GekkoScience BM1384 Project Development Discussion

[philipma1957]

There must still be loads of S1, S1/3 upgrades and S3, units sitting in lonely neglected corners, all waiting to be lovingly revived with nice shiny T/h capable boards.

Bitmain are unlikely to come back with anything suitable to replace them.

Bring on the BM1385 chip. It may be old tech 28nm cleaned up and repackaged, but it could still fill a gap for the home miners and see the community through to the block reward halving due next spring.

  I am in complete agreement with you with 1 exception we are scheduled to ½ in late July  not  spring.

[sidehack]

If by "old tech" you mean it has top-clock performance on par with the best bottom-clock performance from any chip ever openly sold, then yeah it's old tech.

The only problem I can forsee with upgrading S3 is controller. The boards would USB-tether to any generic control board (if you had 4 ports like on a Pi B+ you wouldn't even need a hub) but the S3 and S5 chassis ends are cut out for a specific shape what with the ethernet and LEDs. Might take a bit of jerryrigging to keep ethernet accessible and still be able to put the box on an S3. If you're not uncomfortable with whatever rigging is required (and of course we can test stuff out and try to figure out relatively standard solutions to that problem) there'd be no problem.

The halving is based on block count. Every time the diff goes up the halving gets that much closer. It'd take about 20% average changes to push it up into late spring but it could happen. That'd be freakin' terrible if we had 20% increases every change for the next nine months though.

[Biodom]

There must still be loads of S1, S1/3 upgrades and S3, units sitting in lonely neglected corners, all waiting to be lovingly revived with nice shiny T/h capable boards.

Bitmain are unlikely to come back with anything suitable to replace them.

Bring on the BM1385 chip. It may be old tech 28nm cleaned up and repackaged, but it could still fill a gap for the home miners and see the community through to the block reward halving due next spring.

Personally, I think that boards themselves would have somewhat limited appeal (only to enthusiasts and people with good technical skills).
I am not saying that they would not be sold in hundreds and up to a thou, but maybe not many thousands.
Additionally, which software would these boards run on? The underlying controller ones-might be incompatible, although probably a solvable problem.
A new "community" miner, like is described on another thread would have a much bigger market .
Just my 2satoshis.

[sidehack]

I've got a dozen machines to strap boards onto, so that's about fifty boards right there. Being half-sized for an S1 heatsink, someone could rig up a half-heatsink and mount a 120mm fan directly to it and use the thing as a standalone quiet little miner. If the upgrade process was not difficult, and you know shipping will certainly be cheaper. One thousand boards is still well worth making and get a pretty good bulk price on PCBs and parts, which keeps the price nicely down for the end purchaser.

The boards would run on anything with USB and cgminer. If S3/S5 controllers have USB in hardware but not the jacks, it might not be too difficult to break it out but that's not a problem I've researched at all.

What community miner are you talking about? The rack-scale miner Novak and I are proposing? That meets the large-scale market sector but not folks like Phil who want something small and quiet but also not stupid. Is there an open-source S1-scale miner being talked about and I've overlooked it? Though, thinking about it... it might not be too hard to build an SP20-similar miner from two or three boards of the big'n with a single rear fan. Two boards should fit nicely cooled with a 120mm and run off a 750W PSU.

[Jake36]

If by "old tech" you mean it has top-clock performance on par with the best bottom-clock performance from any chip ever openly sold, then yeah it's old tech.

The only problem I can forsee with upgrading S3 is controller. The boards would USB-tether to any generic control board (if you had 4 ports like on a Pi B+ you wouldn't even need a hub) but the S3 and S5 chassis ends are cut out for a specific shape what with the ethernet and LEDs. Might take a bit of jerryrigging to keep ethernet accessible and still be able to put the box on an S3. If you're not uncomfortable with whatever rigging is required (and of course we can test stuff out and try to figure out relatively standard solutions to that problem) there'd be no problem.

The halving is based on block count. Every time the diff goes up the halving gets that much closer. It'd take about 20% average changes to push it up into late spring but it could happen. That'd be freakin' terrible if we had 20% increases every change for the next nine months though.

Easiest way, just slot from the top chassis down to the ethernet hole, make a big "U" for cables to run through, and mount the Pi to the top of the cover or where ever wanted.

Pi is accessible and a side benefit is it's not inside of a hot miner.

[Mudbankkeith]

There must still be loads of S1, S1/3 upgrades and S3, units sitting in lonely neglected corners, all waiting to be lovingly revived with nice shiny T/h capable boards.

Bitmain are unlikely to come back with anything suitable to replace them.

Bring on the BM1385 chip. It may be old tech 28nm cleaned up and repackaged, but it could still fill a gap for the home miners and see the community through to the block reward halving due next spring.

Edit accepted:- Later next Summer.

If the easiest route is USB, then I would accept that a Pi B+ could be used to replace the S1 or S3 controller, after all the S5 already mounts a BBB and they are similar in size.

The S1 and S1/S3  models could still be used for the heatsincs, chasis and fans. (the big bits that are expensive to ship)

The next bigger option is to revive some 10 port Orico hubs, left over from Asic Erupter days. Then hook up to one of my mini PC's surviving from the same farm. (also I still have 3 working Pi B's).

If BFgMiner or CgMiner support was also available, Then it's all Plug and Play.

[sidehack]

The intent is to have cgminer support; BFG is out of our hands. A lot of my refit machines would probably be hub'd together for more than 4 boards to a controller. I'm not sure how possible it'll be but we're going to try and come up with a way to adjust voltages and clocks per board so you could actually tune on a per-board basis if you wanted.

[philipma1957]

I've got a dozen machines to strap boards onto, so that's about fifty boards right there. Being half-sized for an S1 heatsink, someone could rig up a half-heatsink and mount a 120mm fan directly to it and use the thing as a standalone quiet little miner. If the upgrade process was not difficult, and you know shipping will certainly be cheaper. One thousand boards is still well worth making and get a pretty good bulk price on PCBs and parts, which keeps the price nicely down for the end purchaser.

The boards would run on anything with USB and cgminer. If S3/S5 controllers have USB in hardware but not the jacks, it might not be too difficult to break it out but that's not a problem I've researched at all.

What community miner are you talking about? The rack-scale miner Novak and I are proposing? That meets the large-scale market sector but not folks like Phil who want something small and quiet but also not stupid. Is there an open-source S1-scale miner being talked about and I've overlooked it? Though, thinking about it... it might not be too hard to build an SP20-similar miner from two or three boards of the big'n with a single rear fan. Two boards should fit nicely cooled with a 120mm and run off a 750W PSU.

I know of at least 40+ sales of a miner that allows for   1.4th and 280watts.   There is a forum member less then 3 miles from me that would want 20 s-1 to sidehack upgrades.

I have 4 working s-3's I would upgrade.

I have a guy with a shop n the brooklyn navy yard 8 cent power.  he has 1x 30 amp 240 volt circuit waiting for good gear.

good gear in his case is quiet quiet quiet/ then power efficient.

So I am good for  20 + 5 + 15 pieces or  56th of hash.

with none of that in my home   and a few more for in house

lets  say 60 th  43 x 1.4th units of gear

[Mudbankkeith]

I have 6 s1/s3 upgrades that are now looking for new boards.

[bmoscato]

I have 10 S1/S3 that I'd be interested in upgrading.

[bmoscato]

Any plans for something when the BM1385 chip is released?

[sidehack]

Nope, none at all. Except for everything talked about in the last three pages, I mean. Which includes a few paragraphs of quantitative discussion posted not 13 hours ago.

[PlanetCrypto]

I've got 10 S1's, 12 S3's, 22 C1's and they all need to be upgraded.
Hint hint.

[notlist3d]

I've got 10 S1's, 12 S3's, 22 C1's and they all need to be upgraded.
Hint hint.

Am I missing the hint?  Are you hinting on product coming out?

[sidehack]

I think it's more a hint to me that I need to get off my butt and build him some boards because he's gonna want a bunch of 'em.

[VirosaGITS]

I think it's more a hint to me that I need to get off my butt and build him some boards because he's gonna want a bunch of 'em.

I got about half a dozen too. Hint hint. Those S1 are just craving for an upgrade. They REALLY want it. ;P

[PlanetCrypto]

I think it's more a hint to me that I need to get off my butt and build him some boards because he's gonna want a bunch of 'em.

No pressure as you really can't do squat (almost literally  ) until "the one who shall remain nameless" gets off their respective bums and sells chips.

Have a really good handle on what it's like to be a mushroom (kept in the dark and feed crap).

What a name for a company, Mushroom Development, LLC. 

[elrippo]

I really want those boards tooooo!!! I don't want to fead a big corporation if i can assist some guys doing their homework and earn a living with that tech!!!
The only thing i need to know, is what hardware i should keep from the old S1 and S3 to compile with the new boards?
The case, the fans, the controller boards...
I read that Novak is doing the controller boards with USB connection to the asicboards, so are you guys also working/producing the controller boards?
If so, i'll sell all my old S1 and S3 and build me a custom FormFactorCasing and attach some fans to it  

[Witrebel]

Just curious what you guys envision doing with the old cards from S1's S3's and C1's if sidehack does end up producing an upgrade kit?

Are the old boards pretty much scrap at that point? Do they have resale value?

[VirosaGITS]

Just curious what you guys envision doing with the old cards from S1's S3's and C1's if sidehack does end up producing an upgrade kit?

Are the old boards pretty much scrap at that point? Do they have resale value?

S1 are probably done for, they bring little profit only to people with dirt cheap electricity. S3 are still good imo. I would run all the S3 i could get my hand on.
I guess the S1 extras could be resold to people that want to start little just to learn mining and maybe people who want to run them on free electricity.