(Review/Guide) BW.com BW-L21, 550 Mh/s, 950W Litecoin (scrypt) ASIC miner

[HagssFIN]

Hassfin I know you got a miner from them for free and in exchange you did a review.
..<snip>

This is not true,
I paid for the BW-L21 miner plus psu,
and only after that Ronald sent me the gear.

BITMAIN killed this little company ..  

Definitely not dead, I’ll have something quite interesting in a few weeks

That is exciting news! Thanks for sharing.
Loving the one Moonlander2 stick that I bought.

[apax]

There's still no official release of the new firmware so I'll try to share it with you.
It's not as easy has the previous updates, but I've managed to do it with no problem having only a very basic knowledge of unix terminal.

These are the instructions I received via email from hyperbit:
 

Code:

1. You'll need sshpass and parallel installed on whatever machine (UNIX) the script is run on. Links below.
2. tar -xzf 2.9.0.tar.gz
3. cd 2.9.0
4. Edit ip.txt and specify the IP address of the machines you want to update (one per line).
5. ./run.sh

Note, there will be lots of output as each machine is updated. 
Some of it may look like failures, this is ok and can safely be ignored. 
The updater is built to work across many potential versions and tries to fix various things on the system. 
Some of which may already be fixed, so the output reflects that.

Install sshpass: https://gist.github.com/arunoda/7790979
Install gnu parallel: https://www.google.com/search?q=install+gnu+parallel
If you're using Mac as me you'll need to install brew

firmware files: https://www.dropbox.com/s/indgp8nlnk3372s/2.9.0.tar.gz?dl=0
*please note it's my dropbox link, they sent it to me via email.

[Seph213]

Guys how do you calculate the proper difficulty with these miners ? Say i was connected to a pool that does not auto set the difficulty for you , how would i go about knowing what difficulty to set my miner

I looked on the web and can't find a guide .

Any idea ?

[HagssFIN]

It is highly recommend to use an automatic difficulty setting,
but if you feel you must use a static difficulty then you can try using d=131072 or d=262144 .

[Seph213]

It is highly recommend to use an automatic difficulty setting,
but if you feel you must use a static difficulty then you can try using d=131072 or d=262144 .

For mining ltc i don't need to set difficulty but for other scrypt crypto i sometime need to thats why i was wondering how do people calculate what difficulty they should set given its not auto set by the pool

[apax]

I always leave it on vardiff cause I don't know how to answer that.

but I have made the test on a pool that required me to choose from 2 different ports, leading to a below XXX and over XXX diff value, and the end result was the same amount of coins produced on each, so...

[Seph213]

Was trying to mine some xvg on mining pool hub and the logs kept showing diffculty too low and i was getting lots of rejected shares thats why i was wondering how to calculate dfficulty

[apax]

You're gonna have a lot of bad shares with this miner anyway, one of the issues with them is that...

[apax]

Does anyone has any news regarding this?

[apax]

Am I the only one who bought a ton of these miners and now have them laying around switched off cause they dont work and BW/hyperbit doesn't do anything?

[Seph213]

Apax my miner stopped mining today , the miner still runs but its not mining , kinda lile cgminer is not running .

When you say ur miners aren’t working , what u mean exactly ? Not turning on at all or same issue as me ?

[Bitbobb]

ouch

[Seph213]

Anyone happened to have the firmware 2.9 that appax linked ?

[apax]

By not working I mean constant reboots, hashboards never going online and very low hashrate.


There's also a new firmware. These are the instructions:

Code:

1- You'll need sshpass and parallel installed on whatever machine (UNIX) the script is run on.
2- tar -xzf 2.10.3.tar.gz
3- cd 2.10.0
4- Edit ip.txt and specify the IP address of the machines you want to update (one per line).
5- ./run.sh

and the file
https://cl.ly/e051621137ff

[apax]

Also, it happened to me that they were only making noise. Just press the reset button X times till it boots up

[Seph213]

I can’t even get to the Hashboard , can’t access the reset button

[HagssFIN]

I can’t even get to the Hashboard , can’t access the reset button

I think you mean dashboard. He was not talking about the reset button in the software.

He was talking about this reset button:

[Seph213]

I never noticed that little guy , i did the hard reset and it works now .. yaayyy

Thank apax and hagss

@ apax does the 2.10 update add or changes anytning regarding the high rejections rates ?

Any changes in the interface ? Did they add anything ?

[apax]

^{@Seph213, I'm going to reply to your DM here so anyone with same questions can get an answer.}
This new update is some how more difficult to the average Joe.
I struggled a bit myself since my linux skills are not that much of a deal.

You need to use these 2 extra tools on your system in order to run the update. After getting them it's pretty strait forward.

• Install sshpass: https://gist.github.com/arunoda/7790979
  
• Install gnu parallel: https://www.google.com/search?q=install+gnu+parallel

And they only run on UNIX, so Linux and MacOS.
I dont know if there are any equivalents (probably they are, but I dont know).
So you need to get your hands on a Mac just for this task, or install linux on a machine.

The update did increase the overall stability of my machines, leading to slightly better hashrate, less rejections, and the dashboard has a new font and temperature is working.

However, if you struggle with the instructions and only have one or two miners then I say to let it go, or wait for that cousin everyone has that knows is way around to visit you and do it for you cause it's not that much of improvement.

[Seph213]

I was able to get in touch with bw support . They send me the latest firmware update they have , so now bwminer is at version 2.8 and cgminer is 2.9.1 .

Now my rejection rate is Between .30% and 1 , huge improvement from 6 to 8% . Hash rate seem to vary between 520  and 570 , rately goes down below 500 like it used to.

They sent me a way to do it with windows using winscp ... took me 60 sec to get it done ..