Noob starting my 1st bitaxe build and documenting my experience :)

[Zolthus]

I'm super excited about this project and planning to start a build from scratch following the current documentation!
I'll use this thread to document my experience and feedback building 1-3 miners with no prior hardware experience.
Hoping that this will be helpful in improving bitaxe pain points and assisting other beginners on their builds.
Talk to you soon - Z

[BloominFood]

Zolthus I am glad to see someone doing this. I was thinking of doing what you are but this is my busy time of year. I got all the parts ready to order on digikey and was studying kicad but haven't got back to it. Great idea starting a thread. Looking forward to see how it goes. You will inspire a lot of plebs if successful. I believe this is the way to decentralized mining which is going to be needed imo.

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On Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 11:17 PM Zolthus ***@***.***> wrote: I'm super excited about this project and planning to start a build from scratch following the current documentation! I'll use this thread to document my experience and feedback building 1-3 miners with no prior hardware experience. Hoping that this will be helpful in improving bitaxe pain points and assisting other beginners on their builds. Talk to you soon - Z — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#40>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/A3KSTSEUJCU4P6S7ZHUE2G3XCIQ7VANCNFSM6AAAAAAXGN3LSY> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[Zolthus]

Thank you @BloominFood . Your reply has already helped keep me accountable. Plebs together strong

[Zolthus]

After combing through Bitaxe’s file repository and DuckDuckGo’ing at least 50 questions, I am planning out my DIY Bitaxe build with the process steps defined below:

TL; DR – This build looks pretty involved. I still have many questions that may alter my outline below. Plan on expending significant time and effort to get your Bitaxe hashing. When all is said and done, you won’t have the world’s most powerful or efficient miner, but it will be your miner, and you will learn a ton.

But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? - Jesus Christ (Luke 14:28)

Process Breakdown :

- Source build materials

    ◦ Tools / Infrastructure

        ▪ Reflow: Convection toaster oven, thermocouple thermometer, and solder paste (Sn63/Pb37 no-clean, leaded)

        ▪ Rework: Soldering iron, solder wire, and solder flux (Sn63/Pb37 no-clean, leaded)

        ▪ General: Tweezers, Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA), latex gloves, magnifying glass, wipes


    ◦ Hardware (to be soldered)

        ▪ Download Bitaxe BOM and order parts w/ Digikey part numbers

        ▪ Order Bitmain BM1397 ASIC


    ◦ Printed Circuit Board (PCB) 

        ▪ Select PCB manufacturer (Such as JLCPCB, Seeed or PCBWay)

        ▪ Download PCB CAD software and generate PCB Gerber + Drill + Stencil files

        ▪ Order PCB(s) and stencils

    ◦ Miner components

        ▪ Order heat sink, thermal paste, fan, power supply, and spade-style connectors

        ▪ Order ESP 32 programmer, tag connect cable and tag connect clip 

        ▪ Order FTDI USB-Serial cable (needed to mine until Bitaxe firmware is done)

• Assemble Miner (Solder + Hardware + PCB = Printed Circuit Board Assembly [PCBA])

    ◦ Reflow

        ▪ Apply solder paste to PCB using stencil, place components on board

        ▪ Heat board in oven following recommended solder temperature profile

        ▪ Allow PCBA to cool

    ◦ Inspection and Rework (if needed)

        ▪ Inspect for missing or poorly placed parts/connectors and solder defects

        ▪ If anything is off, use solder flux, solder wire and soldering iron to fix it

    ◦ Finalize Assembly

        ▪ Add thermal paste, heat sink, and fan assembly onto the ASIC.

        ▪ Inspect the miner once more for defects, rework as needed

• Test and Debug

    ◦ Download required programming and debug software

    ◦ Connect debug and power cables, ensure that they are fully seated

    ◦ Power on miner, pay attention to LEDs + miner output for any sort of error codes

    ◦ If error codes are output, do your best to debug and ask questions on Github.

• Programming, connecting to pool, and hashing

    ◦ Future state: Once Bitaxe firmware is done

        ▪ Write Bitaxe firmware to ESP32 micro-controller on miner with ESP 32 programmer

        ▪ Connect over wifi directly to mining pool, no external computer needed.

    ◦ Current state: 

        ▪ Download + Modify Kano’s cgminer on external computer

        ▪ Unsure if ESP32 programming is needed for cgminer firmware on the miner itself

        ▪ Connect FTDI USB-Serial cable to external computer running cgminer

        ▪ Connect external computer running cgminer to mining pool.

Conclusion and What's Next:
The above process steps are likely imperfect, but they are what I’m working with for now. I’ll try to update this post as my understanding grows.

My next post will be a price breakdown of the Bitaxe build complete with an evaluation of how this cost changes when building 1, 3, or 5 miners - Z

[joelshaji]

is the firmware available

[matthewkreh]

It's great to see that other people are interested in this too! I will be doing the same steps later this summer. I am at the point of ordering parts and tools to set up a space to work on all of this. I just ordered the 8-slice Black and Decker convection oven because it's internal dimensions will fit an entire Antminer T17 hash board inside of it for salvaging chips and for future reflow onto Bitaxe boards. I also ordered a BM1397 stencil and the BM1397 test socket. The parts shipping says it may be as late as Jun 9th before I receive those, so I have plenty of time to piece together whatever other tools I might need before then. I look forward to seeing your progress and repeating the processes once I get set up to do so!