A2 Terminator 110 mh/s Question

[Metairie]

I am new to this forum and pretty new to mining. I just bought ( 3 ) A2 Terminators 110 MH/S Miners with ANX Firmware.  I was told I wouldn't be able to plug all ( 3 ) miners in one room in my house due to the high watt usage ( 3300 watts total )

What can I buy that would allow me to plug all ( 3 ) miners  in one room ?


any help would be greatly appreciated.

[bathrobehero]

I am new to this forum and pretty new to mining. I just bought ( 3 ) A2 Terminators 110 MH/S Miners with ANX Firmware.  I was told I wouldn't be able to plug all ( 3 ) miners in one room in my house due to the high watt usage ( 3300 watts total )

What can I buy that would allow me to plug all ( 3 ) miners  in one room ?


any help would be greatly appreciated.

It's not as simple as that. Without knowing any details the wires going into the room very likely not able to handle that much load and plugging all 3 of them in would likely be a fire hazard.
But it depends on a lot of other factors too. You should really call an electrician to have a look.

[Metairie]

Thanks, I will contact one first thing monday morning.

[MarkAz]

What you were told was true in most cases, but specifically it depends on the room - if it's a typical US home bedroom, it's going to have one circuit in it, and that circuit is typically 15 amps, sometimes they'll be 20 amps, but that's less common.  The Terminator 110's use about 1100 watts, which at household voltage (120v) comes out to just shy of 10 amps, so that's your problem - 3 devices that use 10 amps each, and one 15 amp circuit.  Turn on two of them, and you'll trip the breaker.

Now, you can swap out the 15 amp breaker with a 20 amp, but this is BAD BAD BAD.  The breaker is sized to the gauge of the wire, and the gauge of the wire directly relates to how much amperage can move down it before it basically catches fire (there's overhead to this, so 15 amps constant on a 15 amp circuit isn't going to cause problems, but running 20 amps over 15 amp wiring definitely will).

Make ***SURE*** to make it clear to the electrician that you're pulling 10 amps (at 120v) from each machine, 24x7 - this isn't a common load characteristic, so you want them to know not to cut corners when wiring for them.

Now for the good news - you do have a room that could run all three more than likely, and that's your laundry room.  Things like the dryer use 240v power, and this effectively halves the amp draw, so if the A2 draws 10 amps at 120v, it draws 5 amps at 240v.  Even better, a typical dryer breaker is 30amp at 240v, so technically you could run 5 A2's on it without issue, but you also won't be drying any cloths, unless you're using the hot air from the miners. 

What I would recommend doing if you're going to have an electrician do something is look to have him run a new break and wire to the room at 240v.  Typically I run 30amp breaks, since the best bang-for-the-buck PDU's are 30amps, and then a good rule of thumb for electrical wiring is to try not to exceed 80%, so 24-25 actual constant amps would be idea.  You can certainly hit the limit at 30amps, but then I would recommend oversizing the wiring a gauge or two, just for good measure.

One other benefit of 240v is that the power supply will run more efficiently, so typically a couple percent less power consumption, and slightly cooler operation - so there really is no downside to doing 240v.  The PSU's the Terminators come with are really designed to be run at 240v (they autoswitch to whatever voltage you're running), and virtually all ATX PSU's also run great at 240v.

Enjoy the miners - the A2's are a blast, at with 330MH, you can do some decent solo mining.

[Metairie]

Thanks for the very detailed help. I will let the electrican read your post. I can't wait to start mining...  I just noticed your the developer of the firmware I am using on my A2.
I have heard many great things about it...

[wmtomlinso]

Thats an excellent post Mark!  You are so right about everything.  I thought I was the only one who recommended a dryer connection, LOL.  OP, its is well worth any additional cost to go with 240V.  I cannot emphasize enough - 240V is FAR superior to 120v for mining.  In many ways its safer because , as Mark said, you have half the current flowing.   It seems counterintuitive, but power cords that may have gotten warm or hot on 120V will be cool to the touch on 240V.

when i first started experimenting with 240V, I soldered a dryer cord onto a 10 gauge heavy-duty Extension Cord  and ran it to my bedroom for the miners.  I absolutely do NOT recommend you do this, one reason being you have to unplug your miners every time you need to dry clothes, as mark said.  The point is it works and you'll be amazed how much you can safely plug into a 240 V outlet.

[MarkAz]

Thanks to both of you!  I wish someone had given me a better breakdown about 120v vs 240v when I first got into mining, as it would have saved me time and money, so happy to help.  The reality is that 240v is really easy to work with, it's just that in the average person's day to day, you never really interact with it.  It's also worth pointing out that when you get electrical service to your house, the rating is at 240v, not 120v - so when you have 200 amp service to your house, that's 200 amps at 240v, so you can actually run alot more miners that you might have thought.  So in terms of Terminator 110's, you could run actually run 32 at your house with 20% buffer - of course you wouldn't be able to run anything else, but just call your electric company and see about upgrading to 400 amp service.  I did at my house, and the power company did the upgrade for free. 

And I hope you enjoy my firmware as well, I think it's the best one for the A2's, but I'm also biased.    It's certainly the easiest to use of the ones available. 

[Metairie]

I contacted a electrican and now i am waiting for a date for them to come out. I am also going to contact my light company and ask for an upgrade.
Do you think I will be safe to run ( 1 ) A2 Miner?


Thanks for all the help.

[MarkAz]

I contacted a electrican and now i am waiting for a date for them to come out. I am also going to contact my light company and ask for an upgrade.
Do you think I will be safe to run ( 1 ) A2 Miner?

Absolutely - you could run all 3 of them if you were really motivated, you just need to run them on different circuits, so typically that means scattered around your house, which isn't the best 'user experience' if you know what I mean.    So start with one and start making some money!  

As far as the power company goes - I would probably hold off until you need it, but it's up to you.  Typical 200amp service for residential is MORE than enough to run a ton of miners... I just have more than a ton. 

Running them at 120v means they'll run a little bit hotter than they normally do, and consume a little bit more power.  If something were to go wrong, which is unlikely, the most common thing that would happen is it would trigger your breaker.  Like if your 110 is running, and then you plug in a vacuum on the same circuit, then the circuit breaker is going to trigger and they'll both turn off.  Just unplug the vacuum, flip the breaker back on, and run the vacuum off a different circuit.  Out of all the Terminators I've had, only once did I have a problem that cost me money - and that is I cooked a PSU.  Not sure why, I had run it in 240v for a week or so, then brought it into the house for some more detailed testing, and blam, at 120v the fuse in the PSU popped.  I could have fixed it (it would be a pain), but instead I just replaced the PSU with PC PSU's - much higher quality.  It's not worth the money to do it unless a PSU dies, but if it does, it's not that big a deal because once you replace it with a PC PSU, it will last forever.

[Metairie]

I just noticed I have ( 2 ) 110 mh/s and ( 1 ) 90mh/s A2.  I thought It was all 110 Mh/s  .. 
I guess I'll be ordering more soon.. I just want to get situated and have a place to run all these but until then I will do like you said and scatter them all through the house.

I have another question... Can a wireless dongle work on the A2?

I would have to connect 2 of them to wireless until AT&T comes runs more modems in my home.


I Think I might just get the electrican to wire up my Big Shed in the back yard to 240 Volts and run the miners in there.

[MarkAz]

Personally, I like the 88's - they run quite a bit cooler than the 110's, but they're also hashing less (obviously).  Either way, they're all great boxes.  I will tell you a simple way to tell the difference between the two - the 88's don't have fans on the back, and the 110's all do - unfortunately this isn't 100%, I actually have seen an 88 with fans on the back, but only one out of the literal hundreds of Terminators I've seen.  Consistency in cases or designs with InnoSilicon isn't the best...

As far as wireless goes - you CAN hook up wireless, but I wouldn't recommend it, especially if you're putting them in a garage or someplace off the house.  I would recommend just getting some weather rated cat5 and run an underground cable over to it - the last thing you want is for a miner to have any issues submitting shares - that's how you're getting paid.  Running cat5 is dead simple and probably would cost less than a wireless repeater setup.

I think your shed would probably work out great - I would recommend having him run something like 100 amps to it and setup another junction box in there.  The labor cost is basically the same, you're just paying for the larger gauge cable... If you're cost-sensitive, you can also go with aluminum cable instead of copper - it's what most power companies actually use, and as long as you're a gauge or two up from the same copper rating, I think it's basically the same (but definitely cheaper) - many times they won't know much about aluminum unless they do a bunch of commercial work (most large commercial projects are aluminum these days, not copper).  The in the panel in your shed, you can just add breakers as you grow - start with one 30A 240v, and you're off.  I would also look at probably installing an extractor fan or something similar in the ceiling, as in the summer it's going to get hot presumably where-ever you are, and venting exhaust heat is actually far more important then providing cold air (in other words, air flow trumps air temperature).

[Metairie]

On the A2 90 mh/s  I tried to run the miner but I don't see a IP address for the miner.  Also the psu fan is not running? does it suppose to run when I turn it on?

I connected the 110's with no problem... I am just having a hard time with the 90mh/s A2...


Any suggestions?

[MarkAz]

Do the lights turn on inside of the 90?  Also, is it running my firmware, or the stock firmware?  The stock firmware doesn't support DHCP, just some hardcoded IP address, so it's a real pain - I would recommend downloading and flashing my firmware on it, and maybe make sure your 110's are also running the latest one I released.  In general, one of my first steps when I get any new miners is to reflash them with a known version and reset all the settings (I need to put a reset to factory option in my firmware, but if you reflash it effectively does that anyway).

As far as the fan on the PSU - no idea, I've seen 4 different PSU's in them, some with rated power, some with none, some are 1000w, some 1300w, no real rhyme or reason.  Assuming they are temperature controlled, and the machine isn't hashing or under load, then it's possible the fan wouldn't spin at all.  If things light up when you flip the switch, and the case fans are running, it's probably not much of an issue - just check if it's spinning after it's been hashing for a couple minutes.  If not, then you have two options... First is to run it without the fan - I probably wouldn't do this, but TBH the 88's run much cooler than the 110's, and I suspect the 3 case fans will keep it cool, assuming the space it's running in is properly ventilated.  Option two, which I would recommend, is just replace the 120mm fan yourself - you can buy

then don't run the machine too much, and buy a replacement 120mm fan and swap it out.  I usually keep these handy:

http://amzn.to/1PF3jHj

They're cheap and actually quite good - better than the stock fan.  They're not sufficient for replacing the case fans, but they're fine for the PSU.  For case fans, I would replace with the Ultra Kaze's, but be aware that they don't move quite as much air as the stock fans do.

Also, I'm not aware of there actually being a 90MH, there are 88's, so I'm assuming this is what you have.

[Metairie]

As far as I know the guy said it was a 90... This one has stock firmware...How do I add your firmware?  I had the IP and was on the setup screen .. I put in the Info for my pool, I checked the IP and it was correct .. When I started the miner.. It said running and just stopped after a minute or two.... I tried everything I can think of... I reloaded the page and the IP wasn't valid and I couldnt get back to the setup screen. I can't see the IP on my modem device....It shows something like a hash.....do I need to connect my computer VIA usb to the miner?
The miner lights up.

your firmware is the easiest I've ever seen... I am not sure if I am using your updated version...  Anx Edition 09-01-2015

[MarkAz]

9-1 is the latest - you can see the firmware thread here, which has links to all the downloads, etc:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1141802.0

Installing it is basically just the process of removing the SD card from the Pi, and then flashing it on your PC, then putting it back in the Terminator - that's it.  Mine uses DHCP by default, so just check your router to see what IP it's assigned.

I would recommend buying a clean SD card to flash mine onto - that way if anything goes wrong, you'll still have the original to fall back to.  I haven't run into any Terminator's mine doesn't run on, but I'm sure you'd rather yours not be the first. 

[Metairie]

Good news, I added your firmware to my A2 Terminator 90 MH/S  and it's running smoothly.  The psu fan does kick on after it runs for about 5 minutes...
I had a little trial and error setting up the miners in my house since the watt issue. It cost me a few dollars but I did learn not to run a A2 in my kitchen. My oven coil burnt out and broke when my wife tried to bake     

I have 4 plugs in my laundry room and I am running 1 A2 in there. I have a gas dryer so no issues when drying clothes. I have all 3 running smoothly now with no issues.

I have found prohashing mining pool to be pretty good ...  What is the best settings to run the A2's on? 

[Metairie]

is there anyway I can manage the miners from my laptop when I am away from my home?

[MarkAz]

I have found prohashing mining pool to be pretty good ...  What is the best settings to run the A2's on?

TBH, the default's are probably the best, which is why I made them defaults...    Really there isn't much too it - about the only variable I've played with before is some of the pools let you select the difficulty by putting "d=4096" or whatever in the password field.  Most pools just auto-adjust and that works great almost all of the time.

About the only thing you could look into doing that is handy is running a Stratum Proxy, which consolidates all of your communication through one source - you'll get slightly better performance and less bandwidth utilization (not that it's much).  I've played around with a couple, but they were on Linux which is not my preferred OS for things - there are Windows versions, but I found them to be clunky, just the Linux stuff quickly ported over.  I'll probably make some lightweight easy to use Stratum Proxy in the not too distant future, and I'll also include miner management in it.

As far as Pools, there's a bunch of good ones - I like CleverMining and NiceHash.  For instance, right now the payout on Prohashing is 0.00012907 BTC/MH, but on CleverMining it's 0.000169 BTC/MH.  With Bitcoin, you can kind of just set it and forget it, but with Scrypt, the more you kind of babysit what it's doing, the more money you can make.  The next step above that is solomining stuff off of Coinwarz, which can be both super profitable, and highly frustrating. 

is there anyway I can manage the miners from my laptop when I am away from my home?

I would advise against having the miners visible on the net - by forwarding ports or something similar.  What I've done in the past is just setup a cheap Windows box and I RDC (remote desktop) into it, and then manage the miners from that.  That way you've got a secured connection, and none of the boxes are exposed.

One of the things I've considered putting in a future rev of the A2 firmware is some sort of alert system, probably using email - where it will generate alert emails if certain things happen, like a blade going down, hash rate falling below a certain point, temps getting above a certain point, etc.

[MarkAz]

Roaming around Prohashing's site a bit, I like their stats and transparency about what they're doing, etc... These auto-switching pools are super cool on Scrypt.  I'll have to keep an eye on it and maybe move it into my top 3 pools.  Right now it's just under-performing my other ones, but they all have their moments...

[Metairie]

I am using nicehash now, it looks like a great setup... What is extranonce.subscribe and how do I set that up on the A2?