GekkoScience BM1384 Project Development Discussion

[sidehack]

I very likely won't make a 1385 stick, unless I get demand for at least about 500 of them upfront and then it'd pretty much be a straight modification of the Compac. I'd rather focus on 4-chip-pod dev because that'll lead into 30-chip TypeZero dev pretty directly. I got so hung up making the stickminer into a viable and functional product that I ended up losing a lot of time. If I'd skipped it and gone right into large board dev I'd probably have had a working BM1384 S1-sized board two months ago. Course in a way I'm glad I didn't, since it would have been a half-size board instead of full-size. Full-size board I think is becoming a better plan given that's what dimensions we're leaning toward for the standard rack case blade. The S1 and rack were originally going to be two different products.

[HerbPean]

I very likely won't make a 1385 stick, unless I get demand for at least about 500 of them upfront and then it'd pretty much be a straight modification of the Compac. I'd rather focus on 4-chip-pod dev because that'll lead into 30-chip TypeZero dev pretty directly. I got so hung up making the stickminer into a viable and functional product that I ended up losing a lot of time. If I'd skipped it and gone right into large board dev I'd probably have had a working BM1384 S1-sized board two months ago. Course in a way I'm glad I didn't, since it would have been a half-size board instead of full-size. Full-size board I think is becoming a better plan given that's what dimensions we're leaning toward for the standard rack case blade. The S1 and rack were originally going to be two different products.

Keep your good work. Might the god of chips give you some one day !

[AJRGale]

"Sorry to inform you that we don't have spare chip to sell. Please kindly consider the miners directly."
- Bitmain

"I do not want the miners Bitmain is currently offering for sale. I'm working on a design for a miner which meets needs your machines do not. One of the businesses I am working with is currently using S3 and S5 boards on C1 waterblocks for both residential and industrial heating applications and would like to continue using these installations with upgraded electronics, but your new S7 does not meet the mechanical specs (in addition to other system requirements) to be used. The board I am designing will do the job. I would like to use your BM1385 chips, as I had a fair amount of success working with the BM1384 chips I purchased earlier this year. Your chips are good and I was very glad to see the design improvements from the previous generation, both in efficiency and ease of interfacing. If I can't purchase sample chips from you, which will lead to a final design and likely mean factory batch orders of chips purchased from you in the next several months, well I'll have to buy someone else's chips instead.

Would Bitmain rather have me and the groups I'm working with as customers, or would they rather see us purchase from Bitmain's competitors?

I am right now designing around the BM1384 and intend to retool the final design when new chips are available (from Bitmain or someone else). Having chips in the near future would be nice, but I could wait about four weeks (when your S7 is supposed to start shipping) without causing any real delays. I would be willing to pay up to US$200 for fifty BM1385 shipped to my shop in the US. This is less than one S7 board worth of chips."
- me

"no no, buy our miners.. we want to see you screw up the chips by attempting to depopulate these $2k miners..."

[sidehack]

If not from Bitmain, maybe Canaan-Creative or InnoSilicon. Someone's gotta take care of the 99%, right?

You know, when I was asking about 1384 they asked me if I'd rather not buy a bunch of discounted U3 and take chips off them instead - until I reminded them that the U3 had 1382 on it and that wouldn't do me any good.

[sobe-it]

I very likely won't make a 1385 stick, unless I get demand for at least about 500 of them upfront

I meant like a few one off prototypes aside from the boards (if you had a few odd chips out after the boards) if you were even gonna toy with the idea of 1385 but I don't blame you for not wanting to take a board apart to make a design in case they never sell the chips then its just wasted time and materials because you would be forced to use another chip which means a ground up design.

[chiguireitor]

If not from Bitmain, maybe Canaan-Creative or InnoSilicon. Someone's gotta take care of the 99%, right?

You know, when I was asking about 1384 they asked me if I'd rather not buy a bunch of discounted U3 and take chips off them instead - until I reminded them that the U3 had 1382 on it and that wouldn't do me any good.

Omg! That's so dumbass of them, they didn't even know their product!

I think Bitmain has a King-of-the-hill syndrome atm, here hoping they get their ground shaken by someone of the likes of LKETC (did i spell it right?) or SP-tech.

[sidehack]

If I can get access to a full batch of chips (you know, something like 100K) I'd probably go ahead and make a couple hundred new-version Compacs just for kicks. Make a nice round number of full-size boards and then stickminer the odds-and-ends chips. Could be fun.

[sobe-it]

I think Bitmain has a King-of-the-hill syndrome atm, here hoping they get their ground shaken by someone of the likes of LKETC (did i spell it right?) or SP-tech.

We need the idea of By Miners For the Miners....... they make a ton off their hosting, their miners, selling coin when the price goes up....ect. Its like the gold rush, the people selling the shovels and pick axes made out where as a few of the miners actually got rich off the gold. In this case its worse because they mine for themselves, host for other people (they make out in the end anyways), and selling their gear.

This is also the first odd chip, so it makes me think there was a 1381 and1383 as well. So maybe the gear pricing offsets their failed attempts or they had more in house gear than they let to light or sold to private ventures.

[philipma1957]

I believe they will sell this 1385 to sidehack but not until the s-7 has shipped.

Look at it from their viewpoint if they sell it now and sidehack can get gear out to the public it would hurt their bottom line.  They want more lead time.

  So if they tell sidehack today yes we wiil sell them to you  on OCT 1.  It will hurt s-7 sales. I do not think they will offer the chips until OCT and I do not think they will answer yes until very late Sept.

Business wise it makes more sense for them to do it that way.

If sidehack and novac keep sending emails to them along with miners like myself they will sell him some.

I purchased 2 s-7's today to show bitmaintech that
 A) I will support them
 B) I can donate a board to side hack
C) 10 people can donate a board to sidehack
D) 1000 people can send  an S-7 board to sidehack for mod's and or reworking.

I know the s-7 is too loud for a home miner.  But a 2 board s-7 with fan mods should be okay.

A reworked S-7 board in bulk could be viable.

Not the same as a universal rack/miner but flexible thinking can work.

How about I send a working s-7 to sidehack and have  it put in a better casing. same boards but cooled better and spread into a 4u rack. Possible down clock and under volt   and the rebuilt piece does 4000 gh at 800 watts.

or 3800 gh at 750 watts 6 fans  with better heat sinks .   3 boards turned 90 degrees better heatsinks on each side.  much better power efficiency .

what would that mod cost?

[VirosaGITS]

Well their chip release post over one week ago said they would be accepting orders for the chips soon, iirc?

But now sidehack posted a message with them clearly stating "NO SHIP FOR YOU BUY S7s" >.>

[AJRGale]

If not from Bitmain, maybe Canaan-Creative or InnoSilicon. Someone's gotta take care of the 99%, right?

You know, when I was asking about 1384 they asked me if I'd rather not buy a bunch of discounted U3 and take chips off them instead - until I reminded them that the U3 had 1382 on it and that wouldn't do me any good.

Well, you could buy 20 odd A3222's (the 25GH/s 0.4-0.6J/Gh things) off avalon themselves for 0.72btc. now, unless they are lying about having 9 stacks of 20 chips for sale at their store..
unless you're waiting for their new-bute hot out of the silicon oven chips (which i haven kept up with whats in r&d since the a3222 release earlier this year)?

as for InnoSilicon, isn't the A1, A2 and the upcoming A3 all S-crypt? what is this "A1 CoinCraft"? am i missing something?

little googling found out the Coincraft A1/A1 Booster is bitmines re-branded chip from innosilicon, but going by their site, A1 is a S-Crypt ASIC. so what is the A3 going to cover?

[RichBC]

How about I send a working s-7 to sidehack and have  it put in a better casing. same boards but cooled better and spread into a 4u rack. Possible down clock and under volt   and the rebuilt piece does 4000 gh at 800 watts.

or 3800 gh at 750 watts 6 fans  with better heat sinks .   3 boards turned 90 degrees better heatsinks on each side.  much better power efficiency .

what would that mod cost?

I think it's fantastic that people are making offers like this to move the project along, however IMHO unless sidehack can get chips in volume the project will go nowhere. Any mods and improvements based round an S7 hash board will fall far short of what he can make with a bespoke design and the Home Miner as the target user.

The single most important, nay essential feature being easy software controlled voltage adjustment so that after BTC halving people can match voltage to frequency and remain profitable. With the S7 board this will only be possible by reducing the supply voltage with all the problems that brings.

In the short term / if chips are never made available I still think the best solution is for people to make 3 two board miners from 2 S7, then use an S5 controller board on the 3rd unit. That combined with some good ideas / breakthroughs on how to adjust some models of server PSU down to 9V.


Rich

[alienesb]

I believe they will sell this 1385 to sidehack but not until the s-7 has shipped.

Look at it from their viewpoint if they sell it now and sidehack can get gear out to the public it would hurt their bottom line.  They want more lead time.

  So if they tell sidehack today yes we wiil sell them to you  on OCT 1.  It will hurt s-7 sales. I do not think they will offer the chips until OCT and I do not think they will answer yes until very late Sept.

Business wise it makes more sense for them to do it that way.

If sidehack and novac keep sending emails to them along with miners like myself they will sell him some.

I purchased 2 s-7's today to show bitmaintech that
 A) I will support them
 B) I can donate a board to side hack
C) 10 people can donate a board to sidehack
D) 1000 people can send  an S-7 board to sidehack for mod's and or reworking.

I know the s-7 is too loud for a home miner.  But a 2 board s-7 with fan mods should be okay.

A reworked S-7 board in bulk could be viable.

Not the same as a universal rack/miner but flexible thinking can work.

How about I send a working s-7 to sidehack and have  it put in a better casing. same boards but cooled better and spread into a 4u rack. Possible down clock and under volt   and the rebuilt piece does 4000 gh at 800 watts.

or 3800 gh at 750 watts 6 fans  with better heat sinks .   3 boards turned 90 degrees better heatsinks on each side.  much better power efficiency .

what would that mod cost?

What about making a mod of the S7 that uses just one board and comes with a new "case" and Pi controller? I bet that would sell.

Edit, I think Rich was talking about the same thing sort of.

[sidehack]

The A1 (as seen in Bitmine and LK Dragons and stuff) was an Innosilicon chip. The A2 (Terminators) was Innosilicon's scrypt offering. If I'm understanding right, they're working on an A3 (sha256) and A4 (scrypt) right now.

Last we talked to them, they apparently had sample chips taped out (probably a short batch of engineering samples) but didn't really care to pass any out. They were more interesed in million-dollar customers tossing down on big batches. I don't know why anyone would lay down on a big batch without first getting samples.

Avalon didn't reply to the last couple emails I sent them but I'll try again. Earlier this year I inquired about chips and they said they'd have a new generation out around July (this was at the same time Bitmain told me they'd have a new chip in June). When I got back to them closer to July I was told the target was moved back to September. Being as September starts tomorrow it'd be nice to know if they pulled it off.

Bitmain says if they come up with some extra chips in the next couple weeks they'll let me know.

[notlist3d]

The A1 (as seen in Bitmine and LK Dragons and stuff) was an Innosilicon chip. The A2 (Terminators) was Innosilicon's scrypt offering. If I'm understanding right, they're working on an A3 (sha256) and A4 (scrypt) right now.

Last we talked to them, they apparently had sample chips taped out (probably a short batch of engineering samples) but didn't really care to pass any out. They were more interesed in million-dollar customers tossing down on big batches. I don't know why anyone would lay down on a big batch without first getting samples.

Avalon didn't reply to the last couple emails I sent them but I'll try again. Earlier this year I inquired about chips and they said they'd have a new generation out around July (this was at the same time Bitmain told me they'd have a new chip in June). When I got back to them closer to July I was told the target was moved back to September. Being as September starts tomorrow it'd be nice to know if they pulled it off.

Bitmain says if they come up with some extra chips in the next couple weeks they'll let me know.

I would not count on A3 or A4 right now.  I think it will be a bit and we will see LKETC stuff.  But they are working on 2 next gen chips at once... very few do that.   Bitmain got the jump for better or worse by sticking with same nm chips.

I do think the good thing is innsilicon will most likely sell chips once released.  But I'm not sure they will be soon.   So good for next project once its out but I think a bit on chips, I hope I'm wrong though.

I hope Bitmain finds some chips to sell to you in the mean time, I really hope the support future projects.  But I'm not sure how big it is on their radar.

I guess no matter what chip you use in next project I look forward to it.  You made a quality product on first release, and I honestly hope to see a long line of products over time.

[PlanetCrypto]

Well their chip release post over one week ago said they would be accepting orders for the chips soon, iirc?

But now sidehack posted a message with them clearly stating "NO SHIP FOR YOU BUY S7s" >.>

GS is not alone, we got the same BS response (more than once) when we inquired about buying industrial quantities of chips.

Like being told to buy a new car when all one needs is a set of spark plugs.

[PlanetCrypto]

If not from Bitmain, maybe Canaan-Creative or InnoSilicon. Someone's gotta take care of the 99%, right?

You know, when I was asking about 1384 they asked me if I'd rather not buy a bunch of discounted U3 and take chips off them instead - until I reminded them that the U3 had 1382 on it and that wouldn't do me any good.

Well, you could buy 20 odd A3222's (the 25GH/s 0.4-0.6J/Gh things) off avalon themselves for 0.72btc. now, unless they are lying about having 9 stacks of 20 chips for sale at their store..
unless you're waiting for their new-bute hot out of the silicon oven chips (which i haven kept up with whats in r&d since the a3222 release earlier this year)?

as for InnoSilicon, isn't the A1, A2 and the upcoming A3 all S-crypt? what is this "A1 CoinCraft"? am i missing something?

little googling found out the Coincraft A1/A1 Booster is bitmines re-branded chip from innosilicon, but going by their site, A1 is a S-Crypt ASIC. so what is the A3 going to cover?

The A3 is Scrypt, the A4 is SHA-256.
The have a prototype run of both and are looking for vaporware funding (a pre-buy in bulk qty's) for a tapeout of production units.
I know cuz' we asked, but I'm NOT going to dump a ton of cash to fund their dev effort (shades of BFL).
If we're going to dump a ton of cash on an endeavor like that it'll be our own dev or community dev effort.

[sidehack]

Ah, looks like I had those new chip numbers backward. Yeah I'd pay down for even a handful of their engineering samples but they aren't going to get anything from us without delivering sample chips first.

Also... looks like our robot should be delivered today.

[philipma1957]

Ah, looks like I had those new chip numbers backward. Yeah I'd pay down for even a handful of their engineering samples but they aren't going to get anything from us without delivering sample chips first.

Also... looks like our robot should be delivered today.

well  at least some good news.

[PlanetCrypto]

The A1 (as seen in Bitmine and LK Dragons and stuff) was an Innosilicon chip. The A2 (Terminators) was Innosilicon's scrypt offering. If I'm understanding right, they're working on an A3 (sha256) and A4 (scrypt) right now.

Last we talked to them, they apparently had sample chips taped out (probably a short batch of engineering samples) but didn't really care to pass any out. They were more interesed in million-dollar customers tossing down on big batches. I don't know why anyone would lay down on a big batch without first getting samples.

Avalon didn't reply to the last couple emails I sent them but I'll try again. Earlier this year I inquired about chips and they said they'd have a new generation out around July (this was at the same time Bitmain told me they'd have a new chip in June). When I got back to them closer to July I was told the target was moved back to September. Being as September starts tomorrow it'd be nice to know if they pulled it off.

Bitmain says if they come up with some extra chips in the next couple weeks they'll let me know.

We have an incoming $3500 payment from a customer coming in.
I have ear marked this money to buy a small quantity (~1K) of chips from BM, assuming they decide to sell some.
Having said that, I'm a slut, if any other chip supplier has a suitable chip for sale prior to that they'll get the $3500 (first come first served).
Whomever's chips will be shipped to GS (with their approval ofc) for insertion onto hash boards.
We assume that a certain number of chips would be destroyed n the development process.

Once a suitable design is manufactured and field proven we'd be up for a real quantity purchase of chips (and then boards, ofc).

And regarding capex equipment purchases, I've had my eye on a CNC router for more than a year.
Something that will route polycarbonate and thin sheet AL for immersion tank construction.

Made a corporate decision a while back that we're done buying equipment that has a programmed obsolescence (S(odd) and C1).
I'm sick and tired of replacing perfectly good equipment every 6 months - a year solely due to fixed a Vcore which caps the maximum efficiency of the gear.
Screw that.
And yeah I know I could rip apart miners, mod the hash boards (at least to some extent) and get better efficiency. That's a doable option on 1-5 machines but not on 50+.

It is my belief that even the venerable S1, had it been designed with a reasonable lifespan in mind, could be profitable to operate in today's environment given an adjustable Vcore and clock. But it wasn't and neither was any of the BM follow on products. I believe this was part of a designed marketing campaign to continue to sell "new" equipment. Smart practice for miner manufacturer's but not very good for the 200Th/s and down crowd. As such, we're committed to purchasing/building equipment that will "stand the test of time" versus a throw-away mentality.

GS's designs embody this thought process and consequently we will opt to buy their product(s) over a competitor's.

Phil - I am very curious to hear, when your S7's come in, whether one can adjust Vcore and if so by how much.