Quote from: Ghost of USD on August 08, 2013, 03:59:26 AM

Quote from: arorts on August 08, 2013, 01:49:02 AM

Quote from: lukestokes on August 08, 2013, 01:36:47 AM

Quote from: arorts on August 08, 2013, 01:17:35 AM

Quote from: dogie on August 08, 2013, 12:44:36 AM

Quote from: arorts on August 07, 2013, 11:23:51 PM

Quote from: lukestokes on August 07, 2013, 10:01:58 PM

If you're looking to buy/host some Avalon batch 3 modules or if you want to sell some batch 3 clone parts (specifically a PDU and some cables), please see this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=269802.msg2886697#msg2886697

So in retrospective, for those of us looking on what NOT to do and prevent accidents, why did this happen? That power supply should have handled current perfectly. Did you do custom cabling or what? I thought Avalon provided with proper cables. I still don't understand why this happened....

He ONLY installed the 24pin mainboard connector.

Sorry for my ignorance but what else was he supposed to connect? power only comes through one cable AFAIK.

I thought the same thing. And you if you try that, you'll end up with a melted miner. You have to hook up the 24pin ATX cable AND all of the power supply cables, like you would if you were supplying power to devices in your computer like a hard drive or a DVD player. Why it runs at all with only the single cable plugged in? I have no idea.

I've put this thread up as well to see how much interest is out there for buying Batch 3 modules: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=269845.0 I've gotten some serious offers, but most are lower than I was hoping.

Oh, I see. Seems kind of stupid that Corsair, OCZ and all those suppliers *assume* that the only application for their PSU is a PC.

I'd appreciate if you could point me to some thread that tells me how to "trick" the rest of the cables. I have a Corsair 750W and I read the manual but never did it say anything about connecting all of them.

However, I was planning to ONLY use the Molex connectors for my mining application anyway (I don't require the use of the 24-pin connector). Not sure if I'd be in trouble as well or whether the burning issue only happens when connecting the 24-connector cable alone...thoughts?

The problem had nothing to do with a single faulty wire or bad PSU.

The Avalon is not designed like a PC. All of its modules and controllers are all powered by that single PDU board.

Because the power supply has a single 12V rail, if you only have the ATX connector plugged in, the Avalon tries to pull all of the ~800W (66A) it requires from 2 tiny (18 gauge) leads.

That's ~33 amps per wire, but the maximum current they can safely handle is 6 amps each. The result is guaranteed melted wires, or worse as was the case here.

When all the plugs are attached to the PDU, there are 26x 12V leads sharing the load, a much more reasonable 2.5 amps each.

Doesn't the ATX cable itself consist of 24 cables not 2? It'd seem to me that the ATX connector would be enough to distribute all the load.