Quote from: Skot on January 13, 2023, 10:11:37 PM

Quote from: GizmoMiner on January 13, 2023, 07:26:00 PM

Thank you for your warm welcome. Means a lot. Was so nervous people would be less than encouraging.

Very excited to dig in and dedicate myself to this Grassroots initiative. Lots to learn. Focusing on your Github. The information is clear and easy to understand. Now it is time for myself to put in some work and start contributing to the knowledge pool. Have a couple ideas that are being put together. Got the Github page up. Right now.. Studying none stop. The information on these chips is so obscure. Obscure by design my guess is.

Funny you mentioned the Voltera. This is the exact pcb printer watching. VOLTERA V-ONE PCB PRINTER (1000329)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/195204066700 .Seems to be reasonably priced.

This the model you have worked with? Any good? Recommendation for printers that would functions for rapid prototyping?

Already started pulling ASIC chips from my S9, S17 and S19 hashboards today. Gathering some of the smaller parts for the next stages of prototypes.

The Voltera V-One specs are;

Code:

Minimum 8 mil (0.2mm) trace width and trace spacing - however, we recommend 10 mil for new users.
Minimum 0.65mm pin pitch for SMT IC packages (0.5 mm for solder paste).
Minimum 0603 passive size (0402 for solder paste).

All of the Bitmain ASICs that I have seen are 0.48mm pin pitch. So that's going to be tough. You are also limited to only double sided boards. You can do plated holes and vias with those rivets, but they are huge and a PITA to install. I had access to a very fancy LPKF PCB mill at an old job, and it was usually more trouble than it was worth -- and that had automatic tool changes for different drills.

I think you could bang out some quick prototypes with the Voltera, but once you want to do anything remotely complicated you'll need 4 layer professional boards. JLCPCB, Seeed and other shops in China are soooo cheap for getting PCBs and stencils. Shipping takes a while, but if you setup a full pipeline of boards coming in, you'll have plenty to keep you busy.

For small run protos I do like to assemble the boards myself. I think you'd have more benefit from investing in a laser cutter to make stencils, a stencil printer and a reflow oven. maybe even get a pick-n-place machine! (check out the LumenPnP)

Maybe this is because I'm a hardware guy, but I feel like the real time consuming part is the software and firmware!

Your insight is priceless. Thank you for that. Going to be looking into compiling a new list that includes laser cutter ,stencil printer ,reflow oven and LumenPnP. That LumenPnP so beyond cool. Watched 30+ videos last night of the Lumenpnp. Speechless on how amazing it is. Your experience in what we need full time. Others like you. If I was to solve a bitcoin block today. That would be my first order of business tomorrow.

I am acquiring a lot of new skill sets. These same skill-sets you already are well versed. What this grassroots imitative really needs is you working on this 9-5 monday-friday.

This is something as a community we need to figure out how to make possible. Many people have walked away from Bitcoin with great wealth. They contributed nothing to the development or bettering the space in general.

They took and gave nothing. We need to figure out a way that people like you. Who do the work and are passionate about bitcoin centered development. People who offer the work up free of charge and open source can work on this stuff full time.

Made a development discord . We can all work on these things in real time