Who likes pod miners?

[wavelengthsf]

By the way - got me a couple Pi 3 boards, one running Minera and one with Raspbian Lite. Got Raspbian set up with cgminer running on boot so I can plug them up head-to-head and see if one of them won't lock up and die every couple hours.

Right now I'm not terribly confident about Minera. I'm having a hard time convincing myself that being able to edit the config via webpage is worth dealing with the tons and tons of scripting garbage all over that webpage.

I moved away from Minera to a pure Raspbian for my 2Pacs and haven't looked back. Adding a screen command to my rc.local in case the miner rebooted for whatever reason, and a cron job to restart once a week, but it has been more stable for me than Minera was.

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[usao]

Can you show an example of how to do that? I have to reboot my pi daily as it hangs, but I have to start by hand.

[ppetrovic68]

Can you show an example of how to do that? I have to reboot my pi daily as it hangs, but I have to start by hand.

https://www.google.com/search?q=screen+command+to+my+rc.local

https://www.google.com/search?q=cron+job+to+restart+once+a+week

[sidehack]

I just made a script of the command line in a screen session and dropped a reference in rc.local. Took about ten minutes of various web searches and testing configurations. Something like:

/home/pi/run_cgminer.sh:
screen -dmS run_miner ./vthoang/cgminer/cgminer -o http://solo.ckpool.org -u 1BURGERAX...

rc.local:
su pi -c '/home/pi/run_cgminer.sh &'

That's all from memory so it might not be exact, but the basics. The "su pi" part makes sure the screen session starts with normal user credentials instead of root so you don't have to sudo to find it.

As of right now, both Raspbian and Minera machines are still up and running. Maybe the additional RAM of the Pi3 is good for Minera because it's been up almost 6.5 hours and I don't think I got that kind of uptime out of the old-version-Pi setup I was testing with last week. I moved the SD card straight from one to the other.

Whichever one I think works the best, I'll probably have the image available for download and also have available for sale a Pi and pre-flashed SD card to drop in as a controller. Maybe I'll make both available, if they both wind up being relatively stable. I assume Raspbian would be more stable, but would require basic SSH skills to edit configs and view stats. Which reminds me, I haven't messed with miner.php and API/RPC stuff in a while. Should see about getting that going too.

What's the webconfig stuff Avalon uses? Is that open-source?

[philipma1957]

do what I do just run a pc with a gpu in it the gpu covers all costs.  and you get a free shot at a hit with the usb sticks or in this case the pods.

[sidehack]

That's not an option for everyone, especially if you don't want to GPU-mine alts.

[hurricandave]

From what I remember Avalon promised to keep all of its software open sourced. The web site is confusing but they regularly submit pull requests to ck- thru GitHub.

[wavelengthsf]

Avalon runs on OpenWRT: https://openwrt.org/

They have their own customizations to show their Miner Config and Miner Status tabs.

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/raspberry_pi_foundation/raspberry_pi is the default OpenWRT Pi config

Their webGUI is called "luci" - https://github.com/Canaan-Creative/luci - it is an Apache license, so seems like you could modify it for your uses

[sidehack]

Might look into that.

Speaking of, the Minera pi barfed some kernel errors overnight and died. Raspbian is still running like a champ, 18 hours uptime and going. We've got a few weeks before these guys roll out so I'll see about integrating a basic webconfig setup. Luci's a good place to start.

[philipma1957]

That's not an option for everyone, especially if you don't want to GPU-mine alts.

then they can do this


first  get a meter to see  the power you draw.

I pull 70 watts so 70 x 24 = 1680 watts  so round to 2 kwatts a day.

that is 25 cents in the winter for me
and 32 cents a day in the summer







then with a small desktop  like a lenevo m700 tiny I got one used for 200 bucks I opened it put in a used i7  6700t for 200 more sold the g4400t for 50  net cost for pc = 350
I loaded nicehash to cpu mine  and I earn 40 to 50 cents a day


I run 3 compacs and a 2 pac and the cpu miner



the usb sticks point to bravo-mining I can get 1 btc if I am the block hitter and they also earn 4-5 cents a day.

so 57 cents income - 32 cent power in the summer = 25 cents a day with a shot at 1 btc on any and every block made.

pc cost =350 it would be paid for in about 4 years.  but I use the pc for all my windows work.

I support side hack sticks and bravo mining.

adding a pod or 2 will make  more money as pods do higher hashing.

and my cpu does not get superhot with newer nicehash software.

[sidehack]

I guess what I meant to say was, that's not an option for everyone, especially if you don't want to mine alts at all. And yes I know you're gonna say "yeah but if you do such and such it gets automatically converted to BTC so it's just like mining BTC via alts" and you know that's something you and I have disagreed on for a long time.

So yeah it's something people can do. But you know I straight-up don't care at all. The discussion right now is pod miners, and a stable Pi controller with config options for basic users.

That said - I'm a bit behind but planning to cook up some proof boards over the weekend. I'd like to send you one to review, if you're game.

[philipma1957]

I guess what I meant to say was, that's not an option for everyone, especially if you don't want to mine alts at all. And yes I know you're gonna say "yeah but if you do such and such it gets automatically converted to BTC so it's just like mining BTC via alts" and you know that's something you and I have disagreed on for a long time.

So yeah it's something people can do. But you know I straight-up don't care at all. The discussion right now is pod miners, and a stable Pi controller with config options for basic users.

No I understand  since many  don't need or want the pc.

I am a work around guy that is my work around.

My weakest skill is software.  I use it but coding was always a bit out of my reach. So I develop work arounds.

In this case I support your pods.  I support a small pool.  = good for 2 things

I mine some cpu at nicehash = not to good 1 thing.

I show people a work work around if they want a pod from you and don't want a rasp pi.

It is a detour from the rasp pi that will work of some of us.

I wish I could directly help with rasp pi work.  I can clone  sd or micro sd card for you to put in rasp pi's.

I would use the same pc that is mining your sticks and the cpu coin.

[sidehack]

Cool. I'll get something headed your way soon. The driver isn't optimized for them yet, so stuff like zombie recovery probably won't work right at first until VH makes some updates, but the hardware's all there.

[goose1072]

I follow philipma1957 steps as well, I like work around.

I have 4 raspi ( one is an avalon controller bought from them)
I converted a second one for another pair of Avalon's the other two I have been playing around with.
I have one with minera but never used and the other configured with Raspbian neither of them running any hardware.

I found it very comfortable using windows on the 2 pac seconds that I bought.
Besides using windows with the 2 pacs I am also GPU mining and CPU mining on the same computer which makes it very doable.

I just don't think i am a raspi person...

[philipma1957]

Rasp pl did stupid moves on the new designs.

The new one uses a micro usb jack for power

Zero need to do it the larger mini usb is far better.

I would tell them WTF did you shrink the power jack.  The rasp pi is the same size zero need to shrink the power jack

I have had power issues feeding some rasp pi.

The micro sd was good idea as it is more protected the the larger sd card.
The newest rasp pi is pretty fast.  If they simply kept the bigger power jack it would work better.

As for software not enough of it for miners.
I do have Avalon s on it.

But that is it for now.

[sidehack]

I've never seen a Pi that didn't have a micro USB jack for power, but then I'd never seen one before about four years ago. When did they make the change?

I prefer mini USB, hence why I'm using it for signal on the Terminus. Speaking of, my Raspbian setup (the Pi is drawing power from the Terminus) is at 43 hours uptime and going strong. 110GH, 53 watts DC including the controller.

[mrmagos]

The new one uses a micro usb jack for power
...
I would tell them WTF did you shrink the power jack.

  They've always used microUSB for power. Maybe you're thinking of another SBC? The Pi model B form factor is pretty popular, so I could understand some confusion.

I have had power issues feeding some rasp pi.

That is a legitimate issue with the 3. Depending on how hard you're pushing it, it can be touchy with power supplies, and you should pay attention to wire gauge in your power cables. I recommend at least 24 gauge, especially when overclocking.

the Pi is drawing power from the Terminus

I can't express how much I like this. I've done similar things in my Pi-powered projects, and it really helps in tidying things up.

[philipma1957]

The rasp pi that used a full sized sd card used this jack for power



So I stand corrected






damn  I am getting old  I swore it used the bigger usb

the new ones




I now have to figure  what  part of what avalon  was using the mini maybe a dongle


this is not as good  as the mini right below it.

[TheYankeesWin!]

Phil happy birthday oldtimer.

You are confusing the avalon 4.1 uart dongle  it used   a mini usb connector.


http://bitcoinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Avalon-4.1-UART-Bitcoinist.jpg


and If you feed them with this cable they worked well.

I remember you say rasp pi were stupid  for not having the bigger mini jack  as this would work better for the rasp pi.

But rasp pi builders  are stupid cheap and have the shitty  micro.  It is the biggest design flaw in their gear. IMO

[achtung082]

You can power a PI directly from a 5v molex feed from your standard ATX PSU, soldered straight to the back of the micro USB. This is handy when you need to drive 10 devices and only want to use a 10 port hub. I ran a setup like this for over 6 months and never had any power issues.

If you have a modified USB hub, clip the power feeds in the USB cable back to the PI so you don't back feed PI from the usb port. I always do this on all my USB setups because I found the BBB and PI will run of the power back feed.

You can setup the watchdog to reboot the Pi if the USB hangs and also setup a cron to reboot every 45min. This has worked very well for me in the past.