Topic: Official FutureBit Apollo BTC Software/Image and Support thread - page 104. (Read 52205 times)

I can only guess they used some special library, that's completely unnecessary.

If you look at the 2 SPI GPIO drivers I've done in cgminer (bab and minion) there's no necessary special drivers at all.

They were done on ... RPi ... (and I moved the minion driver to another device with minor changes as can be seen in the code)

Edit: the first one (bab) was a BitFury board

Oh yes, sorry for the bad wording! I know what GPIO is, used those pins on Raspberry Pi projects a lot myself already. What I meant to ask was with which protocol data is transmitted over those pins in the case of the Apollo unit.
As you said, in theory, it could be anything; from I2C to SPI to USB or anything else really.

Just do a simple search using 'GPIO protocol' and you will find Think of it as a modern version of the LPT parallel port that used to be used for printers which is also pin addressable.

Very good info about it is here: https://www.ics.com/blog/introduction-gpio-programming  A key bit from that is

Thanks a lot! Is the GPIO protocol anything 'special' or just internal USB? Because if it was, maybe someone can come up with a kernel patch to apply to an arbitrary Debian or other Linux installation

No coms through GPIO or USB is the same. Unfortunately the GPIOs require kernel level changes to make coms work with the board, so its not an easy change. Main reason is for ease of use. Most people buying our device are new to mining so a plug and play all in one solution was the main design choice (we were debating having a separate controller (remember the KNC days , but this is way more cleaner and easier to use).

Thats what I thought. I’ll make up a gpio to fan connector lead and plug it in at some point when I get time.

EDIT:-

Both 5v GPIO pins are used by the proprietary plug so couldn't get access to it without cutting wires which I'm not prepared to do so I'll just put up with it.

Yes, I did that in mine, it's connected to deliberately lower 3.3V, I put it back to 5V. You can do that by re-crimping the wire or just forcing it through the hole with 5V. You can find 5V by checking Orange Pi 4 pinout or checking with multimeter, as you will already know where GND is, just find where 5V is. 5V it's right next to 3.3V, but check exactly if front or rear row somewhere.

Is it okay to have GPIO and USB connected at the same time and initialize only the preferred connection?

Is there any way to get the CPU fan to run at a faster speed?

I don't know for sure, but this must be for aesthetics only. Everything fits under miner skirt. No extra USB cable required.
Hashrate is the same in both cases, I've tried that, no differences in performance. Functionality also seems to same, hashrate readings, speed, fans, temps, power use.
So feel free to give your Full unit a USB cable so you can install system of your choice. You can always revert to Futurebit system if you don't like it, by reformatting SD card and removing USB cable.

There are a few differences between batches and even units within batches. We have multiple van vendors and their PWM curves are not exact match, so some fans will be faster.

FYI

After having units running from Batch 1 and units from batch 2 I have found a difference in temps and fans speeds from the two batches.
Although I was concerned I'm not to concerned now, just for fan longevity of batch 1 fans.

It all started when I added a batch one unit to my batch 2 setup
Batch 1 Setup https://imgur.com/a/A0KMm1H
Batch 2 Setup not as fancy, https://ibb.co/s9S5NVc

All batch 2 unit temps were 68c-69c and fan speeds 2800-2900rpm constant across the 7 units from batch 2
When I added a batch 1 unit to the other 7 units one unit was 62c-63c and fan speed 3000-3100rpm (so lower temp with faster rpm)

The question to myself was why is one unit so far apart from the others (originally didnt know it was the batch 1 unit yet)

Through process of trouble shooting I isolated the lower temp unit and swapped the fan for one of the others of the consistent temps and fan speed like the others. I found out that it was not the unit but the fan itself as the lower temp and faster rpm followed the fan from unit to unit.

I further looked at the fans closer and notice a distinctive difference.
Batch 1 (4 units) I got had these fans with smaller gauge wires and a different wiring pattern.

Blue yellow red black
https://ibb.co/GTGwJkH

Batch 2 units had larger gauge wires
Black red yellow blue
https://ibb.co/NZkKXWB

Both fans do have the same order at the plug to the board just different going into the fan. (different brand of fan I take it)

In conclusion the difference between the fans from Batches is quite noticeable so if your seeing this too, here is what I found.  

I’ve tried to search through the threads and did a search and really didn’t find anything but has anyone tried to add sha256 usb miners to the Apollo?

It probably isn’t worth it in terms of extra electricity usage but I have 2 Ttbit sha256 usb miners lying around and is wondering if I can hook it up to the Apollo rig.

Has anyone tried something like that?

Exactly, I Previously had 2 gpu-mining rigs, one running 12 cards the other with 5 cards. Having 2 power supplies is fine as long as you have it set up correctly. First you’ll need a piece of hardware like add2psu which connects the 2nd-slave psu to the master, you can also use a paper clip if you’re willing to take that risk. The main thing is
 to connect the peripherals to 1 psu and not both. For example for mining rigs the gpu riser and gpu will be connected to 1 psu so both pull from the same power source. You should never connect the riser to one and the gpu on it to another, that would cause problems. So I’m terms of the Apollo don’t plug 2 separate power suppliers into 1 machine..

My old rig ran 24/7 for around 3 years straight never had any serious problems or fire related incidents, you just need to know what you’re doing

Oh yes, this makes so much sense! After all, the standard unit is basically an Orange Pi and a 'Only Hashboard' in one single case. I think I would then also just omit the GPIO connector and add a small USB cable; that way I can run my own OS

@jstefanop is there any reason (except maybe the sleekness of the device) to use the GPIOs? Maybe better hashrate?
For keeping the device's sleek design, but allowing users to run own OS, it might be cool to offer the GPIO connection software as a package to install!

No, my full package Apollo came with Orange Pi 4, 6-core, 4GB RAM.

Yes, that's right, if you do Ubuntu updates, it may break mining. Jstefanop use third party software package to enable miner communication via GPIO pins on top of the Orange Pi. There is some incompatibility in this software if you update system by hand.
I worked around that by connecting miner via USB cable to itself. Every shipped miner can work either via GPIO or USB.

This is a known issue that will be fixed next update. Its caused by an unstable internet connection, so you can improve this if your on wifi, but if your ISP is causing it there is not much you can do until we issue the fix.

Hi, been mining away happily for nearly a week, now seeing : There is a problem fetching system stats (Internal error) tried restart, message still the same.

2.47 Th/s
Current hashrate
15 Min Avg: 2.47 Th/s
158 Watt
Miner power usage
Watts per TH/s: 64
0.4%
Hardware errors
Rejected: 3
2 hours
Miner uptime
Last share: a few seconds ago
Hashboards
Status   ID   Hashrate   Temp   Fan Speed   Power   Voltage   Error   Active ASICs
Active
HASHBOARD #0
 2.47 Th/s
60°c   1738 rpm   158 W   8.09 v   0.4%   44

Any clues please?

Thanks in advance :-)

Also 2.03 Th/s
0.00°C

I'm not sure if I'm the only one that is experiencing this but searching this thread is a nightmare, I'm finding that every few days my standard hashboard unit will fade off leaving only my main controller unit working. Obviously, this takes my hashrate from 4.5 to 2.0'ish but for no apparent reason.

My 2 boxes are in an air conditioned environment, I've run Bitmain ASIC's in that same room with no issue and they are on a UPS for power consistency.

The fix is simple, reboot the boxes and I'm up and running but now I'm finding that I'm having to play babysitter.

Is this something that anyone else is experiencing?

Thanks!
ML