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Picture copyright (c) Hotmine.
1) General information, other items needed
2) Unpacking
3) Overview
4) Installation
5) Configuration
6) Performance test
7) Conclusion
8] How to order
Last updated in: September 17, 2018.
Nicely formatted version (September 17, 2018) is available for download here (Mega.nz cloud service):
https://mega.nz/#!YsN2CazB!xI_TDWhUQmmijix2z-2vZPdZ_DDzNvsKVsqueVPKPak
1) General information, other items needed (top)
Hotmine X6 is a Bitcoin (SHA-256) ASIC miner using 16nm ASIC chip technology,
manufactured by Hotmine (headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine).
Hotmine X6 is a standalone miner with a built-in controller unit.
The advertised nominal hashrate for miner is 6.4 - 8.6 Th/s with a nominal power consumption of 980 - 1200 Watts.
It weights 4.1 kg and outer dimensions are 340mm(L) x 145mm(W) x 155mm(H).
Technical specs data sheet: https://mega.nz/#!QkFlgKQJ!yIcatHHXHcN52P8hot-xB_NfztIbWxgn5DfJsFC9EHo
Hotmine was founded in 2013 and in 2016 they grew bigger, as they became a Bitfury partner
and they started making boiler miners and Bitfury 16nm based upgrade kits (X5, X6) for Antminer S5.
They have since brought more miner models in to the market, and most of them are fully assembled units.
Hotmine X6 is using the same Bitfury BF16BTC8162 16nm ASIC chip as did the previous model (X5),
but the chip quantity is bigger and the total hash rate is more than twice the X5.
Hotmine: http://hotmine.io
Technical specifications:
Code:
Hotmine X6
Hash rate: 6.4 - 8.6 Th/s
Power consumption: 980 - 1200 W
Power efficiency: 1.4 - 1.5 J per Gh/s
DC voltage input: 12VDC
ASIC chip type: Bitfury BF16BTC8162 (16nm SHA-256 ASIC chip)
ASIC chip quantity per unit (miner): 92 chips
Number of hash boards per unit: 2 hash boards
Cooling: 2x 120mm x 38mm 12VDC 2.4A fan, JSL JDH1238B
(front and back, in a push-pull configuration, rotating max. about in the 6000rpm area).
Weight: 4.1 kg
Dimensions: 340mm(L) x 145mm(W) x 155mm(H)
Other items needed:
- A server grade power supply with at least 6x PCI-E 6-pin connectors, everyone with a dedicated cable, at least 18AWG wires.
There is no official custom power supply unit, but I would recommend using at least HP DPS-1200 FB A 1200 Watt server power supply
(with a breakout board & power cables -kit) with this X6 miner. - C13 power cord suitable to your country's electrical socket
- Ethernet cable to go to your router/switch device
- Computer to set initial pool and configuration settings.
2) Unpacking (top)
You can order a miner from Hotmine by ordering at their website or by contacting them via Telegram.
The first option is recommended.
I ordered one, after which I paid the amount in BTC.
The conversion from USD to BTC was done by the payment system and it was up to date.
The best option for me was to ship the miner from Ukraine to Finland using Ukrposhta, which is the national postal service in Ukraine.
Inside the cardboard box I found out that the miner was wrapped good in a bubble wrap.
On top of that the miner was also protected by custom shaped protecting foam material.
The packaging is tight and there is no excess space inside the cardboard box.
This kind of packaging design is pretty much the market standard these days.
Packaging material. Click to show a high resolution image. Picture taken by HagssFIN.
3) Overview (top)
Here is a set of pictures showing some details of the Hotmine X6 miner.
Click to see a high resolution image. Pictures taken by HagssFIN.
4) Installation (top)
The installation process for the Hotmine X6 is very similar to the Antminer S5,
which is a old miner model from Bitmain (the Hotmine X6 upgrade kit is compatible with the Antminer S5 parts).
First you need to connect the Ethernet cable to your miner and the other end to the router/switch device.
And then you need a server grade power supply preferably with at least 1200W power capacity (for example HP DPS 1200 FB A).
You need to install all six pieces PCI-E 6-pin power cables to the power headers found at the top side of the miner.
Three cables per hash board.
Power connections. Click to show a high resolution image. Picture taken by HagssFIN.
When the initial setup is ready, power on the miner and start by finding the miner IP address,
as the Hotmine X6 miner comes with DHCP as the default mode in the network settings.
This means that the miner will automatically get an IP address from the router device DHCP IP address pool.
You can find out what is the miner IP address by checking it at your router web configuration page,
or by using any suitable network software available (for example Wireshark).
When you have found out what is the miner IP address, you are ready for the next step, which is Configuration.
5) Configuration (top)
You first need to open your web browser and fill the miner IP address in the browser address field.
Then you press enter. It will ask you for the user credentials.
The default username is root and the default password is also root.
After that it is time to setup your mining pool settings.
Click and go to the 'Miner Configuration'.
You can put the pool stratum address, username and password for three different pools in a priority order: Pool 1 > Pool 2 > Pool 3.
This miner does not use AsicBoost and you can choose any pool that you like to use.
After you are ready with the pool settings, press 'Save&Apply'.
This saves and applies the settings and also reboots the mining process.
The user interface is pretty much the same as we have seen used with the Antminer S5
and the firmware is based on the same OpenWrt firmware design as the Antminer S5.
Here is a bunch of screenshot images showing a detailed view of the Hotmine X6 miner web configuration page features -->
6) Performance test (top)
After all the miner settings were done properly, it was time to test the miner and see how it starts running,
and also how good is the miner performance.
The average hash rate was in the 7.4 Th/s area, so the hash rate in the advertised level.
It is pretty easy to make a miner match the advertised specs, when you give such a wide area for the nominal hash rate.
I wish Hotmine would be more specific with their technical specifications.
In the next image you can see the miner status page view after the miner has been running for a good amount of time, almost 2 days.
Miner status page. Click to show a high resolution image.
After this it is time to move forward and measure the power consumption at wall.
The power measurement was done with Perel E305EM6-G energy meter as usual,
and you can find the technical specifications data sheet here:
https://www.perel.eu/downloads/22/e305em6e305em6ggbnlfresdptpl.pdf
Perel E305EM6-G. Click to show a high resolution image. Picture taken by HagssFIN.
Power measurement. Click to show a high resolution image. Picture taken by HagssFIN.
Stable result for the power consumption (at wall) was 1150 W,
when the hash rate was averaging in the 7.4 Th/s area.
The power supply that I used in this test was Bitmain APW3++ 1600W power supply.
With these power measurement results we can calculate the power efficiency at wall.
1150 / 7400 = 1.5541 J per Gh/s.
This is slightly more than the worst value for the advertised power efficiency (6.4 Th/s and 980 Watts --> 1.5312 J per Gh/s).
The power efficiency at wall of course depends on the power supply model used, and it could be that Hotmine used a better power efficiency power supply than the APW3++ power supply.
7) Conclusion (top)
I was very happy when I first found out Hotmine and their X5 upgrade kit.
It was a solid piece to upgrade your old Antminer.
This following model, Hotmine X6, continues on the same path and it is a solid miner.
The build quality with my unit was good.
The cooling in this miner is very powerful and effective,
but this miner is the 1.1kW area and it produces a lot of heat.
All this heat means that in most environments the cooling fans must operate at a high speed.
So the cooling fan noise makes it an unattractive choice for home mining operation, when the defaul settings are used.
Thankfully you can underclock the miner and also control the fan speed manually.
This way you can modify this miner to be used in home environment.
I think that power efficiency -wise the Hotmine X6 miner is close to the same power efficiency level as the Avalonminer 741 (Canaan Creative) and the Ebit E9 Plus (Zhejiang Ebang Communication).
The current mining competition is quite hard, even with the newest gear ( <0.70 J per Gh/s).
So you will notice, that with this X6 miner you will need close to free electricity if you want to make profit.
The Hotmine X6 is a quality item, but unfortunately a new, more efficient model would be needed in this current situation.
If you got any questions, feel free to drop them in this thread.
I will try to give my best answer.
8] How to order (top)
I highly recommend to only use their official webshop (http://hotmine.io) or contact their official Telegram account (@HotmineSales),
so that you can avoid any possible scamming attempts.
Hotmine: http://hotmine.io
