GekkoScience BM1384 Project Development Discussion

[HerbPean]

Got my two sticks ! Thanks for this project ! Now the fun starts ;-)

[Jake36]

The pod board would not be designed for S1 compatibility. They'd be two separate PCBs.

If we get far enough into pod to make it viable, I've been needing to talk to a couple people that shipped me a few cases of Freezer 7 coolers last year for about fifty Technobit Minion boards that never got shipped. The coolers are still sitting in boxes on my hosting shelves, been there over 13 months by now. I could look into buying them off the guys and making that an optional sale alongside a pod PCB.

I think four chip is going to be easiest to wrangle, which leaves a 500GH top-end for the pod. I say top-end but until I get some actual chip data beyond the one operating datapoint Spondoolies has on the SP50 product page I don't really know. Could be higher, could be lower, but I don't want to build more than about 100W into it. A decent air cooler should be good for 100W. That might mean five chips but I don't have enough info yet so we're talking over various configurations of four chips. I've talked to Novak about building it to sell in the $200 range, so a 1BTC price point I'm preliminarily confident is doable.

I'm not too much on package design, but if someone wants to volunteer to help, I can share mechanical specs as they get ironed out.

If I build something bigger than the S1 scale, it'll probably be something along the lines of the rack machine that was being discussed in another thread, using seven or eight of the same boards. I'm not sure my little shop is up to the task of designing and manufacturing a whole product line of electronics quite yet, but a pod and the TypeZero board in various configurations should meet most needs between 50W and about 2500W. I don't feel like competing in the 1200W Jet Turbine or 17KW Shipanchor market sectors.

Sound good to me, i hope more people follow the thread and decide to at least mention their interests in the project.

I didn't see the stackable rack you mentioned but basically, if you make a small PCB and then lay a heatsink and then sandwich the heatsink between another PCB and another and another, you could probably just use a quiet but bigger form factor fan to push air between the PCB's, a bit like the S7 design, it could allow interesting scaling and efficient space usage.
It would also make directed airflow easier any maybe even use vinyl tubing to take the final exhaust outside or something.

And i hope you don't try to compete in the 1200W+ range, a smaller stackable/compact/space-wise unit of any kind that you can easily fit physically and electrically, that is quiet and relatively cost efficient sound like a great niche to work in.

I'm ready for a pod or 2 or 3....

Hell even if it comes out around 400GH, think of all the people running U3's that would probably switch over. Just one gekko pod, at 400GH would replace 6+ U3's.

[sidehack]

At about the same power too, for that hashrate.

[Searing]

$0.2/GH is going to be hard to hit, I think. The best thing going right now is the S7 and that sells at what, about 38 cents per? I know prices are going to drop as more stuff appears, and I'll do the best I can but twenty cents is a hard target. That's about what a year-old S3 is selling for right now.

The $/GH on the stick, I've said it before and I'll say it again it's the best ever $/GH for a stick miner and I can't make it any cheaper. I know you're not complaining, but I'll reiterate the fact regardless. Something like a pod with about eight times the hashrate and only three times the price, I'd like to see that get going but my guys tell me it wouldn't sell either. I just have to wait and hope SPTech can come through for us with chips and I can do something good with 'em, and in the meantime keep selling Compacs and PSUs.

Regarding something community-funded, I do believe one of Kickstarter's rules for a hardware project is you have to have a working prototype before running the campaign. They'll fund manufacture but not development. I like that rule, and we try to run the same way. The first step on the path to BFL is conning someone else into funding your development. Well the first step on the path to BFL is apparently hiring known scammers to run your business, but the second step is getting folks to fund your development.

I don't know about doing TypeZero boards and a pod concurrently. The pod would come first since I'd much rather have something small and less complex to work on as far as ironing out control systems and multi-chip comms. The only real difference between the pod and the full-scale board would be chip count and probably a beefier power system, but all the digitals would transfer straight across so there wouldn't be much time between a pod and the full-size boards. I can work on non-control parts of the big boards while waiting on prototype parts to assemble and test the small boards.

If I had the money from a single typical vaporware scam sale (not even the whole scam, just a single customer's purchase) I could probably afford dev for the entire project.

no problem you have more 'cred' here then you think....so unless funding is beyond outrageous I'd assume you'd have enough support to get a prototype together and then try the kickstarter idea (my 2 satoshi's)

imho it will be harder to get modern enough 'chips' out of someone to do so at a scale that if kickstarter works you could pull it off in volume (even if you got the kickstarter funds)

[toptek]

here another thought . maybe use some ASICMiner Block Erupter parts heat sinks etc, i'm  putting one to gather for fun and gonna use it .


https://www.wtcr.ca/catalog/291  

[QuintLeo]

How about a string board, 22 chips ballpark?

 It WOULD be nice if Spondoolies would put out a real spec sheet on the part, but I suppose the actual need for such would depend on them being willing to sell the chips at a reasonable price in reasonable quantities.

[kipper01]

$0.2/GH is going to be hard to hit, I think. The best thing going right now is the S7 and that sells at what, about 38 cents per? I know prices are going to drop as more stuff appears, and I'll do the best I can but twenty cents is a hard target. That's about what a year-old S3 is selling for right now.

The $/GH on the stick, I've said it before and I'll say it again it's the best ever $/GH for a stick miner and I can't make it any cheaper. I know you're not complaining, but I'll reiterate the fact regardless. Something like a pod with about eight times the hashrate and only three times the price, I'd like to see that get going but my guys tell me it wouldn't sell either. I just have to wait and hope SPTech can come through for us with chips and I can do something good with 'em, and in the meantime keep selling Compacs and PSUs.

Regarding something community-funded, I do believe one of Kickstarter's rules for a hardware project is you have to have a working prototype before running the campaign. They'll fund manufacture but not development. I like that rule, and we try to run the same way. The first step on the path to BFL is conning someone else into funding your development. Well the first step on the path to BFL is apparently hiring known scammers to run your business, but the second step is getting folks to fund your development.

I don't know about doing TypeZero boards and a pod concurrently. The pod would come first since I'd much rather have something small and less complex to work on as far as ironing out control systems and multi-chip comms. The only real difference between the pod and the full-scale board would be chip count and probably a beefier power system, but all the digitals would transfer straight across so there wouldn't be much time between a pod and the full-size boards. I can work on non-control parts of the big boards while waiting on prototype parts to assemble and test the small boards.

If I had the money from a single typical vaporware scam sale (not even the whole scam, just a single customer's purchase) I could probably afford dev for the entire project.

no problem you have more 'cred' here then you think....so unless funding is beyond outrageous I'd assume you'd have enough support to get a prototype together and then try the kickstarter idea (my 2 satoshi's)

imho it will be harder to get modern enough 'chips' out of someone to do so at a scale that if kickstarter works you could pull it off in volume (even if you got the kickstarter funds)

I like the kickstarter idea.

[VirosaGITS]

I like the kickstarter idea.

Sound a bit convoluted since the proper way to do it would not to be to donate but do pre-orders ahead of time, imo.
You could go wild and go a kickstarter and start yelling about it on roof, and it might get sidehack money, maybe even more money than he bargained for but then we'd have competition on buying all this stuff and since i'm selfish and all, i'd rather keep all the stuff to myself

[kipper01]

I like the kickstarter idea.

Sound a bit convoluted since the proper way to do it would not to be to donate but do pre-orders ahead of time, imo.
You could go wild and go a kickstarter and start yelling about it on roof, and it might get sidehack money, maybe even more money than he bargained for but then we'd have competition on buying all this stuff and since i'm selfish and all, i'd rather keep all the stuff to myself

I guess with kickstarted I would not be looking to get an equal amount got goods in return.  SOme people maybe looking at giving more money and not getting and equal amount in return.  And the term pre-order in the bitcoin world seems to be tabo from what I have read.

[VirosaGITS]

I like the kickstarter idea.

Sound a bit convoluted since the proper way to do it would not to be to donate but do pre-orders ahead of time, imo.
You could go wild and go a kickstarter and start yelling about it on roof, and it might get sidehack money, maybe even more money than he bargained for but then we'd have competition on buying all this stuff and since i'm selfish and all, i'd rather keep all the stuff to myself

I guess with kickstarted I would not be looking to get an equal amount got goods in return.  SOme people maybe looking at giving more money and not getting and equal amount in return.  And the term pre-order in the bitcoin world seems to be tabo from what I have read.

*shrug* I "pre-ordered" a side hack stick, i waited for quite a while to receive it, then i did. The problem is not pre-ordering, after all, a bunch of people just pre-ordered S7 and it finally started shipping out last week.

It's really just the expectation of Vaporware. A new company that never produced anything would be frown upon if they asked to pre-order. Many would still pre-order because people do whatever with their money, but many would sooner call them a scam and ignore their existence until they proved themselves.

Sidehack already proved he is capable, blind trust is silly but he proved he can do the job. So opening Pre-orders once he has a prototype or some work put up front means he then just need the money to cover the first batch, so pre-ordering for that batch isin't too far fetched.

The problem is just fluctuating value. If we pay 400$ for 1THs at 0,2W/G of goodies and we receive it in 2 months, then we already paid 400$ and now its maybe only worth 200$. Thats the only real problem.

[philipma1957]

4 Spondoolies chips will show maybe 500Gh.   That would be quite a mean little pod.
While 8 giving 1000+ would be a kick in the pants to Bit(stingy)main. Especially if it (and 3 brothers) would mount on a redundant S1/S3 chassis with a Pi(crust) on top.

yep a perfect way for sp-tech to attack bitmaintech is a 4-10 chip miner built by sidehack.

A. it does not chip into the 110th miner they make.
B. it would be better then an s-7  powerwise soundwise
C.  running 7 10 chip miners would be the equal to 1 s-7.  use less power.
D. we can promo it with a pool club like the sidehack stick pool club
E.  sp-tech could send an sp-50 at the pool club(a few hours a day) as an incentive to buy the mini miner.

Seems to me bitmaintech would have to struggle to beat this idea.

I created the sidehack pool club idea to promo sidehack-novac -gekko sticks.

using the same idea to promo a better product looks good to me.

[sidehack]

We've done preorders for two products so far, the first batch of DPS2000 PSU boards and the first batch of Compacs. The DPS2000 boards started shipping I think 7 days behind schedule, but the PCBs arrived from the etch house 9 days late (2 days after our product's ship date). The Compac started shipping 10 days late, but the pick-and-place arrived about 50 days late (seven days after our product's ship date) and the heatsinks arrived 14 days late (three days after ship date).

I don't like taking in money on things I can't deliver immediately or awful close to it. But sometimes it's necessary to get enough cash in hand to buy parts for a full batch.

The problem I'm running into right now is having enough money to fund the development process. I really don't want to take on debt for that. Hopefully I can get everything working in short enough time and when sales on 750W PSUs and Compacs are doing good that we aren't put in a bind.

Also, the rough numbers we're looking at right now would put an S1-sized miner at 28 chips, about 4TH topend.

[HerbPean]

I don't like taking in money on things I can't deliver immediately or awful close to it. But sometimes it's necessary to get enough cash in hand to buy parts for a full batch.

It's all about trust IMO. Since we all know you can deliver a quality product in time, it's not a problem for me. If it was 6 month pre-order that would different. 2 weeks it's no big deal, if the trust is there. We all know that the money will be in good hands and is needed for the good of the project.

[elrippo]

We've done preorders for two products so far, the first batch of DPS2000 PSU boards and the first batch of Compacs. The DPS2000 boards started shipping I think 7 days behind schedule, but the PCBs arrived from the etch house 9 days late (2 days after our product's ship date). The Compac started shipping 10 days late, but the pick-and-place arrived about 50 days late (seven days after our product's ship date) and the heatsinks arrived 14 days late (three days after ship date).

I don't like taking in money on things I can't deliver immediately or awful close to it. But sometimes it's necessary to get enough cash in hand to buy parts for a full batch.

The problem I'm running into right now is having enough money to fund the development process. I really don't want to take on debt for that. Hopefully I can get everything working in short enough time and when sales on 750W PSUs and Compacs are doing good that we aren't put in a bind.

Also, the rough numbers we're looking at right now would put an S1-sized miner at 28 chips, about 4TH topend.

Well i would chip in for development of a new home miner based on the work from sidehack and novak 

[SlimePuppy]

I don't like taking in money on things I can't deliver immediately or awful close to it. But sometimes it's necessary to get enough cash in hand to buy parts for a full batch.

Hopefully you see from the feedback that you and novak have built a significant pool of trust from people that value both of you, the work you do, and the reasons you do it.

Also, the rough numbers we're looking at right now would put an S1-sized miner at 28 chips, about 4TH topend.

I've got a C1, five S3+ and an upgraded S1 that are looking forward to your new boards.

We appreciate you guys - carry on!   

[bmoscato]

I know that preorders are taboo, but I have no issue with it with Novack and Sidehack.  They seem like pretty straight shooters and tell it like it is. I'd rather support a small shop US than some random place in China.

[VirosaGITS]

I don't like taking in money on things I can't deliver immediately or awful close to it. But sometimes it's necessary to get enough cash in hand to buy parts for a full batch.

It's all about trust IMO. Since we all know you can deliver a quality product in time, it's not a problem for me. If it was 6 month pre-order that would different. 2 weeks it's no big deal, if the trust is there. We all know that the money will be in good hands and is needed for the good of the project.

I think so too, but its a bit of an awkward time since a few companies are starting a competition that can devolve in another price war pretty quick. We know Bitmain is quick to respond to those, though they will probably ignore Bitfury and SP if they keep off the small miner and try to just attack them with batch orders while leaving the individual unit expensive. If either start making offering to the small miner, i think they'll fight it out again.

What i mean is IF SP sell a batch of chips that let sidehack make a 500gh pod for 1BTC and meanwhile for example bitfury release a 250gh pod for 0.25BTC in response to SP or Bitmain's whatever, then sidehack will be left with tons of hardware that now costed twice more what they're worth currently.

Anyways that's the reason why I would be worried about starting to take money ahead of time.

Not a matter of capability, just the reality of the ASIC market is also volatile.

[notlist3d]

We've done preorders for two products so far, the first batch of DPS2000 PSU boards and the first batch of Compacs. The DPS2000 boards started shipping I think 7 days behind schedule, but the PCBs arrived from the etch house 9 days late (2 days after our product's ship date). The Compac started shipping 10 days late, but the pick-and-place arrived about 50 days late (seven days after our product's ship date) and the heatsinks arrived 14 days late (three days after ship date).

I don't like taking in money on things I can't deliver immediately or awful close to it. But sometimes it's necessary to get enough cash in hand to buy parts for a full batch.

The problem I'm running into right now is having enough money to fund the development process. I really don't want to take on debt for that. Hopefully I can get everything working in short enough time and when sales on 750W PSUs and Compacs are doing good that we aren't put in a bind.

Also, the rough numbers we're looking at right now would put an S1-sized miner at 28 chips, about 4TH topend.

Well i would chip in for development of a new home miner based on the work from sidehack and novak 

I love hearing about a possible 4TH miner from you guys.  That would be kinda a game changer if you get up and running on that scale.   The compacs seem pretty rock solid so definitely interested in 4TH depending on price.

One thing you might do is a design it to use one or two of your 750 PSU's depending on it's needs.   That way you might get some sales on miners and PSU's at same time.    Which means more profit and hopefully more money for even further development.

[sidehack]

Whatever we build would be able to run at least one off our 750W PSU. We've been rolling around the idea of a discount or bundle purchase, probably five bucks off the PSU with a purchase of two boards.

[Mudbankkeith]

If we get a 4Th upgrade for our S1/S3/S5 chassis, then what do we do with the old boards?