Re: Which USB hub to use with Block Erupters or K1? A List.

Ghetto cooling duct here again.

Hard a go are re-flowing the solder on the USB hub that had about half the sockets not working and gave it a +5V power trace augmentation, but I think I may need to replace the sockets. Or wait until I have a reflow workstation (thank your element14 Father's Day specials). Also ran into problems with comms errors, decided I should measure the +5V at one of the miners, it was down to 4.90V at the miner, with 5.16V at the PSU, so I adjusted the PSU voltage up to 5.4V (5.06v at the same miner), and the comms errors stopped. Two more hubs on their way from DX.com for modification (along with some 3300uf 16V caps to repair an ATX PSU with a 45A 5V rail), though I may just get a 5V 30A supply instead, since the voltage can be adjusted up to compensate for ohmic losses.

Why don't you just buy hubs that work?

They cost more money but in the time you're waiting for new hubs and re-soldering them you could be mining.

I am trying to get away from the high hub cost. Most that buy the Acker hubs cost about $60 each so they have a cost of $120 to run 20 miners ( $6 per port). I have about $8.50 x 3 hubs+ $30 PSU + $15 barrel connectors = $70.50 and am running 25 miners. Using cheap 10 port hubs, 5v 20a PSU I have my cost below $3 per port. This may not seem like a big deal until we all start to run 100 USB miners and a person having to find enough outlets to plug all those wall adaptors into.

My setup is composed of 7-port hubs and 4A PSUs (all are already listed on OP and discussed on these pages) for a total cost of $12.20 per set and are very capable of running the maximum number of miners (7) per hub which yields $1.74 per port without having to go through the gymnastics that you did or are still doing. As I've mentioned on a prior post, I've scaled it down to five miners per hub to bring it closer to 50% load (PSU peak efficiency). Even at 5 BEs per hub, the yield would still be at a reasonable $2.44 per port.

I bought a bunch of 5-ft extension cords with three outlets (two on one side and one on the opposite side) and 6-outlet power strips from the 99¢ Only Stores. All of them are rated 13A (1560W) and each costs...you guessed it -- 99¢ each. Every extension that is plugged into an outlet on the power strip can provide power to three power bricks or two wall warts...and so on and so forth. Did I mention that each of them (extension cord and power strip) only cost 99¢ each? Do the math.