High Efficiency FPGA & ASIC Bitcoin Mining Devices https://BTCFPGA.com

[cablepair]

Notice To Customers 06/26/2012

First off I appreciate all of your kindness and patience, you gentlemen have been incredibly understanding as we try to work out these issues

I am sorry I have not been able to field many emails over the last couple of days, I had some family business to deal with out of town, I am currently up in the Adirondack mountains staying with family and there is no stable internet access and I need to go to the library for public wifi just to get online, but I will try to get online at least every other day to deal with customer issues until I return home on 07/01 - at that time my regular every day business / customer service activities will resume as usual.

Many of you have not received your orders, or have received incomplete orders.  Many of you who have received ModMiner Quads but they are not operating the way they are supposed to. Many of you have asked questions and need more information hopefully this notice gives you the information you need, if not please feel free to email me at tom@btcfpga.com with any more specific questions / information

TECHNICAL ISSUES:
Several people have reported that only 3 out of 4 of the cards are working, Luke-JR has done some testing and discovered there is a problem with the MCU that may be fixed with a firmware update. This will allow all ModMiner Quads that you currently have and ModMiner Quads we will ship in the future to operate at the full capacity of 840 mhash as promised and work with CGMINER as promised.

I have hired Luke-JR as a private contractor to develop open source firmware for the ModMiner Quad to fix this issue. This is something he is currently working on and we hope to have good news some time this week.


REFUNDS / REPLACEMENTS:

For ANY current customer that has a ModMiner Quad and is not able to get it working to full capacity with the above mentioned firmware update we will ship replacement ModMiner Quad back planes to you free of charge.

For customers who are still waiting for their shipments please accept my apologies. Stcupp stopped production of the units due to this discovered bug and it has been suspended until the bug has been fixed.

There is a very small amount of customers that received a tracking number via email (From me) but the tracking never updated because the unit was not shipped. This is because of production slowing down / stopping in between me releasing your order from NY to ship from the production site in WV.

For those customers (who received tracking numbers but the shipments never actually went out) I will give you a 9% refund immediately if you have not already received it. I will also offer a complete refund and cancellation of the orders for these customers who request it.

For customers who are in their fifth week since they placed their order and have not already received their 9% refund please email me at tom@btcfpga.com and include a Bitcoin address. I will get the refund to you immediately.

TECHNICAL SUPPORT:
Please feel free to post technical questions about the ModMiner Quad here in this thread. Stcupp will answer them when he is available and also Luke-JR is being paid an hourly wage as a sub-contractor and I will be happy to pay him to answer any technical questions that are posted.

PRODUCTION:
As I have mentioned before we are moving production to a professional manufacturing facility, this is ready to begin as soon as this MCU bug is fixed. As soon as this bug is fixed we will begin mass production and customers will enjoy very fast shipment and small lead times.

Thank you for bearing with us through this ordeal, I am sorry these problems happened however please know - we are doing everything we can to correct them and get your ModMiner Quads shipped and working at full capacity.

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[Luke-Jr]

TECHNICAL ISSUES:
Several people have reported that only 3 out of 4 of the cards are working, Luke-JR has done some testing and discovered there is a problem with the MCU that may be fixed with a firmware update.

Just to clarify, I cannot rule out a hardware issue with the backplane yet - hence cablepair's offer of replacement backplanes in case a MCU update can't solve it.

[wildemagic]

I cannot rule out a hardware issue with the backplane yet - hence cablepair's offer of replacement backplanes in case a MCU update can't solve it.

How fortunate that stcupp was innovative enough to design the modminer in a modular way.
The least expensive part of the hardware can easily be swapped out. Cudos for the for-though.

kind regards

[dropt]

I cannot rule out a hardware issue with the backplane yet - hence cablepair's offer of replacement backplanes in case a MCU update can't solve it.

How fortunate that stcupp was innovative enough to design the modminer in a modular way.
The least expensive part of the hardware can easily be swapped out. Cudos for the for-though.

kind regards

FTFY

[wildemagic]

Fixed what? <grins>

[dropt]

Fixed what? <grins>

Oh you! 

[filharvey]

Any updates on fixes and when new boards are due out?

Phil

[Luke-Jr]

Quick update from me... today I completed getting a basic firmware running complete with LED flashing and (very simple) command line interface. I also began writing the JTAG driver to talk to the FPGA(s): you can see my current draft of this here. The good news (or at least, interesting to me) is that this is looking like it might even be possible to chain multiple FPGAs (or even other devices) on each socket in the future, but I suppose that depends a lot on what hardware cablepair plans.

Also wanted to drop a note of thanks to TheSeven for helping me reverse engineer some of the pinouts last week. Anyone interested in keeping up with the latest on this free firmware in real time is welcome to join us on Freenode's #BTCFPGA channel.

[eldentyrell]

Which pin are you using for a clock input?

the main clock for the FPGA?

yes.

[eldentyrell]

It also looks like you're going to be forced to use some bloaty Java mining software provided by him if you want to use his bitstream

Completely incorrect FUD.

[eldentyrell]

How long until that new bitstream to take the boards to over 1GH/s@50W be ready?

That depends on E.T. and how soon he makes the bitstream available

I'm still waiting for your reply.

[Luke-Jr]

It also looks like you're going to be forced to use some bloaty Java mining software provided by him if you want to use his bitstream

Completely incorrect FUD.

Hey, don't quote out of context! If it's incorrect, how about answering his reasoning too?

as he didn't release sufficient information to allow this to be ported to cgminer or MPBM.

[eldentyrell]

It also looks like you're going to be forced to use some bloaty Java mining software provided by him if you want to use his bitstream

Completely incorrect FUD.

Hey, don't quote out of context! If it's incorrect, how about answering his reasoning too?

as he didn't release sufficient information to allow this to be ported to cgminer or MPBM.

The statement is simply incorrect, period.

The source code for all of the software is included in the jar file.  You can see every last line of code.  Everything you could possibly want to know is in there.

So, like I said, his statement is completely incorrect.

[nandika]

I request cancellation of one order

I requested a cancellation of my orders too.
No reply since 6/28. Guess they are working hard on correcting the problems. They are honest guys, so I'm not worried.

[Luke-Jr]

It also looks like you're going to be forced to use some bloaty Java mining software provided by him if you want to use his bitstream

Completely incorrect FUD.

Hey, don't quote out of context! If it's incorrect, how about answering his reasoning too?

as he didn't release sufficient information to allow this to be ported to cgminer or MPBM.

The statement is simply incorrect, period.

The source code for all of the software is included in the jar file.  You can see every last line of code.  Everything you could possibly want to know is in there.

So, like I said, his statement is completely incorrect.

So what GPL-compatible license is the relevant source code available under, and which file(s) are that "relevant source code"?

[eldentyrell]

and which file(s) are that "relevant source code"?

There is a lovely file called README with the answer to your question.

[cablepair]

I am back in town now and back to my full working schedule

My first priority today is to get caught up on emails, anyone that is waiting for an email response will get one today

I will also start processing refunds for those who are eligible and who requested them

I need to talk to Luke-JR and see where we are at with everything and I will give an update later today

I will also make myself available on IRC on Freenode Network today in #BTCFPGA for anyone that wants live support

Glad to be back, time to roll up my sleeves and get back to work. Do not worry I will get to everyone and their issues today.

Thanks!

[filharvey]

Thanks for the update. More in on the current state of cgminer would be nice, also when shipping will or possibly happen for child boards would be nice.

Phil

[cablepair]

IMPORTANT EDIT:

we are working on a new theory that involves the old firmware causing problems on the forth slot of the back plane, please do not plug anything into the fourth slot until you receive the new firmware, thank you.

End of Day Update

I have worked very hard all day to answer emails and take care of most issues going on now

I am going to call it a day and pick it back up in the morning but here is an update:

I have brought on board another very talented and brilliant consultant to help work out this problem

TheSeven and Luke-JR have been working on developing the new firmware and troubleshooting the hardware all day and they are making a lot of progress. The most current estimate on completion of the firmware is another 10-20 man hours - so give or take another day or two.

It is very likely that once this new firmware is loaded CGMINER will just start working for you.

As far as hardware production and shipment goes we are in a very good place

I have enough parts to fulfill all current orders and our new production facility is ready to go

for more information on where all future ModMiner Quads will be assembled you can visit this web page:

http://www.screamingcircuits.com/Home/About

TRICONE MINING COMPATIBILITY:

Thanks to Luke-JR we are incorporating the necessary protocol in the new firmware to make the MMQ compatible with the Tricone Mining Bitstream for those customers who wish to use it, and gain the speed increases that come with it.


I encourage all current customers who are interested in seeing the development of this project or if you just want to ask me a question in real time drop by #BTCFPGA on the Freenode IRC Network, we use this channel for development / team work to fix this bug

On another Note stcupp is no longer with BTCFPGA, his personal life became too demanding and he could not keep up with his end of the business so I bought him out and he will be shipping all the hardware he currently has directly to me, once I receive his hardware I will distribute back planes and Spartan-6 cards to those who need them. Those who ordered first will receive top priority and I will ship them all for free via USPS Priority Mail in a timely fashion

Fourth Slot Issue:

It seems to be the general consensus that ModMiner Quad users can only mine on the first three slots, this should be fixed with the firmware update that is coming in the next couple of days but if it discovered that there is some hardware issue with the fourth slot instead of making you wait to get the newly designed and fabricated back planes I will ship you a free back plane from the stock I am getting from stcupp - this way you can get all your Spartan-6 Cards up and mining at their full capacity a lot sooner.




Expect more updates in the morning, good night and thank you.

Tom

[nandika]

got a refund for my google checkout order. Thank you!

I'm still waiting for refund for my order paid with BTC (Order #35). I guess it'll arrive soon.

Really nice customer service.