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[styx1776]

Message

[1714770114]

1714770114

[1714770114]

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[BitQik]

What type of miners? Are they block erupters? I plan on doing a similar setup to experiment with mining with solar power in the not too distant future!

[balanghai]

You can do a solo mine but making your own pool is a lot better. Then invite your friends to mine with you. You get a bigger chance of finding a block. Also you could charge them a 1% pool fee. That's a good increase.

[Unluckyduck]

Good luck hitting the jackpot on that

[BitQik]

I'm using block erupters.  Really my goal is to have a self contained unit supporting the bitcoin network.  I'm thinking the best way to do that would be for me to run bitcoin-QT or some other client directly on the raspberry pi.  I've mentally shelved the idea for now after realizing I'd need to upgrade my SD card (current 4gb card can't hold the blockchain).  I still think it'd be great if somebody could come out with a self contained bitcoin support box (mining and node functionality in one low power unit).

Oh cool. Yeah, I think that your chances of success solo mining would be slim but I guess everything on the network has a *chance*. I'm interested in designing that type of hardware, a self contained mining unit with raspberry Pi, which can also run on solar power with a battery backup to mine at night. I'm a total noob when it comes to electrical stuff, so it's going to be a nice DIY learning project. I plan to start a thread to document the project when it starts. 

[shylok]

do keep us update with progress though , sounds very interesting

[Brandon Stuvick]

I run a Raspberry Pi as a 24/7 Bitcoin node.

I don't know that Bitcoin itself can wear down an SD card (I'm offering no proof here, just my speculation), but the high memory requirements of bicoind might create swapping that will wear it down.

By default, Raspian has a swap file enabled. I disabled it by simply removing the execute privileges of the startup script, /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile.

Code:

sudo chmod -x /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile

I solved the problem of swap by buying a sata to usb cable (http://www.amazon.com/C2G-Cables-30504-Serial-Adapter/dp/B000UO6C5S/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1383363496&sr=8-2&keywords=sata+adapter) and simply hooking up an old 160GB internal laptop HDD. I formatted the HDD as ext4 with a swap partition, added both to /etc/fstab, and got it up and running smoothly.

The cord I linked to also provides external power, so don't worry about the Pi not being able to supply enough.


edit: It might also help to use the least amount of video memory possible if you plan on running the node without GUI. You can do this by running

Code:

sudo raspi-config

and choosing the memory split option to change the video memory to the lowest possible.

[Brandon Stuvick]

Unfortunately I have no pictures.

Even worse, I only have a dumb phone with a really bad camera.

And oh, if you do not want to buy the 20 dollar cord, I have been able to get my node to run entirely in RAM (I still run swap, just in case) by limiting my connection count to 64 (brings it to about 408/485mb). Just remember though that if bicoind (or electrum) exhausts the RAM (with no swap) it will have no option but to terminate. This will happen quietly, so it may be hours (or if you're neglectful, days) before you noticed it happened.

[samnup]

how btc are you able to mine with this?

[quantumDavey]

You can do a solo mine but making your own pool is a lot better. Then invite your friends to mine with you. You get a bigger chance of finding a block. Also you could charge them a 1% pool fee. That's a good increase.

Okay, so HOW would you 'make your own mining pool' on a raspberry pi ??

[cp1]

If you don't find any blocks then you're not really "securing the network", you're just running a regular node.

[Peter882]

I've seen some pretty great tutorials on using a Raspberry Pi to run your miners as part of a pool.  Is there a way to set up a Raspberry Pi to run a solo mining rig?  I have a small ASIC miner rig going running CGMiner as part of a pool.  It's a hobby, not an investment, with the difficulty where it is and where it's headed.  Rather than be a part of a mining pool, I feel it'd be more fun to periodically check in and see if I won the lottery and get to take home a full block reward!  Besides, as a hobby I'm not doing the network any security favors by centralizing power with the major pools.  Any thoughts?

For solo mining, the easiest way is to use a solo mining pool like SoloPool (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=262712.0) and bitsolo.
You won't need to do any special setup, as it is the same as mining on any other pools.

EDIT: Didn't notice the date.