Block Erupter Prisma (>=1.4 T/device, 0.75-0.78 W/G, <1 BTC/T, October Shipping)

[gallery2000]

dude, i can't belive you have so much activity and still know nothing.it's either you play dumb or ?are you that dumb ?it's not just 14 BTC, you have to add import tax, psu costs,maintanance, cables, everything else !
with all this money you can buy  23 btc from start !

I think you're the one playing dumb.

Why would you automatically assume everyone needs to pay ridiculous import tax even though the majority of people mining don't?

Also not everyone is forced to buy the most expensive ATX psus possible.

You can probably power two miners with one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-24R2711-BladeCenter-2000W-Power-Supply-DPS-2000BB-24R2710-/311083483747?pt=US_Server_Power_Supplies&hash=item486e054263

ok, please clarify who is playing dumb and who is dumb and not playing?

[jimmothy]

dude, i can't belive you have so much activity and still know nothing.it's either you play dumb or ?are you that dumb ?it's not just 14 BTC, you have to add import tax, psu costs,maintanance, cables, everything else !
with all this money you can buy  23 btc from start !

I think you're the one playing dumb.

Why would you automatically assume everyone needs to pay ridiculous import tax even though the majority of people mining don't?

Also not everyone is forced to buy the most expensive ATX psus possible.

You can probably power two miners with one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-24R2711-BladeCenter-2000W-Power-Supply-DPS-2000BB-24R2710-/311083483747?pt=US_Server_Power_Supplies&hash=item486e054263

ok, please clarify who is playing dumb and who is dumb and not playing?

Does it need clarifying?

I'll try to simplify it even further if that's possible:

Assuming EVERYONE needs to pay crippling import taxes = dumb

Assuming EVERYONE needs to buy a $200/kw ATX psu instead of a server PSU = dumb

Assuming you are a prophet and can predict the future difficulty growth = dumb

Assuming difficulty will increase 15% constantly even though the average is ~13% and slowing = dumb

[ManeBjorn]

Still waiting to see on that as well.
The GPIO is used with the BTCGardens for the Pi and most likely is the way we will go with the Pi controller or a possible USB adapter once we get more info from FriedCat.
Juan at 112bit is serious about the Pi controller as is Novak. 

Excuse me if this has already been explained, but how does a Pi control this one?  My understanding is you can use the same Ethernet controller as the Tube on the Prisma, so how does a Pi interface with the Prisma (and take the place of the Ethernet controller)? Do you go GPIO on the Pi to the 3 pins on the Prisma?  Is there a different interface on the Prisma?

Also, if the same Ethernet controller works on both this and the Tube, has someone figured out how to use a Pi to control a Tube?  Using cgminer on a Tube would be pretty cool...

[jjdub7]

dude, i can't belive you have so much activity and still know nothing.it's either you play dumb or ?are you that dumb ?it's not just 14 BTC, you have to add import tax, psu costs,maintanance, cables, everything else !
with all this money you can buy  23 btc from start !

I think you're the one playing dumb.

ok, please clarify who is playing dumb and who is dumb and not playing?

...

Assuming you are a prophet and can predict the future difficulty growth = dumb

Reading prediction markets like BDD and forecasting the difficulty growth = not dumb

You might not be able to predict it, but its odds can be priced.

[jimmothy]

...

Assuming you are a prophet and can predict the future difficulty growth = dumb

Reading prediction markets like BDD and forecasting the difficulty growth = not dumb

You might not be able to predict it, but its odds can be priced.

BDD is basically proof that people cannot predict the future difficulty. If they could then I'd think the price of b.sell/b.mine would steadily decline according to the divs instead of jumping all over the place especially during abnormally large/small difficulty increases. There is a huge amount of money to be made from people being wrong all the time.

It's currently priced for ~10% avg difficulty increases which even I find a bit optimistic.

[area3121]

yes, no one can predict difficulty change in even btc price price go up and down

[yslyung]

what's the latest pricing ?

[xhomerx10]

dude, i can't belive you have so much activity and still know nothing.it's either you play dumb or ?are you that dumb ?it's not just 14 BTC, you have to add import tax, psu costs,maintanance, cables, everything else !
with all this money you can buy  23 btc from start !

I think you're the one playing dumb.

Why would you automatically assume everyone needs to pay ridiculous import tax even though the majority of people mining don't?

Also not everyone is forced to buy the most expensive ATX psus possible.

You can probably power two miners with one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-24R2711-BladeCenter-2000W-Power-Supply-DPS-2000BB-24R2710-/311083483747?pt=US_Server_Power_Supplies&hash=item486e054263

ok, please clarify who is playing dumb and who is dumb and not playing?

Does it need clarifying?

I'll try to simplify it even further if that's possible:

Assuming EVERYONE needs to pay crippling import taxes = dumb

Assuming EVERYONE needs to buy a $200/kw ATX psu instead of a server PSU = dumb

Assuming you are a prophet and can predict the future difficulty growth = dumb

Assuming difficulty will increase 15% constantly even though the average is ~13% and slowing = dumb

 I would agree on most of your points except I wouldn't use the adjective "dumb".  Most people are going to look at it from their own point of view.  Maybe we could state that our opinions pertain to our present location rather than making generalizations.  The majority of would-be miners don't have the knowledge to use server power supplies and break-out boards and import duties, taxes and electricity costs are regional.
 I would argue your final point however.  Friedcat has essentially declared economic war and intends to unleash cheap and numerous miners onto the market to pare down the competition.  I don't think 15% or more sustained diff increase is unreasonable.  The summer was an anomaly it should be discarded from your diff estimations (IMHO).

[Master One]

I haven't followed all that Tube / Prisma hype, so hopefully someone can explain please:

• What exactly are those ethernet controllers?
• How are hashing units connected to an ethernet controller or Raspberry PI?
• If ordering 10 full devices it's 40 hashing units requiring two ethernet controllers or two Raspberry PIs?
• So each set of 10 full devices comes with 3 ethernet controllers included, which can be deducted when intending to run on Raspberry PIs instead?
• What exactly is necessary for using cgminer on Raspberry PI (hard- & software)?

Now with the S4 out of reach due to Bitmaintech's unreasonable pricing that pretty much leaves SP-T and AM, but I'm not quite convinced yet.

P.S. Yes I know about the two GBs, but I'm from Europe and those GBs are for people in the US only.

[novak@gekkoscience]

I haven't followed all that Tube / Prisma hype, so hopefully someone can explain please:

• What exactly are those ethernet controllers?
• How are hashing units connected to an ethernet controller or Raspberry PI?
• If ordering 10 full devices it's 40 hashing units requiring two ethernet controllers or two Raspberry PIs?
• So each set of 10 full devices comes with 3 ethernet controllers included, which can be deducted when intending to run on Raspberry PIs instead?
• What exactly is necessary for using cgminer on Raspberry PI (hard- & software)?

Now with the S4 out of reach due to Bitmaintech's unreasonable pricing that pretty much leaves SP-T and AM, but I'm not quite convinced yet.

P.S. Yes I know about the two GBs, but I'm from Europe and those GBs are for people in the US only.

Everyone is waiting on friedcat to explain what's going on with the controllers.

• The ethernet controllers are stand alone controllers with an ethernet connection which can run up to 8 units/32 boards.  The ethernet controllers are very buggy and only work with a couple pools (or using a proxy) and do not support failover.  Friedcat recently said they were working on fixing the controllers but it is not yet done.
• They connect to the ethernet controller via UART, and they come with the needed cable. They connect to the Pi using a USB->UART adapter: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=795477.msg8967499#msg8967499 I do not know anything about buying adapters.
• Yes.
• Not sure what the sentence means, exactly.
• That should be a raspberry pi and cgminer, respectively.  There might be a custom cgminer version, I haven't found the driver yet so it's likely not yet released.  I suppose you'll also need the adapter and a way to power the Pi.

[Blazed]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=795477.msg8967499#msg8967499

That is what CrazyGuy has posted up for the Pi solution. Really no need to fix those controllers if we can use a Pi!!

[LastRoby]

News?

[TheJuice]

Great to see FC still pumping out new devices.

In the end you are really betting against difficulty. With the tubes it was a ~7% diff rise for ROI. I haven't calculated it with the prisma, but again it'll be around that level.

With btc not rising/declining recently, I think we may see a much slower rate of rise (even look over the past few months).

I may bite depending on final price.

[xstr8guy]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=795477.msg8967499#msg8967499

That is what CrazyGuy has posted up for the Pi solution. Really no need to fix those controllers if we can use a Pi!!

Except that rPi's are completely unreliable and probably too underpowered to handle the workload.

[jimmothy]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=795477.msg8967499#msg8967499

That is what CrazyGuy has posted up for the Pi solution. Really no need to fix those controllers if we can use a Pi!!

Except that rPi's are completely unreliable and probably too underpowered to handle the workload.

Source?

My btcgarden miner ran flawlessly for over a month with zero downtime.

[novak@gekkoscience]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=795477.msg8967499#msg8967499

That is what CrazyGuy has posted up for the Pi solution. Really no need to fix those controllers if we can use a Pi!!

Except that rPi's are completely unreliable and probably too underpowered to handle the workload.

You're just wrong.  The Pi is much more powerful than the Ethernet controllers.  The ethernet controllers have an 80MHz CPU and 128 kb RAM, compared to 700MHz and 512 MB Ram for the Pi.  Granted, the Ethernet controllers have less overhead because they don't run linux but that's at least partially because it's essentially impossible with that little memory.

--
novak

[Master One]

Really no need to fix those controllers if we can use a Pi!!

So it's either buggy ethernet controller with uncertain fix or Raspberry PI with uncertain capability (possibly unreliable and/or underpowered) in an uncertain setup.

Raspberry PI + cgminer is not enough, you need an OS running on the PI, as well as an own power supply and the shown UART->USB adapter, and without custom OS image with proper implementation you are bound to command-line to operate cgminer manually, instead of having a nice web-GUI like on all the other miners around.

AM should have gone the right way offering a proper control unit with proper web-GUI, everything else is sub-standard nowadays.

[jimmothy]

Raspberry PI + cgminer is not enough, you need an OS running on the PI, as well as an own power supply and the shown UART->USB adapter, and without custom OS image with proper implementation you are bound to command-line to operate cgminer manually, instead of having a nice web-GUI like on all the other miners around.

RPi can have a web UI.

Source: btcgarden

[Master One]

RPi can have a web UI. Source: btcgarden

Yes, but is there a ready to use solution for the AM Prisma?

"Can have" is relative, of course you can do whatever you want with a PI when running a Linux distribution, if you have the time, resources and knowledge to setup your own custom OS for the desired solution, but that's not really "ready-to-go".

[novak@gekkoscience]

Really no need to fix those controllers if we can use a Pi!!

So it's either buggy ethernet controller with uncertain fix or Raspberry PI with uncertain capability (possibly unreliable and/or underpowered) in an uncertain setup.

If there's a problem with the Pi it's going to be the driver.  There's no trouble running cgminer on a Pi and the BE200 ethernet controller is much weaker than a Pi.  As in, 1/4000th of the RAM space.

--
novak