[Overview Section:]

These are my opinions and observations with the Apollo 2 BTC Founders Edition Full Node Miner.


Packaging from Futurebit is always Apple like in quality.




The hardware itself is an absolute tank and is incredibly well built.



Overview Section:

Love the fact you can put the UI into "Dark Mode"

Mining:
Over 9TH @ 345W on turbo which is great for a home miner. Love that these don't need a separate PSU.


Mining Integration with Apollo Gen1 BTC:
Flawless.... Plugged in the unit and the hashboard showed up within seconds of a reboot. Couldn't ask for easier or better.
Adding 1 Gen 1 Apollo pushes this up to 12TH+ at around 544W according to the GUI.


*Wish the GUI would show the best share submitted for the session when using any other pool (not the solomining option) than built into the miner.*

Pool Configuration:
Simple and straightforward.

*Wish there was the option for a failover pool.*

SoloMining:
So the stats seem to be legit on the localized solo mining pool in solo mode with just a bit of latency on reporting the last share submitted.
"SOLO LAN Mining Point any Bitcoin Miner on your local network to your Solo Pool with the following URL: IP:3333 Username: <bitcoin address>"  
Does this allow for btcadd.workernames? I assume it does as they show in the UI. However this should be clarified further to eliminate confusion.
Does this allow for more than 1 User? It appears so but I won't be trying until this is clarified further!

Showing the difficulty per workername would be helpful as well.
*There needs to be mouseovers explaining what each stat means for the average home user. I took the time to match the stats up locally with other connected miners so I would assume this could lead to confusion.*
*Would be incredibly helpful to identify the idle workers in red   *
*The Solomining starting pool difficulty seems awful low @ 42 this option would be ideal to be configurable or bumped up via the GUI.*

With 18 workers around 38TH pointed at the Apollo 2 FE I show the CPU use is at 4% and Memory use is at 33%. It appears the MCU unit is capable enough of running the CKPool & mining services required for most small home farms.




BTC Node:
Finally got the blockchain to sync up of the Apollo 2 FE... Took way wayyyyyy too long about 3-4 days.
The system should really ship with the blockchain more recently downloaded and alot closer than where is does.
The FE shipped with a 2TB drive so there's plenty of room for growth.

In an attempt to get past the 32 connection limit the UI ignores the command

Code:

maxconnections=48

*Would love to be able to allow more than 32 connections. (Adding a few manually allows the work around but this should be expandable within the UI IMHO).*

BTC Node Settings:

Here is where I added nodes manually and removed onion connections.

Code:

addnode=IPADDRESS
listenonion=0

Systems Page


Systems Settings


Extra Settings

Allows for you to reset to factory, format your NVME drive as well as backup and restore your config files easily.

Noise level:
I wouldn't put this in my bedroom unless I was planning for a divorce but it isn't bad for a garage or mining shed at turbo levels.

Local Pool Stats Page:
So after adding a 2nd user to the pool there was no way to actually view the stats for that 2nd user from the UI
*Consider adding a pool stats page for those that wish to add more than 1 user*

My over impression is that Futurebit has delivered again on their promises for early birds with a sweet piece of mining gear.
Superb build, decent performance and a simple to use UI.
This miner / node / solomining combo although expensive does hit the sweet spot for the average home miner who wants to contribute and help secure the BTC network.
They did this with the understanding that many have energy restrictions and now give every purchaser the option to roll the dice to go for the solo block.

It appears that we are going to hear about the S21 Pro tomorrow from Bitmain.

https://www.bitmain.com/wdmsRegional/Oman

My guess is a 230-250TH air cooled unit at the same 3500w.

Any predictions?

[Please Note: I am not the owner of the facility but host the majority of my mining equipment there.]

Please Note: I am not the owner of the facility but host the majority of my mining equipment there.

Here are a few of the details:

Site location is Maryland USA

1MW Air Cooled Container Based ASIC Miner Hosting is available immediately.

There is currently room for approximately 300 Miners which can go live upon delivery.

$.078/kwh - $.075/kwh (wattage based charging and the reduced rate is for larger miners)

Over 98% Uptime

*2 Month Deposit Required

**KYC REQUIRED**

*FoundryPool USA is the only pool permitted at this mining site which offers daily payouts.

*OEM Firmware ONLY. No 3rd party firmware is permitted.


If you are interested please DM / PM me and I will put you in contact with the site owner.


Wishing you all the best mining in 2024.

Came across this article today and I am honestly wondering if this is only isolated to the S19 XP 140TH units and their S19 90TH units...

https://news.bitcoin.com/compass-mining-alerts-bitcoin-miners-of-changes-in-bitmains-asic-design/

I know I have had a few S19APro 110TH units fail on me under warranty. They drop down to 2/3 hashboards just like appears to be happening with the units mentioned above.

My units are still @ Bitmains authorized repair center and have been for 2 months now... 

Looks like Bitmain is tuning their S19's a bit to use a less power.

🎄Christmas Giveback
❤️BITMAIN announces firmware upgrade to give back this Christmas

‼️The power efficiency of S19 Pro series will be enhanced by 13.6%, reaching 25.5J/T!

⏰Please download the latest firmware on Dec. 20, 2022 via the official website🔗https://shop.bitmain.com/support/download

Okay I've got the flamesuit on and lets let the constructive and civil discussion begin....  

If you choose to vote then please comment why!

Many of you are legends on here. Some run your own pools, some develop hardware, some firmware and some contribute directly to BitcoinCore itself.

I completely respect each of you for your contributions to BTC community and mean no disrespect by what I am about to throw out here.


As a miner I believe I have come up with an unique idea that pertains specifically to a deficient area in the BTC mining pool space.

Given the concept and idea that I believe it doesn't exist currently....

Would you ever consider building a unique BTC mining pool if you had the resources?

Again assume that worldwide resources, network and hardware are not a hinderance to the projects success.

Additionally, just as many of you know that many have tried and failed in the mining pool space.

I fully comprehend that trust must be built and that could take years of paying out on time means everything. I do understand the importance of open source coding. I also understand the importance of network architecture and most importantly that the pool may fail just due to lack of interest....

However, even with all of that up against me everything in my gut is telling me to forget the naysayers and get help building this new concept pool.

Care to share your thoughts?

Looking for a FutureBit Apollo BTC Full Package or Standard.

Okay who out there has one of these and they are collecting dust?

I'd happily work out a purchase or trade if someone has one of these they can part with.

I'd be willing to purchase or trade a Dell OEM Non-LHR RTX 3070 for one.

Let me know!

Hello All,
It appears that solochance.com which I used in the past has gone offline.

Are there any websites or calculators that show statistical odds of finding a block when solo mining that allow you to enter your hashpower?

Thanks in advance.

After getting really lucky solo mining on CK's Pool I was looking to reinvest some funds.

I needed to buy and have hosted a few Bitmain S19A Pro 110Th miners.(since my energy cost is not the best and I'm essentially maxed out on a  200Amp panel with Bitcoin / Altcoin miners. Let's not even get into the sauna that my mining room is....   )

So I started looking around at ASIC hosting companies that also sold hardware like Compass which seemed too big for me and ended up selecting DelMarVa blockchain http://delmarva.io.

I initially purchased 2 x S19A Pro's with hosting and maintenance for a year using Bitcoin as my payment. Honestly it did scare the living shit out of me sending that much coin to a company I had never dealt with before but all I can say is that as of this point I am so incredibly pleased with the service and responsiveness of their company and owner Matt Harris.

Matt personally reached out to me during the entire purchasing, hosting and configuration process clarified the wait times and explaining his companies ongoing electrical grid growth. The end result is that I had my 2 x S19A Pro's online in no time and they were an absolute pleasure to deal with and made it ultra simple every step of the way.

I am now in the process of adding 2 additional S19A Pro units and due to their incredible passion for BTC and personal touch they have my business going forward.

If you are looking for a host that does it all I can personally recommend them given my incredible experience.

Happy Mining!

Okay so my efforts came up empty with the solomining using CGMiner 4.1.12 on the latest Bitcoin Core v22.  So since this info seems to be difficult to come by I figured i would continue my journey and attempt to document it and ask questions along the way:-)

So.... I decided to try my luck with getting BitcoinCore v0.18.1 running which I seem to have accomplished a good portion but still could use guidance....

Here were my steps:
1. I downloaded v0.18.1 https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.18.1/ and synced the full node. It took just over 26 hours to fully sync.

2. After what feels like waiting for an eternity I have my full node running on an internal static IP of 192.168.50.151 and my Miner is running on a static IP of 192.168.50.217

3. To get the miner on my LAN to connect to the full node here is what I added to my Bitcoin.conf file
(Obviously your network settings and username / passwords will most likely be different):

Code:

server=1
listen=1
daemon=1
rpcuser=USER
rpcpassword=PASS
rpcallowip=192.168.50.217
rpcallowip=192.168.50.0/255.255.255.0
rpcallowip=127.0.0.1
rpcbind=192.168.50.151
rpcport=3333

Some notes:
*Without the rpcbind= in the Bitcoin.conf file I was only able to mine locally on the full node. I was not able to mine from any remote hosts on my LAN. So if you are only interested in mining directly on the full node you can do so by creating the CGMiner startup batch with the following:

Code:

cgminer -o http://localhost:3333 -u USER -p PASS --btc-address YOURBITCOINADDRESS

Now by adding the rpcbind=192.168.50.151 it broke the ability to mine locally to localhost however I found out I was then able to still mine locally on the full node as well as mine to the full node on remote machines by using the full nodes IP address of 192.168.50.151 in the startup batch like this:
  

Code:

cgminer -o http://192.168.50.151:3333 -u USER -p PASS --btc-address YOURBITCOINADDRESS

The rpcallowip= sections essentially whitelists the IP addresses you are allowing to connect to your full node for the purposes of mining. I would suggest keeping these IP addresses limited to your LAN.

Now with these settings I do believe I have CGMiner connecting correctly to BitcoinCore as I am seeing activity on the miner side however I am not seeing Accepted shares or Rejected shares. I understand this is due to not having a result sent back from an actual mining pool.

I can now see that I am submitting shares (I belive this is correct) since I can now see the best share number as seen here:



Now in most of the solomining threads or videos I came across I see people use the generate=true command in the CLI to enable mining however this doesn't seem to work for me as I get a json error. The results of running this command are:

Code:

The wallet generate rpc method is deprecated and will be fully removed in v0.19. To use generate in v0.18, restart bitcoind with -deprecatedrpc=generate.
Clients should transition to using the node rpc method generatetoaddress
 (code -32)

Here is what my getmininginfo results looks like:


Would love to know if anyone has recommendations on if I am on the right path!!!!

I have read multiple things online stating that to solo mine using bitcoind you need to use version 19 or prior.

Has anyone been successful at solo mining using the newest version of CGMiner with BitcoinCore 22.0?

I have about 5T soon to be 6+ and would love to try to not only roll the dice but also contribute a full node.

I am just curious as if anyone has been able to get things working past version 19 of BitcoinCore?

I appreciate any advice that someone may offer other that go mine to a pool lol!

[RushHourMining]

RushHourMining http://rushhourmining.com/

0.05% Fee (ALL MAY) Pool Located in the USA!

Hourly payouts on balances above .01 and .001 on Sundays*

*Please note payouts occur when blocks are found and then cleared*

*Payouts will go to the wallet of the coin you are mining*


Currently mining the following coins:

RVN – RavenCoin – x16r Algorithm – Port 3636

PGN – PigeonCoin – x16s Algorithm – Port 3663

LUX – LuxCoin – Phi Algorithm – Port 8333

BTX – BitCore – Bitcore Algorithm – Port 3556

CPR – CryptoRescue – x16s Algorithm – Port 3664



API - http://rushhourmining.com/site/api

Difficulty - http://rushhourmining.com/site/diff




Stratum Info:

Code:

-o stratum+tcp://rushhourmining.com:<PORT> -u <WALLET_ADDRESS> [-p <RIG NAME> c=<Coin Symbol>]

If you have any questions or need assistance please join our Discord Server where they will be happy to assist. Discord Server - https://discord.gg/8mcvk6V

Happy Mining!

So....

Yesterday I got all excited as I saw what I thought was me hitting 2 blocks while mining RavenCoin on ThreeEyed.info's pool using SMOS & Enemy Miner.

I saw what appeared to list Block 1 in Enemy miner on 2 of my rigs but no coins were ever received.

Of course I didn't screenshot it so I assumed it was an error..

Today once again I see the same thing on one of my rigs so I am reaching out for clarification... 

Here is the view on Enemy Miner...



As you can see the first number clearly shows 1 block...

Then I confirmed by going here:



You can clearly see that it does list that a block was found...

However I didn't receive a payout and in the block explorer my Ravencoin wallet ID isn't listed.

Can someone help educate me on how long it takes to get paid out or if I was screwed as it seems I am now 0 for 3!???

Thanks!

Hello all and Merry Christmas for those who celebrate.

I am noticing that all of my 9 x 1060 GPU rigs seem to be having stability challenges with mining Neoscrypt, Equihash and Blake2s when using the Nicehash Miner Version 2.0.1.5 for Nvidia cards.

What's odd is when it selects Keccak and Lyra2Rev2 I have no issues when running all 9.

I have updated my Nvidia drivers, re-benchmarked and reinstalled the Nicehash Miner software but the same thing occurs. Power supply is a 1600 watt EVGA T2 PSU so I don't believe its hardware or a power issue as this is happening across several of them.

Is this simply an 8 GPU limitation of the NiceHash software or am I just unlucky those specific mining pools?

Thanks in advance for your advice.