DCENT ExpansionPack

DCENT Expansion Pack

The miner-side Expansion Pack for DCENT_OS. Plug it in, scan a QR code, and your Antminer is on Wi-Fi — no travel router, no IP hunting, no closed-source bridge firmware.

DCENT_ExpansionPack (a.k.a. DCENT_XPack) is a small, low-cost, open-source extension board for industrial Bitcoin miners running DCENT_OS. The name is a deliberate N64 joke: clip it onto your miner and DCENT_OS levels up — gaining home Wi-Fi, an OLED status display, optional Bitaxe Touch–style accessories, and external temperature feedback for Mining Heating mode.

It is built and produced at JLCPCB so anyone, anywhere can buy one, build one, or fork the design.

Status

Open-hardware design freeze — PCB v0.1. The board design is complete and fab-ready: a 6-layer ESP32-C6 + W5500 bridge, schematic ERC clean, DRC error-clean, fully routed, with a JLCPCB-ready Gerber / BOM / CPL bundle and a STEP 3D model in hardware/reports/. The next real-world step is the first-article fab run and bench bring-up — no board has been manufactured or hardware-validated yet. This is an open invitation to build one, fork the design, or follow along.

The firmware is feature-complete on the ESP32-C6 (Wi-Fi STA + setup AP + captive portal + W5500 Ethernet + DHCP server + NAPT + mDNS + reverse proxy + signed-OTA scaffold + factory reset) and fits the flash budget with headroom.

Revisions

See CHANGELOG.md for the v0.1 release notes.

Board preview (placement only, pre-route)

Top side (F.Cu + F.SilkS)	Bottom side (B.Cu + B.SilkS, mirrored)

Regenerate with powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\render_pcb_preview.ps1.

Why this exists

Antminers, Avalons, and WhatsMiners ship with one network port and zero Wi-Fi. For institutional miners that's fine — they live in racks with structured cabling. For home miners, it's the single biggest onboarding pain point.

The status quo for "I want my Antminer on Wi-Fi" is:

• Vonets / generic travel routers. Closed firmware, finicky to configure, external bricks dangling off the miner with their own power adapter, expensive in some regions, no integration with the miner itself.
• Run Cat-5e across the house. Works, but most home miners don't have a switch in the closet they're heating.
• USB Wi-Fi dongles. Kernel-module gymnastics on every firmware update.

None of these solve the real onboarding problem either: even after the miner is on the network, the user still has to find its IP address, log into the router admin page, and bookmark the right URL. New home miners get stuck here all the time.

DCENT_XPack replaces all of that with one small board that does four jobs:

1. Wi-Fi onboarding — scan a QR code, type your home SSID + password, done.
2. Stable local name — the miner is always reachable at http://dcent-pack-XXXX.local/. No IP lookups, ever.
3. Hardware accessories — onboard temperature sensor, optional OLED, and a header for Bitaxe Touch–style display panels.
4. DCENT_OS integration — the miner doesn't need to know your Wi-Fi credentials, it just sees an Ethernet gateway and pairs with the bridge.

It is open hardware (KiCad sources in this repo) and open firmware (ESP-IDF sources in this repo), with a signed OTA path so the bridge stays updatable in the field without us touching it.

How it works

+--------------+        +-----------------------+        +----------------+
| Your home    |  Wi-Fi |  DCENT Expansion Pack | RJ45   |  Antminer /    |
| Wi-Fi router | <----> |  ESP32-C6 + W5500     | <----> |  Avalon /      |
| (2.4 GHz)    |        |  10.77.0.1/24         |        |  WhatsMiner    |
+--------------+        +-----------------------+        |  running       |
                                                         |  DCENT_OS      |
                                                         +----------------+

The bridge runs as a small managed router, not a fragile Layer-2 Wi-Fi bridge:

• Wi-Fi side joins your home network as a normal STA.
• Miner side is a private Ethernet subnet (10.77.0.0/24) with a built-in DHCP server and NAPT so the miner gets internet access transparently.
• mDNS advertises dcent-pack-XXXX.local so you and DCENT_OS find the miner without ever knowing its IP address.
• Reverse proxy forwards your browser straight through to the miner's DCENT_OS dashboard. Type one URL, see the miner.
• Pairing happens automatically: DCENT_OS POSTs its identity to the default gateway after DHCP and the bridge remembers it across reboots.

Your Wi-Fi password lives only on the bridge — the miner never sees it. A factory-reset button on the bridge wipes credentials cleanly without bricking anything.

Key features

• One-QR setup under five minutes from box-open to mining over Wi-Fi.
• No miner IP discovery. dcent-pack-XXXX.local redirects to the miner.
• External temperature feedback so DCENT_OS Mining Heating mode can control hashrate based on the room temperature, not the chip junction.
• Optional OLED on a 4-pin I²C accessory plug (SSD1306-class, Bitaxe-style).
• Bitaxe Touch compatibility via a BAP UART accessory header. Drop in any BAP-speaking touchscreen and the bridge mirrors DCENT_OS state to it.
• Signed OTA — firmware updates are HMAC-verified before flash.
• Captive-portal Wi-Fi provisioning with live credential pre-validation (wrong password fails fast with a useful error, not a timeout).
• Privacy-respecting. No cloud account, no telemetry phone-home, no remote-management backdoor. All traffic stays on your LAN.
• Auditable. Hardware (KiCad) and firmware (ESP-IDF) are open source and reproducible from this repository.

Hardware

Bill of materials is JLCPCB-native — assembled basic and extended parts only, no hand-soldering required for a working board.

Power input options are SKU-configurable (2-pin locking harness, 2.1 mm barrel, or Mini-Fit-style) so the same board fits different miner families and cable kits.

See hardware/ for the KiCad sources, the JLCPCB-ready fab bundle (Gerbers / BOM / CPL), and the STEP 3D model.

Miner compatibility

DCENT_XPack pairs with any miner running DCENT_OS. Stock Bitmain firmware, BraiinsOS, VNish, and LuxOS are not pairing targets — the bridge is built around DCENT_OS's pairing contract.

The bridge itself is miner-agnostic at the hardware level (12 V in, RJ45 out) and at the protocol level (the pairing contract is HTTP, not vendor-specific). As DCENT_OS expands to new platforms, DCENT_XPack picks them up for free.

DCENT_OS integration contract

DCENT_OS does not need to know anything about your Wi-Fi. It keeps Ethernet DHCP enabled and adds a tiny pairing client that:

1. Gets a DHCP lease from the bridge (typically 10.77.0.2).
2. Detects the default gateway (10.77.0.1).
3. POSTs miner identity + dashboard metadata to http://<gateway>/pair.
4. Polls bridge telemetry for external temperature when Mining Heating mode wants it.
5. Sends periodic heartbeats so the bridge knows the miner is alive.

That's it. No custom kernel modules on the miner, no Wi-Fi drivers, no credentials stored on the miner side. See docs/DCENT_OS_BRIDGE_CLIENT.md for the reference client implementation and docs/PAIRING_FLOW.md for the full state machine.

Roadmap

• Order PCB v0.1 from JLCPCB for first-article assembly and bench bring-up against the DCENT_OS S9 / S19j Pro / S21 fleet.
• Field pilot across common Antminer control-board families.
• Finalize the v0.2 revision (multi-SKU power inputs, USB-C, BAP touch, SHT30).
• Public sale via d-central.tech.

See docs/ROADMAP.md for the full plan.

Repository layout

dcent-expansion-pack/
├── hardware/      KiCad schematic + PCB, BOM, JLCPCB review notes
├── firmware/      ESP-IDF C firmware for the ESP32-C6 bridge
├── docs/          Pairing flow, customer onboarding, API contracts, roadmap
├── scripts/       PCB preview + bench bring-up helper scripts
└── tools/         Bench tools and bring-up utilities

Highlights:

• docs/CUSTOMER_ONBOARDING.md — five-minute setup walkthrough (also in French).
• docs/BRIDGE_API.md — REST API surface.
• docs/HOMEASSISTANT_INTEGRATION.md and docs/ESPHOME_INTEGRATION.md — home-automation hooks.

About D-Central

D-Central Technologies is Canada's leading Bitcoin mining technology company. Founded in 2016 in Laval, Québec. Self-described Mining Hackers. 2,500+ miners repaired, 400+ products, and a stubborn belief that every industrial ASIC deserves a second life as a home space heater.

DCENT_XPack is part of the broader DCENT ecosystem:

• DCENT_OS — open-source firmware for Antminer, AvalonMiner, and WhatsMiner.
• DCENT_axe — DCENT_OS for the BitAxe.
• DCENT Pool — D-Central's open-source mining pool.
• DCENT_XPack — this project.

License

• Hardware: CERN-OHL-S-2.0 (open hardware, share-alike)
• Firmware: GPL-3.0 (open firmware, share-alike)
• Tools and docs: MIT unless otherwise noted

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. For hardware changes, please run the KiCad ERC/DRC checks and attach the generated ERC/DRC/BOM report. For firmware changes, please run the test suite under firmware/ and include a serial log from a flashed board if your change touches Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or the pairing flow.

If you find a security issue (auth bypass, credential leak, OTA-signing flaw), please email security@d-central.tech instead of opening a public issue.