Nerd8

The NerdOCTAXE+ is a 8-Asic version of the NerdQAxe+ with Nerdminer / Nerdaxe Display and is running the BitAxe Firmware as its Core.

It runs standalone and uses 8 ASICs of type BM1368 to achieve an average Hashrate of ~5Th/s at ~100Watts (approx. 110Watt at the wall... i have not measured it yet)

Highlights:

• uses the NerdAxe / NerdMiner display
• 3-Phase Buck // The TPS could handle 4 Phases... currently thinking of changing it to 4-Phase design
• Standalone, no Raspberry Pi or other PC needed
• AxeOS with improvements and enhancements - slightly modified version of ESP-Miner-NerdQAxe+
  • Influx DB support
  • Better charting (10m, 1h, 1d), data doesn't get lost on Web UI reloads
  • ASIC clock and voltage adjustable without reboot
  • Stratum client stability improvements (TCP timeouts)

The NerdOCTAXE+ runs with a modified version of the AxeOS: https://github.com/Patsch91/ESP-Miner-NerdOctaxePlus

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Build

DISCLAIMER: This device is an advanced build and partly WIP. To get 8 Asics soldered properly can be very hard and frustrating if you are not used to soldering Asics or soldering in general. Using that amount of power, this device isn't a toy and you should know what you are doing - stay safe!

The first prototype is running a little bit high on Temps: Buck at ~80°C and Asics about 60-70°C (so for now I used a rather unconventional way of additional cooling glueing some -many- cheapo small heatsinks directly onto the PCB which dropped the buck Temp to nice 50°C and Asics about 50-60°C)

PCB: For example with the JLC Plugin for Kicad you can export the files out of Kicad to order directly from JLCPCB or any other PCB-Manufacturer

BOM: You can directly upload the .csv in this repo to Digikey (watch out - this is still a bit of WIP - you could delete the heatsink for example, which is actually in the BOM, but I am currently testing other ones which I will add later on). You will have to order the Lilygo T-Display S3 seperately.

HEATSINKS: Cooling is WIP. For the actual first Prototype I used 2 aluminium heatsinks in 60x60x36mm. These are sufficient but I think I can find better ones - again cooling is still a bit WIP.

FANS: I started with 2x Noctua 80mm PWM Fans but they were not powerful enough to cool this device enough in combination with the mentioned 60mm heatsinks. So I am now using 2x Arctic S8038-7K (Monsters :P). I am currently running this miner with Fan-PWM set to 35%. This is enough to keep the buck at about 50°C and asics ~50-60°C. (!!Note: These Fans have a relatively high "starting current" - so make sure you dont change the fan-pwm upwards in steps too big... for example the miner running hot with Fan-PWM at ~10% (pulling more amps as the Asics getting hot) turning the Fan-PWM up to 90% in one step could lead to triggering the Fuse as the fans are pulling heavy to "accelerate")

CASE I used a 80x160mm Aluminium-Case which can be found in various lengths on Amazon/ebay/aliexpress etc.

BACKPLATE Step files will be provided soon. Will make some changes to integrate the T-Display better into the Backplate :) I used this XT60 Terminals integrated in the Backplate.

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Current developments:

10/14/24: The "bigger heatsink" test-pcb is coming soon. Changed the 4-Layer PCB to 6-Layer to conquer the heavy load on the rather small 1V2-Zone and added a whole 1V2 Layer + GND Layer. This should reduce the PCB-Temperatures, the Buck Temperature as it is located near the "hot" area and the voltage drop between the buck and the Asic Input. This design should be a little more energy efficient - I guess just some %´s, but should be noticable.

Misc

If you like this project and want to support future work, feel free to donate to: bc1q0ctaxeha3lpsaaz7kpjulflw2d9p66fhkp48dk

or related projects without which this project would not have been possible for me:

Nerdaxe

NerdQAxe+

OSMU