Baikal Quad Cube Miner Review - Quality=Awesomeness

[pikachuy]

Well, I've owned some Antminers, Avalons, and GPU's during my mining career, and I have to say hands down, the Baikal Quad Cube is my favorite in quality and reliability. It's pretty much plug and play and solid as a rock.

You can read the full specs/data from the company here: http://www.baikalminer.com

Quick run through:

It supports 6 Algorithms： X11 / X13 / X14 / X15 / Quark / Qubit

Even though the company description page says it hashes 1200MH (+ or - 10%) in any of the algorithms, I always find that it is always in the + side. It is always over 1200MH and not once, have I seen it go lower than 1200MH other than when the miner is booting up (love the under promise and over deliver aspect).

Power wise, it has (4) standard 6pin pcie jacks that you see everyone using now a days, so it's pretty friendly if you already have some old back up miner power supplies (at most, I say it only needs 350watts). The miner does come with (2) 6pin pcie splitters so you will actually only need (2) 6pin pcie cables.
Side note: I always find it that it is consuming slightly less watts than what it indicates on the company description page (maybe due to my platinum server power supply). So that is a win-win.

The Baikal Quad Cube is actually 4 cubes stacked together but with only 1 controller (Raspberry Pi Zero). You can find a link to update the Raspberry Pi Zero image here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B1GBwN5-i39VRzNQS28tWlpsTVk

It comes with multiple multi-pools with best auto-algo switch for you to choose from so all you would need is to click which one you want and change the BTC address to yours. Pretty EASY setup!

Noise? What Noise? If you set the baikal-fan option to 50%, it's like the most silent miner I've owned and it still stays cool.

Questions & Answers will be on post #2 and will be updated from time to time so people don't get lost or ask the same questions.

Time for some show and tell, here are views of the Baikal Quad Cube in different angles:





Here is a view of the Raspberry Pi Zero controller (with antenna??? trying to figure out how to activate this!)



Comes with 4GB microsd card



Here is my HP server power supply with breakout board.



Now time for the interface!

Once everything is connected, it is set to DHCP so you will need to find the IP address, usually can be seen in your router page. Baikal also have tools to locate the miner's ip: https://github.com/baikalminer/multi-algo-miner/tree/master/utility
Note: default password is baikal to login the interface page.



This is the default stats page once you logged in (this has been running for 12+ hours and you can see the hashrate is always above 1200MH!)
Note: The status "Dead/Alive" changes randomly because it moves around to different algorithms for best profit switching.



This is the miner settings page where you can change your pools and options



This is the settings page where you can set up alerts and auto-recovery in-case the miner goes below a threshold(it'll restart itself I believe)



This page is where you can save settings or restore settings (easy cloning in-case you have multiple Baikal miners)



It comes with built in terminal and supports root! Root login is baikal, and password is baikal



Am I missing something? Let me know!

[pikachuy]

Questions & Answers:

Where can I buy it?
   It is best to purchase directly from Baikal: http://www.baikalminer.com

Can it mine wirelessly?
   I am trying to figure out how to power up the antenna and connect to my network, will update here if ever successful.

What is the order that you should power up the Quad Cubes?
   From top to bottom.

What are the operating temperatures?
   According to Baikal, highest mining temperature is 70c degrees, over 70c, miner will stop automatically. Once temperature go down back to normal, it will start itself again.
   Recommended mining temperature would be around 30c-50c.

[allnewbie]

Thanks for sharing this, great review. Pictures are always best evidence.!!
I have one question:
Does the switch order of quad-cube miner same with quadruple(mini) that required from Top to bottom?  they said to me the faulty turning off/on will damage the machine on my previous quadruple mini miner order.

[pikachuy]

Thanks for sharing this, great review. Pictures are always best evidence.!!
I have one question:
Does the switch order of quad-cube miner same with quadruple(mini) that required from Top to bottom?  they said to me the faulty turning off/on will damage the machine on my previous quadruple mini miner order.

To be honest, I just leave them all on the ON position and control the power off/on with the breakout board on my HP server power supply because it has it's own switch. I know their website says "Be sure to turn on a miner when the switch is at OFF", but that would be hard to do if you have a blackout for example, because after a blackout, the power is restored with the Baikal all with ON switch anyways. So with me leaving them all on "ON", all 4 cubes on the Quad will power up exactly at the same time when any power is connected.

Side note: I have been powering off and on the Quad cube this way with all on the "ON" switch multiple times now, not sure if there is a limitation or not but will keep everyone posted if it does any damages in the long run. Not sure why they would mention to only turn on when switch is OFF, since blackouts/power outages are a fact sooner or later of happening.

[baikal]

Thanks very much for the review!

Yes, when we first get a sample from our company, we tested it and find out the actual produced hashrate and power consumption is better than engineer specified in technical parameter file.  I imaged it will be a small surprise for customers themselves to find out it.

@allnewbie Correct order for turning on/off is from Top to bottom. Thanks for asking.

Any questions about Cube you can leave here, we will be gald to help, as well as pikachuy I think.

[LachlanS]

Yep, I'm getting 1220-1260MHs on my chosen pool!
Hers a photo of my modded cube quad, temps are about 33 degrees celcius (91 farenheit)
http://pasteboard.co/3Mx5J2n3d.jpg

Powerdraw at the wall as measured by my wattmeter was pretty accurate to specs as well, accounting for some PSU inefficiency

[baikal]

The machine, math to the background. beautiful!

[NewMinex1]

Where can I buy? How much is it now?

[allnewbie]

Where can I buy? How much is it now?

Their is sold out now.
you still can buy from outside, ebay, alibaba.. but price is nearly double.

[LachlanS]

Where can I buy? How much is it now?

I have one for sale here. The price is what I paid to Baikal in bitcoin 3 weeks ago.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1924135.0

[Sequoia93]

Does anyone know if these are ASIC or FPGA?

I would love to see a full teardown!

[pikachuy]

Does anyone know if these are ASIC or FPGA?

I would love to see a full teardown!

I am too scared to tear mine down since it's mining so smoothly since I first got it. But I did find this on the internet, not sure if it helps you or is accurate.

[TheThommy]

thanks for the review!

where can I buy this rig? who´s the original manufacturer?

[allnewbie]

thanks for the review!

where can I buy this rig? who´s the original manufacturer?

www.baikalminer.com
Nothing in stock now.

[Harunn]

If someone sells their quad cube you can always contact me!

[jeudyx]

I own one of these and have been mining non stop for almost a week now. Everything smooth. Question: what should be the maximum operation temperature? I ask because I like to set the fans to 50% or 60% so its not too noisy, and temperature has been at around 30C (33C tops).

I think I read somewhere the limit is 70C, but I don't want to fry it 

[Steven3iii]

I own one of these and have been mining non stop for almost a week now. Everything smooth. Question: what should be the maximum operation temperature? I ask because I like to set the fans to 50% or 60% so its not too noisy, and temperature has been at around 30C (33C tops).

I think I read somewhere the limit is 70C, but I don't want to fry it 

Where did you get it? These things are pretty rare on the market. I have not seen any wholesaler sell these for a very long time.

[jeudyx]

Got it second hand from a local miner here in my country, who is upgrading to bigger rig.

I own one of these and have been mining non stop for almost a week now. Everything smooth. Question: what should be the maximum operation temperature? I ask because I like to set the fans to 50% or 60% so its not too noisy, and temperature has been at around 30C (33C tops).

I think I read somewhere the limit is 70C, but I don't want to fry it 

Where did you get it? These things are pretty rare on the market. I have not seen any wholesaler sell these for a very long time.

[jeudyx]

I just found and read the manual. Says operation temperature is between 0 and 40C.

I own one of these and have been mining non stop for almost a week now. Everything smooth. Question: what should be the maximum operation temperature? I ask because I like to set the fans to 50% or 60% so its not too noisy, and temperature has been at around 30C (33C tops).

I think I read somewhere the limit is 70C, but I don't want to fry it 

[dhouse]

I just found and read the manual. Says operation temperature is between 0 and 40C.

I own one of these and have been mining non stop for almost a week now. Everything smooth. Question: what should be the maximum operation temperature? I ask because I like to set the fans to 50% or 60% so its not too noisy, and temperature has been at around 30C (33C tops).

I think I read somewhere the limit is 70C, but I don't want to fry it 

Dang I just stumbled on to this miner, it sounds so freaking awesome for home mining. Anyone know where I could find one? Alibaba is a bad idea, right?