Official FutureBit Apollo BTC Software/Image and Support thread - page 107.

OliveGreenHamster

newbie

Activity: 8

Merit: 0

Hey there, I'm thinking of getting a FutureBit Apollo!
I have my own BTC node running on repurposed laptop hardware (having a builtin emergency battery is great Cheesy

), so I would only need the USB Pod Miner and a PSU.

I am wondering though, since I couldn't find product pictures of the standalone USB Pod Miner, if it's also in a nice enclosure with cooling etc. in place just like the full unit or if it's just a PCB hashboard that is more DIY oriented.
Also followed the "open source firmware" discussion on the first few pages of this thread and wondering whether it's now all open source or not

Thanks in advance!

From what I've seen, they all look identical on the outside, the only difference you'll notice are the ports on the full node vs. the others, you won't have HDMI, etc. Not sure on the open source firmware, I don't think it's been open sourced yet. If it had been, there'd probably be links on the main futurebit site.

V3XED

newbie

Activity: 17

Merit: 0

Quote from: OliveGreenHamster on August 20, 2021, 03:16:46 PM

I got my miner yesterday and I've got it setup and working but I have a few questions.

In one of the early posts, it says not to include the "stratum+tcp://" in the miner pool, I included that before I had read not to, my miner is online hashing away, seemingly without any issues. Did that bug get fixed in a subsequent release?
On the dashboard, there are two temps listed, one at the top of the page next to the hash rate, and then another on the hashboard. What's the temp at the top referring to?

Thanks.

I am not a particualarly savvy or wise person, but I can answer these questions to some degree.
1. Yes, I believe it did because I also have included that text and am also mining successfully.
2. The lower temps correspond to the actual dashboard, while the temp in the top is the CPU for the main unit.

Another follow up question of my own...
The reported hashrate at the top of the GUI shows consistently about 10% higher than the actual hashrate recognized by the pool.
I am assuming this is normal, and due to the nature of how these things are calculated? (or in reality estimated?)

The reason I am asking at all is because both numbers are surfaced within the GUI, one at the top of the screen (big) and another smaller number in-line with the pool information.
Seems a bit funny that it would contradict itself?

Cheers!

iolo_the_bard

newbie

Activity: 5

Merit: 1

Just to say that I received my Full Package and Standard Unit.

They are both up and running and contributing to the slushpool.

I had to reboot the Full Package before it would see the hashboard from the attached Standard Unit.
If that is required, consider adding it to the instructions.

Great experience, love the products, keep up the great work!

OliveGreenHamster

newbie

Activity: 8

Merit: 0

I got my miner yesterday and I've got it setup and working but I have a few questions.

In one of the early posts, it says not to include the "stratum+tcp://" in the miner pool, I included that before I had read not to, my miner is online hashing away, seemingly without any issues. Did that bug get fixed in a subsequent release?
On the dashboard, there are two temps listed, one at the top of the page next to the hash rate, and then another on the hashboard. What's the temp at the top referring to?

Thanks.

jstefanop

legendary

Activity: 2174

Merit: 1401

Quote from: tjlindholm81 on August 19, 2021, 07:03:53 PM

Alright I got my new Apollo today and have tried to set it up! It seems to be running but I can't get it to mine. I have put in my pool information, but it still shows just the generic pool information with (jstefanop.apollodefault). My hash rate is 0 and power usage is 0. I tried setting up with slushpool so far. What is wrong? Node shows it is still sinking at 56% after about 4 hours since I plugged it in. I am using a wired connection.

Make sure you have not changed the default timezone in the desktop time and date settings as well.

If your still having issues just reach out to our support email (reply to your order email).

crypto_curious

full member

Activity: 933

Merit: 175

Quote from: Muppet007 on August 19, 2021, 10:42:09 PM

Quote from: devincrypt on August 19, 2021, 04:33:47 PM

I simply popped out the SSD and I have no problems - hashing away, never stopping. The burden of hosting a node does absolutely nothing for me - no benefit at all. Just happily mining SHA-256 crypto, stuffing my wallet!

I removed my ssd too as I already run full BTC and LND wallets/nodes via RASPIBLITZ on an 8 gig Pi 4.
My controller and two slaves have been working like trojans on 'balanced mode' for weeks with no problems.

I removed SSD also, and put it into my PC Cheesy

But in it's place I installed 1TB USB HDD drive I had spare, and pointed bitcoind to that, it's been working as a node beautifully ever since. Grin

Apollo controller is a little computer, you can configure it as you wish, and you can run a node on any hard drive, speed doesn't matter to it.

Muppet007

newbie

Activity: 23

Merit: 0

Quote from: devincrypt on August 19, 2021, 04:33:47 PM

I simply popped out the SSD and I have no problems - hashing away, never stopping. The burden of hosting a node does absolutely nothing for me - no benefit at all. Just happily mining SHA-256 crypto, stuffing my wallet!

I removed my ssd too as I already run full BTC and LND wallets/nodes via RASPIBLITZ on an 8 gig Pi 4.
My controller and two slaves have been working like trojans on 'balanced mode' for weeks with no problems.

heslo

legendary

Activity: 1202

Merit: 1181

Quote from: tjlindholm81 on August 19, 2021, 07:03:53 PM

Alright I got my new Apollo today and have tried to set it up! It seems to be running but I can't get it to mine. I have put in my pool information, but it still shows just the generic pool information with (jstefanop.apollodefault). My hash rate is 0 and power usage is 0. I tried setting up with slushpool so far. What is wrong? Node shows it is still sinking at 56% after about 4 hours since I plugged it in. I am using a wired connection.

Are you leaving out the stratum+tcp:// and just putting in the address. I did that when I first got it then figured out it doesn't want that in there

tjlindholm81

newbie

Activity: 1

Merit: 0

Alright I got my new Apollo today and have tried to set it up! It seems to be running but I can't get it to mine. I have put in my pool information, but it still shows just the generic pool information with (jstefanop.apollodefault). My hash rate is 0 and power usage is 0. I tried setting up with slushpool so far. What is wrong? Node shows it is still sinking at 56% after about 4 hours since I plugged it in. I am using a wired connection.

devincrypt

jr. member

Activity: 62

Merit: 1

I simply popped out the SSD and I have no problems - hashing away, never stopping. The burden of hosting a node does absolutely nothing for me - no benefit at all. Just happily mining SHA-256 crypto, stuffing my wallet!

crypto_curious

full member

Activity: 933

Merit: 175

Quote from: fvineyard on August 17, 2021, 05:29:44 PM

Any suggestions for troubleshooting reliability of my units? After the latest update to 3.1 I seem to be babysitting my units checking on them multiple times a day to make sure all 4 are working (one full and 3 additional units). At least once per day on average I have to restart the miner or the entire system. Prior to 3.1 the need for attention was much less frequent.

Temps seem fine at 63 to 65C for the units and 65C for the CPU (which I think is good).

I have tried switching to an external powered USB hub instead of running all off the USB ports on the full unit. I read here that helps with reliability. That has made no difference in my case.

Wondering if I should just reimage my SD Card and start from scratch...

Thanks in advance!

Miner stopping hashing might be caused by crashed mining binary (please see my post above). USB hub won't fix it. It crashes a lot for everyone, for me, I haven't seen more than a few days uptime on my miner and it's been running since beginning. bitcoind has weeks uptime and doesn't crash spontaneously at all, and apollo-miner can last only days. That's why I put mining process in the bash loop script, so I mine 24/7 without problems, miner crashes often and it's being restarted immediately. I don't know if full package version can restart mining process, I reinstalled system on mine to have full control.

crypto_curious

full member

Activity: 933

Merit: 175

jstefanop, any news on standalone apollo-miner binary? It's been nearly 3 months since the release. Miner binary crashes a lot for everyone. GUI full package uses the same binary, so problems exist for everyone. For standalone users, Raspberry Pi binaries were promised, still no sight for it. I know GUI is important, but no reason to delay fundamental part of Apollo which is miner software. Please at least compile binary for Raspberry and do nothing else, if miner package is not a priority. Thanks for all your work!

OliveGreenHamster

newbie

Activity: 8

Merit: 0

Quote from: dwood443 on August 18, 2021, 02:10:12 PM

Quote from: kyle15 on August 18, 2021, 11:53:32 AM

Anyone with a recent shipment notification care to share their order number to gauge where we're at? I got to schedule an out of town job, would like to avoid overlapping with shipment if possible.

Mine was 4063 and delivery date was 8/10

I'm 4288 and mine is going to be here tomorrow.

dwood443

jr. member

Activity: 95

Merit: 2

Quote from: kyle15 on August 18, 2021, 11:53:32 AM

Anyone with a recent shipment notification care to share their order number to gauge where we're at? I got to schedule an out of town job, would like to avoid overlapping with shipment if possible.

Mine was 4063 and delivery date was 8/10

kyle15

newbie

Activity: 12

Merit: 0

Anyone with a recent shipment notification care to share their order number to gauge where we're at? I got to schedule an out of town job, would like to avoid overlapping with shipment if possible.

V3XED

newbie

Activity: 17

Merit: 0

Quote from: wavelengthsf on August 18, 2021, 09:46:29 AM

Quote from: V3XED on August 17, 2021, 09:11:12 PM

Hey yall, its been a while!

Got my shiny new Apollo BTC's today, and got them up and running easily and seamlessly.
A really nice industrial design, and UX design on this one, well done!

I do have a few questions, that are more likely feature requests...

1. Can you set a hashrate target (instead of energy target), and have the power and clocks adjust to meet it?
2. Can you do any type of scheduling for adjusting hashrate, or starting/stopping the hash? My electricity costs are dramatically higher in the evening and would want to mine outside that window daily.
3. If you have multiple Apollo units, controlled by one "Main/Full" unit, can you have those identified as separate workers to a pool? .
4. What are considered "reasonable" temperatures, or perhaps what are MAXIMUM temperatures which should not be exceeded for these units?.

Thanks, and cheers!

1. No, you can't do this. The miner itself doesn't really know it's true hashrate. The JSON log will let you see different ways it's calculated (by work solves, by pool hash rate, or by pool provided jobs)
2. Yes, but you need to use cron jobs or other scheduling to do this. If you buy the full package, you'd need to SSH in and setup the scheduling jobs to stop the miner and restart it with different parameters
3. Don't have a full unit, but you can definitely start each miner separately from the command line (they all use a unique USB tty ID)
4. Mine run at around 60 C on average. No sure on max, but I haven't seen any high temperature alarms

Hey there, thanks for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate it!!

Very glad to hear about the "cron jobs" in particular, not something I am familiar with but I will start doing my research.
If you do have any great resource links, I would happily take them though.

The reason I had asked about temps seems to have been addressed earlier in this thread too (finally found a few relevant posts).
Basically my concern was the CPU TEMP, which is blazing hot right now doing a full node sync. (between 80-85c)
Seems like this is to be expected, and not cause for concern as it will drop down to reasonable operating temps once the sync is complete?
Hashboards are staying at a very comfortable 60c

Cheers!

wavelengthsf

full member

Activity: 658

Merit: 118

Quote from: V3XED on August 17, 2021, 09:11:12 PM

Hey yall, its been a while!

Got my shiny new Apollo BTC's today, and got them up and running easily and seamlessly.
A really nice industrial design, and UX design on this one, well done!

I do have a few questions, that are more likely feature requests...

1. Can you set a hashrate target (instead of energy target), and have the power and clocks adjust to meet it?
2. Can you do any type of scheduling for adjusting hashrate, or starting/stopping the hash? My electricity costs are dramatically higher in the evening and would want to mine outside that window daily.
3. If you have multiple Apollo units, controlled by one "Main/Full" unit, can you have those identified as separate workers to a pool? .
4. What are considered "reasonable" temperatures, or perhaps what are MAXIMUM temperatures which should not be exceeded for these units?.

Thanks, and cheers!

1. No, you can't do this. The miner itself doesn't really know it's true hashrate. The JSON log will let you see different ways it's calculated (by work solves, by pool hash rate, or by pool provided jobs)
2. Yes, but you need to use cron jobs or other scheduling to do this. If you buy the full package, you'd need to SSH in and setup the scheduling jobs to stop the miner and restart it with different parameters
3. Don't have a full unit, but you can definitely start each miner separately from the command line (they all use a unique USB tty ID)
4. Mine run at around 60 C on average. No sure on max, but I haven't seen any high temperature alarms

plank_dude

newbie

Activity: 5

Merit: 0

Quote from: jeyzeus on August 17, 2021, 11:13:23 PM

Quote from: plank_dude on August 16, 2021, 01:48:39 AM

Quote from: plank_dude on August 14, 2021, 04:56:45 PM

2) the hdmi output now doesn't appear to be working at all today after running the miner in turbo mode all night. is this a known issue? i've been keeping the cpu temp below 70C with fans and such.

i think i have an idea what caused this problem, in case anybody has a similar issue. it appears that the system requires any connected media to be connected during boot. if you plug it in after boot then no dice. i had the same problem with trying to connect a usb keyboard after it had already booted. hope this helps somebody

nah i don't think that's it. i thought i had this issue at fist. i think you just really have to double check the connection into the unit and make sure the cable is all the way in. i feel like on mine you need to push harder than you'd expect to make a solid connection.

maybe that's it, but i tried unplugging and replugging several times, jamming it in there as hard as i felt comfortable doing without breaking something. then i rebooted the system with the hdmi in (after it hadn't been working) and it worked fine. has worked fine since then, but i haven't unplugged the hdmi at all.

not trying to FUD, just sharing my experience

jeyzeus

member

Activity: 82

Merit: 52

Quote from: plank_dude on August 16, 2021, 01:48:39 AM

Quote from: plank_dude on August 14, 2021, 04:56:45 PM

2) the hdmi output now doesn't appear to be working at all today after running the miner in turbo mode all night. is this a known issue? i've been keeping the cpu temp below 70C with fans and such.

i think i have an idea what caused this problem, in case anybody has a similar issue. it appears that the system requires any connected media to be connected during boot. if you plug it in after boot then no dice. i had the same problem with trying to connect a usb keyboard after it had already booted. hope this helps somebody

nah i don't think that's it. i thought i had this issue at fist. i think you just really have to double check the connection into the unit and make sure the cable is all the way in. i feel like on mine you need to push harder than you'd expect to make a solid connection.

V3XED

newbie

Activity: 17

Merit: 0

Hey yall, its been a while!

Got my shiny new Apollo BTC's today, and got them up and running easily and seamlessly.
A really nice industrial design, and UX design on this one, well done!

I do have a few questions, that are more likely feature requests...

1. Can you set a hashrate target (instead of energy target), and have the power and clocks adjust to meet it?
2. Can you do any type of scheduling for adjusting hashrate, or starting/stopping the hash? My electricity costs are dramatically higher in the evening and would want to mine outside that window daily.
3. If you have multiple Apollo units, controlled by one "Main/Full" unit, can you have those identified as separate workers to a pool? .
4. What are considered "reasonable" temperatures, or perhaps what are MAXIMUM temperatures which should not be exceeded for these units?.

Thanks, and cheers!

Topic: Official FutureBit Apollo BTC Software/Image and Support thread - page 107. (Read 48605 times)