Topic: [Review] Avalon 6 Miner - Winter Mining - Notlist3d - Also FAQ and Help - page 32. (Read 79375 times)

I still have plans to test some more things.  It's getting there thank you to all who have posted questions or answers.   Really has helped this tread do more then just a review.  

I still am enjoying the free heat it's heat to sound ratio is very good.   I do plan on moving it into my mining area sometime but not yet.  

My mining area had a big fan go out it's been an adventure but. Since the mining area is getting more winter weather it did not effect heat a ton.  But I replaced it for my piece of mind.  Now I need to try to talk to the fan maker and see if they really stand by the 1 year warranty.  Lowes pretty much said after 3 months your out off luck except through manufacture.  Also... fan's are much harder to find in winter it turns out .

But I do have more ideas to come.

It looks like Avalon previously used the ftdi_sio driver for UART. I bet they still do too! This is loaded at boot time with TomatoUSB (my router firmware.)

With Avalon supported by bfgminer (installed via Entware packaged mentions before,) I'm getting really close to pulling the trigger and giving this a shot! So much $ though!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140539.880

I definitely love tinkering and making $. That's why I'm here! 

I'm interested in controlling the Avalon with the router or the Pi 2 since I already have bfgminer on the router and I have a spare Pi 2 kicking around I'd like to put to good use. I know a Pi is super cheap anyway, just trying to repurpose what I already have as a controller to ROI quicker (if ever.)

I'm sure you're right that it's more than enough horsepower though!

I do give you some kudos on wanting to learn the inner workings.  Love to see people get interested in a piece of hardware and really look into it.

On the controller I probley would just stick with what they is tried and approved.  Honestly the RPI B and B+ can run 50 machines if needed..... that is a lot of power really to be able to do that.  The miners being able to make a chian is nice for a commercial setting with tons of miners.

For those of us with a few i honestly don't think RPI B vs RPI 2 will make much of a difference.   Only really boot time is quicker... but you don't boot the RPI that often it stay's on for day's/weeks/maybe months.  So really RPI B or B+ is going to be perfect for almost all users.

Thanks for leading me down the documentation rabbit hole!

The Antminer U2 uses a sillabs serial controller. I have to load the cp2101.ko kernel object at router boot time to recognize the U2 that uses a USB to serial interface (/dev/ttyUSB0.) Then bfgminer will use that device using antminer:all in the config.
 
I've been looking into the Avalon 6 wiki (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Avalon6) to find out what the board interface uses. I'm guessing it's a standard USB controller and the router would recognize the miner without loading any extra kernel objects. I bet I could just use avalon:all in bfgminer config.

I don't know if I'm willing to pay $1500 to find out. I do have Raspberry Pi 2 that's not getting used. That should be compatible mid Decemeber according to the wiki btw!

Thank you for your help and I am sorry for not reading carefully the thread

This thread really is not a Avalon 6 VS S7 thread.  That is a entire different debate this thread is more to help with Avalon 6.  But if you want the debate between the two look over here - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/avalon-6-vs-antminer-s7-which-one-you-will-choose-1195199 It's a good back/forth debate between the two.    So use that thread if looking for debating best as it is a never ending debate.

But as far as buying the two official are listed on front page.  BlockC for most everyone, and Ehash for China markets.   There are re-sellers though they buy in bulk and sell in lower quanities.  

I suggest looking through the thread you will find at least 2 re-sellers, and get a little bit about them by reading what they post.  But please read the thread you cant post on last page and ask for all info .

Zoomhash has Avalon in stock. S7 is not in stock, batch 8 currently being sold for delivery in 2-3 weeks.

Avalon is quieter but less efficient. Both seem to be overpriced for any kind of realistic ROI.

Where can we buy this avalon 6 miner ? Avalon 6 or S7 which one is smarter for home mining?

On the 4.1 I know a certain TPlink worked - https://ehash.com/product/tp-link-tl-wr703n-contrlloer-suite/ .  It was able to control the 4.1's.  I don't have one to test as far as using it for a 6.  So far they have just advertised the B and B+ RPI.

Which the RPI turns out to be a pretty good controller. Using one on 3 avalon 4.1's, and on an Avalon 6 and both working great.  I really like the RPI as a controller.

Could anyone speculate if bfgminer 5.4.1 will control this unit? It does show Avalon drivers:
http://screencast.com/t/suU6cR5wlc


I'm currently running Entware-ng (alternative to Optware for OpenWRT) on a ASUS RT-N66U router with an Antminer U2 connected to the back USB port. It works great with the serial silabs CP2101.ko driver. There is no cgminer, but the latest version of the bfgminer package is maintained by Entware-ng:
http://entware.zyxmon.org/binaries/mipsel/Packages.html

I'm thinking I could patch a USB cable from the router directly to the Avalon miner.

The thing is we had very low numbers for a very long time.  Yes hash is growing... but so is value.  BTC was at 230 for the longest time.   Now it's u to 360.  So there is some very good things going on.

I don't think the 10 percent can last forever  I think we will stabilize at a certain point and we see more normal dificulty but this is all speculation.  And kinda getting off track.

We will see how the weekend goes. As I said before still some things I would like to test (and will).  But it's also been good as I've had time to let the miner run for a longer period of time and it does seem to be working very well.

Wow that is a much better calculator.  It's so clear and easy to understand that it paints such a dark future ahead for mining even if I got this Avalon for $500. =)  Was hoping to break even after 10 months or so but this seems to indicate that I wouldn't even come close to ever recovering my cost even if the difficulty is change to increase only by 7% and electricity rate at 8cents.  Does this mean home mining is dead unless BTC and everyone who is mining is hoping that BTC will go back up past 500?  Now we need a Avalon 7 that can do 5-7TH for the same power usage.   =) 

No, I can assure you that the wiki has more error codes - just view the source on that page, even a non programmer should be able to see the codes that it supports.

You're confusing the fact that the error codes are not values but bits that are turned on and off, so 1028 is actually multiple errors, which are all powers of 2, so the actual errors for 1028 are error 1024 and error 4.

A RPI is prety small in the scheme of things.  If the second one is what's stopping you I would just buy one.  For the most part RPI still hold value since so many use them for projects.   So if you move them together you can combine them.   Or are good just to have in project pile I have one in mine, or a backup if needed.

As far as pool I have not used slush for a long time F2 and Anpool both offer PPS.  Look up on pool types and you will see some vary largly based on the pools luck.  It should equal 100 over time.... but that does not stop it from having bad spells sometimes.

I also like to use - https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator i like being able to adjust difficulty and see what it will be.  More info to input but lot better ROI math.

Very interesting and explains why all the pictures I have seen show 36 chips on a hash Board, but the Spec shows 40. I had assumed that 36 was the correct number, but will now redo my spreadsheet. 


Rich

I got my Avalon 6 from Zoomhash.  Just checked and it has finally in transit from California.   I got the EVGA G2 1300W PSU used from Ebay for $100 shipped and it's already here before the Avalon.  =(  Right now I have a bunch of different PSU, was really impressed with the HP 1000w power supply until that issue.  After I power it off and back on, it's quiet again but for how long I'm not sure.  My buddy is offering to host 1 of the Avalon for me without any charges to Electricity for 3 months, so if the Avalon is good, I'm definitely considering a 2nd unit.  Only issue with separating the unit is that I would need 1 more Raspberry PI.   

Is your daily BTC earning matching this calculator?  Seems like mine is way below even though Slush pool Hash rate is matching what I'm expecting.

https://alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator

Mine is still running really good.  I'm enjoying the free heat still have not taken it to my mining area which I planned on doing before now.  I will eventually I still have a few more things I want to test out.

But I do think you jinx'ed yourself on the server PSU's.  In general a lot of the server PSU's are good deals on price, and you can get great cables for them.  But normally they are not known for being quiet. 

On waiting on the Avalon 6 who did you order from?

I'm still sitting waiting on my Avalon 6 to come.  Meanwhile I got 1 of the HP 1000w Power Supply for free to power my 2 Antminer S3s, replacing a failed Sentex.  These power supplies are quite small, I'm starting to wonder if I should get 2 of these to power my next Avalon when I'm ready for a 2nd one vs another EVGA G2 1300.  The power supply is super quiet except for a little whining noise.  They seem to be super cheap on Ebay for $20, the only issue is I can't readily find the X-adaptor card and PCI-e cables.  I think the PCI-e cables are quite standard so that should be easier.  Anyone have experience with these power supplies vs 2 x Dell 750w mentioned on this forum to compare noise, price and quality wise?  

EDIT :  NEVERMIND, I think I jinx myself after saying how quiet the HP Power supply is.  It was whisper quiet for the first 6 hrs, and now it's fan it's on full force and is super loud for some reason.  I'm only driving 1 Antminer with it and the room ambient temperature is actually 1 degrees lower than this morning.  The Antminer is still only 42c so everything is running super cool, not sure what the deal is but does anyone know if this is normal and whether there HP power supply are known to be noisy?  I guess I'll stick to the EVGA option.  This is unbearable in the room next to my office.

Notlist3d and others, how's your Avalon 6 running?  Still quite stable with low error rates?

Also F2 is PPS which some like a lot.  Antpool can be to but you have to pick it there.  

And they are Canaan-Creative it was a while ago they did that, a lot still tend to call them Avalon.  With it being a private company there is no way to really know mining operations.

The closest we know is BlockC - http://www.blockc.co/ read front page it shows a 10 MW datacenter they talk about.   Some time they should offer "We are Avalon's global master distributor, and we can offer miner hosting referrals in California, and other US Bitcoin datacenters."

So could be some interesting things there once that starts happening.  But I don't have a date when that happens.