GekkoScience BM1384 Project Development Discussion

[sidehack]

Philosophy

GekkoScience makes things that don't exist but should, and takes things that do exist and makes them better. Gekkoscience builds things that are Simple, Durable, Reliable.

Simple
Simplicity is a design philosophy characterized by engineering at a low level. Using the simplest method available eliminates unnecessary failures. Simple is distinct from easy.

Durable
Durable means constructing properly out of high quality components using skilled labor.

Reliable
Reliable means high quality performance for a long time. Reliability is the natural outcome achieved by a combination of simple and durable.

http://gekkoscience.com/philosophy.html


Certainly not ours.

[SFMiner]

Sandwich money is on it's way!

Looking forward to whatever you guys come up with.  Hopefully Bitmain keeps their chip prices reasonable.

[ezeminer]

Philosophy

GekkoScience makes things that don't exist but should, and takes things that do exist and makes them better. Gekkoscience builds things that are Simple, Durable, Reliable.

Simple
Simplicity is a design philosophy characterized by engineering at a low level. Using the simplest method available eliminates unnecessary failures. Simple is distinct from easy.

Durable
Durable means constructing properly out of high quality components using skilled labor.

Reliable
Reliable means high quality performance for a long time. Reliability is the natural outcome achieved by a combination of simple and durable.

http://gekkoscience.com/philosophy.html


Certainly not ours.

I found a Bitmain representative in my town, if you might need a hookup.

[Biodom]

Hey, so much burgers might not be good for you  .
how about a couple of greek salads (sent your way just now)?
thanks for your work and dedication

[novak@gekkoscience]

Thanks to everyone who donated we were able to order this giant burger.  Casascius physical bitcoin for scale.  If we don't die of heart disease first we will do our best to make you guys a miner worthy of such a burger.

--
novak

[sidehack]

http://cookinfromscratch.biz/King-of-the-Road/

[MCHouston]

You all are making me hungry for burgers and miners.

[sidehack]

So I'm mostly done with what should be a two-chip BM1384 breakout board design. It'll have header pins and power planes and such all broke out and separated so with jumpers and wires you can individually address both chips, and set them up for chained comms in both parallel (single voltage rail) and string (one above the other at 2xVcore), with a level-shifted input you can tie to a 3.3V UART (like CP2102). Multiple boards should be chainable for other parallel/string chain configurations.

How many people would be interested in playing with this? I'm going to be busy all over the place for the next five days or so and likely won't get back to it until Wednesday or later, and then we'd need to get some test boards fab'd so we can play with 'em. If everything works as expected I can release the PCB files and maybe a bit of documentation. Someone else looking to play with a BM1384 design might appreciate it.

I'm also pretty sure we're gonna go ahead and try to build a USB stick miner. It won't have software-adjustable voltage, but if enough people want overclock ability I can look into putting a small SMD trimpot on there to give a bit of manual voltage tweaking. The stock setting would likely be 650mV and about 8GH, which should want about 2.5W of USB power. If I can I'll design it with a 5A buck just in case someone wants to get stupid with it. Maybe put some test pads on the top edge so you can easily measure Vcore. I got my bitcoin hardware start by jacking up USB Block Erupters to 460GH and I know how much fun it can be, but pencil mods are for chumps and we can do better than that.

Also, and just because it's a thing we've been discussing for all of one day, would anyone buy a USB stick miner with a Spondoolies Hammer ASIC on it? I don't know that it'd get more than about 4GH from stock USB power, but it might still be interesting to play with. This one would take some extra dev time because the chips don't seem to use a standard protocol, and it'll require some NDAs to know exactly what that nonstandard protocol is, but if anyone wants more variety in non-garbaginous stick miners we can look into feasibility.

[hurricandave]

One of the biggest issues with U2's came from the size of the heat sink. It was appropriately matched for the performance but became a big obstacle when plugging into a hub. So making them with a female end would allow the user to add short 6-7 inch usb leads to the hub would be nice. The other issue was power sourcing. Simple screwdown connectors would allow the user to quickly tap power from an ATX PSU but as we all know by now, most have shifted the output too 12volts the buck convertor would need to be o.k. with that over the longhaul. This setup would allow for the use of inexpensive unpowered hubs.

[philipma1957]

So I'm mostly done with what should be a two-chip BM1384 breakout board design. It'll have header pins and power planes and such all broke out and separated so with jumpers and wires you can individually address both chips, and set them up for chained comms in both parallel (single voltage rail) and string (one above the other at 2xVcore), with a level-shifted input you can tie to a 3.3V UART (like CP2102). Multiple boards should be chainable for other parallel/string chain configurations.

How many people would be interested in playing with this? I'm going to be busy all over the place for the next five days or so and likely won't get back to it until Wednesday or later, and then we'd need to get some test boards fab'd so we can play with 'em. If everything works as expected I can release the PCB files and maybe a bit of documentation. Someone else looking to play with a BM1384 design might appreciate it.

I'm also pretty sure we're gonna go ahead and try to build a USB stick miner. It won't have software-adjustable voltage, but if enough people want overclock ability I can look into putting a small SMD trimpot on there to give a bit of manual voltage tweaking. The stock setting would likely be 650mV and about 8GH, which should want about 2.5W of USB power. If I can I'll design it with a 5A buck just in case someone wants to get stupid with it. Maybe put some test pads on the top edge so you can easily measure Vcore. I got my bitcoin hardware start by jacking up USB Block Erupters to 460GH and I know how much fun it can be, but pencil mods are for chumps and we can do better than that.

Also, and just because it's a thing we've been discussing for all of one day, would anyone buy a USB stick miner with a Spondoolies Hammer ASIC on it? I don't know that it'd get more than about 4GH from stock USB power, but it might still be interesting to play with. This one would take some extra dev time because the chips don't seem to use a standard protocol, and it'll require some NDAs to know exactly what that nonstandard protocol is, but if anyone wants more variety in non-garbaginous stick miners we can look into feasibility.

 trim pots are very nice.  I would like a few of those sticks.

[sidehack]

One of the biggest issues with U2's came from the size of the heat sink. It was appropriately matched for the performance but became a big obstacle when plugging into a hub. So making them with a female end would allow the user to add short 6-7 inch usb leads to the hub would be nice. The other issue was power sourcing. Simple screwdown connectors would allow the user to quickly tap power from an ATX PSU but as we all know by now, most have shifted the output too 12volts the buck convertor would need to be o.k. with that over the longhaul. This setup would allow for the use of inexpensive unpowered hubs.

So what you're saying is, you don't want a stick miner. You want a USB-tethered desk miner that runs off 12V power. You should probably wait until the TypeZero board is up and going then.

Yeah Phil, you know we like hacking hardware so if the thing isn't software-voltable it needs to be hardware-voltable.

[valkir]

That's really nice! Let me know when I can test some. 

I will be more than happy to play with some and find some nice setup.

[hurricandave]

One of the biggest issues with U2's came from the size of the heat sink. It was appropriately matched for the performance but became a big obstacle when plugging into a hub. So making them with a female end would allow the user to add short 6-7 inch usb leads to the hub would be nice. The other issue was power sourcing. Simple screwdown connectors would allow the user to quickly tap power from an ATX PSU but as we all know by now, most have shifted the output too 12volts the buck convertor would need to be o.k. with that over the longhaul. This setup would allow for the use of inexpensive unpowered hubs.

So what you're saying is, you don't want a stick miner. You want a USB-tethered desk miner that runs off 12V power. You should probably wait until the TypeZero board is up and going then.

Yeah Phil, you know we like hacking hardware so if the thing isn't software-voltable it needs to be hardware-voltable.

It comes down to the arraignment for heat management, if I can fit 10 of these on a typical 10 port hub and cool them properly then I'm down with that. Powerwise, I may be one of a few who still has 15 AT PSU's with high amp 5volt rails. Brick/wall warts can be unreliable and 10 stick miners can quickly exceed the common power capabilities of powered hubs especially the ones that have 2amp input circuit protection.

[sidehack]

I always replaced the power traces on my hubs with decent wire star'd to a Molex connector. Also had a decent prototype interface board for a 5V30A standalone supply to power one of those 49-port hubs but I really only made two of 'em.

Also, the cost of 10 of the USB sticks is probably going to be more than the cost of one TypeZero board, basic heatsinking and a quiet 120mm fan. And also about a third of the possible hashrate.

What type of spacing are you seeing on your hubs? If I can get an idea of possible thickness I can spec a heatsink better. The interesting thing is going to be that the BM1384 is a top-cooler so parts arrangement will have to be a bit particular unless we want a two-sided board with chips on the bottom, but for a USB miner that's probably more headache than it's worth.

[CrazyGuy]

I can't wait to see what you guys come up with! U3 headed your way for teardown etc...

[hurricandave]

The powered 10 port Manhatten hubs have 15mm center to center spacing between ports but they were also like $30 each. I have some other noname industrial 10 port hubs from china that came with LCD 12volt bricks, two rows of five with 22mm spacing center to center but not sure if they are even available in the US thru common sources but last time I saw them on ALI Express they were close to $50 each.
By the way, I still have 30 Bitmain U2's running 24/7 since January of 2014, they haven't dropped off at all.

edit- speak of the devil, I got the 30 U2's from crazyguy...

[klondike_bar]

interesting project - hopefully the USB route will not be the focus, and instead the focus will be on creating large, semi-modular hashing boards similar to the SP10 design.

it doesnt make sense to run a little <100GH device that costs almost $1/GH. Building something with >2TH is the obvious way to go. If I could suggest an idea for one:
-Simple 2U or 4U metal shell (like an SP1x/Sp3x), with an easy way to stack modular hashing boards with 1", 2", or 4" risers (see heatsinks)
-External PCIe connectors, on the same 'front' face as the ethernet connector.
-1 controller can handle up to ~16 boards
- heatsinks are modular - someone with the ability could switch a 2" thick heatsink for a 1" heatsink (or no heatsink) based on the airflow and voltage settings.
- >in this way, a year or two down the road an owner could condensed 8U worth of equipment down to a single 2U or 4U enclosure
-Theres brackets/screw holes for users to provide thier own fans if desired. a lot of early adopters have dozens of old 120MM fans from scrapped miners or from previous fan upgrades.


The trick is doing all this in a way that you dont get lots or DOA complaints or exzchange requests for damage caused by owner assembly.

I personally have about 15x 120mm fans that are capable of >80cfm (about 7 of these are from antminer S1 units), plus lots of power supplies. It would be nice to have a very simplistic device that can be light for shipping and save some cost for me. Scheduling abilities for the voltage are a huge plus

[TheRealSteve]

The interesting thing is going to be that the BM1384 is a top-cooler so parts arrangement will have to be a bit particular unless we want a two-sided board with chips on the bottom, but for a USB miner that's probably more headache than it's worth.

If at all possible, try to arrange it such that the main heat sink faces up on a standard horizontal USB port.  USB try-3-times-before-it-plugs-in jokes aside, there is a reasonable standard to this

What type of spacing are you seeing on your hubs?

Mine are between 1.5cm and 2.8cm, the last of which is fairly wide spacing and still isn't enough for a twin fury - but then that thing has a massive 3cm tall heatsink + board + connector (+buttons, technically - that could have been designed better).

The common Orico and Anker ones are ~16.5mm and ~19.5mm respectively, but it does vary per-model, looks like.

I could have sworn there were design files for the 49-port dipo/eyeboot one around, but I guess I didn't bookmark.  u/klintay should be able to help out anyway.. in case anybody felt like filling one of those up again

[sidehack]

interesting project - hopefully the USB route will not be the focus, and instead the focus will be on creating large, semi-modular hashing boards similar to the SP10 design.

it doesnt make sense to run a little <100GH device that costs almost $1/GH. Building something with >2TH is the obvious way to go. If I could suggest an idea for one:
-Simple 2U or 4U metal shell (like an SP1x/Sp3x), with an easy way to stack modular hashing boards with 1", 2", or 4" risers (see heatsinks)
-External PCIe connectors, on the same 'front' face as the ethernet connector.
-1 controller can handle up to ~16 boards
- heatsinks are modular - someone with the ability could switch a 2" thick heatsink for a 1" heatsink (or no heatsink) based on the airflow and voltage settings.
- >in this way, a year or two down the road an owner could condensed 8U worth of equipment down to a single 2U or 4U enclosure
-Theres brackets/screw holes for users to provide thier own fans if desired. a lot of early adopters have dozens of old 120MM fans from scrapped miners or from previous fan upgrades.


The trick is doing all this in a way that you dont get lots or DOA complaints or exzchange requests for damage caused by owner assembly.

I personally have about 15x 120mm fans that are capable of >80cfm (about 7 of these are from antminer S1 units), plus lots of power supplies. It would be nice to have a very simplistic device that can be light for shipping and save some cost for me. Scheduling abilities for the voltage are a huge plus

I think you missed the entire point. Yes, the USB route won't be the focus. Making a USB stick is motivated both by market interest and because our initial testing will get us 80% of the way to a working USB stick miner anyway so there's no reason not to finish it out if people want them.
Also, we won't be building a <100GH device that costs almost $1/GH. We're hoping for a 300+GH board at around $75 would be nice.
We're also wanting to build something conducive to home mining. Which is very specifically NOT high-density rack-mounted gear. Repurposing existing chassis from retired miners is a lot better, in my opinion, than building another all-new mining skeleton to park alongside the several dozen other existing builds. So the focus will not be on USB stick miner, but it also won't be on that stuff you just said.

[ezeminer]

I think you missed the entire point. Yes, the USB route won't be the focus. Making a USB stick is motivated both by market interest and because our initial testing will get us 80% of the way to a working USB stick miner anyway so there's no reason not to finish it out if people want them.
Also, we won't be building a <100GH device that costs almost $1/GH. We're hoping for a 300+GH board at around $75 would be nice.
We're also wanting to build something conducive to home mining. Which is very specifically NOT high-density rack-mounted gear. Repurposing existing chassis from retired miners is a lot better, in my opinion, than building another all-new mining skeleton to park alongside the several dozen other existing builds. So the focus will not be on USB stick miner, but it also won't be on that stuff you just said.

Maybe you should poll what the most common chasis is. I personally have two s3's and two rosewill 10 port USB hubs