Topic: [Review] Avalon 6 Miner - Winter Mining - Notlist3d - Also FAQ and Help - page 45. (Read 79347 times)

Free Heat: I have been running in my room since it makes testing easier then going to my mining area.  i got the bonus of free heat from the miner by doing this.  I compared a room a little smaller on heat temp against my room with the miner.  It had raised the heat in my room around 8 degree F(possibly a tad more).

So it does have good potential for someone wanting to use it to heat up a room with it's free heat.  At a later date I hope to have my room with it off then after on, to get a even more accurate testing of the effect on a rooms temperature.   



Sound:  Below is  video that records sound of miner from 6 feet, 3 feet, then against the front of the miner intself.   Keep in mind this is with fan speed on default of 20 percent. Click the YouTube picture below to see the video.



Running at different frequencies:  Below shows my results of running the miner at multiple frequencies.  Keep in mind it is not exact with using kill-a-watt watts go up and down a little, and speed has a little variation.  But below is a very good general idea of speed at different frequencies.

0) General information + Hardware Needed
1) The Miners
2) Install
3) Running the miner
4) Conclusion


0) General Information + Hardware Needed to buy
During the first part we went through information about a Avalon 6 from BlockC. In this section we will be adding a Avalon 6 from Ehash.  In this section we will hook up multiple Avalon 6's.  The settings are still default with this to make it even tests. Below are parts needed in addition to parts in first review along with the second miner purchase.  Which is just another PSU.  

• Standard power supply with 4 PCI-E 6 Pin adapters (1200+ Watts is recommended)

1) The Miners
Below are images to showcase the Avalon 6 from Ehash.






2) Install
You have already done all the setup for the first miner as shown in post one for the first Avalon 6. It's going to be so simple that it is plug and play. With your second miner you still get the usb cord, adapter, and cable.  So you can either plug in other USB port on the Raspberry Pi or you can use the cord provided and go from one Avalon 6 directly into the other.  This Raspberry Pi could run to to 50 Avalon 6's so it is very expandable to say the least.:

0) General information + Hardware Needed
1) Unpacking
2) The Miner
3) Install
4) Running the miner
5) Conclusion
6) How to purchase

0) General Information + Hardware Needed to buy
The Avalon 6 miner is another solid miner to come from Canaan-Creative that is their new upgrade from it's previous Avalon 4.1 miner.  In the words of the maker "Avalon6 V6.0 consists of 80 A3218 18nm chips, which can be controlled by Raspberry Pi".  It does have a unique ability for scaling upwards if used in a commercial aspect "You can also manage 50 clusters by connecting controllers to USB HUB, with hash rate up to 183T."  Most users will not reach this level but the capability is there. Below is list of items you might need to buy in addition to the miner.

• Standard power supply with 4 PCI-E 6 Pin adapters (1200+ Watts is recommended)
• Raspberry Pi (version B or B+) or TP-Link TL-WR703N
• Network cable

1) Unpacking
Below shows a miner from BlockC being unpacked. I was impressed with how well it was packed.  The miner was in a box that was within another box.  The inner box has the miner using styrofoam to keep it centered and safe.  Then packing peanuts all around that inner box to encapsulate it within the other box safely. This made it where the miner easily made it safely to my door.




2) The Miner
Below are images to showcase the miner from BlockC.





3) Install
Very simple install with the Raspberry PI I recieved from BlockC. It was set to DHCP so install was plug and play.  I did change it to static IP as I like static with having multiple miners on my network.  BlockC sending the Raspberry Pi with a default of DHCP saves you from the install process you did on the 4.1's if you did it yourself.  It saved roughly 15 minutes or so and turned install into a breeze.

For those who did not get the Raspberry Pi kit from BlockC here is a link to a DHCP Raspberry Pi image. All thanks goes to BlockC for the image.  Just use a program such as Win32DiskImager and flash it to your SD card.  Then insert SD card into Raspberry PI and you now have a DHCP Avalon 6 controller.  Download is below:

DHCP RPI Image: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5yGu5iTU6MjRlozQjg3a0xRUEE/view?usp=sharing

4) Running
For the first test of running I ran it with default settings.  You can affect the speed with the Input Voltage of the PSU. This is using a EVGA SuperNOVA 1300 it did a pretty constant 12.0.   I tested a Rosewill LIGHTNING-1300 and it was running at around 11.9 to 12 Input voltage, this PSU varied.  So I stuck with EVGA in below tests showing the Avalon 6 running:  

• Below is the advanced GUI showing the speed:

• A Kill-A-Watt showing watts used:

• The air temperature before and after being sent through exhaust:  It is interesting the fan is set to pull the heat through the back instead of a fan in the front pushing air. So a different design than most but it seems to work very well.

5) Conclusion

For me this was a nice addition to my mining gear.  I made it no secret from my past guide on the Avalon 4.1 that I really liked it, so it was natural to want to try out the Avalon 6.  The install with above image is very simple, plug and play as I put it.  I like that it has a solid metal case and so far it is a solid miner.  Over the coming weeks I will continue with using the miner and updating this review,  on some aspects such as underclocking and just general running. Over time I am able to better show results as I try different things.  So far it has been a great miner from the experience I have had.  

I will be trying it in a few areas of my house as I try it to enjoy the free heat from the miner.  Instead of going in my normal mining area this one likely will be used for free heat.  So if you have a cold winter like me, it's one free perk of running a miner inside your house.

5) How to purchase

This will depend on what region you are in:
BlockC - Global Master Distributor: http://www.blockc.co/collections/blockc-co-shop/products/avalon6-bitcoin-miner
Ehash - Sales within China: https://ehash.com/product/avalon6-v6-0/