Keeping up with tradition I have to make an announcement post here even though im sure most of you have already heard the news!

www.futurebit.io

Product #5 and the one I have been trying to build since the start. This one probably took a few years off my life, and is about 6 months late due to needing to redesign it not once but 3 times.

5nm ASICs are no joke.

As with everything we do we dont announce or ship until we know we can make them and they are ready. This is a first of many for Futurebit, first time we have nearly caught up to the latest node, first time we have integrated a PSU directly in the box for a completely plug and play and seamless experience, first time we have created a completely in house thermal system capable of cooling 400 watts in nearly the same volume as Gen 1, and a first for creating a modern mass producible aluminum case and injection molded parts.

One of the biggest bottlenecks with the Apollo BTC design was the sheet metal case that took forever to make, and with these have already produced thousands of cases and are just waiting on our thermal system and PCBs.


Should have everything in by end of December and start shipping the Founders Edition in January.

One of the biggest announcements is our revamped OS thats finally releasing the Solo mining feature everyone has been waiting for, and the OS will be released on the original Apollo BTC first in hopefully about a month.

We hope the Apollo II launch finally gives us an opportunity to really focus on software this time around, which we never really had the resources for after the Apollo BTC launch.

The hardware has finally caught up to where it needs to be, but software needs a lot of work to make it a seamless experience for people outside of this forum.

We will also be partnering with Lukes pool and offering a one click BTC address setup, and working with them to finally enable lightning payouts for small miners like the Apollo and others, that will finally end the nearly year long payouts on some other pools (FYI we also got braiins pool to reduce their minimum no fee payout to .005 BTC which is half of what it was).

Im sure many of you have noticed but our efforts and others in the small miner space are finally paying off and people are taking notice. People are starting to understand the importance of self-mining no matter how small, and as censorship attacks mount on the Bitcoin network this will be more important than ever.

Can't wait for the first solo block to be mined directly on an Apollo device after we launch the new OS, it will truly be a dawn of a new era for Bitcoin.

[THIS IS THE SUPPORT THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!]

THIS IS THE SUPPORT THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!
All other comments/general questions go to the anouncment thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5314398.0
__________________________________________________

We are depreciating Bitcointalk forum support for FutureBit devices and latest support and download links etc is at our dedicated support page here:

https://www.futurebit.io/apollo-btc-support

Bitcointalk has been home for us for almost 10 years now but with our increased customer base we are moving to more dedicated support through our website/email!


Getting Started

This post is for the Full Package/Node version, while it is geared for new users its still recommended you read the whole post as there is important information that pertains to how our system works.

If you are looking for software for your USB Standard Version to run on your own system see post below:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5340015.msg57091051#msg57091051

If you are looking for the Apollo BTC Image for your SD card (to re-flash to stock state etc) you can find that below:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5340015.msg57091052#msg57091052

Below are the quick getting started instructions that you should have also received inside your Apollo, with more details and an FAQ section at the end. This thread is a great resource for additional questions, and is always monitored so if you have additional questions that are not covered below please feel free to post.

• Carefully remove the Apollo BTC, Power Supply, and AC Power Cable from the box. Be sure not to touch any PCB components on the exposed bottom of the unit
• Turn the ASIC miner over so the blue micro-controller is exposed. Make sure the white Micro SD card, as well as the M.2 SSD are both firmly in their sockets and did not become loose during shipment
• Plug in your HDMI Monitor cable to the side HDMI port on your Apollo, and a USB Keyboard/Mouse to the USB ports in the back of the Apollo. If you are not using wifi, plug in your network ethernet cable to the ethernet port on the back of the unit (note you can setup your Apollo over ethernet without a monitor/keyboard/mouse if you wish, see instructions below).
• Plug the supplied AC power cable into the APU-200W Power supply, and the other end into your AC socket (please note the power cable is for NA markets, the power supply works in all markets (120 and 240v), but you will need an adapter or your own AC cable). Plug in the two 6 Pin PCIE output cables into both power ports of the Apollo. Make sure the 6 Pin connectors are firmly plugged into the Apollo, the cable will overheat if it does not have good contact.
  WARNING: Always make sure both PCIE plugs are plugged into the Apollo, even if you are using your own PSU
  NEVER Plug in two separate power supplies into the same Apollo THIS IS A FIRE HAZARD
• If you ordered Standard Units, repeat the steps above, and plug in the supplied Micro USB cable to the back Micro USB Port of the Standard Apollo and the other end into the USB port of the Full Package Apollo (you can use any standard USB hub if you run out of USB ports).
• Switch on your power supply on all the Apollo units, and wait for the Full Package Apollo to boot. Please be patient on first Boot, the Apollo BTC will automatically set up your SSD, configure the Bitcoin Node, and a bunch more system level setup that can take several minutes to complete. Once it reaches the login screen, type in "futurebit123" as the password.
• Once logged in, you will automatically be directed to the web dashboard. First connect your Apollo to your wifi network if you are not using an ethernet cable (internet/wifi icon on upper right corner of screen), then follow the setup instructions on the dashboard to setup your pool and dashboard password
• Thats it! You should be presented with your Apollo’s dashboard and any connected standard Apollos should be automatically mining on your pool. You can also check out your node on the node dashboard on the right side panel. It should have already started syncing!

If you want to interact with your Apollo directly through its web dashboard without a monitor/keyboard/mouse setup you can do so, and it works similar to most web based miners

• Follow the steps above and make sure your Apollo BTC is connected to ethernet before powering it on
• Wait several minutes until the Apollo has fulled booted and started mining (slow front Red LED flashing)
• Connect your PC, tablet, or mobile phone to the same local network your Apollo is plugged into
• If your are on a Mac or iOS/Andriod device navigating to futurebit-btc.local might work
• If this does not work you need to locate the Apollo BTC's local IP address. Easiest way is to either log into your router app/settings and find it in the device list, or download an ip scanner tool that lists all the device IPs connected to your network/
• Once you find your Apollos IP address, copy and paste it into your web browser, and you will be directed to the Apollo's webdashboard/setup page

Choosing/Configuring a Pool

Picking a Bitcoin pool to mine on with your Apollo BTC is a more important process today than it has been in the past (or if you have mined on other lower difficulty coins). This is because of two main reasons:

1) Due to the low relative hash-rate of the Apollo, and the high difficulty of Bitcoin it can take a very long time to receive a minimum payout on some pools, especially if you want to avoid paying a "payout fee." Do your research on each pool and what their minimum payout is and their fees. Once you commit to a pool you will be tied there for up to several months until you get your payout, its its extremely important your committed to that pool before you start mining. While some pools can pay out smaller amounts to their own side chains/internal wallets you have to DYOR on whether this is right for you

2) Bitcoin Pools are very centralized and a lot of hash power directed at these pools are from large mines/cooperations with a large portion in China. While the individual hash-rate of your Apollo might not seem like much, the collective hash power of all FutureBit Apollos could have a significant impact....you are voting on what kind of network you want Bitcoin to turn into when you point your hash power somewhere, and that usually boils down to what the particular pool supports. While we dont want to play sides on where our users choose to point their hash power, we think slush pool is a good first choice. They have a great user interface, relatively low hash-rate, are based in Europe (and outside of China which is important), and are developing Startum V2 protocol which we intend to support and further help decentralizing pooled mining.

Once you have chosen a pool, go to its help section (for example on slush pool its at https://help.slushpool.com/). You need to figure out the mining URL and port for your region, your username if its an account based pool or a wallet address your mined bitcoin will be deposited to if its wallet based, and password (usually can be anything, but some pools use this for options).

You can enter this information the first time you visit the Apollo dashboard, or by selecting the pool settings on the left navigation menu.

• In the URL field you have to enter both the pool URL as well as the port (ie stratum.slushpool.com:3333). If you do not enter the port the dashboard will not let you save the pool information. You do not need to enter stratum+tcp:// before the pool URL.
• In the username field follow the instructions your pool gave you for your username (its usually the account or worker name you setup with the pool, or a BTC address). These are sometimes case sensitive, and the Apollo will not connect to the pool if it is not correct
• In the password field just enter any value if the pool does not require it, or whatever password you setup with the pool/worker (sometimes this is NOT the same as your account pool password). This field is also sometimes used for more advanced pool settings

3) For users wanting to play the lottery with their Apollo (ie solo mine), we are working on direct solo-mining support to your full node on the device itself. For the time being you can use a good solo pool like https://solo.ckpool.org



Mining Settings/Tuning

The Apollo BTC comes pre-tuned with three main modes, and these modes should be more than enough for most users. The Apollo-Miner firmware already has built in per chip tuning so unless you are an expert user that really wants to push the hardware on the extreme efficiency or performance side you probably dont need to touch the custom settings.

Under the Settings side panel you will find the three different modes you can toggle. Your Apollo is shipped and starts mining in ECO mode

ECO: This is the most efficient, quiet, and low power mode. Your Apollo will mine at about 2TH/s in this mode and consume about 120 Watts. The fan should be barely audible in this mode.
BALANCED: This mode provides a good balance between power, efficiency and noise. Your Apollo will mine at about 2.5TH/s in this mode and consume about 160 Watts. The fan will be slightly louder in this mode, but should still be quiet in a normal setting.
TURBO: This mode provides the highest hash rate capable with the FutureBit APU-200 PSU. Your Apollo will mine at about 3TH/s in this mode and consume about 200 Watts. The fan will be loud in this mode.

Custom Settings




Full Node Info

The Apollo Full Node runs the latest release binaries from bitcoincore.org, and is automatically configured and setup at the system level. It will start syncing a clean chain state from block 0 on your nvme SSD on first boot, and is capable of downloading a full unpruned node on its 500 GB drive with a 1-2 year buffer. This is the core that will enable us to release additional apps and services in the coming months and years (solo mining, block explorer, Lightning network all planned in the short term), and allow you the user to verify your own transactions and chain state without needing to trust anyone else.

These updates will be issues directly through the dashboard, and you will see a yellow "Update" button once we start releasing additional functionality.

Few things to keep in mind:

• While our SBC is extremely powerful for its size, the initial chain state download will stress all 6 of its cores to the max for several days while your node syncs. Its not recommend to run your hashboard past the ECO setting while the node syncs, as this can overheat the CPU and cause it to shutdown. If your in a warmer environment its recommend to stop the miner until the node fully syncs (24-48 hours).
• Do NOT hard shutdown your system while the node is running (ie press the off button on your power supply). You should always shutdown your system via the shutdown menu in the Apollo Dashboard, or via the Desktop. This will ensure your node saves the chain state properly and does not corrupt the node, or your SD card
• The node should automatically configure your router to open port 8333 via UPnP, and you should see more than 8 connections in your dashboard. If it stays on 8, this means you need to manually open the port to your Apollos IP address in your router port forwarding rules. This will help count your node as a public node, help other nodes sync, and further decentralize the Bitcoin network.
• All blockchain data is stored on the NVME drive which is located at /media/nvme on the linux system. It is also accessible on the desktop via the file browser.
• If you want to download the Bitcoin Core wallet (which is not installed by default for obvious reasons) you need to first shutdown the node via the dashboard menu FIRST, then startup Bitcoin Core UI. The Bitcoin core wallet can not run/share the blockchain data at the same time as the node is running. If you are setting up the wallet for the first time, make sure you select /media/nvme/Bitcoin as the default folder otherwise it will start to download the blockchain on your SD card which will cause you lots of headaches (will fix this with symlinks in an update)
  FUTUREBIT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST WALLETS OR DATA/BITCOIN ON YOUR APOLLO
• As always, its recommended to store your Bitcoin on a hardware wallet/seed capable wallet where you have your seed backed up. Since the Apollo is a essentially a full desktop computer you can download any third party wallet software you wish, and use almost all USB/Bluetooth hardware wallets
• Never store wallet data/sensitive information on the SD card your system resides on. Treat the NVME drive as your permanent storage solution (ie third party wallets/apps make sure your wallet info is store in the /media/nvme directory and NOT a default location in the system. If your SD card becomes corrupted/unsusable (which is very common with SD cards), you will need to reflash your SD card which means any information stored on it will be lost. The NVME drive on the other hand is a much more robust storage solution, and any information you have saved on it will be accessible even if you have to wipe your SD card
• Tell all your Bitcoin friends your miner runs a full node, and you now have a device that embodies one of the purest versions of satoshi's original vision.    (ie something that has not occurred since the original bitcoin core release when EVERYONE mined, ran a full node, and wallet on the same CPU!)

FutureBit OS/System

DO NOT perform a distribution update to 22.04, only regular and security update are supported. You will need to reflash your SD card if you perform this update as its not supported.

The FutureBit Apollo BTC with its modern 6 core ARM processor and 4 GB of RAM allows it to run a full desktop environment. It runs a flavor of the latest Ubuntu 20.04 operating system with 5.10 linux kernel. You can run almost any Linux based application and use it as a full desktop/web browser system.

• Most Monitors, Keyboards/Mouse, and bluetooth accessories will work with the system, but support is limited beyond the basics. Dont expect high resolution / odd sized monitors to work, or drivers for all USB devices to be available.
• We chose the Ubuntu Desktop environment since it is a familiar and easy to use desktop even if you have never used linux. All your wifi/settings/login/shutdown items are on the upper right hand corner, and all internal apps are available on the dock at the right (OS comes pre-installed with several useful applications
• It is beyond the scope of FutureBit to provide support for desktop/ OS level questions. The linux/ubunutu community is huge, so please direct questions to places dedicated for such support and keep this thread on topic for things to do with Bitcoin Apps, Mining support, and Full Node support
• Just like we outlined for Bitcoin wallets above, if you do install third party apps that store information or work on the system make sure you use the NVME SSD drive to do so. Anything you store on the SD card (which is where the OS, your Desktop, and Home folders reside) will be lost in the event the SD card becomes corrupted or you need to reflash it

LED Status Lights

Front Red LED:

-Fast Blinking LED: System Boot/Hardware initialization
-Solid LED: Hardware passed all checks/inits, ready to start mining
-Slow Blinking LED: Miner successfully connected to hashboard/started mining

Hashboard Yellow LEDs

-On the bottom of the hashboard there are four status LEDs that are not directly visible due to the controller blocking them, but once they activate they are obvious and easy to see (lots of flashing). These indicate normal mining/share activity, and will only power on if you are successfully connected to your pool, and there are no issues with your hashboard (this is akin to the "red flashes" if you have an Apollo LTC)

If these LEDs dont come on it means

1) Your not properly connected to the internet
2) Your pool information is input incorrectly
3) There is a hardware fault on the hashboard (unlikely)

Green SBC LED:

-If you turn your Apollo over there is a green status LED that turns on when your board has successfully booted, and turns off when it has fully shutdown
-Do not unplug your Apollo's power cable, or shutoff the power supply until this LED has turned off after you have shutdown your system



If these posts do not cover your question, or you have additional questions that has not already been answered feel free to post and someone from the community for FutureBit will respond. You can also reach support directly at www.futurebit.io.

Hey guys, super excited to finally be entering the Bitcoin market. As most of you know the team and I have been building and refining our home mining system/platform over the years, and our number one request has been when we will release a Bitcoin product. I believe the Apollo has finally matured enough where our production capabilities and hardware has reached a point where it makes sense to release our Bitcoin version.

The FutureBit Apollo BTC has been in development for over a year now, and our focus from the beginning was to create a unified platform where anyone can run any aspect of the Bitcoin system in one easy to use, quiet, lower power device, and I think we have achieved that. Our platform essentially combines the 300-800 dollar node market, with a controller that is more capable, and a mining hashboard on top for "free."

This aspect is critical to why I founded Futurebit and its mission. Almost no new users to the Bitcoin space run nodes or mine, and both are important in maintaining Bitcoin's independence and decentralized nature. We wanted to create a device that combined both these features in a seamless zero-config way, and offered utility beyond just sitting there looking pretty running a node or mining. The powerful SBC with our custom designed NVMe drive bay can host a Full Bitcoin node and run almost any Bitcoin Application we can throw at it. We hope more Bitcoin devs join our Platform in the future and provide even more utility to the device.

On the mining side we wanted to build a low cost hashboard and cram as much hash power within the thermal and noise limits that make sense for a home setting. Those limits were 1) not exceed power that would have any significant impact on anyones electric bill (sub 200 watt), and 2) Run quiet in anyones home/apt. In ECO mode (~125 watts 2TH/S) our custom designed fan runs under 2k RPM and is almost inaudible. In Turbo mode (~200 watts 3TH/s) its no louder than a typical desktop system.

These design choices were made so we can start to tell Bitcoin users interested in the future of the ecosystem that there are solutions where everyone can be mining, and not worry about what the ROI or power costs are, and only care that the are accumulating Bitcoin in a cost effective way over the long term and securing the network.

I really hope we get to the future where the network is secured by 10's of millions of individual devices like mine and others, instead of the of the couple hundred centralized mines that secure > 50% of Bitcoin's hashrate today.

Im not going to post all the details of the device here as almost everything is covered in the below two links:

https://www.futurebit.io
https://shop.futurebit.io/products/pre-order-apollo-btc-a-bitcoin-asic-miner-and-desktop-class-computer-running-a-full-node-and-much-more-batch-1-ships-in-late-april-to-may?variant=33404796928099

Pre-Order starts this Friday at 6PM EST at the above link. Well be handling all NA orders there directly. Happy to also announce that Bitshopper.de will be participating in the Pre-Order, and will be handling all UK/Euro orders directly.

Also might have an Australia/NZ distributor up for pre-order but not sure yet.

For Rest of World we have really good Fedex rates and can almost ship anywhere. Obviously check with your local laws for import costs/fees etc.

Shipping will start at the end of April into May barring and major delays. Design is complete and we have running prototypes, and all major components including ASICs are on order. We have learned a bunch from our past launches and have built thousands of units so we dont anticipate any major setbacks. As always this is a pre-order so expect delays regardless.

Ill keep this thread up as the main community discussion/question thread for the time being, and open a support thread when we have our OS and support docs finalized in the coming weeks.

Even if this is not the device for you hope all you guys at least appreciate what we are trying to do and spread the word out to people that might be interested, especially newer users that would never consider mining or running a full node!

Thanks for all your support over the years...its been a wild ride and hope it gets even crazier in the future

Need a few RX 5700 GPUs (non xt prefer reference version).

[THIS IS THE SUPPORT THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!]

THIS IS THE SUPPORT THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!
All order related questions go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4988526
All other comments/general questions go to the anouncment thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4974036.0
__________________________________________________

Getting Started

If your Apollo did not come with an SD card or are looking for the latest image release (that now includes Full Node support!), check out the post below for instructions/links

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5081750.msg48523685#msg48523685

Below are the quick getting started instructions that you should have also received inside your Apollo, with more details following and an FAQ section at the end. This thread is a great resource for additional questions, and is always monitored so if you have additional questions that are not covered below please feel free to post.

• Carefully remove the ASIC miner from its anti-static packaging. Be sure not to touch any PCB components on the exposed bottom of the miner
• Remove the Micro SD card from its package. Careful not to touch the gold contacts on the card when handling. The card has been pre-burned with the latest version of the Apollo OS image and is ready to run (Please see link above if you did not receive one and need to burn your own)
• Turn the ASIC miner over so the blue micro-controller is exposed. You will find the silver Micro-SD card slot at the back of the micro-controller board. Carefully insert the Micro-SD card into the slot, and push in until you feel a “click.” This indicates the SD card has been correctly inserted.
• Plug in your network ethernet cable to the ethernet port on the back of the miner.
• Plug the supplied AC power cable into the APU-200W Power supply, and the other end into your AC socket (please note the power cable is for NA markets, the power supply works in all markets (120 and 240v), but you will need an adapter or your own AC cable). Plug in the two 6 Pin PCIE output cables into both power ports of the Apollo. Make sure the 6 Pin connectors are firmly plugged into the Apollo, the cable will overheat if it does not have good contact. Turn on power supply switch, and the Apollo should start booting!
  WARNING: If you are using your own power supply make sure both PCIE plugs are plugged into the Apollo
  NEVER Plug in two separate power supplies into the same Apollo THIS IS A FIRE HAZARD
• Once your miner successfully boots you will see a slow, then fast flashing yellow LED during boot up and power on sequence. If network connectivity is successfully established you will see a steady green LED + random red flashes indicating normal mining activity
• Connect your PC, tablet, or mobile phone to your local network and navigate to futurebit.local to start setup. If the dashboard does not show up, you will need to manually find the IP address of your device. Use an IP discover tool like Angry IP Scanner to scan your local network, and input the IP address to your web browser to access your miner’s dashboard. Both your PC/Smartphone and the Apollo MUST be on the same network/router for you to be able to access the dashboard. You can also log into your router directly to find your Apollo and its IP address if a scanner does not work
• Once you reach the dashboard a quick setup screen will pop up. Enter your pool credentials and password for your dashboard and click save. Please wait a few seconds and you will be prompted to enter your dashboard password. (Please visit litecoinpool.org/help if your new to mining and are looking for a quick and easy pool to get started with). All pool creditials (including worker name/passwords) are CASE sensitive...make sure you enter everything exactly as instructed by your pool
• Thats it! You should be presented with your Apollo’s dashboard and mining on your pool. If you ordered through Amazon/ebay or any of our third party retailers be sure to register your products here futurebit.io/reg for important updates and future features for your Apollo!

Full Node Instructions

Full Update Post here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5081750.msg54272660#msg54272660

If you want a plug and play Full Node upgrade without needing to follow all the steps below, we have provided kits at cost with all the hardware needed to get started in a few minutes. It includes everything you need and is a matter of swapping out an SD card and plugging in a USB drive if you dont want to deal with doing all the prep work yourself.

https://shop.futurebit.io/products/apollo-full-node-upgrade-kit

NOTE: Batch 1 customers can not run a Full node on the current MCU hardware due to memory limitations, and need an MCU swap linked on our store above

If you bought our Full Node upgrade kit, you can skip to step 5 below

1) Update your Apollo OS to the latest Full Node update linked below

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5081750.msg48523685#msg48523685

2) Running a Full Node on the Apollo requires an external USB drive. For a USB drive you can use anything from a good USB 2 magnetic based drive, a good quality USB thumb drive, or even an external SSD. Basic requirements are > 64GB of space, and 4k random write speed that exceeds 2 MB/s. You can test your drive by downloading the following software

Windows: https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/
Mac: http://www.katsurashareware.com/pgs/adm.html

The recommended USB flash drives we have tested are below and all can be found for less than 20 USD:

https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/memory-storage/usb-flash-drives/usb-3-1-flash-drive-fit-plus-64gb-muf-64ab-am/
https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/memory-storage/usb-flash-drives/usb-3-1-flash-drive-bar-plus-64gb-titan-gray-muf-64be4-am/
https://www.lexar.com/portfolio_page/jumpdrive-m45-usb-3-1-flash-drive/

Keep in mind that real external USB SSD/Disk drives will be more reliable and be prone to less corruption/reboots while running a full node, but that above is a good balance vs cost to getting running quickly if you dont have a spare external drive. Cheap USB flash drives will probably not work at all and choke up the system, but we have had limited success with some if you want to try them out.

3) The drive either needs to be formatted in windows FAT32, or Linux EXT4 format. At the root level of the drive you need to place a folder with the name "Litecoin" (case sensitive).

4) The drive will need to be pre-loaded with a recent copy of a Litecoin Full Node chainstate and blocks folder placed inside the "Litecoin" folder on your drive. If you are already running LitecoinCore wallet version 16+ you can simply just copy your whole data directory into the Litecoin folder on the USB drive. This needs to be done since it will be very inefficient to download and validate the whole blockchain on an Apollo (it could take weeks from Block 0). While it is possible, if you dont want to wait for a full sync I am providing a weekly updated snapshot of Litecoin blockchain data thats inside the same MEGA download link for the update image. This is way faster as the time it takes to download ~20GB of data is orders of magnitude quicker than downloading and validating the whole chainstate on an Apollo due to its limited compute resources. Of course the downside is that you trust me to be providing a valid blockchain (which anyone can verify if they wanted too).

5) Boot the unit without the USB drive first. You obviously need to set up your Apollo again, and if you boot with the USB drive plugged in it will cause the UI to become unresponsive at times while the Full Node is loading, so you want to set it up first.

6) After you have setup the mining side of your Apollo, plug in your USB drive and reboot the system from the navigation menu. If you setup your drive correctly the Node will start up in the background after the Apollo reboots. Loading can take up to half an hour initially, but once it loads you will be presented with the new Node Dashboard with all the stats of you running node.

7) The node should automatically configure your router to open port 9333 via UPnP, and you should see more than 8 connections in your dashboard. If it stays on 8, this means you need to manually open the port to your Apollos IP address in your router port forwarding rules. If you dont do this your node won't be counted as a public node.

8 ) Tell all your crypto friends your miner runs a full node, and you now have a device that embodies one of the purest versions of satoshi's original vision.  

Always shutdown your Apollo through the Dashboard shutdown menu when running a Full Node, and wait for the front LED to turn off/Red before turning off power

Never Remove the USB drive while the Apollo is running, even if you have shutdown the node. The system offloads critical swap operation to the USB drive instead of using the onboard SD card, and you will crash your Apollo

LED Status Lights

-Slow Blinking Yellow LED: System Boot/Hardware initialization
-Fast Blinking Yellow LED: Hardware passed all checks/inits, started bfgminer/connecting to pool
-Slow Blinking Green LED: Bfgminer successfully started and connected to pool
-Slow Blinking Green LED + Random Red flashes: Normal miner operation...Red flashes indicate each share returned by ASIC board and show low level miner activity
-Solid Red LED: Hardware fault or system shutdown (Red LED during normal operation means hardware monitor detected a fault with either the voltage regulator, Fan operation, or abnormal PCB temperatures).
-Stuck on Blinking Yellow: Your unit is not getting a proper internet connection from your router, so double check your internet/router settings, or your pool information is incorrect/cannot connect to pool. Check your pool URL/credentials or contact pool operator.
-Back Ethernet LEDs: Other than showing normal network activity during boot, these are also a good diagnostic tool during power up/boot. When you apply power both Green/Yellow ethernet lights will flash together several times indicating proper boot sequence off the SD card. If the lights dont come on at all / or they just remain on and dont flash a few times it means your SD card was not flashed properly, is corrupted, or it was not inserted correctly/all the way in the slot.

[THIS IS THE ORDER THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!]

THIS IS THE ORDER THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!
All instructions/support related questions go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5081750.0
All other questions, general info about the miner is here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4974036.0
____________________________________

UPDATE 8/15/19

All Pre-Orders have been shipped out! Additional units will be available to order within a week.

UPDATE 5/11/19

Pre-Order for Batch 2 is now live!

https://shop.futurebit.io/products/apollo-ltc-pod-asic-miner-for-scrypt-algorithm-cryptocurrencies-batch-2

UPDATE 12/17/18

All pre-orders have been shipped out, and remaining units in Batch 1 are now up for sale!

UPDATE 11/28/18

Shipments have finally started, check your email for tracking updates. We NEED phone numbers from everyone since we are shipping fedex. If you did not include it with your order please send an email to order at futurebit.io with your order number and phone number. We expect all pre-orders to ship by the week of Dec 10th, and we will open up a limited number of new orders for our in-stock units shortly after.

UPDATE 9/20/18

Batch 1 Pre-order is now closed. Thanks to everyone that participated! Its looking like end of October for first order shipments to go out, so keep an eye out here or in your emails for updates! If you waiting out for the units to ship, I will have a very limited number available next month.

---------------------------

Welcome to the Official Apollo Sales Thread: Pre-Order for the FutureBit Apollo is currently scheduled to start at 6PM EST (GMT-5) September 1st

This Pre-Order is for my New Pod Style Scrypt ASIC Miner that is currently the most efficient scrypt miner in production! If you haven't already please read ALL info in the general info thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4974036.0

This will be a VERY LIMITED Pre-Order while I ramp up production, and for that reason all sales will be handled directly by me through my site. There will be NO bulk sales to anyone, and a limit of 4 per person. If you don't get in this pre-order there will be more in the near future.

Pre-Order Link
https://shop.futurebit.io/products/apollo-ltc-pod-asic-miner-for-scrypt-algorithm-cryptocurrencies

Price: $274 + shipping


Please note as a special thank you to ALL existing Moonlander 2 customers, there will be a $25 off coupon that you will be receiving either directly from me or through your distributors. If you have not received the coupon by around 3PM EST Sept 1st please email your distributor as they all have the coupon codes (if for whatever reason you haven't heard back you can email me (order at futurebit.io) as a last resort with your Moonlander 2 invoice, and an image of your Moonlander with your name written on a peice of paper and ill shoot you the coupon...please go through your distributor first and check your emails).

Shipping

Shipping is currently scheduled to start in October based on order number, and will have more info on exact date when production starts in a couple of weeks. Due to the really high quality heatsink, shipping is not cheap, the package weighs about 2 pounds. I am currently negotiating with carries to do a bulk shipment that should bring shipping costs down for everyone especially international customers. All Domestic shipments in the US is a flat $15 per miner, and international customers will tentatively be $29 and will be eating some of this shipping charge unless the charge ends up being more than $40. I know for a fact that the max for anyone would be around 50, so at most I might follow up with some of you for a $10 extra charge for shipping. All shipments will be through either Fedex or DHL.


As always all pre-order sales are FINAL. There is no refund possible since I will be using all funds to order parts and start production. I have priced this at breakeven due to the current market conditions, and the only reason I'm even selling it is because of all the time and effort I have put into producing this miner, and still want to get it out to as many people as possible (and a nice FU to Bitmain of course), at least I can claim the worlds most efficient LTC miner now  


Please note that the miner has a case designed for it, but it would add another 30-50 to the cost, which is not fair to pass to you guys with the current market. Unless something changes it will ship in its bare form with legs attached. You WILL need your own > 4GB SD card for the ARM controller this comes with. Instructions and SD image will be provided before you receive the miner.

Please keep this thread about questions on ordering/shipping etc, and any questions on the miner or anything else keep in the general thread linked above.

[THIS IS THE GENERAL INFO THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!]

THIS IS THE GENERAL INFO THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!
All order related questions go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4988526
All support related questions and image updates/download links here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5081750
__________________________________________________

Im super excited for this one, and know you guys have been waiting for something like this for a while. I have listened to all the feedback over the years, and have created something that will allow every miner/crypto enthusiast/newbie to take part in mining in a way that has never been done before.

The big thing here, and what all these years of working in this space has culminated too, is finally building a mining platform that is truly designed for the little guys from the ground up. Where anyone can run a fairly powerful ASIC miner on their desk in the simplest and easiest way possible, and with features catered for the home miner. This is the next stepping stone from my Moonlander platform, which was designed as a low cost, but not very profitable, entry point into mining. The Apollo platform will allow home miners to be competitive with large scale ASIC farm miner without the crazy power/noise suppression/ inconvenience of running these miners in your apartment/house/office.

So without further ado, I am happy to announce:

The FutureBit Apollo LTC
*the worlds most efficient scrypt miner*
*the worlds first wifi enabled miner*
*the only powerful ASIC miner that can be run on your desk without sounding like a jet engine or require 500+  watts in power*

SPECIFICATIONS: (these are prototype specs and can change in production version)

- Compact Stand-alone Pod Style Miner (4x6x4in)
- Very wide range of operation modes with preset ECO (quiet) mode and TURBO mode.
- 100-135+ MH/s of Scrypt performance per miner
- Industry leading 1W/MH in ECO mode, and 1.4W/MH for TURBO (100-200 watts)
- Powered by a fully integrated Quad-Core A7 ARM based controller
- First miner to be fully controlled over wifi, only cable needed is power! (this will be a Beta feature on launch..backup ethernet port is available as well).
- Clocks and Voltage is fully customizable by user with easy to use interface (no more pots!)
- Industry leading 97% efficiency 12v power-stage, with 27 ASIC chips powered in a 3x9 parallel/serial power arrangement  
- Custom designed cold forged hexagonal pin heatsink with leading thermal performance for the quietest ASIC miner in operation!
- 2k-6k PWM High Static Pressure Dual Ball Bearing Fan with automatic thermal management with onboard temperature sensor
- Controlled via local connection on a web browser similar to antminers. You can simply set it up via smartphone browser. No crazy driver installs, hard to use miner software or scripts needed.
- Two Six Pin PCIE power connectors for wide-range of power draw (only one is needed in ECO mode)
- New future platform features including full-node/peer to peer fully decentralize mining, full stand-alone solo mining, cloud/app based controls and more in development.

As you guys know I don't announce anything unless I have fully developed/tested the product and ready for mass-production. These specs are based on a pre-prodcution version that is running right now. Im excited to beat every other scrypt ASIC manufacturer in power efficiency, and this is obviously critical for home miners with high power costs and with the current bear market. As of this writing a stock L3+ is currently not profitable on 10 cent power, while the Apollo still has a good profit margin and will only increase as crypto markets recover.

Again I want to shy away from pure specs/profit numbers, because like my Moonlander Project, the Apollo project is not designed for people that are looking for the most profitability/lowest cost/MH etc. This is designed from the ground up by a home miner, for home miners, and with a feature set not available anywhere. I want FutureBit and its community to be a serious % of the network hash power and show the large mines/pools that decentralized mining is possible. The fully integrated plateform on a powerful ARM controller also allows future awesome feature updates to further decentralize mining (and even allow mining without a pool). I hope this project is a step to get us there and like the Moonlander allow even more people to get into mining on a serious scale that was not possible on our USB Miner platform. I still believe its possible to change the course of mining, and create an upheaval where a large number of Litecoin's hash power is being run in homes instead of farms like Satoshi's original vision for decentralized POW currencies.

Production:

The FutureBit Apollo will be produced in Pre-Order Batches like the Moonlander. The first batch will be a VERY limited run (under 1k units) in order to fix any production issues as we scale. Apollo is an order of magnitude more complex miner and we want to get everything right. With that being said this should be a fairly quick turnaround from Pre-Order to shipment, since our ASICs are already fabricated and ready for production. If we complete pre-order in the next week, shipments should start sometime in October. Im in the final stages of figuring out logistics and assembly.

The top image is a rendering of what the case will look like, but want to make it clear that in order to keep costs as low as possible in this market, the miner might not get shipped fully assembled or with a case. In this case it will be shipped in kit form like the original run of Moonlander 2s, and will be ready to run other than a Micro SD card that you will need to flash with our image for the controller. I will keep you guys updated during production for the final state of the project, but at the very least it will look like the miner above, plus some stand attachments if it does not ship with a case.

Pre-Order/Cost:

As always I try to get these miners out to you guys with the lowest cost possible with my limited budget/production runs. Unfortunately the miner was designed with a 200 LTC price in mind so while I'm cutting a few corners where I can it will still be priced in the $200-300 range. I obviously can't beat Bitmain in cost/MH, but I'm getting close, and hope the 60% efficiency edge and home miner features still make this a good price for people that would never run an L3 or large miner in there house in the first place.  

Ordering for this run will also be handled directly by me via www.futurebit.io. Since this will be a limited run it will be easier to handle everything directly. Pre-order will be first come first serve and will have more details in the pre-order thread and pre-announce the start time so everyone has an equal chance to order one. Unfortunately I probably wont be able to serve everyone that wants to preorder one for October, but should be able to ramp up fast/open another pre-order after product starts next month. Sign up on the email list on the site if you don't follow threads on here every day.

One last note...this community has been super helpful and supportive of my lofty goals to bring mining and spread it to even more new people. The Moonlander 2 brought in many thousands of new people into mining and was an awesome success. These are grassroots community driven mining efforts. Everything is funded by you guys, I don't have any investors, nor any special interests other than spreading crypto and the technology that drives it in the way it was supposed to be spread.

A MASSIVE thanks to all Moonlander 2 buyers, as always I wouldn't be here without you guys and as a special thanks ALL Moonlander 2 buyers will receive a significant discount on the Apollo.

Stay tuned for more updates and will be posting more shots of the Apollo running below!

[USAGE:]

So certain members of this forum think its cool to rip off GPL code then do simple mods and profit greatly off it without releasing the code after having plenty of time to do so, therefore I decided to release a simple binary that does the most important function for free on the stock L3+ firmware Figured lots of L3+ users would appreciate this with low profits and summer incoming.

My tests show that most boards will run on stock frequency (384) at the lowest voltage setting (0xfe) reliably at about 160 watts per board at the wall.

Source and release binary are here: https://github.com/jstefanop/bitmain-tools

This binary allows you to easily modify voltages on a per board bases for L3+ miners. It *should* work on all L3+ boards as long as they have the proper PIC version, If the binary complains about a wrong PIC version let me know (it wont do anything unless your board has the version I have tested on).

USAGE:

Since this need to be run directly from the miner console, below is my attempt at a user friendly instructions for people not familiar with the command line:

Download the release binary on GitHub and copy it over to your antminer:

Code:

scp [Directory you downloaded tool]/set_voltage root@[your miners ip]:/config

ssh into your miner and cd to config folder (this is the only folder that is saved on reboot on antminers so we saved the binary here).

Code:

ssh root@[your miners ip]
cd /config

binary accepts two inputs in the format of:

Code:

./set_voltage [chain# 1-4] [voltage in hex]

bitmains voltage controller can be configured to change the 12v input roughly +/- 1v from 10v, and this is configurable via a hex range of 0x00-0xfe, with the default being set to the middle (0x80). Higher hex values (0x80-0xfe) will LOWER voltage, lower values (0x00-0x7f) will INCREASE voltage from the default.

If your not familiar with hex numbering, all you need to know is that they range from 0-9, then a-f

For example if you want to slightly decrease your voltage on chain #1 you would input:

Code:

./set_voltage 1 90

increments of 0x10 are good starting point to test a sweet spot for each board for a particular frequency. Lowering voltage until you get around 1 HW error per minute is usually a good reference “sweet spot.”

So lower voltages from stock in increments of 0x10 are 90, A0, B0, C0, D0, E0, F0 and higher are 0x70, 0x60, 0x50 etc. If you want slightly higher resolution just go increments of 0x08, so lowering voltage in lower increments would look like 0x88, 0x90, 0x98, 0xA0, 0xA8, 0xB0 etc.

The tool directly writes the voltages to the pic controllers memory, so all changes are saved even on reboot and power down. If you want to set everything back to stock, you have to set the stock voltage for each chain using:

Code:

./set_voltage 1 80
./set_voltage 2 80
./set_voltage 3 80
./set_voltage 4 80

Enjoy! Keep in mind that the "other" solution has take a good few bucks or so a month of profit per L3 miner, so while I like helping out the community when I can especially in cases like this, please consider donating a few dollars per L3 if you end up using this tool, especially if you guys want me to work on similar tools or release more free stuff (like the auto voltage tuner I'm working on)  

LTC: LQZpb8AqbggUmsdPKr28DzdNcRP7MJ8kEf
BTC: 1LeA29mLjTFCyB5J6Yiq4TFtAck2VDPUZf


DISCLAMER: While the tool has basic error checking its not idiot proof, so be careful especially when overvolting. IM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU FRY YOUR BOARD.

I need a single L3+ hashboard, and a controller. I can take your bad boards as well as long as they are semi-working (high errors, dead chips etc).

Looking to pick up a A4+ miner. I can take full miner, boards, dead boards, bad performing miner etc. I just need it for dissecting/parts.

I have been getting lots of inquires for my USB stick in india, and would like to setup a reseller here for next batch and future products. You would be one of the only half a dozen authorized worldwide re-sellers for my sticks.

Basic requirements are a proven seller track record and honest reputation, a website that can handle pre-orders, and you must be able to accept crypto as payment.

Please PM me (also feel free to contact me if you guys know reputable re-sellers you have bought crypto hardware from locally).

Check out more info on my USB stick below...batch 1 is currently being shipped out.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2125643.msg21230912#msg21230912

[THIS IS THE SUPPORT THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!]

THIS IS THE SUPPORT THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!
All order related questions go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2141261.0
All other questions, general info, and talk about hubs keep it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2125643.0
__________________________________________________

Update 5/14/18

Finally got around to launching our site...check it out at futurebit.io!

If you are new and looking for a quick start guide to get your Moonlander 2 up and running as quickly as possible head to https://www.futurebit.io/getting-started/

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Update 12/14/17

Please download the new driver release which has numerous bug fixes and enhancements

https://github.com/jstefanop/bfgminer/releases/tag/bfgminer-5.4.2-futurebit2-beta2

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the FutureBit Moonlander 2 Support thread! Now that Moonlanders have already started shipping out its time to have some fun with them! First of all a massive thanks to everyone that pre-ordered...you guys made this possible once again, and this was an even bigger success than the first version. Many old timers and alot of new people will get into mining and Litecoin because of you!

This post is split up into four main sections. Below you will find instructions for the bfgminer software and downloads, an overview of the hardware and instructions on tuning, hardware assembly guide, and FAQ at the end.

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST AND FAQ SECTION BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS....the answer to your question or why your stick is not running is most likely answered below!




Depending on the distributor you ordered from, you will either receive your Moonlander 2 fully assembled or in "kit" form. Please skip down to the second post for Assembly instructions if you received your Moonlander not pre-assembled. Do not attempt to plug in or run your stick without the proper heatsinks and fan working.

BFGMINER 5.4.2 Instructions

I have built a native bfgminer driver binaries with support all major systems and architectures. Please follow the GitHub release link below, which has binaries for each system attached.

bfgminer download: https://github.com/jstefanop/bfgminer/releases/tag/bfgminer-5.4.2-futurebit2-beta2

You will also need to install the latest version of Silicon Labs VPC drivers for Win/Mac OS link below. If you downloaded this driver below, make sure you update to the latest version, as the Moonlander 2 uses a new UART chip and the old driver will not work will with it.

UART VPC Driver: https://www.silabs.com/products/development-tools/software/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers

MAC OS 10.13 HIGH SIERRA USERS: Sililabs drivers will NOT work with the newest version of OS X, and you cannot run the stick with this version until Sililabs provides a driver update! EDIT: Workaround here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2420357.msg25153407#msg25153407

Once you have installed the drivers and extracted bfgminer binary for your system just plug in the miner to a USB port and double click on the Start_Moonlander2 file on your Mac/PC. The driver will auto-detect the board and start hashing at the default frequency (for linux you need to execute the .sh file in terminal with sudo command i.e. sudo start_moonlander2.sh).

Just edit that same file with a text editor to change pools, add bfgminer options, and change frequency. You can also use the -c flag and load it with your own config file.

Keep in mind that most scrypt pools are optimized for larger ASICs, so pool difficulty might be high and will take a long time to find a share. The new driver works differently than the old Moonlander, and will continuously return shares lower than pool diff, so you can easily monitor that the device is hashing without waiting for an actual share to be submitted to the pool. If you want your shares to be submitted faster make sure you are connected to a var diff port or one that offers a fixed difficulty of 512 or lower.

If everything is setup and running correctly you should see something similar to this:



If you are new to mining, the most important stats on this screen are what is in between the dashed lines. These are your per device statistics, so if we follow along from left to right for MLD 0, the first number (3.27 mh/s) is your 2 minute average hashrate, second number is your overall average hashrate since miner start (3.30 mh/s), and the last number (3.19) is the pool hashrate based on your submitted shares. A:25 shows your number of shares accepted by the pool, R:0 shows number of shares rejected (usually due to a stale share), and last number HW:0 shows the number of hardware errors reported by the ASIC. This is probably the most important value and will be explained in more detail in the tuning section below.

Keep in mind that the first two numbers is the actual hashrate the device is hashing at (it uses the low level nonce counters to keep track of hashrate and is very accurate), so this number will always be higher than your pool hashrate, because it does not take account of inefficiencies of lost shares due to stale network shares or hardware errors. So your pool hashrate is your net effective rate the device is hashing at.

Frequency:

The MoonLander 2 can run on a very wide range of speed and efficiency, and leaves a lot of tuning up to you guys. Make sure you read up on the Hardware section below where I go more in-depth on frequency and voltage tuning. The Moonlander 2 has a default frequency setting of 600mhz, and can range from 384mhz to up to a cap of 954mhz.

To change the frequency edit the start_moonlander2 file in your driver folder and change the number in "--set MLD:clock=600" to the desired frequency.

Please note that this version of the miner has a fixed list of frequencies available to use below.
List of available frequencies: 384, 450, 480, 540, 576, 600, 612, 625, 636, 648, 660, 672, 684, 700, 720, 744, 756, 768, 796, 832, 852, 876, 900, 924, 954


HARDWARE:

The Moonlander 2 consists of a single Scrypt ASIC at its core that operates between 2.5 mh/s up to 5.5 mh/s and consumes between 2-10 watts of power.

The  power design in the Moonlander 2 is different than the original and the ASIC is powered by two adjustable DC-DC buck supplies. One for memory voltage, and one for core voltage. I was originally going to include a fixed memory controller, but the ASICs provide and even greater degree of tinkering and power efficiency gains by including an adjustable memory voltage as well!

It also features communication LEDs so you can visually see whats going on with the board. The yellow LED flashes when communication is being sent to the ASIC, and the red LED flashes when the ASIC is responding. Lots of red flashes is a good thing, it usually means the ASIC has found a share and is hashing correctly

The board is mounted to the heatsink with a strong thermal adhesive, since this ASIC is designed to dissipate heat through its bottom side. The Moonlander 2 features a completely redesigned thermal solution this time around, with a completely custom designed push pin heatsink and fan built in. This is a first of its kind of USB miners, and allows a wider range of operation without needing clumsy external fan or coming up with crazy expensive ways to keep these cool

Even with a fan built in, you can still overheat your Moonlander at higher frequencies. I do not recommend running these past 800mhz unless you can closely monitor temps (if you have a IR temp gun check the top ASIC heatsink, it should not be any hotter than 80C).

Below is a visual of the board for reference .



Voltage Adjustment:

There are two pots that control the two main voltages feeding the ASIC. Top pot controls the memory voltage (when looking at the board with USB port facing left), and bottom controls core voltage. You adjust the voltage by turning the Pot clockwise or counterclockwise with a fine flat head or philips screwdriver. The pots are VERY sensitive, the whole voltage range is within HALF a turn in either direction from the stock position. You must do micro adjustments if you want to do very fine tuning. For example going from .75 - .8 v might take as little as a little torque pressure on the screwdriver even if you don't feel it actually twist.

Make sure you have place the stick horizontal and the USB end is facing LEFT (ie you can read FutureBit Moonlander normally on the board).

To turn the voltage UP turn the pot CLOCKWISE, to turn it DOWN, COUNTERCLOCKWISE.

DO NOT turn the pots more than 180 degrees in either direction, they have no stops and if you go past their lowest or highest setting you could damage them

To check the voltage use a multimeter and contact the ground wire to either of the two ground terminals (circled and labeled ground in the picture), and the positive wire to the outputs of the two inductors (circled and labeled VCORE, and VMEMORY). Be extra careful not to short anything as a single short anywhere on the board while its powered will most likely fry it. If you don't have a multimeter, you can wing voltages by following the diagrams below for Pot positions. Use the flat edge of the pot screw as the pointing direction (DO NOT OVERVOLT at the high end if you don't have a multimeter to double check what the voltage is).



 
The sticks are shipped to you guys with the stock voltage settings of the pots (which is the flat end of the Pot pointing down). The Core voltage is at around .75v, which is good for up to around 800mhz stable, and ranges from ~.6 -> ~.95v . The memory voltage is set to ~.85v, and ranges from ~.625 -> ~1.05v (more on memory voltage in tuning section below).

DO NOT go past .9v on the core voltage, you will most likely damage the ASIC if you run at high voltages and high clocks for prolonged periods of time.

Tuning:

Now to the fun part. Your goals here can vary from trying to get the absolute maximum hash rate (at the expense of power), to the absolute lowest hasrate/watt, or find a nice sweet spot. If your not the tinkering type and just want the best settings for the Moonlander, I have found that about .725v and  756 MHz is the "sweet" spot for this ASIC in terms of efficiency.

Tuning any switching transistor based processing unit revolves around supplying enough current so the transistors on the chips actually switch on and off correctly within their cycle times. The main voltage that will effect performance and the tuning outlined below is the Core Voltage.

The higher the frequency or “switching time” the less time a transistor has to “charge” so you need more current (ie turn up the voltage). If these requirements are not met the transistors don't function properly and you have what you know as a “Hardware Error”

So if you lets say leave the stick at its stock .75 volt setting and try to run it at 900mhz, it will either not start, or it will produce almost 100% hardware errors. So you need to gradually dial up the core voltage until these errors are reduce to a good level.

To get started what you need to know is the optimal hash rate the ASIC will operate at for a given frequency. This ASIC has 64 cores and assuming all cores are active (you might have a couple dead cores which is acceptable) the optimal hash rate is:

5.66 KH/s per Mhz

So lets say your running at 832 Mhz, under ideal conditions the stick will operate at 832 * 5.66 = 4.7 MH/s

This is the target hash rate for a given frequency, and you can adjust the core voltage to meet that. A "quick" way to tune these on the fly is by using the --benchmark flag as a startup option in bfgminer. This sets a really low target for the ASIC, and it will be returning dozens of shares back a second (you should see the red LED continuously flash). This allows you to very quickly see what your Hardware Error rate is, and you can adjust the pot while its hashing until the errors stop or have slowed down to one or two every second (this will give under 1% error under "normal" hashing).

Keep in mind “zero” hardware errors isn't always the best setting. If your getting a hardware error it does not necessarily mean your missing out on valid shares. A good reference point is to keep HW errors to under 2-3%.

Memory Voltage

I included a Pot for memory voltage mostly for efficiency gains by undervolting memory. Adjusting memory voltage should be a one time thing, you set it at the lowest setting it will start hashing. There is no benefit in increase memory voltage at higher clocks, as this wont increase your hash rate or bring down hardware errors (this is entirely dependent on core voltage). Either your device will work at a certain memory voltage or it wont, so the goal is to bring the voltage down to the lowest possible setting that the stick will still hash at.

The stock value for memory is supposed to be .9v, but my tests showed all ASICs operate fine at .85v which is what they ship at. Most ASICs will work fine down to ~.76 v. Keep in mind that while you save power and heat with lower memory voltage it has an effect to destabilize the ASIC, so if you see the ASIC not starting up, or stops hashing frequently its probably because you set the memory voltage too low (some ASICs might even need to go to .9v or higher memory voltage to operate reliably, just comes down to ASIC lottery).


I think that covers the basics and hope you guys have fun with these...check out the FAQ section below for common questions/issues.

[THIS IS THE ORDER THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!]

THIS IS THE ORDER THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!
All instructions/support related questions go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2420357.0
All other questions, general info about the sticks are here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2125643.0
____________________________________

UPDATE 5/08/19

Decided to make one more Moonlander 2 batch focused on brining the price as low as possible.

Batch 4 is now live for pre-order shipping end of May for only $39 each!

https://shop.futurebit.io/products/moonlander-2-usb-stick-asic-miner-for-scrypt-algorithm-cryptocurrencies


UPDATE 5/20/18

Batch 3 Stock is now shipping! Updated Distributor Pricing.

You can now purchase directly from my site as well for anyone not in my distributor regions, with low cost international first class shipping.

http://shop.futurebit.io

UPDATE 2/08/18

Happy to announce that most Batch 2 Pre-orders have now been shipped out, and all worldwide distributors finally have stock! You can now buy a Moonlander 2 from any of my distributors for nearly same day shipping!

UPDATE 1/16/18

Batch 2 units are currently almost finished production, and pre-order units are now being shipped to Distributors. You guys that placed early pre-orders should start seeing your units being shipped next week!

Batch 2 in stock units should start showing up on Distributors websites by the end of the month for everyone that missed the pre-order.

UPDATE 12/26/17

Batch 2 pre-order is now sold out! Production for Batch 2 is still on schedule and deliveries will be beginning end of January and into February. If you missed batch 2 pre-order, Batch 2 in stock units will be available end of the month.

UPDATE 12/6/17

Batch 2 Pre-order will start December 6th at 12 PM EST. This batch is larger and more distributors have been added so anyone that didn't have a chance to pick up a pre-order last batch should be fine this time around.

bittawm has also been added as an Australian and New Zealand Distributor, and will be participating in the Batch 2 Pre-order. He has excellent seller reputation in that region, and has setup his site for the pre-order below (ill post his link before sales go live tomorrow, don't mind his "basic" site he threw this together quick to be able to process the pre-orders quickly).

https://bittawmart.com

===========================


Welcome to the Official Moonlander 2 Sales Thread: Sales for Batch 2 Pre-orders are now complete and shipped out, and all distributors are stocked!

There will most likely be no further Pre-order Batches, as I have finally ramped up my production to meet demand. Distributors might go in/out of stock, but there should be general availability going forward.

Original Announcement thread and info for the stick is all here, please read it before asking questions here!: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2125643.msg21230912#msg21230912

Keep in mind that with every moonlander you buy, 10-20% of my personal profits will go directly to the Litecoin Foundation, to further drive this awesome growth we have had with Litecoin this year(keep an eye out for a Moonlander tweet by Charlie today)!

Retail pricing is a follows(distributors set their own prices based on demand with guidelines from me):

For North America
Holybitcoin.com and Asicpuppy.com: 69 USD + shipping
HolyBitcoin Order Link: http://holybitcoin.com/product/futurebit-moonlander-2-batch-2 use coupon code 2TheMoon
ASICPuppy Order Link: https://asicpuppy.com/magentoPuppy/index.php/fbmoonlander.html

Europe and surrounding countries
Bitshopper.de: 79 EUR + shipping
Order Link: https://www.bitshopper.de/shop/scrypt-miner/usb-miner-scrypt/moonlander2/

EU pricing covers all import and sales taxes, and certifications required to sell electronics in EU.

Asia
klintay/Eyeboot: 79 USD + shipping
Order Link: https://www.eyeboot.com/futurebit-moonlander2-litecoin-miner.html

South Africa

Bitmart: 1,300.00 Rand
https://www.bitmart.co.za/product/moonlander-2-usb-scrypt-miner/

Australia/New Zealand
bittawm: 55 USD + shipping
Order Link: https://bittawmart.com/products/futurebit-moonlander-2-usb-scrypt-miner-3-5-mhs

Rest of World

I will handle most of these sales: 59 USD + shipping, now available through shop.futurebit.io ! Keep in mind my network of distributors covers almost all continents, so you are probably better off ordering from the closest distributor to your country/area.

I have enough stock to handle a couple hundred additional sales, but I cant ship 1 or 2 to individuals internationally...It does not make sense shipping wise (will cost over 20 USD in just shipping for one unit). I suggest people looking for 1 or two sticks to form group buys by trusted members in your respective region subforums, and have the group buy leader contact me with final numbers. The trust of the group buyer is entirely up to you guys.

Pre-order pricing will only last for the initial units sold, and cant guarantee price will last once pre-order is over.

DO NOT contact me for sales in the NA/EUR regions covered by distributors unless you want 50+ units. They have put in alot of work and cash upfront to make this work smoothly for everyone, and I wont be selling at lower price directly.




===========================

Archived Batch 1 News

UPDATE 12/1/17

As of today, all pre-orders have been shipped out!

Thanks to everyone that participated in the pre-order and made this an awesome success! Special shout out to all my amazing distributors that were able to ship out hundreds of orders within just a few days (even with thanksgiving holiday weekend!).

Holybitcoin, Asicpuppy, and bitshopper.de have in stock units listed (or will soon) for people that want to pick up Batch 1 units that are in stock (price is higher than pre-order though).

Im organizing Batch 2 as well and will have an announcement on that soon.

UPDATE 10/27/17

Main ASIC order has been delivered, and ramp up in production is scheduled to start next week. Pre-order units will start shipping next week/second week of nov.

For people asking: Distributors will have in stock units once they ship out all the pre-orders, I have produced more than pre-order units so you will still be able to buy batch 1 if you missed the pre-order. Keep in mind these units will most likely sell for more than the pre-order prices since they will ship immediately.

UPDATE 10/12/17

I have added two additional distributors in Africa/Asia regions...they both currently have limited stock for pre-order

klintay from eyeboot serving the Asia region: https://www.eyeboot.com/futurebit-moonlander2-litecoin-miner.html
Bitmart serving the South Africa and surrounding countries: https://www.bitmart.co.za/product/moonlander-2-5mhs-usb-scrypt-miner/

UPDATE 9/4/17

First batch is sold out and can no longer take additional orders. Thanks again to everyone that participated...I hope thousands of new people get to experience mining and crypto with these!

Going forward keep an eye on the main discussion thread linked below. I will be posting dev, production, and shipment updates there.

[THIS IS THE GENERAL INFO THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!]

THIS IS THE GENERAL INFO THREAD: Keep this thread on topic!
All order related questions go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2141261.0
All support related questions and driver updates/download links here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2420357.0
__________________________________________________

UPDATE 12/6/17

Batch 2 Pre-Orders start tomorrow with estimated Mid January shipments. More info here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2141261.0

UPDATE 11/16/17

Batch 1 Pre-orders are now being shipped out!

Support thread is also up below. Please use this thread to find driver downloads, instructions, and all support related questions.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2420357.0

UPDATE 9/25/17

The final design has been locked in for production next month, and I'm happy to reveal it you all! PCB is a cool matte black design, with the same anodized black aluminum heatsink as the original moonlander. I decided to include both memory voltage adjustment in addition to core voltage, as my tests had an efficiency gain of 10-20% for ASICs that can handle lower memory voltage!

As a super thank you to all who pre-ordered I decided to include a 25mm fan into the cooling solution as well, so no need to come up with clumsy external fan solutions to keep these cool. A top side small ASIC heatsink will also be included to further increase thermal efficiency (it will be black not blue). With this setup I've achieved 1.6W/MH all the way up to 800mhz, which is 4.6 MH of hash power for just 7.5 watts! Pretty impressive for a chip thats designed to do 3.8 MH at the same watts.

Check out the pics below!

UPDATE 9/4/17

Pre-order is now over...please use the below linked pre-order thread for all discussion on order related topics

UPDATE 9/1/17

Official Pre-order has started and links are here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2141261.msg21415891#msg21415891


==============================

Well this one has been a long time coming, but after many months of negotiations, design, and testing I finally have a new USB Stick miner to announce based on a latest gen scrypt chip, that makes this stick one of the most powerful, profitable, and efficient USB Stick miners ever released (even beats bitmain in efficiency with about 1.3 w/mh)!

Like with the original Moonlander project, my goals are the same for this stick and what it means for the crypto community. Build a low cost and easy to use scrypt USB miner that will put mining and Litecoin use into thousands of hands that would have never had the means or experience to do mining before! Except I can hopefully realize this goal this time around, since the original Moonlander project was based on a obsolete chip I happened to get the last remaining stock in, this chip is in full production, and have access to the first batches of chips from the foundry!

So without further ado here is the FutureBit Moonlander 2!



Specs: (these are prototype specs and can change in production version)

- 3mh to 5.5mh scrypt performance per miner
- uses about 1.5w/mh for most of that range
- core clock from 500mhz to nearly 1GHz!
- fully customizable core voltage range from .6 - 1v, as well as adjustable memory voltage
- Fully redesigned 5v->core voltage stage with about 95% efficiency
- Heavy duty/over speced parts were used to ensure wide range of operation (stick can be pushed to nearly 6mh if you can cool it)
- Custom heatsink design, and the first USB miner to feature a built in 25mm Fan!
- status LEDs for power, TX and RX transmission
- uses latest bfgminer 5.4 for control
- Will work with all Mac OS, Linux, and Windows based PCs, as well as RPi's etc (and I will be offering easy to use pre-compiled binaries)


The Moonlander 2 is over 4x the speed, over 5x the efficiency, and nearly 5x the profitability (if you guys remember when the original moonlander came out, it was doing about $2 a month, this stick is doing almost $10 per month at current price/difficulty). This beats out any other stick miner whether scrypt or any other algo!

Best part is that this stick is consuming under 5 watts at its peak efficiency range (~ 4MH), so unlike the original Moonlander which was nearly impossible to operate without a hub and fan, this stick can easily run on USB 3 power with no fan in the 3-4MH range.


Production:

Batch 1 was successfully produced, and shipped out to all pre-orders. Batch 2 is currently underway, check out the pre-order thread for more info on ordering.

Pre-Order/Cost:

Just like the original Moonlander I'm more interested in getting mining and crypto out to as many hands as possible than pure profits (so I need you guys to push these out to all your friends for stocking stuffers and introduction crypto/mining!). While id love to keep the price at around $30 like the original, it will unfortunately not be possible this time around since I got the original ASIC for practically free, this time its a brand new ASIC so I'm paying around $15 just for the ASIC alone. Pricing will most likely be in the 50-70 USD range based on batch component costs and ASIC pricing. (Considering my original is still selling for over $50, and this one is way more efficient and profitable I hope you guys still consider this a steal).

Ordering will also be done a little differently this time, since Im a one guy shop, I was pretty overwhelmed in shipping out hundreds of sticks in time for everyone to get them ASAP, and this time the number of sticks will be way more so I have enlisted a few distributors around the world to handle pre-orders and distribution. Most of these guys you already know and trust so hope that wont be an issue. If you are planning on ordering more than 50 sticks, you can still contact me for direct ordering.

USA/Canada/NA will be handled by Scott at HolyBitcoin, and ASICPuppy
Europe and surrounding areas will be handled by Bitshopper.de
Asia and surrounding region klintay/eyeboot
South Africa/Africa Bitmart.com
Australia/NZ bittawm bittawmart.com


Please contact me if you wish to be a distributor in South America/India, these are the last two major regions I don't have distributors in.

Keep in mind I will work with the distributors to keep fair launch pricing on the initial batch, but this will be only for the initial pre-order batch, and wont be able to control pricing past this. The initial batch is for about 1-2k units, so if you want to pick one up at the initial pricing I would pre-order.



BIG THANKS to all the original buyers of my Moonlander stick...you guys made #2 possible, and hopefully with the success of Moonlander 2 ill be able to launch even some more interesting projects I'm working on!

Keep hashing and spread the word!


Oh and some screenshots of the device actually hashing

Normal operation at my scypt pool...driver is not complete yet so its not reporting hardware hashrate...pool hashrate is displayed (756 MHz clock @ 6 watts... ~ 1.4 w/mh!)



Stress test...nearly 6MH!



Power draw..5w @ 648 MHz (~3.8 MH/s) = ~1.3w/MH...the most efficient operational ASIC miner in the world!

I developed a M.2 adapter specifically for GPU mining, and currently have a batch I'm producing for anyone interesting. The adapter connects directly to M.2 slot, and straight to GPU riser using USB socket.

There was only one working version of the M.2 to PCIe 4x  adapter that was used for GPU mining, and that got sold out, so I built this better version instead. This effectively eliminates the M.2 -> PCIe slot -> USB 3 connection, and has a way more stable PCIE connection to the GPU.

These have been tested with multiple boards, GPUs, and GPU risers and so far no one has reported any issues.

Pricing is $9-14 depending on how many you want (most of the batch is sold out, so if you want to order alot you'll prob have to wait for another batch).

Please keep in mind that if you already have 6-7 GPUs connected to the board, this adapter DOES NOT guarantee that more GPUs will post by connecting them to this adapter, since that is limited by the BIOS on how many GPUs can post. Also some board physically disable some M.2 slots if a PCIe lane is occupied (or you need to enable the PCIe M.2 slot in BIOS).

So with the crazy mining craze going on right now all the "good" M.2 to PCIe adapters got sold out (there is only one rare version that actually works for GPU mining...the one you usually see on eBay does not even work). I decided to build my own solution that is even better for GPU mining rather than wait for stock.

So a direct M.2 to USB3 port for GPU risers is born! This bypasses the PCIe slot altogether, and reduces the number of contacts/breaks in the pcie lanes so its a more reliable setup if you can use your M.2 for GPU mining on your board.

Im currently testing it and works great with my setup, but need a few additional testers based in the US (preferably east coast) that currently use a working M.2 slot to GPU mine.

Once this is complete I should be able to produce a batch of a couple hundred for anyone that wants one in the $5-15 range per depending on quantities I end up making.




Keep in mind that just because you have a M.2 port does not mean your motherboard or BIOS will support posting an additional GPU.

Have a Saphire Nitro R9 380 and an XFX R9 380 for sale. Would rather sell them both together. Both have original boxes.

Just logged into one of my GPU rigs i forgot about the other day ( never need to touch this thing), and check out the uptime below...can anyone beat it ?? Would have easily been double this if I didn't upgrade claymore over a month ago.

And no this is not stock BIOS (heavily undervolted....these are running @ 800mhz with about 100watts each card), and not in some datacenter (sitting in my basement).

I need about 36 Alcheminer/MAT boards (each whole unit has 8 boards so need about 4 units). Will take whole miners/broken boards whatever you have. Paying up to 100 per board depending on condition.

Have an 8 x XFX R9 380X plug and play rig for sale. Does about 170 MH eth @ 950 watts. Rig is setup for 8 GPU mining so you can pop in any 8 x GPU if you want to upgrade and youll be ready to go.

8 x XFX R9 380X GPUs (about a year old, all fans working no issues)
1300W EVGA G2 PSU
Gigabyte Z97 Board modded for 8x GPUs
PCIE splitter to accomdate 8x GPUs
Celeron CPU
4GB Ram
32 GB SSD with ubuntu 15.10 server installed
3 x High CFM fans (keeps all GPUs under 70c)
19inch rack case

With Eth + SIA dual mining you can easily get 1.5k+/month out of this at current rates.

Pic is the actual case, but cards are sapphire NOT the xfx cards sold here.

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