[Review] Spondoolies SP20 + hi-res board pics + unofficial support

[goxed]

Disclaimer: I received a SP20 from Spondoolies tech for review. Thanks Guy! This review is being written after 3days of use. The unit has been functioning as per expectations (hash-rate = 1.4TGH/s, pulling 800Watts at wall via a 1KW 80Plus gold PSU)

(All copyrights to the following images have been released; these can be freely used by anyone for whatever purpose they deem fit)

Meet the SP20 Full-size Keyboard for scale  



The fan pulls cold air through this outlet over the heatsinks covering the Rockerbox ASIC chips.
There are 8chips inside this device.



Unboxing the SP20.
I like the eco-friendly padding material. It does the job extremely well and is bio-degradable



Network Connectivity is via a standard ethernet cable.

Power delivery is through 4X PCIE 6-pin power cables, the standard ones that power GPUs.







Size comparison with an Antminer S3. The fan pushes hot air out through this outlet.


Detailed Review

It will take an average user no longer than 10 minutes after unpacking to get start mining on the SP20.
The miner when first connected to the LAN, uses DHCP to acquire a local IP address. It also sends data back to spondoolies tech so that the miner's IP address can be identified by going to http://myminer.io


HTML web access to miner is via http://IPaddress of your miner

Code:

 Username admin
Password: admin

You can ssh to it as well

Code:

ssh root@<IPaddress of your miner>
password:root

The fan on this miner is very Loud (Loud is an understatement, esp. when compared to the whisper from the Antminer S3. The fan noise is similar to the noise from a small vacuum cleaner; similar to the noise heard in server rooms when the fans are running at full speed). The fan is loud at all settings from 20 to 80 fan speeds.
One can change the fan speed lower by ssh'ing into the miner and editing the config file.
 
IMO fan speed of 10 or lower has been tolerable for me in a home environment.

You can change the following file to lower the fan speed below 20.

Code:

vi /etc/mg_custom_mode

FAN:10 VS0:650 VS1:650 VS2:650 VS3:650 VMAX:700 AC0:288 AC1:288 AC2:288 AC3:288 DC_AMP:170


Here's a screenshot showing the hashing speed. Note the lower fan speed (10)



The voltage settings that I am using with the lower fan speeds



Inside the SP20


Removing the metal plate at the bottom. There are two holes cut-out for easy removal.


Hashing cards can slide out now


Controller board


ARM Cortex A8 CPU


Altera Cyclone iv FPGA


Power controller



Sliding out the board


Aluminum heatsink and copper plate.


The ASIC chip


Imprint of the die on the copper plate


Die and heatsink


Multi-phase switching regulator TPS40425


The power MOSFETs CSD95378BQ5MC


Back of the hashing board

[Guy Corem]

... The unit has been functioning as per expectations ...

Thank you for the review and nice photos.

[philipma1957]

Disclaimer: I received a SP20 from Spondoolies tech for review. Thanks Guy! This review is being written after 3days of use. The unit has been functioning as per expectations (hash-rate = 1.46GH/s at 800Watt at wall through a 1KW 80Plus gold PSU)

Meet the SP20 Full-size Keyboard for scale:)


Unboxing. I like the eco-friendly padding material. It does the job well and is bio-degradable






Network Connectivity is via a standard ethernet cable.
Power delivery is through 4X PCIE-6 pin power cables, the ones that power GPU.




Comparison with an Antminer S3.


Detailed Review

The miner when first connected to the LAN uses DHCP to acquire a local IP address. It also sends data back to spondoolies tech so that the miner's IP address can be identified by going to http://myminer.io
HTML web access to miner is via http://IPaddress of your miner

Code:

 Username admin
Password: admin

You can ssh to it as well

Code:

ssh root@<IPaddress of your miner>
password:root

The fan on this miner is very Loud at all settings from 20 to 80 fan speeds. One can change the fan speed lower by ssh'ing into the miner and editing the config file.
IMO fan speed of 5 or lower has been tolerable for me in a home environment.

could you give details on how to lower the fan to 5 via ssh method. TIA  phil

[goxed]

could you give details on how to lower the fan to 5 via ssh method. TIA  phil

you can change the following file to lower the fan speed below 20.

Code:

vi /etc/mg_custom_mode

FAN:10 VS0:650 VS1:650 VS2:650 VS3:650 VMAX:700 AC0:288 AC1:288 AC2:288 AC3:288 DC_AMP:170

[goxed]

... The unit has been functioning as per expectations ...

Thank you for the review and nice photos.

Thanks

[bobsag3]

The keyboard on top of the miner reminds me of the shoe-on head photos.

[Biodom]

Great review and fan hack is great as well  .
The settings shown may work only because input air temperature is 12C.
At 32C in my "mining" room, I have to go much higher in fan speed (50) at similar chips voltage, hence lower hashing (1360 Gh).

[philipma1957]

could you give details on how to lower the fan to 5 via ssh method. TIA  phil

you can change the following file to lower the fan speed below 20.

Code:

vi /etc/mg_custom_mode

FAN:10 VS0:650 VS1:650 VS2:650 VS3:650 VMAX:700 AC0:288 AC1:288 AC2:288 AC3:288 DC_AMP:170

I assume I could do  5 or 10 or 15 correct?

I got it to go to 15   now to see temps.   have a warm room but heavy duty under clock




here are temps:
will check in 1 hour.

[raskul]

could you give details on how to lower the fan to 5 via ssh method. TIA  phil

you can change the following file to lower the fan speed below 20.

Code:

vi /etc/mg_custom_mode

FAN:10 VS0:650 VS1:650 VS2:650 VS3:650 VMAX:700 AC0:288 AC1:288 AC2:288 AC3:288 DC_AMP:170

this is very interesting, i must have a play around tomorrow now that all those expensive rentals are finished paying me ludicrous rates to borrow it!

[huffdaddy5]

I found a way to change the fan speed to whatever you want. You can edit the html to change the fan speed drop down value with chrome or firefox by right clicking on the drop down and select "Inspect Element". The html of the page will appear on the right side of your screen and you can change the attribute and text value of "40" in the dropdown list and change it to whatever value you want. After you edit the html, just click the Save button on the page. I verified in ASIC stats page and I set my fan speed to 20. FYI, my settings page shows 40 still because that is the lowest option in the dropdown list, but it is running at 20.

Here is what the html looks like..

<select name="FAN" id="fan_speed_select">
<option value="40" selected="selected">40</option>
<option value="50">50</option>
<option value="60">60</option>
<option value="70">70</option>
<option value="80">80</option>
<option value="90">90</option>
<option value="100">100</option>
 </select>


for the option value that is "selected" in this case 40.. right click on the 40 for value and select "edit attribute" then change the text to 20. Right click on the text value >40<, and change that to 20. Click Save and restart your miner. Validate on the home page and in ASIC Settings


Uptime:699 | FPGA ver:100
-----BOARD-0-----
PSU[UNKNOWN]: 0->162w[162 162 162] (->162w[162 162 162]) (lim=175) 0c cooling:0/0x0
-----BOARD-1-----
PSU[UNKNOWN]: 0->174w[173 174 174] (->174w[173 174 174]) (lim=175) 0c cooling:0/0x0
-----BOARD-2-----
PSU[UNKNOWN]: 0->159w[159 159 159] (->159w[159 159 159]) (lim=175) 0c cooling:0/0x0
-----BOARD-3-----
PSU[UNKNOWN]: 0->165w[165 165 165] (->165w[165 165 165]) (lim=175) 0c cooling:0/0x0
LOOP[0] ON TO:0
 0: DC2DC/1/:[vlt1:662 vlt2:666(DCl:794 Tl:794 Ul:666) 63W  96A  44c] ASIC:[ 85c (125c) 780hz(BL: 780)   27 (E:193) F:0 L:0]
 1: DC2DC/1/:[vlt1:664 vlt2:666(DCl:794 Tl:794 Ul:666) 65W  99A  60c] ASIC:[ 85c (125c) 800hz(BL: 800)   27 (E:193) F:0 L:0]
LOOP[1] ON TO:0
 2: DC2DC/1/:[vlt1:662 vlt2:666(DCl:794 Tl:794 Ul:666) 71W 107A  70c] ASIC:[ 85c (125c) 855hz(BL: 855)   22 (E:193) F:0 L:0]
 3: DC2DC/1/:[vlt1:660 vlt2:666(DCl:794 Tl:794 Ul:666) 67W 101A  75c] ASIC:[ 85c (125c) 820hz(BL: 820)   15 (E:193) F:0 L:0]
LOOP[2] ON TO:0
 4: DC2DC/1/:[vlt1:664 vlt2:666(DCl:794 Tl:794 Ul:666) 64W  97A  43c] ASIC:[ 85c (125c) 785hz(BL: 785)   25 (E:193) F:0 L:0]
 5: DC2DC/1/:[vlt1:660 vlt2:666(DCl:794 Tl:794 Ul:666) 62W  94A  56c] ASIC:[ 85c (125c) 760hz(BL: 760)   18 (E:193) F:0 L:0]
LOOP[3] ON TO:0
 6: DC2DC/1/:[vlt1:664 vlt2:666(DCl:794 Tl:794 Ul:666) 67W 100A  62c] ASIC:[ 85c (125c) 800hz(BL: 800)   24 (E:193) F:0 L:0]
 7: DC2DC/1/:[vlt1:660 vlt2:666(DCl:794 Tl:794 Ul:666) 64W  97A  68c] ASIC:[ 85c (125c) 795hz(BL: 795)   23 (E:193) F:0 L:0]

[H:HW:1234Gh,W:528,L:0,A:8,MMtmp:0 TMP:(21)=>=>=>(60,56)]
Pushed 29 jobs , in HW queue 4 jobs (sw:2, hw:2)!
min:30 wins:181[this/last min:7/13] bist-fail:31, hw-err:0
leading-zeroes:42 idle promils[s/m]:0/0, rate:908gh/s asic-count:104 (wins:4+3)
Fan:20, conseq:200
AC2DC BAD: 0 0
R/NR: 683/0
RTF asics: 0
FET: 0:9 1:9
 0 restarted      0 reset          0 reset2         0 fake_wins
 0 stuck_bist     0 low_power      0 stuck_pll      0 runtime_dsble
 0 purge_queue    0 read_timeouts  0 dc2dc_i2c       0 read_tmout2    0 read_crptn
 0 purge_queue3   0 bad_idle
 0 err_murata
Adapter queues: rsp=3, req=19

[wh00per]

Network Connectivity is via a standard ethernet cable.



You can change the following file to lower the fan speed below 20.

Code:

vi /etc/mg_custom_mode

FAN:10 VS0:650 VS1:650 VS2:650 VS3:650 VMAX:700 AC0:288 AC1:288 AC2:288 AC3:288 DC_AMP:170

Two comments .. pink is NOT standard .. and the fan hack might void warranties if outside the allowed range .. >> see here <<

[wh00per]

I found a way to change the fan speed to whatever you want. You can edit the html ..

The changes to /var/WWW folder (where you edit the HTML) shouldn't be persistent after reboot.

[huffdaddy5]

I found a way to change the fan speed to whatever you want. You can edit the html ..

The changes to /var/WWW folder (where you edit the HTML) shouldn't be persistent after reboot.

I'm just essentially hacking the value of the dropdown value before submitting. It is persistent, because the ASIC stats I posted are after a reboot.

[wh00per]

I found a way to change the fan speed to whatever you want. You can edit the html ..

The changes to /var/WWW folder (where you edit the HTML) shouldn't be persistent after reboot.

I'm just essentially hacking the value of the dropdown value before submitting. It is persistent, because the ASIC stats I posted are after a reboot.

I was not speaking about the settings persistence .. but about your php/html chanages which "dissapear" after reboot. 

[goxed]

Has anyone tried reversing / inverting the fan?
 I tried it yesterday, and the temps are a bit lower than when the fan was facing the other way round. The intake side is outside my window, with the fan pulling in cold air and pushing hot air inside the house.

[raskul]

Has anyone tried reversing / inverting the fan?
 I tried it yesterday, and the temps are a bit lower than when the fan was facing the other way round. The intake side is outside my window, with the fan pulling in cold air and pushing hot air inside the house.

https://i.imgur.com/z445d3M.png

that's interesting, I pulled my (at-home) SP20 inside by a few inches due to the fact that the cabling could have been exposed to the elements (rain, snow etc) - inverting the fan would help me a lot, especially if your lower temps are persistent.

[philipma1957]

Has anyone tried reversing / inverting the fan?
 I tried it yesterday, and the temps are a bit lower than when the fan was facing the other way round. The intake side is outside my window, with the fan pulling in cold air and pushing hot air inside the house.

would be easy to pull in cold air that way.  let us know if it keeps working for you.

[goxed]

Has anyone tried reversing / inverting the fan?
 I tried it yesterday, and the temps are a bit lower than when the fan was facing the other way round. The intake side is outside my window, with the fan pulling in cold air and pushing hot air inside the house.

would be easy to pull in cold air that way.  let us know if it keeps working for you.

Three days with the fan direction reversed and no problems yet. It also helps reduce the fan noise in the room, since the fan side is now on the window sill, instead of inside the room.

[Gamla]

http://i7.aijaa.com/t/00346/13650890.t.jpg
Less noice, lower temps with reversed fan.

[goxed]

After reversing the fan direction, I also applied tape over the top row holes, since these top-row holes are simply passing through the outside cold air (can be verified with an IR-thermo)


Reversing the fan, allows easy access to the power-sockets, RJ45, and the status LED.