antminer S1 upgrade kits

[kbhamill]

Bitmain has done it's loyal customers a "favor" and released a DYI upgrade kit for the S1 units. According to the specs this will basically convert your old S1 to the equivalent of a S3+ (453 GH/s). Let the debate begin, "To upgrade or not to upgrade". I won't go through my thought process, believe me I've mulled it over. Price vs a new S3, potential snags associated with the conversion, the first release of the product etc, but I've decided to convert my S1s. There is a term central to economics, opportunity cost which taken into consideration makes the decision a little more complicated than chuck the S1s. I digress. My question, for the more technically inclined, how can the old boards and chips be put back to work? There has got to be a way to daisy chain them, use cgminer with a raspberry pie, and continue mining with them. Any ideas?
By the way, what is the dope on Bitmain's L1?
Thanks for any help, and keep it simple, pictures and line charts are good. 

[kabopar]

Depending on your electricity cost, the S1 may no longer be profitable.  Even if it was possible to re-use the original hashing boards, either already or soon the cost of consumed electricity will be greater than the expected BTC return.  One way to extend the S1 life-span would be to under-volt and under-clock them, but the hash rate would drop.  The other way is to upgrade them to S3.  Economically you could simply sell the S1 and buy a new S3+, but then you'd miss out on the 'tinkering' aspect...  I kept a pair of S1's that are waiting for the upgrade.

Cheers

[kbhamill]

I understand what your saying, and I've got 6 upgrade kits on the way as soon as they ship. But there has got to be a cost effective way to utilize the old boards. I live in a city that has some of the lowest cost per Kw/h in the US. I follow, the premise of under clocking them, but that's like telling me I have to rebuild the engine in my truck.  I'm gonna need a little more specific information. I'm not an idiot, I build my own PCs, but I don't know where to start on this project. There is a way, I see people offering to do the upgrades for free as long as they can keep the boards, so they have a intrinsic value, and can be put back in service in a cost effective manner. I imagine as more and more of them start to pile up in peoples workshops, the procedure will become less vague.   

[aurel57]

To me the "upgrade" kits are not worth it.

 If the miner will mine at a profit seeing you have cheap electric then that is what I would do. I penciled modded and undervolted all 9 of my S1's and dropped the watts by 200 each but gave up @40 GH/s each. My electric cost is .125KW so they now cost me @ .51 a day each to run but make @ 1.25 a day. And if the price of BTC goes back up I can clock them back up and may even do it once winter hits and I can use the heat for the house.

[kbhamill]

To me the "upgrade" kits are not worth it.

 If the miner will mine at a profit seeing you have cheap electric then that is what I would do. I penciled modded and undervolted all 9 of my S1's and dropped the watts by 200 each but gave up @40 GH/s each. My electric cost is .125KW so they now cost me @ .51 a day each to run but make @ 1.25 a day. And if the price of BTC goes back up I can clock them back up and may even do it once winter hits and I can use the heat for the house.

Brilliant! We can agree to disagree on the upgrade kits. The problem I'm left with is I'm going to have a LOT of old S1 boards without the cases. I need a schematic or diagram, to illustrate a method of powering, programing and getting them to produce. Your point on heating the house once winter gets here is well taken. While the electricity is cheap, natural gas cost is outrageous. My utility bill normally doubles during the winter months. I've already got some long Cat5 cables, and plan to strategically place my miners throughout the house to provide heat. Again, whats to do with the boards? There has got to be a way to power them up and have them mine.

[aurel57]

To me the "upgrade" kits are not worth it.

 If the miner will mine at a profit seeing you have cheap electric then that is what I would do. I penciled modded and undervolted all 9 of my S1's and dropped the watts by 200 each but gave up @40 GH/s each. My electric cost is .125KW so they now cost me @ .51 a day each to run but make @ 1.25 a day. And if the price of BTC goes back up I can clock them back up and may even do it once winter hits and I can use the heat for the house.

Brilliant! We can agree to disagree on the upgrade kits. The problem I'm left with is I'm going to have a LOT of old S1 boards without the cases. I need a schematic or diagram, to illustrate a method of powering, programing and getting them to produce. Your point on heating the house once winter gets here is well taken. While the electricity is cheap, natural gas cost is outrageous. My utility bill normally doubles during the winter months. I've already got some long Cat5 cables, and plan to strategically place my miners throughout the house to provide heat. Again, whats to do with the boards? There has got to be a way to power them up and have them mine.

I do agree that there must be a way weather you can use one control board to run more than two blades or if you can get a lot of them to run using a computer to run multiple boards much like BFL did with the singles or even how the USB miners are ran? It's all way out of my league for sure but the ones that will get free boards will find a way but unless they have free power they will need to undervolt them either way it seems.

[DMeeks]

Buying new one is more worth it then buying the kit, you just pay 0.12 extra bitcoin for it..

[faetos]

The case also greatly dampens the noise from both fans on the S3. Just buy an S3.

[kbhamill]

Buying new one is more worth it then buying the kit, you just pay 0.12 extra bitcoin for it..

Then what? You've got s1 units that may or may not pay for the electricity they use even overclocked. Or you can pass them off to a noob on eBay, that's an ethical question. Or you maximize the equipment you've already paid for, basically converting a s1 to a s3+ while not having to pay for anymore PSUs. That's the logical choice. Again, Opportunity Cost, it's a term in economics. In a nutshell it's the cost you pay for making a decision, as opposed to the cost of the other choice. Look it up. I have looked at it ad nausea um, and from a p/l point of view, the upgrade makes since.

PS Noise isn't an issue, and you've still got the old boards. Mark my words, some clever soul will come up with a way to run those things profitably, that was the point of the thread, the upgrade debate is over, at least for me.

[Soros Shorts]

So you've already made the economic decision to upgrade and toss the old boards, and now you want to put them back to work with some kind of home brewed controller? Yet earlier on you claimed that you don't know how to underclock/undervolt the S1 (a far simpler task). I just want to make sure I understand.

[toptek]

have to agree why would anyone want to put the  old ones back up and run in i bought three S1 really cheap so i could upgrade them and thrash the rest .


from what i read it may have a case if not i have some custom cases i use now that will work just fine.



my fix for the Noise



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KIDN0GU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1




 that should work on the S3 upgradel or just  cut your own or have them cut .

[kbhamill]

So you've already made the economic decision to upgrade and toss the old boards, and now you want to put them back to work with some kind of home brewed controller? Yet earlier on you claimed that you don't know how to underclock/undervolt the S1 (a far simpler task). I just want to make sure I understand.

I didn't say anything about tossing them, on the contrary, someone more clever than me will figure a way to underclock them with cgminer loaded on a raspberry pi and I will have maximized the resources on hand. Understand? It's likely to look like a steaming pile, but if the boards you are ready to toss can be made viable why not? Of course there are a lot of miners that like everything in nice neat rows, ready to be photographed, suitable for framing, me...I'm in it for the coin. As soon as I come up with the solution I'll let you know, unless you want to toss those boards my way.

[7queue]

have to agree why would anyone want to put the  old ones back up and run in i bought three S1 really cheap so i could upgrade them and thrash the rest .


from what i read it may have a case if not i have some custom cases i use now that will work just fine.



my fix for the Noise



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KIDN0GU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1




 that should work on the S3 upgradel or just  cut your own or have them cut .

Nothing a piece of cardboard and duct tape won't do...


From reading the description of the upgrade kit, the heat-sinks from the S1 blades get transferred to the new S3 blades.

I've been tinkering with some S1 blades and the pencil mod to see how low voltage and clock rate effects the chips, PITA yet easier than trying to replace those tiny resistors!

I have them solo mining with a local instance of bitcoin after learning the ropes of rolling OpenWrt and cross compiling, that was uber fun!!


I plan on adding some precision pots that allow adjustments on the fly to see what happens, have them at ~0.75V with the pencil mod, chips fault at that low a voltage.


There is a thread about chaining more than two S1/S3 blades, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=671128.0



Shouldn't there be a Hacker/Maker child board under Hardware here for consolidating this type of information rather than having this hard to find information scattered throughout numerous threads...just a thought.

 

8 )

[toptek]

have to agree why would anyone want to put the  old ones back up and run in i bought three S1 really cheap so i could upgrade them and thrash the rest .


from what i read it may have a case if not i have some custom cases i use now that will work just fine.



my fix for the Noise



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KIDN0GU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1




 that should work on the S3 upgradel or just  cut your own or have them cut .

Nothing a piece of cardboard and duct tape won't do...


From reading the description of the upgrade kit, the heat-sinks from the S1 blades get transferred to the new S3 blades.

I've been tinkering with some S1 blades and the pencil mod to see how low voltage and clock rate effects the chips, PITA yet easier than trying to replace those tiny resistors!

I have them solo mining with a local instance of bitcoin after learning the ropes of rolling OpenWrt and cross compiling, that was uber fun!!


I plan on adding some precision pots that allow adjustments on the fly to see what happens, have them at ~0.75V with the pencil mod, chips fault at that low a voltage.


There is a thread about chaining more than two S1/S3 blades, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=671128.0



Shouldn't there be a Hacker/Maker child board under Hardware here for consolidating this type of information rather than having this hard to find information scattered throughout numerous threads...just a thought.

 

8 )

That is temping have heat sinks custom made etc keep them run until they are really useless its so temping and the fun . The more i think about it i may just for the fun .  so I'm  gonna watch that thread.