Last update, the pi is still running, hardware error rate less than 0.01%.
I'm selling the gear though, after some thought, I (at this time) can't invest my own money in this, and it seems I cannot get enough backers/interest in this project.
However, concerning the future of USB miners. If it ever picks up interest again, you can likely use a pi as the mining medium with the right amperage and settings.
Topic: Kickstarter to set world record for Raspberry Pi Mining (closed) (Read 3339 times)
February 02, 2014, 06:35:50 PM
3 Days into testing, no issues. 38 hardware errors (less than 0.01%) running at 28.8 GH/s. Nearly have enough to purchase a hub with BTC.
January 31, 2014, 01:50:54 PM
Where are you in the world? I'm from the UK.
Eastern United States, Eastern Standard Time -5:00, sometime this weekend sound good?
January 31, 2014, 12:12:27 PM
Where are you in the world? I'm from the UK.
January 31, 2014, 09:31:25 AM
I think the quicker way to get this ball rolling would be to go some kind of scheduled Google Hangout and discuss reward details and such, maybe answer a few questions. It also helps to put a face with the thread owner. Anyone interested in funding or just want to see the beginnings of this project, PM me and we'll exchange google usernames.
January 31, 2014, 05:37:24 AM
Slick setup. Have you tried using watchdog instead of the arduino relay? One less thing to break.
How many amps were you pumping to those 10 port hubs?
How many amps were you pumping to those 10 port hubs?
IIRC the author of Minepeon said that the watchdog is enabled on the pi, but the scripts that auto-restart the mining process seem to sometimes not work properly when the process exits with strange errors (probably USB related) Bitcoin has gotten me at least somewhat capable of navigating linux but I'm not up to the level of modifying minepeon's scripts or anything yet.
The Arduino just adds another layer of uptime protection. Also power quality to the pi is an absolute must. Most of the flaky-ness I've seen with my pi's is usually related to bad quality micro-usb cables, wires too long, bumping connections accidentally, etc. Might even be a good idea to solder an extra filter cap onto the 5v/Gnd pins on the GPIO header.
Current draw was 5-6A per hub, which is pretty much the limit for the barrel jack connectors. For better stability soldering wires directly to the pcb would probably be a good idea. Block erupters tend to start flaking out if the bus drops below 4.3-4.4vdc
I've had no issues with watchdog yet, I've seen it reboot once when I was using the 4 amp USB power supplies, but I agree with the extra layer of protection for keeping it running for profit. But for this world record, I can see it helping smear results.
Never knew about the 5-6 amp limit on barrel connectors, good to know.
As far as minepeon goes, I like to manage stuff via good ol' SSH. Far more secure, and more control. Just a preference thing though.
I may use those 10 port USB hubs for the next goal though, probably will need 7 amp supplies at that point.
January 31, 2014, 04:44:19 AM
12 hours into testing and only 1 hardware error and 9 rejected shares, no hiccups yet. Once this thing generates enough BTC, I'm going ot buy another hub and chain the two I have to it and test that. If that goes well, then I see no reason this wouldn't work.
January 30, 2014, 10:13:14 PM
Slick setup. Have you tried using watchdog instead of the arduino relay? One less thing to break.
How many amps were you pumping to those 10 port hubs?
How many amps were you pumping to those 10 port hubs?
IIRC the author of Minepeon said that the watchdog is enabled on the pi, but the scripts that auto-restart the mining process seem to sometimes not work properly when the process exits with strange errors (probably USB related) Bitcoin has gotten me at least somewhat capable of navigating linux but I'm not up to the level of modifying minepeon's scripts or anything yet.
The Arduino just adds another layer of uptime protection. Also power quality to the pi is an absolute must. Most of the flaky-ness I've seen with my pi's is usually related to bad quality micro-usb cables, wires too long, bumping connections accidentally, etc. Might even be a good idea to solder an extra filter cap onto the 5v/Gnd pins on the GPIO header.
Current draw was 5-6A per hub, which is pretty much the limit for the barrel jack connectors. For better stability soldering wires directly to the pcb would probably be a good idea. Block erupters tend to start flaking out if the bus drops below 4.3-4.4vdc
January 30, 2014, 07:45:04 PM
Slick setup. Have you tried using watchdog instead of the arduino relay? One less thing to break.
How many amps were you pumping to those 10 port hubs?
How many amps were you pumping to those 10 port hubs?
January 30, 2014, 06:52:12 PM
I ran 37 USB devices from a raspberry pi for a while. CPU can get swamped if you're not careful going much beyond that. The newer antminers are much faster per device so you can probably get a lot more hashrate without clogging up the pipes.
30 AMUs
5 BPM Blue Furys
1 BFL Little Single
1 BFL Jalapeno
Total of 62 GH/s
]30 AMUs
5 BPM Blue Furys
1 BFL Little Single
1 BFL Jalapeno
Total of 62 GH/s
Is this stable? I mean, I tried once, but it started to not recognize all the miner that I had plugged on the USB hub
These are the conversations I wanted this project to start.
It can be, it depends on the amperage your supplying to a USB hub. If you have a 7 port hub with a 5volt/3amp power supply, don't expect to get more than 5 devices to work (0.5 amps @ 5 volts per devices = ~2.5amps), the 3 amp supply is meant to run at max only for a little while, so if you attach 6, it's only a matter of time before the power supply fizzles. Use a 5volt/5+amp power supply, then it's a matter of how good your power supply is (quality) and if it can handle the load. So far my experience has been that the hubs can handle it if it has the amperage to back it up. I used two 5volt/4amp power supplies and was able to get away with using all 7 ports on both hubs for several weeks before both power supplies went kaput, I have some 5amps on order and should be at the house today. The moment you begin to throttle back on the amperage, you begin to have issues like you described: constant errors, devices not being recognized, unable to get devices to start mining, etc.
I used the Rosewill RHB-500 hubs, connected to a larger power supply. Various CGminer/BFGminer revisions netted varying degrees of stability. Longest run was somewhere around 40 days of uptime. I created a custom arduino circuit to monitor the pi for lockups, then trigger a relay to short the reset pins on the pi for a hard reboot. Worked wonders for my downtime problems.
January 30, 2014, 05:55:38 PM
Yes, could be na amperage problem... Im trying to solve the energy cost (or at least a part of it) in mining bitcoins, using some solar cell. Maybe one of my problems is it.
Anyone have tried it before?
Anyone have tried it before?
I think you have the wrong context behind amperage. Not the source of power coming from the facility (outlet), but the power coming from the device being plugged into the wall.
January 30, 2014, 05:29:47 PM
Yes, could be na amperage problem... Im trying to solve the energy cost (or at least a part of it) in mining bitcoins, using some solar cell. Maybe one of my problems is it.
Anyone have tried it before?
Anyone have tried it before?
January 30, 2014, 10:44:53 AM
I would consider becoming a small backer (0.5-1.0BTC) approaching the project as not only interesting and fun to see, but as an investment. But the reward would have to include my money back in some way, within about 3 months, then perhaps a % of the profits (if any, if you can find a way to calculate them). Perhaps that's not the sort of deal you want to get involved with. I'm not very interested in the usual Kickstarter rewards like t-shirts and mugs.
I've got the know-how and technical skills to pull this off if this is possible, but I have no clue how to sort out how the backers would get paid back (no experience in financing, only project planning). If anyone wants to take up that task, I can provide the needed stats to figure a fair and profitable investment return for backers and include it in the plan.
One thing I am worried about, is if there is some technical limitation I'm not seeing. So far the only brick wall I keep seeing people hit is the amperage limitation. AFAIK no one has gone beyond that. Very tempted to build into the project plan some financing to "borrow" or "rent" antminers for testing to do a short term large scale test for a day or so.
Also, any ideas for naming this project?
January 30, 2014, 10:33:38 AM
I ran 37 USB devices from a raspberry pi for a while. CPU can get swamped if you're not careful going much beyond that. The newer antminers are much faster per device so you can probably get a lot more hashrate without clogging up the pipes.
30 AMUs
5 BPM Blue Furys
1 BFL Little Single
1 BFL Jalapeno
Total of 62 GH/s
]30 AMUs
5 BPM Blue Furys
1 BFL Little Single
1 BFL Jalapeno
Total of 62 GH/s
Is this stable? I mean, I tried once, but it started to not recognize all the miner that I had plugged on the USB hub
These are the conversations I wanted this project to start.
It can be, it depends on the amperage your supplying to a USB hub. If you have a 7 port hub with a 5volt/3amp power supply, don't expect to get more than 5 devices to work (0.5 amps @ 5 volts per devices = ~2.5amps), the 3 amp supply is meant to run at max only for a little while, so if you attach 6, it's only a matter of time before the power supply fizzles. Use a 5volt/5+amp power supply, then it's a matter of how good your power supply is (quality) and if it can handle the load. So far my experience has been that the hubs can handle it if it has the amperage to back it up. I used two 5volt/4amp power supplies and was able to get away with using all 7 ports on both hubs for several weeks before both power supplies went kaput, I have some 5amps on order and should be at the house today. The moment you begin to throttle back on the amperage, you begin to have issues like you described: constant errors, devices not being recognized, unable to get devices to start mining, etc.
More than likely, buy one power supply and test before you go balls deep.
One more word of warning, be sure the power supply you buy is exactly 5 volt, positive polarity/center positive or you could ruin your hub. The amperage is your only variable, the rest are constants (voltage, polarity). Your looking for greater than 4 amps (I tested 4 amps with short lived success), so I'll be testing the 5 amps tonight and let you know how it goes.
January 30, 2014, 10:23:55 AM
I would consider becoming a small backer (0.5-1.0BTC) approaching the project as not only interesting and fun to see, but as an investment. But the reward would have to include my money back in some way, within about 3 months, then perhaps a % of the profits (if any, if you can find a way to calculate them). Perhaps that's not the sort of deal you want to get involved with. I'm not very interested in the usual Kickstarter rewards like t-shirts and mugs.
January 30, 2014, 10:09:51 AM
I ran 37 USB devices from a raspberry pi for a while. CPU can get swamped if you're not careful going much beyond that. The newer antminers are much faster per device so you can probably get a lot more hashrate without clogging up the pipes.
30 AMUs
5 BPM Blue Furys
1 BFL Little Single
1 BFL Jalapeno
Total of 62 GH/s
]30 AMUs
5 BPM Blue Furys
1 BFL Little Single
1 BFL Jalapeno
Total of 62 GH/s
Is this stable? I mean, I tried once, but it started to not recognize all the miner that I had plugged on the USB hub
These are the conversations I wanted this project to start.
It can be, it depends on the amperage your supplying to a USB hub. If you have a 7 port hub with a 5volt/3amp power supply, don't expect to get more than 5 devices to work (0.5 amps @ 5 volts per devices = ~2.5amps), the 3 amp supply is meant to run at max only for a little while, so if you attach 6, it's only a matter of time before the power supply fizzles. Use a 5volt/5+amp power supply, then it's a matter of how good your power supply is (quality) and if it can handle the load. So far my experience has been that the hubs can handle it if it has the amperage to back it up. I used two 5volt/4amp power supplies and was able to get away with using all 7 ports on both hubs for several weeks before both power supplies went kaput, I have some 5amps on order and should be at the house today. The moment you begin to throttle back on the amperage, you begin to have issues like you described: constant errors, devices not being recognized, unable to get devices to start mining, etc.
January 30, 2014, 08:37:20 AM
I ran 37 USB devices from a raspberry pi for a while. CPU can get swamped if you're not careful going much beyond that. The newer antminers are much faster per device so you can probably get a lot more hashrate without clogging up the pipes.
30 AMUs
5 BPM Blue Furys
1 BFL Little Single
1 BFL Jalapeno
Total of 62 GH/s
]30 AMUs
5 BPM Blue Furys
1 BFL Little Single
1 BFL Jalapeno
Total of 62 GH/s
Is this stable? I mean, I tried once, but it started to not recognize all the miner that I had plugged on the USB hub
These are the conversations I wanted this project to start.
It can be, it depends on the amperage your supplying to a USB hub. If you have a 7 port hub with a 5volt/3amp power supply, don't expect to get more than 5 devices to work (0.5 amps @ 5 volts per devices = ~2.5amps), the 3 amp supply is meant to run at max only for a little while, so if you attach 6, it's only a matter of time before the power supply fizzles. Use a 5volt/5+amp power supply, then it's a matter of how good your power supply is (quality) and if it can handle the load. So far my experience has been that the hubs can handle it if it has the amperage to back it up. I used two 5volt/4amp power supplies and was able to get away with using all 7 ports on both hubs for several weeks before both power supplies went kaput, I have some 5amps on order and should be at the house today. The moment you begin to throttle back on the amperage, you begin to have issues like you described: constant errors, devices not being recognized, unable to get devices to start mining, etc.
January 30, 2014, 07:58:13 AM
I ran 37 USB devices from a raspberry pi for a while. CPU can get swamped if you're not careful going much beyond that. The newer antminers are much faster per device so you can probably get a lot more hashrate without clogging up the pipes.
30 AMUs
5 BPM Blue Furys
1 BFL Little Single
1 BFL Jalapeno
Total of 62 GH/s
]30 AMUs
5 BPM Blue Furys
1 BFL Little Single
1 BFL Jalapeno
Total of 62 GH/s
Is this stable? I mean, I tried once, but it started to not recognize all the miner that I had plugged on the USB hub
January 30, 2014, 04:41:19 AM
I ran 37 USB devices from a raspberry pi for a while. CPU can get swamped if you're not careful going much beyond that. The newer antminers are much faster per device so you can probably get a lot more hashrate without clogging up the pipes.
30 AMUs
5 BPM Blue Furys
1 BFL Little Single
1 BFL Jalapeno
Total of 62 GH/s
30 AMUs
5 BPM Blue Furys
1 BFL Little Single
1 BFL Jalapeno
Total of 62 GH/s
Did you have the shield attached running PiMiner? What hubs/hub configuration did you use?
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