CX4111A Mellanox Connectx-4 LX SFP28 PP10R 25GBE Single-Port - USD $24.95

[foureight84]

Pardon Our Interruption... Seller offered 10% off so I assume they'll take $20-$22. Low profile bracket only but I am making a printable full height. I don't actually have the card on hand yet so there might be necessary tweaks.

Updated:
- I don't have the card on hand yet so there will be tweaks later on if the dimensions on this model is incorrect.
- Added unflatted model for SLS printing
- Flattened version thickness increased to 1.5mm instead of 1mm. So far I've tested with PETG and ASA.
- Removed mesh pattern to increase rigidity

 

[luckylinux]

Pardon Our Interruption... Seller offered 10% so I assume they'll take 20-22. Low profile bracket only but I am making a printable full height. I don't actually have the card on hand yet so there might be necessary tweaks.
View attachment 44104View attachment 44105

NOT a super Deal IMHO considering that for a little more you should be able to get the 2 Port Version (MCX4121A-ACAT).

In Europe I got a few Sets of MCX4121A-ACAT for the Equivalent of 17 USD / Piece (plus Shipping / Import Duties / Taxes / VAT / etc).

 

[RDshift]

I bought this specific card because the single port version has lower power consumption.
Firmware update instructions: https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...ctx-4-firmware-update-issue.43460/post-469011

 

[foureight84]

I bought this specific card because the single port version has lower power consumption.
Firmware update instructions: https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...ctx-4-firmware-update-issue.43460/post-469011

Yea same reason why I am buying it. It also works on x4 PCIe 3.0 without any issues (I assume).

 

[RDshift]

Yes, with the expected bandwidth limitations. I use it in 10Gbps mode too, with a DAC, but I'm x16 on x10DAi. Minimum local latency FTW.

 

[Koop]

Not worth it. Just get the dual port and have flexibility.

 

[luckylinux]

I bought this specific card because the single port version has lower power consumption.
Firmware update instructions: https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...ctx-4-firmware-update-issue.43460/post-469011

Uhm OK ... I doubt the Power Consumption difference is that huge if the NIC shuts the other Port Down (IIRC you can also force it via mlxconfig).

Power Consumption Difference will be completely irrelevant if you do NOT have ASPM working. And these Mellanox ConnectX-4 NIC only seem to work with ASPM if the NIC is placed in a PCH-connected/DMI-connected/Chipset-connected Slot, NOT to a PCIe Slot that is directly connected to the CPU !

Keep that in Mind and don't be surprised if you get stuck at PC3 or even PC2 ...

Unless you are doing throughput 10GB+ continuously all the Time, in which case ASPM doesn't really make sense.

EDIT 1: 25gbps NIC I'd go with an Intel XXV710 if you want ASPM to work in a CPU-connected PCIe Slot. And make sure to check Multi-VC [hidden] Setting in BIOS if you have Issues.

 

[Cruzader]

Not bad if you only need a single port, id expect them to accept 18-20 if needing multiple.

Think it was 16$/ea i paid for my last dual port cards (also dell).
Pretty much just buying dual port by habit tho, could have put that iscsi traffic on same port as rest.

 

[martona]

making a printable full height

Don't print these from plastic, lol. It ends up being way too weak and does not give you chassis ground.



I had the above printed from steel for $4. Your usual maker-youtuber-sponsoring shops from China can be extremely useful at like no cost if you have a bit of patience.

 

[foureight84]

Don't print these from plastic, lol. It ends up being way too weak and does not give you chassis ground.

View attachment 44106

I had the above printed from steel for $4. Your usual maker-youtuber-sponsoring shops from China can be extremely useful at like no cost if you have a bit of patience.

I designed it so it should work any material. Just gotta bend the tabs before attaching. I'll make another design change later so you can embed a copper wire to make contact betweek the SFP port and chassis.

 

[martona]

I designed it so it should work any material. Just gotta bend the tabs before attaching. I'll make another design change later so you can embed a copper wire to make contact betweek the SFP port and chassis.

Yeah I saw and the bendy part is pretty clever actually - but will the stiff stuff not crack if you bend it? Like if you print it from PCCF or PACF? And floppy stuff like PP would just do a bad job at holding the card?

I'm not trying to shit on it, it may very well work, but every time I printed one of these brackets at home they felt super flimsy. The only reason I chimed in was because having a service print small metal parts costs next to nothing, and I guess most people don't realize that.

 

[luckylinux]

Don't print these from plastic, lol. It ends up being way too weak and does not give you chassis ground.

View attachment 44106

I had the above printed from steel for $4. Your usual maker-youtuber-sponsoring shops from China can be extremely useful at like no cost if you have a bit of patience.

I ordered 10 Pieces from Aliexpress (for the dual Port Mellanox) for 30 USD so approx. 3 USD / Piece including Shipping to Europe.

As usual both eBay and Aliexpress Search sucks big Time and they are NOT very easy to find.

I had a quick Look for the single Port Bracket but I couldn't find much unfortunately.

 

[foureight84]

Yeah I saw and the bendy part is pretty clever actually - but will the stiff stuff not crack if you bend it? Like if you print it from PCCF or PACF? And floppy stuff like PP would just do a bad job at holding the card?

I'm not trying to shit on it, it may very well work, but every time I printed one of these brackets at home they felt super flimsy. The only reason I chimed in was because having a service print small metal parts costs next to nothing, and I guess most people don't realize that.

That definitely needs testing. I've only tested on PETG and ASA, they seem to hold up fine if you just bend it once and install it. Also, which service are you using for metal printing? I want to print it out of metal as well. I can add another file for metal printing.

EDIT: @martona, the original post has been updated to include a non-flatten version for SLS printing. I also removed the mesh pattern, they were not good for rigidity.

 

[nilfisk_urd]

I designed it so it should work any material. Just gotta bend the tabs before attaching. I'll make another design change later so you can embed a copper wire to make contact betweek the SFP port and chassis.

You could also print it in conductive filament, e.g. Prusament PETG 40% Magnetite.

 

[luckylinux]

Examples for the Dual Port Brackets

10PCS 2U FOR MCX4121A-ACAT MCX512A-ACAT MCX4111A MCX512F MCX621102A MCX631102A | eBay.de

I can provide a large number of spare parts for old PCs.

www.ebay.de

Bitte entschuldigen Sie die Störung...

But I mean ... you could maybe just "plug" the non used one with some Ductape or something

 

[richard.dzavoronok]

Conductive filament is highly resistive. You want path of the least resistance to ground. Much safer is simple wire from screw to chassis.

Edit: I think the better usability/price ratio custom solution is to get it plasma cut from sheet metal, it usually is very cheap

 

[martona]

s it really THAT cheap to get it printed in Metal ?

I ordered some I/O shields on Craftcloud and going from PETG to Metal would have meant AT LEAST a 10x increase in Cost.

From 2 USD / Piece to 20 USD / Piece basically ...

For small prints that fit into the printer volume anywhere it really is that cheap from China. I went back to my order history to make sure, and I was off: it did cost me $10. The $4 was just a quote from another place that wanted 3 weeks to do it.

Also, which service are you using for metal printing?

It almost always ends up being PCBWay. JLCPCB are very comparable but PCBWay are plain awesome. Not always the cheapest but I just don't bother shopping around anymore, kinda became loyal to them I guess. Had a fair few projects run through their company and they always treated me super well - a $10 3D print or a $2000 CNC job, it literally doesn't matter, they just flat out care. Right now I'm emailing back and forth with them over a $120 project, 5 fully assembled PCBs. I ****ed up a component in the BOM and the pick&place file, and they're treating it like they're about to make a thousand of these. "They're very sorry but it will take 2 weeks for the new parts to come in, their vendor is out of stock. Would I like them to store the wrong components they got in so I can use them in the future?" I'm like dude, it was my fault, it's 5 random SMD connectors, less than $2 total, please throw them out.

Magnetite

Not to turn this into r/3dprinting but that's a pretty bad filament for anything but "i need this to be magnetic". Very heavy, bad layer adhesion, very expensive. All those are understandable, I mean almost half of it is metal powder. No hate on Prusa, but making things out of it is not its strong suit. I got some of it for fun and yeah it works to add "a magnet needs to stick here" spots to things with a multimaterial printer, but isn't very good otherwise. And even for the magnetic part... you need some strong magnets because over half of the thing is plastic.

 

[luckylinux]

Yeah I saw and the bendy part is pretty clever actually - but will the stiff stuff not crack if you bend it? Like if you print it from PCCF or PACF? And floppy stuff like PP would just do a bad job at holding the card?

I'm not trying to shit on it, it may very well work, but every time I printed one of these brackets at home they felt super flimsy. The only reason I chimed in was because having a service print small metal parts costs next to nothing, and I guess most people don't realize that.

Is it really THAT cheap to get it printed in Metal ?

I ordered some I/O shields on Craftcloud and going from PETG to Metal would have meant AT LEAST a 10x increase in Cost.

From 2 USD / Piece to 20 USD / Piece basically ...

 

[martona]

the original post has been updated to include a non-flatten version for SLS printing. I also removed the mesh pattern, they were not good for rigidity.

It looks great, thanks! For SLM the mesh would have been fine, but it's OK either way.

 

[martona]

It gives me an instant price. (FWIW tool steel is the expensive one, and Aluminum is the same as Stainless, at least for my model.) It might be that the part you're trying to quote has anomalies they need to manually review.



But mystery solved and I guess we were both right. I got the quote for 4 pieces because I needed 4 of these... and they do quote $30 for 1. Same for 2.Then $40 for 4.


Sorry for the misinfo. It's only $10 per piece if you get 4 of them.

 

[Prophes0r]

I cannot believe there is almost a 2 page discussion on metal 3d printing a FLAT SHEET with some holes and 2 bent tabs...

A flat sheet.
With some holes.
And some bent tabs.

Can anyone think of a reason why these are usually made of stamped sheet metal?


Sorry for the rant.
I had to ban 12 people from the 3d printer this week for printing FLAT SHEETS WITH HOLES, which our hacker space explicitly prohibits.
We LITERALLY have signs on all the equipment telling you not to.
We have a painted line on the floor going from our printer area to the drill press sitting next to all the flat stock.
We have a bin of FREE offcuts of plastic and metal sheets next to the drill press.

And yet people STILL cannot resist the urge to print a flat rectangle with holes.

We have a (rather short) waiting list to use the printers.
Printing flat sheets with holes literally stops other users who actually need to print complex shapes from using the printer.

Aaarrrggg.
Between these flat sheets, and all the OTHER things that people shouldn't be printing, I feel like almost all my time is spent telling people what NOT to print!

3d printing is not a magical "Make anything you want" box.

I had to stop someone from printing a door hinge last week.
A DOOR HINGE! Like, for a real door!
Not only was it a flat sheet with holes, it was a load bearing part that should be made with metal!
WHY WOULD ANYONE PRINT A DOOR HINGE!

okay I'm calm now.

 

[Cruzader]

I cannot believe there is almost a 2 page discussion on metal 3d printing a FLAT SHEET with some holes and 2 bent tabs...

A flat sheet.
With some holes.
And some bent tabs.

Can anyone think of a reason why these are usually made of stamped sheet metal?

As much as i print a bit of basic stuff like this myself due to wait times to order it, to order it metal 3d printed when they are available in packs cheaper is somewhat facinating.

 

[martona]

For the single Port I couldn't find it to be honest though, neither on Aliexpress nor on eBay ...

This.

I cannot believe there is almost a 2 page discussion on metal 3d printing a FLAT SHEET with some holes and 2 bent tabs...

Hiring someone to use one machine then do some minimal post-processing is simpler and cheaper than cutting sheet metal, drilling 4 holes, then operating a press brake with the right dies.

Then there are details like a stiffening flange that's required by the PCIe spec for FH brackets on HH cards. To form that you need a $$$ stamp that will do this one exact thing and nothing else. There's no way you'll do it on a generic press brake.

Ad-hoc printing a small number of these things is literally what the technology was invented for.

 

[Prophes0r]

...is literally what the technology was invented for.

Nope.

3d printing is for art and prototyping.
Notice that that "production" is not in that short list.

There are other use cases, like using it as part of a manufacturing process for a part that cannot be made with other methods, but those are WAY outside the scope of a conversation that started with "Cover hole in box with plate with smaller holes so part doesn't fall out".

We aren't talking about making a million of these to match a specification to populate a datacenter.
You don't need a press brake or a die for anything.

This is about a borderline cosmetic plate for a decade old part so we can use it in a lab.

<5 minutes of work with hand tools will make a workable part.
And I know this, because I did it. And I did it poorly.

 

[luckylinux]

For small prints that fit into the printer volume anywhere it really is that cheap from China. I went back to my order history to make sure, and I was off: it did cost me $10. The $4 was just a quote from another place that wanted 3 weeks to do it.

I cannot imagine that being cheap.

On PCBWay Website -> 3D Printing:



You can only choose between Tool Steel ("regular Steel" ???), Aluminum (cheap), Stainless Steel (expensive) and Titanium.

I hate it that they don't give you an estimated cost directly online just like CraftCloud does though ... You need to do an RFQ for that .

 

[Markess]

Firstly @foureight84 , nice bracket design! I've had to make a few brackets myself in the past and never thought to make them flat & then bend and glue. Brilliant!

Uhm OK ... I doubt the Power Consumption difference is that huge if the NIC shuts the other Port Down (IIRC you can also force it via mlxconfig).

Power Consumption Difference will be completely irrelevant if you do NOT have ASPM working. And these Mellanox ConnectX-4 NIC only seem to work with ASPM if the NIC is placed in a PCH-connected/DMI-connected/Chipset-connected Slot, NOT to a PCIe Slot that is directly connected to the CPU !

Yeah, this...I think? I think the single port and dual port cards have the same chip and nothing special is done to fuse anything off. The single port card just doesn't have the components for the second transceiver cage. And that shouldn't add too much..I think?

For folks without a printer or sheetmetal skills, the dual port brackets ought to fit the single port cards. You'll just have one extra large ventilation hole . Single lots are relatively cheap on Ali Express. In the U.S 5 pack from this person seems like a good deal if you need a few: Pardon Our Interruption... . Just be sure and check the spacing between the transceiver cages. Actual Mellanox, Lenovo (maybe others) have a larger spacing than the Dell ones.

Nope.

3d printing is for art and prototyping.
Notice that that "production" is not in that short list.

I think 3D printing has broken into the mainstream, and Production is on the list now, even for things that could be made through other means. In the last couple months I've bought gardening and pottery gear that contained 3D printed components. A friend that works for an international railway rolling stock manufacturer told me that they now use 3D printers in their repair/refit facilities to make on-demand repair parts, especially for older equipment. He tells me that its cheaper than maintaining stockage at multiple facilities and/or shipping from central logistics facilities and/or ordering up new production runs of vacuformed, injection molded, or even fiberglass parts. My neighbor the car enthusiast and his friends 3D print parts for their cars. Not just cosmetic stuff, but also gaskets, seals, airflow, heating/cooling, etc.. 3D printing is apparently a big deal with gearheads these days.

Ad-hoc printing a small number of these things is literally what the technology was invented for.

I think 3D printing is for lots of stuff...including this ^^