Block Erupter Question

[NocTurNalFX]

Is there any program  or way  to where i can single out block erupters to mine different alt coins.   For example:  Running 16 BE's ,   have 4 mine ASC ,  4 mine ZET  and 8 mining BTC. All from the same computer. 

I tried to search the forum,  but couldn't find any information on it.  Might not have searched for the right key words. 

If someone could at least point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance. 
 

[bandjhughes]

Is there any program  or way  to where i can single out block erupters to mine different alt coins.   For example:  Running 16 BE's ,   have 4 mine ASC ,  4 mine ZET  and 8 mining BTC. All from the same computer. 

I tried to search the forum,  but couldn't find any information on it.  Might not have searched for the right key words. 

If someone could at least point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance. 
 

I don't know of a way to specifically set each BE to mine a particular coin, but if you're using bfgminer you can set three pools and then set the pool management to balance.  This would effectively be doing the same thing.  Since you want 8 BE's mining Bitcoin, you may have to set up 4 pools: two of them BTC, one ZET and one ASC.

[markm]

cgminer can do that too.

You can activate specific USB devices with command-line args too if you know which devices they are.

-MarkM-

[NocTurNalFX]

I will look into setting up multiple pools.   I use BFGMiner now,  but just use shortcuts with commands set to open it up  for whatever pool I'm using that day.  I haven't been mining for very long and still learning about it all.  

I just used the setup directions at BTCguid  to start up.  That didn't get into setting up more then one pool.

Time to read some to see how the programs actually work.  I haven't tried cgminer yet.  

Thanks for the suggestions,  and any more tips on how to do it would be great

 

[NocTurNalFX]

Anyone have experience with CGwatcher  or Multiminer ?  Just wondering if they would help do what I want to do. 

[milone]

You would need to run a separate instance of cgminer/bfgminer for each pool. For each instance, you'd specify which devices you want to use.

You can also run multiple instances of CGWatcher - one for each miner instance. You just have to create separate folders for each CGWatcher instance (e.g. CGWatcherA, CGWatcherB, etc) because each instance needs its own folder to store settings in. If you ran multiple instances from the same folder, they would overwrite each other's settings.

For cgminer you can use --usb to only enable certain devices. From the readme:

Code:

Advanced USB options:

The --usb option can restrict how many Avalon, BFL ASIC, BitForce FPGAs,
ModMiner FPGAs or Icarus bitstream FPGAs it finds:

  --usb 1:2,1:3,1:4,1:*
or
  --usb BAS:1,BFL:1,MMQ:0,ICA:0
or
  --usb :10

You can only use one of the above 3

The first version
  --usb 1:2,1:3,1:4,1:*
allows you to select which devices to mine on with a list of USB
 bus_number:device_address
All other USB devices will be ignored
Hotplug will also only look at the devices matching the list specified and
find nothing new if they are all in use
You can specify just the USB bus_number to find all devices like 1:*
which means any devices on USB bus_number 1
This is useful if you unplug a device then plug it back in the same port,
it usually reappears with the same bus_number but a different device_address

You can see the list of all USB devices on linux with 'sudo lsusb'
Cgminer will list the recognised USB devices with the '-n' option or the
'--usb-dump 0' option
The '--usb-dump N' option with a value of N greater than 0 will dump a lot
of details about each recognised USB device
If you wish to see all USB devices, include the --usb-list-all option

The second version
  --usb BAS:1,BFL:1,MMQ:0,ICA:0
allows you to specify how many devices to choose based on each device
driver cgminer has - there are currently 4 USB drivers: BAS, BFL, MMQ & ICA
N.B. you can only specify which device driver to limit, not the type of
each device, e.g. with BAS:n you can limit how many BFL ASIC devices will
be checked, but you cannot limit the number of each type of BFL ASIC
Also note that the MMQ count is the number of MMQ backplanes you have
not the number of MMQ FPGAs

The third version
  --usb :10
means only use a maximum of 10 devices of any supported USB devices
Once cgminer has 10 devices it will not configure any more and hotplug will
not scan for any more
If one of the 10 devices stops working, hotplug - if enabled, as is default
- will scan normally again until it has 10 devices

  --usb :0 will disable all USB I/O other than to initialise libusb

NOTE: The --device option will limit which devices are in use based on their
numbering order of the total devices, so if you hotplug USB devices regularly,
it will not reliably be the same devices.

I'm not sure if the same option is available in bfgminer. You can find info on how to enable devices by specifying the COM port (but these can change after the computer restarts) here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=268626.0

If you need any help getting CGWatcher setup let me know. I have cgminer and bfgminer running on my desktop, each with its own CGWatcher. I just created shortcuts to each CGWatcher on the desktop - one called "CGWatcher GPU" and the other "CGWatcher ASIC". They both use the same file for profiles, so if I want to add/edit/delete a profile I only have to do it once.

I also have a laptop running more ASICs, and today I'm going to be moving them all to the basement to run on the same computer. I'm going to split them up into two groups so I can mine two different pools, so I'll let you know what solution I come up with.

As mentioned above, you could also have all the ASICs mine the same pool then just switch pools at scheduled times, which should produce similar results. Newer versions of the miners have options for this, or you can create scheduled actions in CGWatcher to do it at set intervals or times.

[Walking Glitch]

Running 3 separate instances of bfgminer, you can set each one to only use certain Block eruptors, so one with 4 BEs for ASC, one with 4 BEs for ZET, and one with 8 BEs for BTC.

[poplolnman]

multiminer will do the thing you are asking for...thats what i use it for...

[milone]

I ended up using two instances of cgminer: one for a Jalapeno and a few USB Block Erupters, and one for two Singles. I used the first --usb option (in cgminer readme) to specify which devices I wanted in which instance.

Open a command window pointing to your cgminer folder, and type in

Code:

cgminer.exe -n

(you can also use cgminer-nogpu.exe -n if you aren't using any GPUs)

This will list all devices it found, along with some other information including each device's bus number and device address. You then set the --usb option in the arguments or config file, entering the bus number:device address of the devices you want it to use (comma-delimited).

So the first cgminer instance uses a config file, in it is the line:

Code:

"usb" : "3:4,3:5,3:7,3:12"

The second instance uses a config file, in it is the line:

Code:

"usb" : "3:10,3:11"

Note: the device address may not necessarily be sequential. I haven't checked yet, but the advantage to this method is I think/hope it should persist through computer restarts, although I haven't tested this yet. I didn't want to use COM ports to specify devices for this reason.

[NocTurNalFX]

Thanks for the help milone.

I tried using cgwatcher,  but for some reason when I started up the program,  it gave errors trying to download the miners.  I manually placed cgminer in the folder it wanted it in,  then kept running into problems.   Not sure what I am doing wrong.  If I start up cgminer  with api enabled  I can use cgwatcher to monitor it.  But as far as setting cgwatcher up and using it to configure cgminer properly  I am lost.   

Right now I have cgminer set up with multiple pools  with balance.   I will try to set it up like you mentioned  after work tomorrow.   Sounds like exactly what I want to do.

Quick question tho. I understand how to create a config file for cgminer,  but not sure exactly how to start cgminer using a specific config file.   I start it up now by using a shortcut to cgminer-nogpu.exe  with commands on the target line.  What command would I use to specify a config ?  I read through the cgminer readme  but didn't find it.  I may have overlooked it. 

[milone]

I'm not sure what you mean by CGWatcher giving errors when trying to download the miners... it doesn't download miners. You just tell it where the miner is located when you create a mining profile.

As far as config files, cgminer will automatically use any config file named cgminer.conf if it's in the same directory as cgminer.exe (and cgminer-nogpu.exe). You can also use --config <filename> to specify a config file in another location. If the filename has a space in it, remember to put quotes around it.

Example:

Code:

cgminer-nogpu.exe --config "c:\miners\cgminer\my config.conf"

Among other things, CGWatcher makes it easier to setup the miner - you can create as many profiles as you need, for each profile you set the miner executable (or batch file), config file (optional), command arguments (optional), and a few additional options. You can also set which coin the profile is mining so you can then later schedule it to mine certain coins at certain times, or mine based on profitability.

[NocTurNalFX]

Thanks for the help.  I will play around with CGWatcher more tonight.   

Is there a way to run CGMiner with the block erupters without  replacing the BE's  drivers to winusb using Zadig ?

[milone]

Is there a way to run CGMiner with the block erupters without  replacing the BE's  drivers to winusb using Zadig ?

Not that I'm aware of. For cgminer, you use Zadig to install WinUSB drivers. Once you use Zadig to install the WinUSB driver for one Block Erupter, it should automatically install it for any other Block Erupters. That's how it worked for me. Same with BFL Singles... I installed WinUSB for one and it automatically installed it for the other.

For bfgminer, you install the USB to UART Bridge.

Each miner has its own way of handling USB communication. If you switch miners, make sure to uninstall whichever method you used for the other miner.

[Hippie Tech]

Add "device" : "1" to your cgminer.conf, then enable only the ones needed for each coin.

[NocTurNalFX]

Code:

cgminer.exe -n

Code:

"usb" : "3:4,3:5,3:7,3:12"

Code:

"usb" : "3:10,3:11"

Just for a update.   This worked perfect.  Was exactly what I was wanting.  Thanks allot.  It will come in very handy when I add more miners to my setup.  Not sure if the settings stay the same after a restart.   TBH I hardly every restart the PC  unless a update requires it.  If you have already tested this,  I would like to know what you found out. 


I have also enabled api on the configs so I could run cgwatcher.  I'm still learning the program ,  but at least now I can monitor my miners with it.  It looks to be a handy program.  The more I play with it, the more I will learn.  But overall it is a nice GUI setup for my miners. 

[Marty19]

I use multiminer ( http://nwoolls.github.io/MultiMiner/ ) with my pools ( http://ispace.co.uk ), it will let you assign any number of BEs to different coins and is easy to setup