pi is an extra accessory to the miner for extra charge.  As a customer, please do diligence before you purchase our product outside our website at http://www.shop.rockminer.com )

#2: Raspberry Pi Image download source 
Local Chinese Access: http://pan.baidu.com/s/11tnJ4#dir/
International Access: http://sourceforge.net/projects/rockminer/files/RaspberryPi_Rockminer_Rocket_V1.2.1_192.168.1.254.zip/download
Software Tool to copy the image to your SD Card:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/rockminer/files/win32diskimager-v0.9-binary.zip/download
We noticed the connection speed performance for the international customers.  Now we uploaded the images to more reliable and resourceful services to cater customers worldwide. For International customers, please use the SourceForge download link or download link from our website.  We also posted the Rpi image download URL at the #1 post in this thread as well.

#3:Cgminer/Drivers/USB/Hardware Design/Performance Improvement Suggestions
We do read each message and all suggestion from the members here.  We are reviewing each item carefully and we are constantly working on better cgminer and driver performance.  Hardware designs is another thing we are constantly working on, too.  It’s not just how pretty it will look, but cost performance, possible delays associated with the pretty case design, packaging restrictions, physical damage control factor and etc…  At the moment, we have the working miners that can hash at almost 500GH/S, so we decided to release them to the market so that customers can enjoy the hashing power now.  We are still making our miners better and better.  Please stay tuned and you’ll see more news coming from us.  When it is ready, we will announce more updated versions for you. 

#4: "sandwich" the PCB between two heatsinks
This is something we decided to do to enhance the chip cooling.  The colder the chips are, better hashing speed it would achieve.  Yes, if we use less materials, less cost, however, the cost performance to produce the miner is not the only thing we consider when we designed our product.  Our ultimate goal is to produce a high performance miner.  If you have some better realistic suggestions, please let us know!!  We are here to listen!!!

#5: Can I run Rocket Box or R-Box on Windows Computer or Linux Based Computer?
Yes!  You just need to run the cgminer.  Raspberry Pi is an optional item and you can mine Bitcoin with the Rocket Box or R-Box without using the Raspberry Pi.  You can just run cgminer on your computer, and the computer will detect the same way on windows as they would on linux.  All four (4) "blades" plug into the included 4-port USB hub and then back to the Raspberry Pi, so you can plug that hub into your PC and see the blades that way, or you can plug in one blade at a time, they work independently.
We will try to make the guide as soon as we can

#6: LED LED LED
We will look into the LED but more people love them than not.  We can’t keep everyone happy at the same time. 

#7:  Shipping Date
Again, if you purchased the products from our website store at http://www.shop.rockminer.com, the estimated shipping date is usually right on or within +- a few days.  The bulk purchase batches may had the different shipping date or projections based on when they placed the order and what price range they selected.  When you purchase miners from other businesses, please contact them for any shipping issues. (As you can see, some customers who purchased from our web store http://www.shop.rockminer.com) confirmed and posted comments online that they received miners without issues and all the promised accessories.  We can directly contact customers who placed orders on our website but we can’t contact others who purchased the miners from other outlet.  Bulk Buyers were advised of the shipping date and our upgrade effort to increase the total hashing speed higher than originally advertised. 

#8: Duplicated Share Questions….
This does not mean, you are losing the hash rate.  All it does is create more work processing for the pool.  Duplicate is well simply a duplicate.  Cgminer doesn’t even bother  tracking them in detail.  The miner is transmitting the same work item, however, the valid work is the stat that affect hash rate.  Even though this does not affect the hash rate, we made the new control card to address this issue and other improvements were made to increase the hash rate.  When it is in production quality, we will let you know and it will start to ship out with the new miners.  (This is an improvements we are making and not the defects)

[dogie]

RE #5, its always a good idea to sandwich when you're not too bothered about density. The costs of the extra aluminium are almost inconsequential to the potential 2-5% hash rate gains over the lifetime of the product, which itself is extended. And while QFN packaging does exude most of its heat through the bottom, there is still a reasonable amount through the topside. Hence ASICMiner Blade gen 1 and 2s still required airflow over their topsides, and Antminer S1s benefitted by the addition of baby heat-sinks onto their topsides.

RE #6, you can always tape over them if you don't want them. When I put miners (heaters) in the bedroom I tape over my LEDs.

[Truman]

#1: Reference to Raspberry Pi
This will depend on who you purchased the Rocket Box or R-Box from.  If you happened to purchased our products via bulk discount such as the resellers, they were given options to purchase the miner with or without Raspberry Pi.

When you purchase Rocket Miner products from our website at http://www.shop.rockminer.com  you will receive 1 Rasberry Pi per every 2 Rocket Box Miner purchased and 1 Rasberry Pi per every 10 R-Box you purchased.
If you purchased 1 Rocket Miner on one check out process, then placed another order for the 2nd Rocket Box for 1 item, you will not qualify for the free Raspberry pie. (2 Rocket Box or 10 R-Box have to be purchased at a time)
When you purchase Rocket Box from any retail outlet other than http://www.shop.rockminer.com , the product could be the same Rocket Miner or R-Box, however, the sales terms may not be the same as our online store.  (We noticed some resellers are selling Rocket Box on their webs, but Raspberry Pi and the Pi is an extra accessory to the miner for extra charge.  As a customer, please do diligence before you purchase our product outside our website at http://www.shop.rockminer.com )

This is wrong.

My agent was Alex Lam and he gave me NO options. He also did NOT told me that there will be NO Raspberry Pi for resellers.
So i told him and i am waiting for my Rasperry Pi´s or a refund for that.