Avalon Nano - Stick Mining Fun!

[TheRealSteve]

You can run much the same calculations for the Avalon Nano.  Rather than going forward into unknowns you can use historical data.  E.g. say you got one when it first came out and started hashing with it 24/7 until today; http://retrocalc.net/ -> ~BTC0.0117. (iMiner from its introduction: BTC0.0053)
They're both not particularly weighty miners - no StickMiner is.  For something more powerful but without breaking the bank, I think you'd have to take one step up to PodMiners - like the Antminer U3, Gridseed Orb/Mini/Infinity/Whatsinaname or Avalon Mini.

So instead I judge them on their own merits.  iMiner is very small and contained, NanoFury 1 is open source, and the Avalon Nano is nice and tidy but still provides reasonably easy access to components for tinkering and is easily sourced

[notlist3d]

You can run much the same calculations for the Avalon Nano.  Rather than going forward into unknowns you can use historical data.  E.g. say you got one when it first came out and started hashing with it 24/7 until today; http://retrocalc.net/ -> ~BTC0.0117. (iMiner from its introduction: BTC0.0053)
They're both not particularly weighty miners - no StickMiner is.  For something more powerful but without breaking the bank, I think you'd have to take one step up to PodMiners - like the Antminer U3, Gridseed Orb/Mini/Infinity/Whatsinaname or Avalon Mini.

So instead I judge them on their own merits.  iMiner is very small and contained, NanoFury 1 is open source, and the Avalon Nano is nice and tidy but still provides reasonably easy access to components for tinkering and is easily sourced

I have been trying to push this, but some still think they are for ROI.  Fact is no usb stick miner will ever again be ROI.  We will not see a data center full of stick miners.   It's just a different type of device.  I put it originally:

That is exactly how I describe them: "With this miner chances are it will not be your pick for your next ROI miner.  But I would say is more in the market for someone who want's to learn how about bitcoin mining and doing it for knowledge or experience of mining with spending a smaller amount."

For those learning it is a great little stick miner.

I think most buying these are using for projects or education (learning mining).   I think/hope all that buy have that in mind.   

[Mt. Gox]

You can run much the same calculations for the Avalon Nano.  Rather than going forward into unknowns you can use historical data.  E.g. say you got one when it first came out and started hashing with it 24/7 until today; http://retrocalc.net/ -> ~BTC0.0117. (iMiner from its introduction: BTC0.0053)
They're both not particularly weighty miners - no StickMiner is.  For something more powerful but without breaking the bank, I think you'd have to take one step up to PodMiners - like the Antminer U3, Gridseed Orb/Mini/Infinity/Whatsinaname or Avalon Mini.

So instead I judge them on their own merits.  iMiner is very small and contained, NanoFury 1 is open source, and the Avalon Nano is nice and tidy but still provides reasonably easy access to components for tinkering and is easily sourced

Nicely explained.

I tend to agree with the idea that different miners have different qualities which may or may not be important depending on what it is you're after.

Didn't know there was a thing called "pod miners". I always wondered what that form factor was called.

That being said, if you consider that getting a payout from a pool is part of the experience of mining, then it might be a little bit disappointing if a miner never reached this limit. But it's not a huge deal personally and I'd much rather solo mine with stick miners anyway.

[TheRealSteve]

re: PodMiners - tentative.. I can't really come up with a good definition other than "I know one when I see one", which is a crappy definition.. and without a good definition there's miners that should be included that get excluded, and miners that should be excluded that get included.  Maybe "I know one when I see one" will have to do for an eventual list, though

re: payout - true.  I wonder if something couldn't be set up to accommodate low hash rate miners in a sort of split solo pool.. just seems easy to game (my recent lottery.

Anyway, starting to veer off-topic suffice to say that if I had to recommend a StickMiner at this point in time and they didn't want to wait for the Compac, then Avalon Nano it is... given several months time, a BTC0.01 payout threshold is even attainable.

[MrZ28s]

Has anybody got this to run on their Pi2?  If so, how exactly?

[notlist3d]

Has anybody got this to run on their Pi2?  If so, how exactly?

I have not used it with Raspberry Pi.  The config should help here - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1022764.msg11351267#msg11351267

There are lots of instructions out there on google for Raspberry PI old models.  You might try one of those and see if you can get BFGMiner working on the Raspberry PI 2.

[dkluempers]

I have been working on getting the Raspberry Pi 2 to do this for a couple of weeks.  I think the powered usb hub is the key.  I got an Amazon Basics 7 port hub and ran the Erupter Safires with no problem.  However, when I put in a couple of Avalon Nano 3's it only runs a few hours then the system hangs.  I have gotten the it to work with 2 Avalon Nano's for extended periods but I can only get constant work when the Avalon Nano's are on my Windows box.  Of course it runs a very reasonable power supply so in addition to the powered hub that has to help.

I have actually gotten the Safires and Nano's to run together for a time using icarus but never for any length of time.

Right now have on worker on my Windows box and it's config is as follows:

bfgminer -S ICA:all ^
-o stratum+tcp://stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 -u User.Worker -p Password ^
--set-device ICA:baud=115200 ^
--set-device ICA:reopen=timeout ^
--set-device ICA:work_division=1 ^
--set-device ICA:fpga_count=1 ^
--set-device ICA:probe_timeout=100 ^
--set-device ICA:timing=0.22 ^
--api-listen 2>log

I can use this as well:

bfgminer -S ICA:\\.\COM4 -S ICA:\\.\COM5 -S ICA:\\.\COM6 -S ICA:\\.\COM7 ^
-o stratum+tcp://stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 -u User.Worker -p Password ^
--set-device ICA:baud=115200 ^
--set-device ICA:reopen=timeout ^
--set-device ICA:work_division=1 ^
--set-device ICA:fpga_count=1 ^
--set-device ICA:probe_timeout=100 ^
--set-device ICA:timing=0.22 ^
--api-listen 2>log

The other worker is on my Raspberry PI 2 and it's config is as follows:

./bfgminer -S erupter:all -o stratum+tcp://stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 -u User.Worker -p Password

it also works using -S All.  I usually run it manually like this then save the config.  Then i restart it with the following:

screen -S Mining ./bfgminer

I am going to try picking up a powered USB 3.0 hub to see if that will help.  I would really love to get all 8 miners running on the Raspberry.

Thanks to everyone for posting - your posts have been very helpful

[dkluempers]

Just a quick update.  I don't think it will be possible to run avalon nano 3's from the Raspberry PI 2.  The usb hubs just don't seem to have enough power.  I had an old dell 4600 that we were not using and I put Fedora Core on it and installed bfgminer.  I was finally able to run 4 avalon nano 3's on an Amazon Basic 7 port usb hub I purchased a few weeks ago.  I could not run them on the ETEKCITY 10 port hub that I had.  In any event it needs a PC with a real power supply to run these.

I was able to run the 4 Safire Erupters on the Raspberry Pi 2 with the ETEKCITY 10 port hub but I am going to replace it.  The quality seems really poor.  I have one final issue on Fedora core to get nailed down.  I have to use sudo to run bfgminer right now.  I think it has something to do with permissions for the /dev/ttyACMx devices.  I think I saw something on that earlier when I was playing with cgminer.

I won't really make any real money but it has been a fun experience.

[blockseeker]

The Avalon GUI Miner linked in the OP is buggy, the hashrate shown on that GUI Miner (effective/current value) is well off.

Updated Avalon GUI Miner here with fixes: http://build.canaan-creative.com:8080/~wenbin/AvalonMiner/20140827/

I've not been able to get this Avalon Nano stick working with any cgminer builds (certainly not on a raspberry pi 2), the latest bfgminer v5.x builds do not work at all, I tried bfgminer v4.7.x and v4.9.x builds that work, bfgminer v4.10.3 performs best in terms of effective hashrate.

Mining with one Avalon Nano stick without cooling the effective hashrate is around 2GH/s or less, with active cooling it performs at the rated speed of 3.6-3.7GH/s, running bfgminer v4.10.3 on PC (tested on both Windows 7 and Linux).

On the raspberry pi 2 I had a problem with bfgminer detecting the usb stick (running root) even with -S ICA:all switch.  The stick is clearly present via lsusb (NXP usb device).

The "heatsink" on these sticks is truly abysmal  

[TheRealSteve]

Updated Avalon GUI Miner here with fixes: http://build.canaan-creative.com:8080/~wenbin/AvalonMiner/20140827/

Have you compared that to the latest software from the main site?
http://downloads.canaan-creative.com/software/avalon_nano/software/

The "heatsink" on these sticks is truly abysmal 

I dunno, you say it's hashing away without any active cooling at all at 2Gh/s - seems to me it's doing a fine job   The chunkiest of heat sinks on StickMiners is still going to want active cooling for better performance, while still being chunky.. meaning higher cost, more physical space, etc.

[blockseeker]

Updated Avalon GUI Miner here with fixes: http://build.canaan-creative.com:8080/~wenbin/AvalonMiner/20140827/

Have you compared that to the latest software from the main site?
http://downloads.canaan-creative.com/software/avalon_nano/software/

The "heatsink" on these sticks is truly abysmal 

I dunno, you say it's hashing away without any active cooling at all at 2Gh/s - seems to me it's doing a fine job   The chunkiest of heat sinks on StickMiners is still going to want active cooling for better performance, while still being chunky.. meaning higher cost, more physical space, etc.

Yeah all down to cost, wish they opted for a proper heatsink for an extra $1 or so, possibly reach 4GH/s~, the BFx2 with large heatsink for example can run (as designed to) passively at the rated 4GH/s stable without extra cooling, the heatsink is around 3x as thick.

IIRC the Avalon GUI Miner all use bfgminer v4.7 or earlier so performance is pretty much the same, I see they have uploaded a firmware for the Nano, anyone know how to flash it?

http://downloads.canaan-creative.com/software/avalon_nano/firmware/latest/

[nonbody]

but for the price of 2 of these cant you get an old antminer ? :/

[TheRealSteve]

Yeah all down to cost, wish they opted for a proper heatsink for an extra $1 or so, possibly reach 4GH/s~, the BFx2 with large heatsink for example can run (as designed to) passively at the rated 4GH/s stable without extra cooling, the heatsink is around 3x as thick.

That thing is a beast - my suitcase of StickMiners needed soft layers just to deal with that one
I guess you could try putting your own heat sink on there - but that's effort more easily solved with a fan.  Honestly, I don't mind fans.. they help keep things in check

I see they have uploaded a firmware for the Nano, anyone know how to flash it?

Check if the required info is in the wiki: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Avalon_nano
If not, hop on IRC, freenode, #avalon - ask around there or look for xiangfu in particular ( have 'm give the wiki a poke, too )

but for the price of 2 of these cant you get an old antminer ? :/

StickMiners like these aren't for any sort of profit, read the entire thread

[notlist3d]

but for the price of 2 of these cant you get an old antminer ? :/

You can but why would you?

A single Antminer S1 uses around 360w, unless you live in an area with ultra cheap power rates you are simply throwing away x10 more money in extra power costs in a single year than the cost of the S1 miner alone.

I would agree it's entirely different market.  Normally someone looking for a USB miner is not same market as a S1.

USB is great for learning mining.  An item such as Avalon Nano is more a learning tool in my eye's vs S1 which is unless "free electricity" chances are not worth running.

[Mikestang]

but for the price of 2 of these cant you get an old antminer ? :/

You can but why would you?

A single Antminer S1 uses around 360w, unless you live in an area with ultra cheap power rates you are simply throwing away x10 more money in extra power costs in a single year than the cost of the S1 miner alone.

Don't get an S1, they're not worth turning on, but an S3 still is.  It uses (just a little) less power than the S1 and is more than twice as fast.

[jbrnt]

USB is great for learning mining.  An item such as Avalon Nano is more a learning tool in my eye's vs S1 which is unless "free electricity" chances are not worth running.

I haven't been mining a long time. I was thinking of buying one of these Avalon USB miners when I first saw it, just because it looks nice. I accepted that it wouldn't ROI. It's the thought of getting back into mining and learning how mining is nowadays that interests me. It's only 0.07btc each, so it's like buying a new toy 

[notlist3d]

USB is great for learning mining.  An item such as Avalon Nano is more a learning tool in my eye's vs S1 which is unless "free electricity" chances are not worth running.

I haven't been mining a long time. I was thinking of buying one of these Avalon USB miners when I first saw it, just because it looks nice. I accepted that it wouldn't ROI. It's the thought of getting back into mining and learning how mining is nowadays that interests me. It's only 0.07btc each, so it's like buying a new toy 

It is a fun toy there is no doubt.  There is also a new usb miner coming up thanks to sidehack - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1086011.0 I have not got my review done of it yet.   But it has a lot of ability to adjust freq and made a huge difference in speed.

And also we should see sometime Avalon 4 Mini - https://ehash.com/product/avalon4-mini/ .   We still don't know a ton about it alot.

But those are the two new things to come to market soon on USB.

[notlist3d]

Avalon Nano has now been removed from product page. - https://ehash.com/

Now they seem to have focused on Avalon Mini - https://ehash.com/product/avalon4-mini/

Also most likely product to hit sale soon is Sidehacks usb miner - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675.0

[jazzhandzer]

Avalon Nano has now been removed from product page. - https://ehash.com/

Now they seem to have focused on Avalon Mini - https://ehash.com/product/avalon4-mini/

It's like they went to the Apple school of naming stuff.

[David Rabahy]

For my combined birthday and Father's Day gift my son gave me an Avalon Nano (I've got a great son).  The software installation and configuration was, er, not trivial but I got it going http://eligius.st/~wizkid057/newstats/userstats.php/1NFpUu9D76jRL9m2TAdcKjgwr8axLg4YqN (give it time).  One thing I've notice; a couple of times now it got "stuck" in sleep mode.  It wasn't too tough to get it going again but it requires attention; I want it to run unattended.  Anyone else seen this behavior?