[Setup Guide] Blackarrow Bitfury 16 chip board support and tuning thread - page 4.

brettsimons

newbie

Activity: 4

Merit: 0

Hey guys,
I've been trying for hours to get my boards working but no matter what I try, the hash rate stays at 0 and I've been trying to just connect to ghash until I can get it working. I've read that you can set up the miners through the web interface but when I go to the ip address of the rPi, I just get the generic "It works! This is the default web page for this server. The web server software is running but no content has been added, yet." Also, when I run "sudo /opt/bitfury/start-miner.sh" I get an error of "cp: cannot stat '/opt/bitfury/empty_stat.json': No such file or directory". Finally, I posted what I see in "screen -r" since it looks like it is connecting and receiving jobs but mstat is showing nothing and neither is ghash. Huh

I just can't seem to get anything to work!!

http://i.imgur.com/m48oLR6.png

//-----EDIT-----//
It won't let me create a new post on this thread so here we go:

Quote from: terrapinflyer on May 29, 2014, 09:18:33 PM

Quote from: Machinery on May 28, 2014, 05:25:59 PM

Ahm, useful guide.
I seem to be having trouble while logging in, that password doesn't work for me.

Yea root/pi does not work on my pi either. Im waiting for a response from bobsag about what else it could be.

Try username: pi and password: raspberry

btljuice

member

Activity: 92

Merit: 10

Can anyone please explain how to connect the cables to the boards with the pins facing down? Can only line up the arrow on the cable to pin 2 or 9.

EDIT: Also, is anybody going to order a controller? Wondering if anyone wants to go in on an order since shipping is $60.

terrapinflyer

hero member

Activity: 602

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Quote from: Machinery on May 28, 2014, 05:25:59 PM

Ahm, useful guide.
I seem to be having trouble while logging in, that password doesn't work for me.

Yea root/pi does not work on my pi either. Im waiting for a response from bobsag about what else it could be.

nbtcminer

sr. member

Activity: 249

Merit: 250

Quote from: Machinery on May 28, 2014, 05:25:59 PM

Ahm, useful guide.
I seem to be having trouble while logging in, that password doesn't work for me.

Are you talking about the original Blackarrow Pi image? And I'm fairly certain that the username/password root/pi is the right combo for default settings. If you changed the password via the passwd change for the root account then it will be whatever you set it to. If you've lost the password your best option is to start from scratch by re-imaging your SD card. ((The other possibility is that you aren't sshing to the right device)). Try using a client like PuTTY to connect to the PI.

I recommend backing up the following files for a quick restore if you ever need to reimage the SD card(winscp is free and work great):

/opt/bitfury/best.cnf
/opt/bitfury/proxy_pools.conf
/opt/bitfury/chainminer/jobconnect.cpp
/run/shm/.stat.log

As for other devices interfacing with the controller; afaik the pi GPIO is the only way to interface with the controller board and I'm assuming all the existing code is written specifically for it.

Machinery

newbie

Activity: 39

Merit: 0

Ahm, useful guide.
I seem to be having trouble while logging in, that password doesn't work for me.

helipotte

hero member

Activity: 650

Merit: 500

Pick and place? I need more coffee.

Quote from: Polyatomic on May 27, 2014, 11:32:17 PM

Can the cubieboard2 or cubietruck be used as the host instead of a pi?

My thinking on this is no. But I am no coder. I have been trying to get these to work on a BeagleBone black with no luck. I think the driver in cgminer

(driver-bab.c) is written only for the spi interface on the pi. Kano did a lot of work on this driver, maybe he can add support for non raspberry pi devices.

When I run CGminer compiled with this driver it states that it cannot access the SPI interface. As far as the original chainminer, I have no idea. Huh

Polyatomic

sr. member

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Can the cubieboard2 or cubietruck be used as the host instead of a pi?

helipotte

hero member

Activity: 650

Merit: 500

Pick and place? I need more coffee.

Well since these did not come with the outer 4-pin connector, I improvised!

I soldered 14 gauge wire directly to the tinned side of the board, then linked to other two pins to the next board. Limited the chain to 5 boards.

Then I installed high current automotive type spade connectors on the first board in the chain. These connected to terminals on a modified 750 watt

Dell XPS power supply. Each power supply has 10 boards attached to it using 4 14 gauge wires. All the wires are cold and I get ~12V at the board

connector. 17 boards Use about 700W supplied with 240V and hash at 678Gh. Almost 1W per Gh! Grin

dozerz

legendary

Activity: 2231

Merit: 1057

Quote from: helipotte on May 27, 2014, 02:17:18 PM

2x 220 uF tantalum. Might need more though. It is important to use low esr caps. The caps aren't required, but do reduce the errors somewhat.

Example: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/AVX/TPSC227M006R0125/?qs=nuh5PIvfcbyhUuXGL20cAA==

thanks, would love to see some pics and how you wired up the power/plugs.

helipotte

hero member

Activity: 650

Merit: 500

Pick and place? I need more coffee.

2x 220 uF tantalum. Might need more though. It is important to use low esr caps. The caps aren't required, but do reduce the errors somewhat.

Example: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/AVX/TPSC227M006R0125/?qs=nuh5PIvfcbyhUuXGL20cAA==

dozerz

legendary

Activity: 2231

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Quote from: helipotte on May 25, 2014, 10:02:47 PM

I will post a picture next time I take it down for maintenance. But basically I soldered a SMD cap between pin 10 (1.8V) and the ground ring next to it. Did this on two

SPI connectors. This reduced the ripple measured considerably.

what value cap did you use?

dozerz

legendary

Activity: 2231

Merit: 1057

Quote from: helipotte on May 26, 2014, 12:17:38 AM

Quote from: chadtn on May 25, 2014, 11:33:39 PM

There are only two ways the cable can be plugged in...right? I'm certain that every board I plugged up had the same color wire on the side facing the number one pin. Are the boards labeled incorrectly? It won't do me any good to order a stack of controllers if they just burn up every time I hook a board up.

Chad

Check for shorts on your boards between ground (corner rings) and pin 10 on SPI connector.

great info, thanks! look forward to your pictures.

helipotte

hero member

Activity: 650

Merit: 500

Pick and place? I need more coffee.

Quote from: chadtn on May 25, 2014, 11:33:39 PM

There are only two ways the cable can be plugged in...right? I'm certain that every board I plugged up had the same color wire on the side facing the number one pin. Are the boards labeled incorrectly? It won't do me any good to order a stack of controllers if they just burn up every time I hook a board up.

Chad

Check for shorts on your boards between ground (corner rings) and pin 10 on SPI connector.

chadtn

sr. member

Activity: 672

Merit: 250

There are only two ways the cable can be plugged in...right? I'm certain that every board I plugged up had the same color wire on the side facing the number one pin. Are the boards labeled incorrectly? It won't do me any good to order a stack of controllers if they just burn up every time I hook a board up.

Chad

helipotte

hero member

Activity: 650

Merit: 500

Pick and place? I need more coffee.

I will post a picture next time I take it down for maintenance. But basically I soldered a SMD cap between pin 10 (1.8V) and the ground ring next to it. Did this on two

SPI connectors. This reduced the ripple measured considerably.

nbtcminer

sr. member

Activity: 249

Merit: 250

Thanks helipotte for the info! I'm actually going to OC my pi and see how things work out; I'm finding that chain miner has worked way better for me than cgminer but I may try the mod you suggest and give it another try.

One of the things I'm finding that seems to be common about the frying of boards; this may be because of the SPI connector itself and plugging it in the wrong way (i.e.plugging it in the wrong way). Can you take a pic of the 1.8v regulator / where to put the cap you were talking about?

helipotte

hero member

Activity: 650

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Pick and place? I need more coffee.

Hi,

Figured I would post my findings with one of the 17 board "kits" in this thread.

First off, it took me about a week of tinkering to get these things humming at 40Gh per board with all 17 connected to one pi/controller.

My reject/error rate is below 1%. First thing you need to do to get rid of the rejects/dupes/error is OVERCLOCK your Pi to 900mhz.

The little Raspberry pi can't handle more than about 12 of these boards if you use Cgminer.

Next thing to do is edit the file driver-bab.c before you compile. Edit line 2124 from:

#define BAB_STD_WORK_DELAY_uS 900000

to:

#define BAB_STD_WORK_DELAY_uS 800000

Increasing the SPI bus from 96000 to about 165000 helped with the waiting for work messages. That is line 42.

This plus overclocking made CGminer run perfect with the 17 board kit. Grin

Also for you electronic types, installing some tantalum caps on the 1.8V regulator helped a lot with SPI errors. Grounding between the boards and controller is VERY important!

Hope this helps those who have these boards and are struggling with error/dupes/rejects.

Edit: Don't use the barrel connector/PCI express adapters that came with the kit. Make your own out of 14 gauge or better wire. I had one catch on fire! Shocked

Estimate that each

board requires about 50W. Safety first.

btljuice

member

Activity: 92

Merit: 10

Quote from: dozerz on May 25, 2014, 02:44:02 PM

Quote from: btljuice on May 25, 2014, 02:36:04 PM

*sigh* Fried my controller... I suspect because the blue boards pins aren't labeled/done correctly.

i also had the same problem. word of warning that i also noticed this with some green boards so be careful. you can normally tell if a board will fry the controller by holding the ribbon cable which will heat up immediately after connecting it to the controller.

I believe the controllers are getting fried by hooking up the SPI cables incorrectly. I'm guessing this because a lot of v1 H-cards got fried (or was it the m-boards? I forget) when people didn't insert the cards facing the correct way. That's why the v2.2 cards are PCI style slots, so people couldn't get it wrong. So I'm guessing it's the same deal here, if you don't connect pin 1 on the cable to pin 1 on a board.

dozerz

legendary

Activity: 2231

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Quote from: btljuice on May 25, 2014, 02:36:04 PM

*sigh* Fried my controller... I suspect because the blue boards pins aren't labeled/done correctly.

i also had the same problem. word of warning that i also noticed this with some green boards so be careful. you can normally tell if a board will fry the controller by holding the ribbon cable which will heat up immediately after connecting it to the controller.

btljuice

member

Activity: 92

Merit: 10

*sigh* Fried part of my controller... I suspect because the blue boards pins aren't labeled/done correctly. SPI3/4 don't work now. 1 & 2 still do. Going to steer clear of these blue boards until I can get some clarification on how to connect them properly.

Topic: [Setup Guide] Blackarrow Bitfury 16 chip board support and tuning thread - page 4. (Read 13358 times)