Official FutureBit Moonlander 2 Driver and Support Thread

[aarons6]

i have one fan that died.. it spins very slowly and makes a horrible rattling noise.. this is the fan that started making noise before i oiled it.

ive since oiled all my fans.. a few of them were completely dry..

i suggest everyone to peel the sticker off and put a drop of oil on the bearing.. let it soak in for a few minutes and run the fan face down for a few.

Be careful.. oil can mix with dust making some sort of paste and block the bearigns completely. Some bearings are designed to run dry (don't know if these are the case).

some of them had oil on them..

i really dont think these fans are going to last very long.. i really wish he went with the longer heatsink and put the fan on top. that way when it fails you can just remove it.

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[iamwillard]

If there's a way to control the voltage to the fans, I could make my loud fans work. Is this possible?

[Eyedol-X]

one of my MLD2's constantly slows down to like 2.4MH after a while set to 700mhz.

It's not overheating from what i can tell but it consistently has this behavior.

Anyone else experience anything similar?

well I figured out what the issue was, the fan wasn't spinning at proper RPM and it was getting hot... guess I should have closer checked the temp.

how did I figure this out? The fan completely died today while I was work... I was only running 700mhz but who knows how long it was trying to hash without a fan.

Waiting on my ball bearing fans to get here so I can test it out but I suspect it's damaged.

I strongly recommend you have some sort of backup fan blowing air on these things if you're going to run them unattended.

[aballen]

Pretty sure sleeve bearings should be greased, not oiled.

i have one fan that died.. it spins very slowly and makes a horrible rattling noise.. this is the fan that started making noise before i oiled it.

ive since oiled all my fans.. a few of them were completely dry..

i suggest everyone to peel the sticker off and put a drop of oil on the bearing.. let it soak in for a few minutes and run the fan face down for a few.

Be careful.. oil can mix with dust making some sort of paste and block the bearigns completely. Some bearings are designed to run dry (don't know if these are the case).

some of them had oil on them..

i really dont think these fans are going to last very long.. i really wish he went with the longer heatsink and put the fan on top. that way when it fails you can just remove it.

[mattriedl]

Alright, please be nice.  I am just getting into the usb mining thing and this is my first moonlander.

I purchased it off ebay, its a moonlander with v.1.2 on the board:

https://imgur.com/MB34heD

When I plug the unit into my Windows 10 machine, it find the device and lists it correctly, but with no driver.

https://ibb.co/mPmsnR

So I went and installed the CP210x driver as the instructions here specify:

https://www.silabs.com/products/development-tools/software/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers


After the install, the usb device changed from Moonlander to "silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge (com3)

https://ibb.co/bAQwE6


I open the start moonlander bat file, and it says it can not find any devices.  Using the M and + command, I search for all, auto and post com3 in the cmd line, it finds nothing...

https://ibb.co/i357Mm

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG OR MISSING?  why can't cgminer find this puppy?

Thanks in advance for the help and not laughing at a newbie with usb miners.  

[lennyNO]

Alright, please be nice.  I am just getting into the usb mining thing and this is my first moonlander.
I purchased it off ebay, its a moonlander with v.1.2 on the board:
https://imgur.com/MB34heD

It looks like you have the original moonlander 1 (look at the pictures on page one of this thread!!), that's the old one, Not The Moonlander 2 (which comes with heatsinks and fan). MLD 1 doesn't work with this version of bfgminer, and it is also much slower to hash.While it is probably still useful for something, in reality you bought a cat in the sack (unless you want to play around and don't care about anything else).

This is also the wrong forum for v1.2, (this is for v2 which is a different ASIC and much faster).  v1.2 info can be found here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1248914.0

Good luck! Better next time.

[Eyedol-X]

one of my MLD2's constantly slows down to like 2.4MH after a while set to 700mhz.

It's not overheating from what i can tell but it consistently has this behavior.

Anyone else experience anything similar?

well I figured out what the issue was, the fan wasn't spinning at proper RPM and it was getting hot... guess I should have closer checked the temp.

how did I figure this out? The fan completely died today while I was work... I was only running 700mhz but who knows how long it was trying to hash without a fan.

Waiting on my ball bearing fans to get here so I can test it out but I suspect it's damaged.

I strongly recommend you have some sort of backup fan blowing air on these things if you're going to run them unattended.

Welp, it lives it looks like -- I purchased some USB 120mm fans that move about 115cfm and I pointed at this MLD2 along with my others -- its been hashing away an hour now without an issue, even HW error rate is normal for what the others have been doing.

Looks like these things can take a licking and keep on ticking or maybe I just got lucky.

Either way, if you're going to run these unattended, get an external fan just in case your onboard fan dies.

[Eyedol-X]

Alright, please be nice.  I am just getting into the usb mining thing and this is my first moonlander.

I purchased it off ebay, its a moonlander with v.1.2 on the board:

https://imgur.com/MB34heD

When I plug the unit into my Windows 10 machine, it find the device and lists it correctly, but with no driver.

https://ibb.co/mPmsnR

So I went and installed the CP210x driver as the instructions here specify:

https://www.silabs.com/products/development-tools/software/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers


After the install, the usb device changed from Moonlander to "silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge (com3)

https://ibb.co/bAQwE6


I open the start moonlander bat file, and it says it can not find any devices.  Using the M and + command, I search for all, auto and post com3 in the cmd line, it finds nothing...

https://ibb.co/i357Mm

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG OR MISSING?  why can't cgminer find this puppy?

Thanks in advance for the help and not laughing at a newbie with usb miners.  

Yup you got a Moonlander 1, not a Moonlander 2 -- hopefully you didn't over pay for that.

Check this thread for Moonlander 1 info - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1248914.0

[sunk818]

Try turning up the memory voltage as well if your going that high. Again, anything past 900mhz your burning through 3A of current, you would need a super heavy duty hub with a very good power supply to be stable at that high of a frequency.

Any chance we will get a ML variant (e.g. ML2 x 10) where the USB is only used for data connection, but device will be externally powered? Seems like cooling and watts are the two biggest challenges. External cooling easy enough... but the watts with specialized USB HUBs etc is a bigger challenge. If you take care of the power requirements for us (110/220V compatible), then it'd be a better experience for all of us. I'd love an Antminer L3 lite consisting of many chips together and QUIET

[aarons6]

Try turning up the memory voltage as well if your going that high. Again, anything past 900mhz your burning through 3A of current, you would need a super heavy duty hub with a very good power supply to be stable at that high of a frequency.

Any chance we will get a ML variant (e.g. ML2 x 10) where the USB is only used for data connection, but device will be externally powered? Seems like cooling and watts are the two biggest challenges. External cooling easy enough... but the watts with specialized USB HUBs etc is a bigger challenge. If you take care of the power requirements for us (110/220V compatible), then it'd be a better experience for all of us. I'd love an Antminer L3 lite consisting of many chips together and QUIET

i think this is the next step.. id love to see a multi chip pod version with pci-e power and usb data built in.

[lennyNO]

Try turning up the memory voltage as well if your going that high. Again, anything past 900mhz your burning through 3A of current, you would need a super heavy duty hub with a very good power supply to be stable at that high of a frequency.

Any chance we will get a ML variant (e.g. ML2 x 10) where the USB is only used for data connection, but device will be externally powered? Seems like cooling and watts are the two biggest challenges. External cooling easy enough... but the watts with specialized USB HUBs etc is a bigger challenge. If you take care of the power requirements for us (110/220V compatible), then it'd be a better experience for all of us. I'd love an Antminer L3 lite consisting of many chips together and QUIET

i think this is the next step.. id love to see a multi chip pod version with pci-e power and usb data built in.

The MLD2 uses the BW 2801 chip from BW.com.  The BW-L21 miner (BW.com's 28nm competitor against the L3+ from Bitmain) has 144 chips and delivers 550Mh/s, so 3.8Mh/s/chip. The power consumption is  950W or 6.5W/chip. I don't know what chipset is used in the BW-L21 but it is probably similar if not the same as the one on the MLD2.   The cost of a BW-L21 (preorder) per chip is something like 15$ vs 65$ for the MLD2. Alternatively said, the cost of around 25-30 MLD2s is about the same as a BW-L21 but of course the latter delivers a heck more hashing power.

The primary purpose of the MLD2 is ultra-affordable asic scrypt miner for plug and play experimenting. You simply can't beat an overclocked MLD2. If only for the fun of it!

I doubt there is a easy solution that sits halfway between the cost and hashing power of a MLD and a L21 AND has an ultra low noise level at the same time!!! 

[aarons6]

Try turning up the memory voltage as well if your going that high. Again, anything past 900mhz your burning through 3A of current, you would need a super heavy duty hub with a very good power supply to be stable at that high of a frequency.

Any chance we will get a ML variant (e.g. ML2 x 10) where the USB is only used for data connection, but device will be externally powered? Seems like cooling and watts are the two biggest challenges. External cooling easy enough... but the watts with specialized USB HUBs etc is a bigger challenge. If you take care of the power requirements for us (110/220V compatible), then it'd be a better experience for all of us. I'd love an Antminer L3 lite consisting of many chips together and QUIET

i think this is the next step.. id love to see a multi chip pod version with pci-e power and usb data built in.

The MLD2 uses the BW 2801 chip from BW.com.  The BW-L21 miner (BW.com's 28nm competitor against the L3+ from Bitmain) has 144 chips and delivers 550Mh/s, so 3.8Mh/s/chip. The power consumption is  950W or 6.5W/chip. I don't know what chipset is used in the BW-L21 but it is probably similar if not the same as the one on the MLD2.   The cost of a BW-L21 (preorder) per chip is something like 15$ vs 65$ for the MLD2. Alternatively said, the cost of around 25-30 MLD2s is about the same as a BW-L21 but of course the latter delivers a heck more hashing power.

The primary purpose of the MLD2 is ultra-affordable asic scrypt miner for plug and play experimenting. You simply can't beat an overclocked MLD2. If only for the fun of it!

I doubt there is a easy solution that sits halfway between the cost and hashing power of a MLD and a L21 AND has an ultra low noise level at the same time!!!  

right so if he made a 25 chip MLD3 with built in usb and pci-e power so its plug and play.. for 100 MH/s and about 200w it would be a lot more useful and viable as a home miner.

the reason i stopped in home mining is everything is 1500w + and take a whole 20a circuit and also the fact that they are 1000s of $$$ to buy. they are already putting that new A3 on Craigslist in my town for over 8000$ they havent even shipped yet.

[Astrali]

i have one fan that died.. it spins very slowly and makes a horrible rattling noise.. this is the fan that started making noise before i oiled it.

ive since oiled all my fans.. a few of them were completely dry..

i suggest everyone to peel the sticker off and put a drop of oil on the bearing.. let it soak in for a few minutes and run the fan face down for a few.

Be careful.. oil can mix with dust making some sort of paste and block the bearigns completely. Some bearings are designed to run dry (don't know if these are the case).

some of them had oil on them..

i really dont think these fans are going to last very long.. i really wish he went with the longer heatsink and put the fan on top. that way when it fails you can just remove it.

i gave a friend of mine my idea of a cooling tunnel for my 3 moonlanders. he made a nice cad drawing for me - and its right now running through his 3d printer.


looks like this:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7eJx0NqKV2vOXFvdGlsOG9abm9vUDFoNTZka3F4U3dEQmRV <---top part
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7eJx0NqKV2vU3FSaGthLTJudXBhSVBoY0kwZUo2Nml6WmNj  <--bottom part

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7eJx0NqKV2vb3E4Z1RWRWFQZWtDc3pvbk5IRXdsaGZCUTFF <--both parts

bottom and top gets connected by 2x 60mm fans - 1 blows in 1 pulls air out.
this will keep them cool whatever speed i will run them

the primary reason for me was not overclocking but the heat on the bottom cooler is to much at little over 700 mhz already.

i can send another picture with my moonlanders in final tunnel when i got all the parts (fans are on delivery).

Greetings - Astrali

[lennyNO]

the primary reason for me was not overclocking but the heat on the bottom cooler is to much at little over 700 mhz already.

You mean heat on the bottom heatsink, the one where the stock-fan is mounted on?
What kind of hub do you have and how many MLDs do you plan to put into this doghouse?

I am thinking about something similar, but the problem is my hub. I have 11 MLDs onto one hub, but the hub is a bit awkward, I at least need to take it apart and separate the USB PCB board from the PSU, the PSU can then be external. Secondly, I have the eyeboot, 19 port USB hub with 3 USB slots on the side, these are damn awkward when it comes to a geometry like this, so I have to see what I do with it. If I could get all MLDs onto the mainboard (sticking up vertically) I could go for something similar.

With the latest tip from @jstephanop to turn the mem pot down as much as possible things have gotten A LOT COOLER.
I am now running 6 MLDs at 924Mhz and 5 at 832Mhz. The latter I have removed all the stock fans. I am using external fans (a must)

[Eyedol-X]

I think I had one of mine die sometime this morning -- it shoes 100% HW error rate at 700mhz. It hashes at like 83.2kh and constantly stops hashing/restarts.

This is a completely different unit than the one I mentioned a few posts ago.

[Astrali]

the primary reason for me was not overclocking but the heat on the bottom cooler is to much at little over 700 mhz already.

You mean heat on the bottom heatsink, the one where the stock-fan is mounted on?
What kind of hub do you have and how many MLDs do you plan to put into this doghouse?

I am thinking about something similar, but the problem is my hub. I have 11 MLDs onto one hub, but the hub is a bit awkward, I at least need to take it apart and separate the USB PCB board from the PSU, the PSU can then be external. Secondly, I have the eyeboot, 19 port USB hub with 3 USB slots on the side, these are damn awkward when it comes to a geometry like this, so I have to see what I do with it. If I could get all MLDs onto the mainboard (sticking up vertically) I could go for something similar.

With the latest tip from @jstephanop to turn the mem pot down as much as possible things have gotten A LOT COOLER.
I am now running 6 MLDs at 924Mhz and 5 at 832Mhz. The latter I have removed all the stock fans. I am using external fans (a must)

i mean the opposite cooler - the one without fan.

if they are hashing several days its as hot that i dont want to touch it.

i am using a self modified crap hub.
http://84.200.24.120/3Moonlanders.jpg

The cheap USB Fan on the picture died within 1 week - so i had to think about a different cooling solution.

What kind of hub do you have and how many MLDs do you plan to put into this doghouse?

i own 3 working moonlanders and thats what this case is designed for - but you could put those tunnels in a row for 3 6 9 12 Moonlanders. There will be enough airflow!

i will use some short USB cables to connect them from my tunnel to the HUB.

had running one (the one i fried later ..) with an 1m USB cable on my windows machine - it ran flawless so 25cm cable (about 10") wont be a problem.


i'll tell you guys how it goes!

Greetings - Astrali

[lennyNO]

i mean the opposite cooler - the one without fan.
if they are hashing several days its as hot that i dont want to touch it.

If you are running at 700Mhz and they are so hot that you barely can touch them you have your core and mem way too high!!
You need to dial mem and core as low as you possible while they still keep working.

Mine are really cool and I am running 6x924Mhz and 5x832Mhz (without stockfan) from one hub. Temp on the small heatsink is around 30degs C.

The one you think you fried, set the clock to the lowest and see what happens.

[sunk818]

The cheap USB Fan on the picture died within 1 week - so i had to think about a different cooling solution.

Apple darth vader trashcan setup can has one fan pulling away the heat. You could just stand them all up vertically and concentrate your fan to just one area. Two fans if you want one to push and one to pull.

[jstefanop]

I think I had one of mine die sometime this morning -- it shoes 100% HW error rate at 700mhz. It hashes at like 83.2kh and constantly stops hashing/restarts.

This is a completely different unit than the one I mentioned a few posts ago.

What frequency were you running it before it died?

[Astrali]

The one you think you fried, set the clock to the lowest and see what happens.

i fried the uart chip - wont get recognized anymore - my fault! (+5V to data pin)

heres the printed tunnel

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Fvqqu31hCa_9pOFOWqBlVkUED0bCF4nw
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aJmvu8Ktd64Lw5lboWqu46019SSOB8kJ
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-hPn717M3L9w5f-lAbL-QFuOmiC1fgpG
https://drive.google.com/open?id=12mbYHXV5OI5LG2m4MYOJUHkqQgy7jFyO

fans and cables awaiting

Apple darth vader trashcan setup

Darth Vader .. yep!
Trashcan setup .. yep! Absolutely!
Apple? Definitely not my dear .. no Apple at my home


Greetings - Astrali