GekkoScience BM1384 Project Development Discussion

[aarons6]

So it kinda looks like "project discussion" is trying to shift to the pod poll thread. I'd just as soon keep most dev details in one place, I guess.

I'm a bit behind schedule on pretty much everything, but here's what it looks like. Tomorrow should be a pretty big day.

We should be ordering parts for the second half of the Compac batch, meaning I'll be able to start meeting those backorders pretty quickly and then have sticks in stock. The parts order will also include stuff for a new server PSU board design, and two other things which are interesting to this thread, as discussed below.

We'll also be sending off for prototype PCBs for the PSU board, the 8-chip pod miner and a fancy-schmancy BM1384 tester board.

The 8-chip pod miner is taking over the "Amita" name and will be built to take a standard socket 115x CPU cooler, which will need to be modified for height as the ASICs are about 1mm thick instead of the approximate centimeter expected from a socketed processor. I'll also have holes to directly mount an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro cooler without requring its base frame. I've got a couple cases of 'em here and it's what I'd sell with the board if someone wanted a cooler and what I'd use to mount to the ones I kept so that's what I'm working around. Since we like having flexible and entertaining gear, the Amita will have both a barrel jack and a 6-pin PCIe for power. Since it'll be able to draw over 100W at the top-end you'll probably want the 6-pin if you're going to push it, but a 12V 5A brick should get you in the 130-140GH neighborhood. It'll also have jacks for both USB-B and mini USB, so it shouldn't be hard to find a cable. No matter how much you ask, no I won't put a micro USB jack on it because I don't like them at all. The Amita has two fan headers, a 3-wire and a 4-wire. Since 3-wire is just power, ground and a tach signal it requires PWM on the power line to vary speed (which also means a 2-wire fan will work). If you have a decent cooler with a 4-wire fan, which has internal PWM implemented via an external signal, that one will also work on the 4-wire header. It's designed with a temp sensor mounted right in the center of the ASIC field, and the sensor's package is a fraction shorter than the ASICs so with a bit of grease it'll have good enough thermal contact with the heatsink to measure temperatures well without risking keeping the heatsink from contacting the ASICs themselves. The onboard microcontroller which monitors tempeatures will also be responsible for fan speed, and setting the core voltage. We're using a bucked string topology on this one, which keeps the regulator current down while increasing its output voltage, both of which will increase the conversion efficiency over a traditional VRM design while maintaining full adjustability. The total string voltage, as well as its supply current, will be monitored by the onboard controller which means you can actually see the power being dissipated by your ASICs in realtime. I'm fairly certain that's pretty cool.


Regarding the fancy new BM1384 test board, I based all the power and controls off the Compac - by which I mean I pretty much copy-pasted a Compac and started hacking at it a bit. There's holes for a QFN56 test socket, which I hope won't require any modification to work with BM1384. The only problem would be if the ground pin in the center overlaps the VDD corner pads, but given the corners are in corners and round pins don't really have corners it should probably be okay. This board should allow me to rapidly test both the input and output of a pulled BM1384. I could make sure it hashes correctly, make sure it relays data upstream and downstream correctly, and if I wanted to I could probably even grade them with moderate precision (by clocking somewhat high and monitoring input current requirements).

Being able to test (and grade) pulled ASICs will be super handy, since if I end up making a couple hundred Amitas (right now it looks like I have interest enough to merit a batch of 200, if I get that many parts) I'll be going through a couple thousand ASICs. Couple that with other design tasks (which, including our own TypeZero boards, is actually three moderately powerful mining board designs) and I'll need a lot of working ASICs to design and build with. Guess-and-check is going to suck on an 8-chip board, but would be even worse on a 20- to 40-chip board. I'll probably have extra PCBs of this test board, and if it works I might be willing to part with some to folks who may want a better ability to test BM1384 for S5 repair and such. The QFN socket I found, unfortunately, runs about a hundred bucks so I don't really expect most folks to want one but hey, if you're gonna be doing stuff anywhere near the bulk of what I'm gonna be doing in the next month or two you'd want at least one of these things.

So that's the news right now. I may have more coming up soon, which I'm always hopeful will include something like "hey guess what guys I finally got samples of a current-gen ASIC to work with" but I can't say that yet. I'm still stuck with BM1384 projects for now, which it's a darn good chip for sure but it's getting harder and harder to justify.

sounds good, ill be looking forward to buying one or two.. one thing to note about the 3 pin vs 4 pin.. most if not ALL 3 pin fan plugs can fit on a 4 pin socket.. the 4th pin is the last one and just hangs out and is not needed if you dont have a 4 pin fan.

picture for reference.
http://www.allpinouts.org/images/5/5b/Connector_mbfanpwm_3to4pin.png

so you just need one fan header on the board.

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[RichBC]

"hey guess what guys I finally got samples of a current-gen ASIC to work with" but I can't say that yet.

Now that is a great bit of news to finish on.... And I won't ask...

Rich

[sidehack]

Actually it's not any news at all to finish on. I'm saying I wish I had samples but I don't. I don't have anything except optimism. Still looking forward to one of the big manufacturers actually doing something nice.

Regarding 3- versus 4-wire fans, please read the description a bit better. If you want speed control, a 3-wire fan on a 4-wire fan jack won't do, well, jack. The 4th wire is a PWM signal that is translated inside the fan to control speed. Obviously this doesn't work on a 3-wire fan, which requires the power to be altered externally. So my 4-wire fan header is wired up for 4-wire PWM and my 3-wire header is wired up for 3-wire PWM. I could probably have combined them into a single header and had some fancy detection schemes to determine which type of fan was used and switch up how it was controlled, but I like my way better. Also if you want to you can hook up an extra fan, which I guess makes it slightly better?

[vapourminer]

you didnt say how many and what colors any blinky light things each design might have.

comon man dont leave us hanging.. toss us a bone!

[aarons6]

Actually it's not any news at all to finish on. I'm saying I wish I had samples but I don't. I don't have anything except optimism. Still looking forward to one of the big manufacturers actually doing something nice.

Regarding 3- versus 4-wire fans, please read the description a bit better. If you want speed control, a 3-wire fan on a 4-wire fan jack won't do, well, jack. The 4th wire is a PWM signal that is translated inside the fan to control speed. Obviously this doesn't work on a 3-wire fan, which requires the power to be altered externally. So my 4-wire fan header is wired up for 4-wire PWM and my 3-wire header is wired up for 3-wire PWM. I could probably have combined them into a single header and had some fancy detection schemes to determine which type of fan was used and switch up how it was controlled, but I like my way better. Also if you want to you can hook up an extra fan, which I guess makes it slightly better?

oh ok i understand.. so you are going for both pwm control (4wire) and variable voltage (3wire).. i read that wrong..

yeah i suppose it would get complicated to put them on the same plug..

[sidehack]

Yeah. It's possible but cumbersome, and I like to keep things simple and flexible.

I did forget to mention what lights things would have. The BM1384 test board has a second LED pack the same as the Compac, for testing upstream signalling from the BM1384 under test. The Amita currently has four LEDs whose function has yet to be determined, but will assuredly be useful for hashing and error status.

[quantumgravity]

This project is really cool. Keep it up!

[AJRGale]

you didnt say how many and what colors any blinky light things each design might have.

comon man dont leave us hanging.. toss us a bone!

Red Green Blue, like the compacs... now all we need them to do is "dance" when idle, like them cheap usb hubs..

[Meech]

As long as it doesn't have a red led of death light on it we're happy.

[Meech]

I know you may not have interest in Sfard chips but it looks as though those may soon come available soon. 

[Searing]

I know you may not have interest in Sfard chips but it looks as though those may soon come available soon.  

yeah...its not like these fun projects are gonna ROI any more then a smile anyway

(in my case it is for miner withdrawl for when my Titan's go doorstops) (below is link to my KNC shrine (Jupiter 550gh BTC miner on bottom self and now gravity assist device to keep bench down)

lostgonzo.imgur.com

I swing both ways BTC and LTC as a miner So you can use these imho if it makes sense.

[toptek]

I know you may not have interest in Sfard chips but it looks as though those may soon come available soon.  

yeah...its not like these fun projects are gonna ROI any more then a smile anyway

(in my case it is for miner withdrawl for when my Titan's go doorstops) (below is link to my KNC shrine (Jupiter 550gh BTC miner on bottom self and now gravity assist device to keep bench down)

lostgonzo.imgur.com

I swing both ways BTC and LTC as a miner So you can use these imho if it makes sense.

The only way  I see me  worrying  about miner withdraws is there is no new gear be gotten other wise with coins going up , i see that not stopping, i turned my Zeus miners and Gblade 25 to 27 mh   back on and working on getting a A2 and with the new miner coming at a nice price, if that's true, i hope to see me doing it for a few more years in home. I like both Script and  SHA256  miners. and coins are going to keep a upbeat now but will have ups and downs, but what  part of life doesn't. .  


Hopping, Side can come thu for us which will drive the price of miners down even more .

[Searing]

I know you may not have interest in Sfard chips but it looks as though those may soon come available soon.  

yeah...its not like these fun projects are gonna ROI any more then a smile anyway

(in my case it is for miner withdrawl for when my Titan's go doorstops) (below is link to my KNC shrine (Jupiter 550gh BTC miner on bottom self and now gravity assist device to keep bench down)

lostgonzo.imgur.com

I swing both ways BTC and LTC as a miner So you can use these imho if it makes sense.

The only way to I see me  worrying  about miner withdraws is there is no new gear be gotten other wise with coins going up , i see that not stopping, i turned my Zeus miner back on and working on getting a A2 and with the new miner coming at a nice price, if that's true, i hope to see me doing it for a few more years in home. I like both Script and  SHA256  miners. and coins are going to keep a upbeat now but will have ups and downs, but what  part of life doesn't. .  

well the Alcheminer II "supposedly" is coming out 128mh and 510mh respectively (1299 usd if i remember right) and for the 510mh 4,950 usd again if I remember right) of course they say they are getting IPO $$$ first (newbie IP0 $$$ heh) ...and it will be SIX MONTHS....so the watts were not too far off the titan...so if that puppie flies and you are correct I'll be running my 2 KNC Titans for a long, long time.

the diff in watts from a Titan at 350mh  is 1250 watts. The 510mh is supposedly 1150 watts. If in 6 months this is the case I can run my Titans well along side these units.

I've heard this all before thou with the 'huge' scrypt miners that were supposed to come out Summer of 2015...all bigger then Titan ...like the Volcano etc...I got a 2nd Titan
(Nov used unit) for 569 bucks with shipping..and was wondering how wise that was with my 'expected' shut off date the end of summer So it is good to be wrong

Realistically thou I'd expect to squeak these out to maybe April 1st 2016..and that is only because I can get some heat in the winter out of them in the basement...after that point I'm fairly sure they will not be worth running. Hope I am incorrect..


here is the link to the bitcointalk thread on them

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1234027.0

[sidehack]

It's not so much that I may not have interest in SFARDS chip, but that I do not have interest in SFARDS chip. I honestly don't care about scrypt coins at all. If someone wanted to pay me to design a miner around it I might, but I'm already booked up with design and manufacture of stuff I do care about through at least the end of the year.

[spazzdla]

I have 6 of the Batch two usb sticks on order .  How are they going? (I really like the usb miner I have, the little mining pick on the back is awesome!)

Do you think that pod miner will be ready to sell in 6 months?  I want to replace my "New R-box" lol.

[sidehack]

I ran out optimized pick-and-place programs last night, got stuff recalibrated for the most part. I might have a bit more tweaking to do today but today through Thursday the main goal will be building Compacs. I should be caught up to pending orders probably middle of next week. At some point in there, though, I will need to take time to install some new panels because we'll be upgrading electric service at the shop in about two weeks. I'll have about 60KW of available hosting space at 8.9 cents if anyone's interested. No prepay, no contract.

My goal for pods, which depends on other people and things always take longer than they should when I have to depend on other people, is to have Pods shipping for Christmas.

Wait, there's a little mining pick on the back?

[spazzdla]

I ran out optimized pick-and-place programs last night, got stuff recalibrated for the most part. I might have a bit more tweaking to do today but today through Thursday the main goal will be building Compacs. I should be caught up to pending orders probably middle of next week. At some point in there, though, I will need to take time to install some new panels because we'll be upgrading electric service at the shop in about two weeks. I'll have about 60KW of available hosting space at 8.9 cents if anyone's interested. No prepay, no contract.

My goal for pods, which depends on other people and things always take longer than they should when I have to depend on other people, is to have Pods shipping for Christmas.

Wait, there's a little mining pick on the back?

LMAO Tell me you didn't intend that!! Look at the back, it looks like a mining pick, I'll take a picture tonight.

I'll have to sign up to imjur lol.

[sidehack]

It's not a pickaxe, it's our company logo. It's also on the front corner by the version number, and on all our PSU boards.

[spazzdla]

It's not a pickaxe, it's our company logo. It's also on the front corner by the version number, and on all our PSU boards.

Ahhhh!!!!  neato!!  I like it, goes hand in hand with the idea of mining.  Picking away at the blocks we are.

[sidehack]

It's not a pickaxe. At all. Has nothing to do with blocks or mining. Predates our interest in the bitcoin economy by at least a year.