Re: Klondike - 16 chip ASIC Open Source Board - Preliminary
I want to see you rewarded. I think the ultimate test would be the sample miner anyway. But i think the sample chips will be a few only, so probably you need to think about how to test a board with only some chips on it.
I think I've figured out how to make the board auto-detect how many chips are installed. At this time I believe you'll be able to have anywhere from 1 to 16 chips on a board and it will mine with whatever is present. This kind of depends on the protocol specs coming soon, but if things go as I expect then this will be possible, and I'll write the code to support this functionality so that people can install more chips as they get them.Also, the I2C daisy chain will auto-detect how many boards are connected. I've got that worked out regardless of Avalon specs.
( As an aside, I'd like to know if using silver epoxy solder available at some electronics shops is viable for on the fly upgrades. It may be easy to paint a little bit on the QFN tabs and then carefully place and hold until hardened. My question would be heat transfer - whether silver/epoxy will conduct enough heat? )
Have updated original post now.
*g* Great news... your design gets more and more perfect.
We would need solder stencils with and without the ASICs in place as I bet a fair number of boards will be assembled without the ASICs and it would be better when placing the ASICs on unpopulated boards to have clean pads instead of solder puddled up on the pads.
When I get further along I'll be testing my computer cutter with synthetic papers to make stencils. I've had this thing for a couple years and never used it hardly. I have read online this works quite well for short runs, and at least one vendor sells this type for $10 each. Real stencils (steel) are quite expensive and would be worthwhile for someone doing a larger assembly run (these can be had for $70 in China). With this cutter method you use postscript output to create the stencil so I can provide such a file with/without ASICs later on github. If this cutting method works well enough then I'll either include a stencil with each kit order or make it an optional item for a low added cost. A stencil without ASICs could have a separate footprint of a single ASIC to be used individually.
Would be really cool if that works out. The stencil is one of the things i worry about.
Since you already will place big orders of parts... can you imagine to check out a passive cooling solution for the boards? So that in case a customer wants to go the easy way he can buy the cooling from you? I guess you would be in the best position to lower the prices through mass-order. I can imagine 4 cooling parts for 4 chips each... putting them on top of the chips or on the other side of the pcb when this is better.
Zefirs first batch was bought on april 16th. 4 weeks after he should get the sample chips. A week later you probably will get sample chips for testing. Hm... in fact 4 weeks were over yesterday... i hope the samples arent delayed much longer.
Anyway... in case you get the chips, you test the boards maybe a week, testing, tweaking and so on... and when its ready you order the pcb and the parts. Can you already say how long it will take to produce the pcbs and receive the parts so that you can ship them? Its only that i need to save bitcoins for that time then.
Or maybe you plan to collect the bitcoins before? In this case... when will you start collecting?