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#GekkoScience Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread#
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=Thanks To The Community=
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First off, this project would not even have been attempted without the level of support from the community. A big thanks to everyone who assisted, great and small, whether through reviews, meaningful discussion, ordering the product, or anything else. Special thanks here to TheRealSteve, whose render of the compac I have shamelessly stolen because it is beautiful, and Luke-Jr who provided the bfgminer support and helped by providing hex files for the CP2102.
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=Purpose of this Thread=
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This thread is to collect resources, provide instructions, and answer questions about the miner. If you are having trouble with it this is the place to ask.
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=Software=
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The stickminer will enumerate as an antminer U3 on cgminer (if the version of cgminer you're using supports the U3), and should run fine. It may give warnings about "no valid hashes within 3 seconds" but this is fine, as the U3 has a higher hashrate, confusing cgminer but not noticeably affecting performance. If your hardware errors are low you're fine. These older version of cgminer do not allow a clock rate over 250MHz. This is pretty good for most people as that's moderately high power but in theory the chips will run up to 500MHz.
Luke Jr added bfgminer support in bfgminer 5.3.0, so you may use that version of bfgminer.
I (novak) have written a cgminer driver which enumerates the compacs as expected, removes the error, and ramps up the clock slowly to prevent spikes on USB power. My custom cgminer can be found here:
source code:
gekkoscience.com/misc/cgminer-gekko.tar.gzwin32 binary:
gekkoscience.com/misc/cgminer-gekko-win32.zipEDIT: The current version supports bitshopper compacs as well, and can be (and is, in the case of windows) compiled with icarus support.I have not yet tested it but edonkey was nice enough to upload a custom minera image with cgminer-gekko enabled as a custom miner. You can set the frequency under manual options as: --compac-freq 150. Link:
https://dbtbmm05cubzd.cloudfront.net/cryptocurrency/mods/minera_compac_mod.zipOn the engineering sample sticks you can only use old cgminer as the newer drivers for both cgminer and bfgminer depend on a hexfile flashed to the cp2102 which the engineering samples do not have.
If you need to run cgminer on windows (either stock or mine), you'll need to install the zadig driver. You can find it here:
http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/zadig/Run the program and install the winusb driver for the compac(s) that you have plugged into your windows machine. You may need to replug the compacs afterwards while cgminer is running to get them to start mining.
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=How to Run=
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Old cgminer:
To build use --enable-icarus flag.
./cgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr --au3-freq 150
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GekkoScience cgminer:
To build use --enable-gekko flag.
./cgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr --compac-freq 150
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bfgminer:
./bfgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -O 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr --set compac:clock=x0b83
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Note that for bfgminer you have to use the hex value for a given clock rate, whereas for cgminer you specify the clock rate in MHz.
A table of values to use in BFGminer is as follows:
{ 100, 0x0783 },
{ 106.25, 0x0803 },
{ 112.5, 0x0883 },
{ 118.75, 0x0903 },
{ 125, 0x0983 },
{ 131.25, 0x0a03 },
{ 137.5, 0x0a83 },
{ 143.75, 0x1687 },
{ 150, 0x0b83 },
{ 156.25, 0x0c03 },
{ 162.5, 0x0c83 },
{ 168.75, 0x1a87 },
{ 175, 0x0d83 },
{ 181.25, 0x0e83 },
{ 193.75, 0x0f03 },
{ 196.88, 0x1f07 },
{ 200, 0x0782 },
{ 206.25, 0x1006 },
{ 212.5, 0x1086 },
{ 218.75, 0x1106 },
{ 225, 0x0882 },
{ 231.25, 0x1206 },
{ 237.5, 0x1286 },
{ 243.75, 0x1306 },
{ 250, 0x0982 },
{ 256.25, 0x1406 },
{ 262.5, 0x0a02 },
{ 268.75, 0x1506 },
{ 275, 0x0a82 },
{ 281.25, 0x1606 },
{ 287.5, 0x0b02 },
{ 293.75, 0x1706 },
{ 300, 0x0b82 },
{ 306.25, 0x1806 },
{ 312.5, 0x0c02 },
{ 318.75, 0x1906 },
{ 325, 0x0c82 },
{ 331.25, 0x1a06 },
{ 337.5, 0x0d02 },
{ 343.75, 0x1b06 },
{ 350, 0x0d82 },
{ 356.25, 0x1c06 },
{ 362.5, 0x0e02 },
{ 368.75, 0x1d06 },
{ 375, 0x0e82 },
{ 381.25, 0x1e06 },
{ 387.5, 0x0f02 },
{ 393.75, 0x1f06 },
{ 400, 0x0f82 },
{ 412.5, 0x1006 },
{ 425, 0x0801 },
{ 437.5, 0x1105 },
{ 450, 0x0881 },
{ 462.5, 0x1205 },
{ 475, 0x0901 },
{ 487.5, 0x1305 },
{ 500, 0x0981 },
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=Expected Performance=
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The expected performance of the chip is 0.055*MHz=GH. For example, 200MHz gives 11 GH (max theoretical expectation).
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=Voltage Adjustment=
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In order to get the best performance out of your stickminer, you'll want to adjust voltage. The compac does not support software voltage adjustment, it is actually a hardware setting. Voltage is set by a small potentiometer (you'll see a screw which can be turned) right next to the USB jack. Turning the screw clockwise increases voltage; counter-clockwise decreases it. The official core voltage for the BM1384 chip is between 0.6 and 0.8 volts; the compac will let you set any core voltage from approximately 0.55 to 0.8 volts. Lower voltage will yield a lower power dissipation but will be unstable for higher frequencies. You may measure the core voltage any time the stick is plugged in by checking the test pads on the back with a multimeter- Gnd is ground and Vcore is the core voltage.
A good way to set the voltage is to continue lowering voltage until you start to see hardware errors. If you notice many hardware errors the first suggestion I would have is to try upping the voltage at a given clock.
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=Hardware=
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The hardware that you need to run the compac is no more than any computer with an open, powered USB 2.0 port. On stock USB power you may be able to run the miner as high as 150MHz, though the 137 setpoint is more likely- actual power consumption would depend on how low the voltage on a stick would go stably. If you have a USB 3.0 port that provides 900mA instead of the 500mA provided by USB 2.0 and you will be able to set the clock higher. If you wish to run several sticks at once you should probably acquire a powered hub. You can run the miner at reasonable but fairly low speed off of 2.5W per stick, so to figure how many sticks you can run you should find the power of the hub as (voltage)*(current)=power.
It is not advised to run over 1.5A of current in per stick, as this is the max the USB jack is rated for. In testing there were no problems with it handling current up to 2.5A but unless you're keeping a close eye on it you should try not to burn down your house.
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=Cooling=
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If you run the miners over about 150MHz it is strongly advised to cool them with a fan. The cooling requirements are fairly low and unless you're trying to run 400MHz or above almost any fan at all will do.
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=Basic Troubleshooting=
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Q. I'm seeing a lot of hardware errors and/or low poolside hashrate. Why?
A. Check the voltage and frequency, there's a good chance setting the voltage higher at the same frequency will reduce them. For poolside hashrate be patient; The compac has a low hashrate so it tends to vary a large amount as the vardiff is pretty high on most pools compared to what it expects. It usually averages out over time.
Q. Whenever I try to start my Compac at high frequencies it doesn't get detected or messes up. What's wrong?
A. When you start at high frequency you incur a massive current spike and all sorts of things might get angry. Try novak's cgminer which starts out at the minimum clock and gradually ramps up.
Q. My compac draws more power than it should.
A. Check the voltage. If you're running low frequency at high voltage the power draw is still considerable.
Q. My hashrate actually drops when I increase the clock speed.
A. You probably need to up the voltage so that it will run well at that clock rate.
Q. Cgminer does not detect my compac.
A. You're going to have to be more specific. What version of cgminer, how it was compiled, what OS, etc.
Q. Your cgminer doesn't build for me.
A. I probably haven't tested it enough, but it should build on pretty much any system that can build the regular cgminer. If you can build stock cgminer 4.9.2 but not my version, give me details and I will look into it in detail.
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=Philosophical Questions=
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Q. Am I going to break even on this?
A. Not very likely, especially with the halving, but the odds are better than with any other stickminer. The advantages of the compac are that it's very adjustable so you get to learn a lot/have a lot of fun by playing with it, and it's cheap so you can afford it. It can't compete with larger miners on price per GH, and probably no USB stickminer ever will.
Q. I'm having trouble with downloading your cgminer, it's really slow.
A. So is our internet, try to be patient. If it gets really bad I can post the files on some other website.
Q. You say the compac is the most efficient miner I can buy?
A. This will be false when the S7 starts shipping, but it's because it lets you adjust both voltage and clock on the BM1384 over the whole range. The S5 and S5+ give you higher end setpoints, while stock USB power on a compac is quite a low setpoint. You can also get (if you have the juice and the cooling) the same setpoints as the S5 and S5+ on a compac.
Q. Which slave children made these?
A. We manufacture everything in house, ourselves, in the USA. So when you get a compac it was placed by a robot programmed by sidehack, touched up by sidehack, then programmed and tested by novak.
Q. I'm the best overclocker/underclocker of all time. I made the compac run at $FREQUENCY / $WATTS_PER_J. Where is my fame?
A. Post here with some evidence including miner hashrate and errors (and if underclock, metered USB power), I'll keep score in this post of the highest overclock and most efficient underclock. It's part luck and part skill so give it a shot!
Q. What kind of warranty does this come with?
A. If we built it we'll fix it. Note that we didn't make the European ones sold by bitshopper.de but all the rest should be ours.
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=Where to Buy=
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Canada:
Talk to Valkir.Venezuela:
Talk to Chiguireitor.Australia:
Talk to AJRGale.Europe:
bitshopper.de has licensed the design and is selling in Europe.The US and anywhere else not covered:
Talk to GekkoScience.============
=Awesome People=
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Most efficient underclock: up for grabs!
highest overclock: up for grabs!
--
novak
