Bitcoin Forum

I had not looked into bitcoin mining until very recently, and what attracted me to give it a try was not the prospect of earning meaningful money but that it was a neat project to fiddle with. I have always enjoyed projects like satellite access cards, 3D printers, etc. things with blinking lights and lines of code scrolling by doing cool things. I have no expectation of doing anything more than breaking even but I would like to be a little more focused and efficient.

I already had several raspberry pi's sitting on the bench (original and B+) and plenty of USB hubs and such laying around so no investment there.

First I picked up two 333mh/s USB block erupter and got the pi configured and running the rig. I bought those because they were what was covered in the tutorials I saw first.

I then picked up an Antminer U2 because the GH/s per dollar made more sense than buying more of the 333mh/s USBs.

Then I picked up an Antminer U3 because that had an even higher GH/s per dollar than the U2 so it made more sense to buy the U3.

The next step up from the U3 seems to be the more serious hardware with more heat, noise, etc. and probably more committed than I care to get, but I could be wrong. My questions are:

-Can I mix miner types, can I install the 333mh/s and the U2 on a USB hub and hook in the U3 and have them all recognize and co-exist (assuming proper power of course)

-How many U3's can a pi B+ support, can you have 4 running from one pi with bfgminer?

-I was considering 4 of the U3's with a Pi B+ and sticking with that, is there another miner hardware unit that would make more sense than 4 of the U3s, there are so many of these things it seems like every time I find one and settle on it something with a much higher hash rate turns up for just a few $ more. It is very easy to just keep poking yourself up the chain.

-I saw a few different GUIs for bfgminer that claim to make it easier to visualize and manage the device performance, is there any merit to these, any one better than the others?

Give me a minute to write a reply.

A) do not buy any more items
B) mixing the erupter the U2 and U3 is not the best idea.
C) you will need an  USB hub.
D) I will give you a Hub link

this USB hub can run 5 USB sticks.


http://www.amazon.com/Etekcity-Adapter-Charging-Protector-Indicators/dp/B00ELPSEVW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1436018543&sr=8-3&keywords=10+port+usb+hub

Now here goes on your gear:

  the erupter is a power hog it uses 6x the power of the U2  about 10-12 watts per gh of hashpower.
  the U2 uses 2 watts per gh
  the U3 is a poorly made piece of gear it has a lot of troubles.  IIRC it uses 0.8 watts per gh.

He should look into newer gear. Like sidehack's usb sticks.

I will link you to the newest USB sticks

the review thread

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1086011.0

the build thread

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675.0


these use .31 to .36 watts a gh

wait for them to be released

here is a link to something like a U3

http://ehash.com/product/avalon4-mini/

it does 78 gh at 32 watts  soon to go on sale  should be better then the U3

What are the drawbacks? I have plenty of USB hubs and several Pi's that I can use, what would be a suitable combination? U2 and erupters on one Pi and U3 on a second Pi? Right now I am just playing around, getting a feel for how it all works.

hard to tell  if the software will recognize all of them.  sometimes there are conflicts due to drivers I know the U2 does not mix well with the erupters  I believe it thinks they are the same sticks since they are both using the Icarus driver.

My software skills are a C- at best.  there are others that know the vast amount of sticks, better then I.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=464496.0

theRealSteve know more about stick mining then I do. his thread is above.

here is the block erupter thread.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=91173.msg1211518#msg1211518

the u3 thread
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=827356.msg10440184;topicseen#msg10440184

 one of the u1 threads and the u1 is the u2

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=406149.0

The U3 even with a good PSU stops mining, just says Diff changes, that likes to happen when I am a sleep. U can always get some Scrypt Furys and Mine the Blackcoin Pool ,and trade for BTC. Them get more Blackcoin per MH Then GH's.

i dont know why people read a thread then recommend people buy more hardware

anyway with bfgminer Erupters and u2 will work together just plug them in 1 at a time and make sure the hub has plenty of power. not sure on the u3 seen it have issues with the original pi's but might work with the B+ better.

They would all work fine with the PI2 as its got a proper usb controller

download raspbian and install bfgminer or cgminer or if you really like to poke and prod get minepeon. i started with minepeon but didnt support my nano furys and hex furrys so when i got my pi2 i built cgminer on raspbian and have

2x Erupters
2x Nanofury
3x B*tfury
1x Hexfurry