Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Guy Corem of Spondoolies-Tech, and we spoke about Spondoolies-Tech , the team, miners, Bitcoin and where it is going in the future along with the future of mining.
Now I am reviewing the Spondoolies-Tech SP10 Dawson.
Specifications:
-Effective Hash Rate 1.4TH/s ± 10%
-ASIC Total 192 Spondoolies-Tech Hammer ASICs
-Controller TI Sitara 1GHz (based on Beagle Bone Black)
-Controller Board OS Linux (embedded)
-Mining Software cgminer with custom plugin
-Form Factor 1.25 U rack mountable (mounting ears required)
-Fans 6 x 40mm
-Power Supply 1050 W (up to 1200 W PSU to boost performance)
-Input Rating 90-264 VAC
-Ambient Operating Temperature 0 °C to 35 °C
It is a masterpiece Bitcoin SHA-256 miner. The quality of the components is 2nd to none, and the software is amazing. The SP10 is packaged very well and arrived with no issues. DHL did not even beat up the box which was a nice surprise. You will need at least a 16AWG power cord for the unit. DO NOT use a standard cheap power supply cable the SP10 can draw over 1200watts. The SP10 is a 1.25 U rack mountable case. It is quite heavy at nearly 28 pounds. If you have a server rack, this is the best place for it. If not, I suggest putting it on its side unless you have it on a heat proof shelf as the bottom gets quite hot.
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The SP10 uses DHCP so there is no messing around to get it on your network and if you use a non-standard IP. A quick search showed it on mine. Typing in the IP brings you to the user interface which is clean and neat. You can quickly add your pool info, update time zone, password setup, monitor the SP10 and much more. I setup a password and entered my pool info as well as setup my time zone. Once it was all set I was mining. I chose the low setting at first. The SP10 ran at 1.1 th/s to 1.2 th/s poolside. On the low setting the fan noise was hovering around 62dB. Next I bumped it up to the medium setting, and it ran at 1.2 th/s to 1.3+ th/s poolside. The fan noise bumped up to 70dB, and the majority of the fan noise was from the PSU, that has that server PSU squeal to it. I did not run it on high very long due to the fan noise and heat. The unit has a temp sensor array that tell you the temps at the front and back of the miner. When on high the miner got to be 38c at the front to 90c at the back. The temp was way up from the 33c at the front to 79c at the back on medium. I do not have it in the server rack yet so those temps were worrisome to me until I can rack mount the SP10. The SP10 did hit 1.36 th/s on high though, at least poolside. The SP10 was able to do it on 110v.
Here I made an amazing discovery in their software. On the setting page, it tells you what the voltage the miner is getting from the wall. This auto sensing feature goes further by managing what clock speeds it will allow the miner to run on. The ability to do this saves both the miner and your breakers. The unit will also run on 220v which allows for much more leeway in the settings and even a higher hash rate. You can also go into the advance speed settings and adjust it in a more granular way.
The detail that has gone into the OS is the same that they put into the physical design. Fitting everything into a 1.25u rack mount case and still being
able to deliver top performance while not overheating is a huge feat. The ASIC boards and controller are carefully placed in the case with minute precision. Where we are used to miners that ship with bulky blades, the SP10 has a layered approach to the placement, so it creates a wind tunnel effect over the densely packed boards attached to full length front to back dual heat sinks. The air is drawn over them by the 40mm exhaust fans on the rear. The cooling and hash rate are controlled by the customized OS that Spondoolies-Tech engineered using open source programs that will throttle the system based on temps. The hash rate controlling with the software allows for fewer overheating issues that would normally crash or meltdown other miners.
The SP10 is extremely stable due to the engineering that has gone into it design and the programming that they have done with the controller. Hash rate will increase over time to it’s optimum speed for your voltage, settings, temp and available power all done due to the brilliant OS programming.
Spondoolies-Tech team is also constantly working on and putting out new firmware. Another huge benefit of the SP10 and the entire Spondoolies line is that not only are they putting out new firmware it is extremely simple to update. In the OS, there is a firmware tab. Not only does this tab allow you to update the firmware, it downloads and installs it for you. You don’t lose your pool settings. There is no messing around with jumper settings. Most miners out there do not ever get firmware updates. The latest update that was available through the web UI is 1.13.43. It even updated cgminer to 4.3.3 with no hiccups. The Spondoolies-Tech team works very hard to make the experience as smooth and high performing as possible.
I was able to ask a couple questions that were answered quickly by Zvisha Shteingart the SW Director at Spondoolies-Tech.
I see that the software is a meld of several different programs and is phenomenal could you tell me a bit more about the controller and the software?
We didn’t want to put too much of our logic code into cgminer . We developed a middle-ware that accepts hashing requests by Unix Native Socket and sends `wins` back to the socket. Then the cgminer integration is very simple, and we can (if the need arises) integrate into bfgminer or any other miner in 1 day. We use this middleware in production testing without the cgminer just to get ASIC performance. It dynamically scales the ASIC frequencies based on ASIC parameters, temperature and power usage.
We also have the MinePeon web interface developed based on the open source code of Neil Fincham. The BSP is a very thin Linux image of just 9MB, including cgminer, Wi-Fi support, SSL, SSH, i2c tools and PHP web server. The system can boot from both SD and MMC memory.
It is just amazing the work they put into the miners right from the hardware all the way through to the software.
There are little touches all the way through it.
-Type http://myminer.io into your web browser and it will bring up all your Spondoolies-Tech miners on your network. From there, you can see the Name; IP addresses both internal and external, FW version, uptime and a direct link to the UI.
-Socket Voltage in real time in the settings tab
-Simple firmware updates
-Detailed ASIC stats readout
-Polished UI
-Meticulously engineered chips, boards, cooling and power system
The Spondoolies-Tech SP10 ASIC miner is the best miner I have had my hands on to date. I am very, very impressed with the build quality, software interface, support, and a company wide drive to not only be the best but back it up. If I had the money I would buy a 2nd one in a heartbeat. I highly recommend the SP10 Dawson miner.
