Dogie's Miner Setup Guides:Nicely formatted version available at dogiecoin.com!
Contents:
0a) What to Expect0b) What You Need1) Powering2) Cooling3) Case4a) Configuration (TL-MR3020)4b) Configuration (Windows PC)4c) Configuration (RaspberryPi)5) Troubleshooting6) Where to buy0a) What to Expect (top)The Technobit HEX8A1 is a blade style ASIC mining board utilising 8 CoinCraft A1 chips. An external controller is required - this can be a TL-MR3020 router
with custom WRT firmware, a Raspberry Pi with Raspian or a windows based PC.
Per mining board:
| Chips | 8x CoinCraft A1s |
| Hashrate | ~200GH stock, ~260GH OC'ed |
| Power.Consumption | 200W stock, 350W overclocked |
0b) What You Need (top)You will need one of the following sets:
Using a TP-LINK as controller (recommended):
OR using a PC as controller:
OR using a Raspberry Pi as controller:
AND
- A power supply (see next section)
1) Powering (top)As with all blade style miners, the HEX8A1 does not come with a power supply. You will need a typical computer PSU with:
- 2xPCI-E 6 pin power connectors per mining card
- At least 28A on the/each 12V rail per mining card
Estimated power consumption per mining board is as follows:
- ~200W (no overclock)
- ~350W (overclock)
I would recommend the following PSUs:
For 1 miner:
(Click.your.flag) |        |
For 2 miners*:
(Click.your.flag) | |
*2 boards while overclocked or 3 at stock. Buy two PSUs for 4 boards (overclocked) - its the most price efficient solution.
We need to tell the PSU to always be on, as there isn't a motherboard to do this.
- Cut a paper clip into a U and insert it into the green wire and to either black wire either side of the green wire. Tape it up for safety.
- Plug 2x PCIE 6 pin into each blade. I would recommend running each PCI-E connector from a different cable rail when overclocking.
- Plug the PSU into the mains.
- The power supply will now be controlled by its switch on the rear socket.
2) Cooling (top)Mining boards come with two heatsinks each. The top uses a 2U aluminium heatsink over the chip area with a
Sunon PMD1209PMB1-A 80mm fan. It is rated at
4900 RPM, 120CFM at a whopping 57 dbA. The bottom heatsink is a 1U full cover heatsink with a quieter
Sunon ME92251VX 92mm fan. Noise levels are very
high for a 250GH product, and potentially overcooled.
3) Case (top)Technobit HEX8A1s are not stackable top to bottom but can be side to side. 1TH could be arranged quite densely although would not be suitable to put in a
case due to the lack of directed airflow.
4a) Configuration (TL-MR3020) (top)An external controller is required which can be a
TP-LINK TL-MR3020 router, a
Raspberry Pi with Raspian or a Windows based PC.
Using a modified TP Link MR3020- Power on as above.
- Plug in a USB to mini USB cable from the HEX8A1 to the TL-MR3020.
- Plug in a network cable from the TL-MR3020 to your router.
- Plug in your TL-MR3020's power cable - this can either be a USB to mini USB cable or mains to mini USB. ~0.3A @ 5V is required.
- Flash Technobit's custom WRT firmware (or purchase their preflashed TL-MR3020)
- Change your router's subnet to 0, ie 192.168.0.x. This is just temporary. If this is not possible, see below indented steps.
- Plug in a network cable from the TL-MR3020 to your computer.
- Navigate to Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Centre -> Change Adapter Settings
- (If applicable) Right click on your wifi adapter -> Disable.
- Right click on your ethernet adapter -> Properties
- Click on "Internet Protocol Version 4" and click properties
- Select "Use the following IP address" and enter the following:
- IP Address: 192.168.0.1, Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0, Default Gateway: 192.168.0.99
- Resume normal steps.
- Navigate to 192.168.0.99/ from a browser window.
- Login with default username "root" and NO password.
- Navigate to Network -> Interfaces and click edit.
- Change protocol to DHCP client, click Save and Apply.
- (If applicable)At this point you can plug the TL-MR3020 back into your router and reset your computer settings.
- Navigate to your router and look up list of clients. Find the IP the TL-MR3020 has now been assigned and navigate to that with a browser window.
- Login if prompted and navigate to Status -> Cgminer Configuration.
- Enter pool information and miner details as in the format below.
- Click save and apply, then navigate to Status -> Cgminer Status to check mining has started.
Antpool Register!Servers : stratum.antpool.com:3333
User : username.worker or username_worker - auto creates workers!
Password: anypassword
BTCGuild Register!Servers : stratum.btcguild.com:3333
User : username_worker
Password: anypassword
GHash IO Register!Servers : us1.ghash.io:3333
User : username.worker - auto creates workers!
Password: anypassword
4b) Configuration (Windows PC) (top)Using a Windows based PC- Plug in a USB to mini USB cable from the HEX8A1 to your Windows based PC/laptop.
- Windows will try and install its own drivers. Wait until it finishes.
- Download the Zadig tool and run it.
- Choose the HEX8A1 and "WinUSB". Click install driver.
- Once installed, you may have to restart.
- Download this specific version of cgminer and extract it.
- Edit cgminer.conf using notepad, with your pool and miner information in it, an example as below.
- Run cgminer.exe to start mining.
{
"pools" : [
{
"url" : "stratum.btcguild.com:3333",
"user" : "dogie_HEX8A1",
"pass" : "123"
},
{
"url" : "eu-stratum.btcguild.com:3333",
"user" : "dogie_HEX8A1",
"pass" : "123"
}
]
,
"expiry" : "120",
"hotplug" : "5",
"log" : "5",
"no-pool-disable" : true,
"queue" : "1",
"scan-time" : "60",
"set_default_to_c" : false,
"set_default_to_b" : false,
"set_default_to_8" : false,
"hexminera-voltage" : "1340",
"hexminera-options" : "16:450",
"hexminerb-voltage" : "900",
"hexminerb-options" : "16:540",
"hexminerc-voltage" : "1020",
"hexminerc-options" : "16:1300",
"hexminer8-set-diff-to-one" : "0",
"hexminer8-chip-mask" : "255",
"hexminer8-voltage" : "1000",
"hexminer8-options" : "8:260",
"kernel-path" : "/usr/local/bin"
}
Antpool Register!Servers : stratum.antpool.com:3333
User : username.worker or username_worker - auto creates workers!
Password: anypassword
BTCGuild Register!Servers : stratum.btcguild.com:3333
User : username_worker
Password: anypassword
GHash IO Register!Servers : us1.ghash.io:3333
User : username.worker - auto creates workers!
Password: anypassword
4c) Configuration (Raspberry Pi) (top)Using a Raspberry PiYou will need the following:
- Power on as above.
- Put SD card into another computer.
- Download Raspbian OS
- Download Win32 Disk Imager and use it to flash SD card with Raspbian.
- Put the SD card into the Raspbery Pi.
- Plug in the following:
- An ethernet cable from the Raspberry Pi to your router.
- A HDMI to DVI / HDMI to HDMI cable from the Raspberry Pi to your monitor.
- An external USB hub to Raspberry Pi.
- A USB mouse and keyboard into the USB hub.
- A micro USB power adapter into Raspberry Pi - this will boot it up.
- Once booted, a first time config will pop up
- Run expand_rootfs
- Run configure_keyboard to put your local layout on (it defaults to UK).
- Run update to get the latest files.
- Boot to desktop.
- Open "LX Terminal". Type the following commands, one line at a time. Press enter after each one.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libusb-1.0-0-dev libusb-1.0-0 libcurl4-openssl-dev libncurses5-dev libudev-dev
wget http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/4.2/cgminer-4.2.2.tar.bz2
tar xvf cgminer-4.2.2.tar.bz2
mv /home/pi/cgminer-4.2.2/ /home/pi/cgminer/
cd cgminer
wget https://www.dropbox.com/s/1kspms3gw0336du/5ed45a0d7a3bd71ed1b8726e5f1cdac55bf68196.patch
patch -p1 < 5ed45a0d7a3bd71ed1b8726e5f1cdac55bf68196.patch
./configure --enable-hexminera --enable-hexminerb --enable-hexminerc --enable-hexminer8 --hexminer8-set-diff-to-one 0 --hexminer8-chip-mask 255 --hexminer8-voltage 1000 --hexminer8-options 8:260 --hexminera-voltage 1340 --hexminera-options 16:450 --hexminerb-voltage 900 --hexminerb-options 16:1300 hexminerc-voltage 1020 --hexminerc-options 16:1300
sudo make
- Now enter 'sudo shutdown now' to turn the Pi off.
- Plug in a USB to mini USB cable from the HEX8A1 to an externally powered USB hub.
- Plug in the USB hub to the Pi and plug in its power supply.
- Turn on your power supply with its rear switch. Your power supply's fan should turn on gently.
- Turn the Pi back on (unplug and plug in its power cable).
- When back on desktop, reopen "LX Terminal".
- Enter the following code and click enter to start mining.
sudo nohup /home/pi/cgminer/cgminer -c /home/pi/cgminer/cgminer.conf
- If cgminer comes up and works fine, let it run for 5 minutes and check your hardware.
- Then reboot again with "sudo restart".
- Once booted up, enter the following command into "LX Terminal".
sudo nano /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart
- This line will open up a file editor. Enter the line below to the end of the code in the file.
- Once finished, press Ctrl + x to exit, Y to confirm and enter to save.
@/usr/bin/lxterminal --geometry=90x35 -e sudo ./cgminer/cgminer -c /home/pi/cgminer/cgminer.conf
- cgminer will now auto start when the Pi turns on, hurrah!
- Now run the following commands one by one to install the equivalent of Teamviewer.
sudo apt-get install x11vnc
x11vnc -storepasswd
****enter a password****
cd .config
mkdir autostart
cd autostart
nano x11vnc.desktop
- Same as last time, enter the below text at the end, then click Ctrl + X, Y and enter.
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=Application
Name=X11VNC
Comment=
Exec=x11vnc -forever -usepw -display :0 -ultrafilexfer
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=false
Hidden=false
- Now enter "nano /boot/config.txt"
- Scroll down until you find the line "#hdmi_force_hotplug=1" and delete the "#".
- Ctrl + X, Y and enter to save.
- You can now connect to your Pi externally by downloading TightVNC on your Windows PC and installing. You only need the viewer.
- Open it and enter the IP of your Pi, followed by two colons and then port 5900, ie "192.168.1.85::5900"
- This will auto start whenever the Pi is on.
- Turn off Pi with 'sudo shutdown now'. Unplug monitor, keyboard and mouse and put the Pi along with your miner where you want it to live long term.
The Pi only requires wired internet and micro usb power. You can connect remotely from now on and don't need a monitor etc.
5) Troubleshooting (top)| Problem | Solution |
| My.power.supply's.cables.are.braided.or.aren't.color.coded | - See below diagram for pin-outs.
 |
Legal disclaimer: This information is for general guidance and does not constitute expert advice. We are not responsible if you, your property or a third
party is injured or damaged as a result of any interaction with this information, and no warranty is provided. All text and images are covered by copyright.
6) Where to buy (top) 
