[Guide] Dogie's Comprehensive ASICMiner Cube Setup [HD]

[DanZaph]

The reason they said automotive, is because the fuses are the blade type typically used for automotive electrical systems.  They are not specifically automotive, but that is where they are used the most....

Okay, that makes sense to me. Of course it does, I have them in my car. I was under the impression that there was some little twist or a special kind of them. Maybe ones that go to 11?

Fuses: Actually they kind of do go to 11. Consider the fuses/circuit breakers in a typical US house are 15a, the Cube fuse is 30a, twice that. Automotive fuses are designed for high currents at low voltages, exactly what the cube needs. Additionally the connector the fuse plugs into is small, cheap and well tested in automotive usage.

Well, 11 is one more.

Though it is difficult to easily tell ones that go to 11 from ones that only go to 9. Part of the issue is that I can't fathom that they cost more than a few cents to make, and every manufacturer or reseller is going to claim high quality.

The sell at retail for < 10 cents each in small quanties.
Buy automotive fuses. Consider how many cars have them, how many per car, the low failure rate of cars due to fuse failures. Buy Bussmann or Littlefuse brands.

See my post above concerning the fuse connector.

[brush242]

fedeeback:

5 Possibly mining power (relay is engaged)?

not relevant is not fired.

Why do you say "not relevant"?
The word "fired" is not a good translation, can you explain in more words?

He means that it is not lit, so therefore it is not doing anything, i.e., since it is not fired up, it is not relevant.

[dogie]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. SUPER SUPORT

No problem.

[divinesnail01]

One of my cubes has shut down - I happened to be sitting right by it and heard the relay click.  Red light and bottom pwr light are dark, fan twitches but does not spin.  I've swapped in a power supply that has been running two other cubes, and I get the same symtpoms.

I opened it up and checked the board - I see no evidence of overheat.  I shorted the two power relay leads and all the lights come one, but with no fan I'm not inclined to run it for more than a few seconds that way.

Is it possible that the fan is just bad?  I don't have a similar one to swap in tonight.
While preparing to order a fan, does anyone know what RPM the stock fans run at?  I see another post about a 2900 rpm 90mm fan, but I'd rather not have that noise level.  I guess more importantly, does anyone know what RPM the device wants to see?

Other thoughts about what could cause this?

Thanks in advance

'snail

[dogie]

One of my cubes has shut down - I happened to be sitting right by it and heard the relay click.  Red light and bottom pwr light are dark, fan twitches but does not spin.  I've swapped in a power supply that has been running two other cubes, and I get the same symtpoms.

I opened it up and checked the board - I see no evidence of overheat.  I shorted the two power relay leads and all the lights come one, but with no fan I'm not inclined to run it for more than a few seconds that way.

Is it possible that the fan is just bad?  I don't have a similar one to swap in tonight.
While preparing to order a fan, does anyone know what RPM the stock fans run at?  I see another post about a 2900 rpm 90mm fan, but I'd rather not have that noise level.  I guess more importantly, does anyone know what RPM the device wants to see?

Other thoughts about what could cause this?

Thanks in advance

'snail

If the fuse looks good then could be the fan - still a rare case. I'd estimate its about 1800rpm. Pick yourself up a faster fan and some resistor cables so you find and use the slowest speed it will allow.

[DanZaph]

One of my cubes has shut down - I happened to be sitting right by it and heard the relay click.  Red light and bottom pwr light are dark, fan twitches but does not spin.  I've swapped in a power supply that has been running two other cubes, and I get the same symtpoms.

I opened it up and checked the board - I see no evidence of overheat.  I shorted the two power relay leads and all the lights come one, but with no fan I'm not inclined to run it for more than a few seconds that way.

Is it possible that the fan is just bad?  I don't have a similar one to swap in tonight.
While preparing to order a fan, does anyone know what RPM the stock fans run at?  I see another post about a 2900 rpm 90mm fan, but I'd rather not have that noise level.  I guess more importantly, does anyone know what RPM the device wants to see?

Other thoughts about what could cause this?

Try swapping fans between the two Cubes to determine if it is the fan.
I think I saw in a previous post that the fans were variable speed, search back in this thread (I have no idea how to do that, help anyone?). They have there conductors, one is a tachometer (speed) signal so the Cube can control the speed with the feedback.

My guess is that the fan failed, the controller no longer saw a speed signal and shut down the mining power relay.

You would want to get a fan with a tachometer (three wire connector) and either a ball bearings or fluid (rifle) bearing for lower noise and longer life. The fan size is 120mm by 25mm.

[divinesnail01]

One of my cubes has shut down - I happened to be sitting right by it and heard the relay click.  Red light and bottom pwr light are dark, fan twitches but does not spin.  I've swapped in a power supply that has been running two other cubes, and I get the same symtpoms.

I opened it up and checked the board - I see no evidence of overheat.  I shorted the two power relay leads and all the lights come one, but with no fan I'm not inclined to run it for more than a few seconds that way.

Is it possible that the fan is just bad?  I don't have a similar one to swap in tonight.
While preparing to order a fan, does anyone know what RPM the stock fans run at?  I see another post about a 2900 rpm 90mm fan, but I'd rather not have that noise level.  I guess more importantly, does anyone know what RPM the device wants to see?

Other thoughts about what could cause this?

Try swapping fans between the two Cubes to determine if it is the fan.
I think I saw in a previous post that the fans were variable speed, search back in this thread (I have no idea how to do that, help anyone?). They have there conductors, one is a tachometer (speed) signal so the Cube can control the speed with the feedback.

My guess is that the fan failed, the controller no longer saw a speed signal and shut down the mining power relay.

You would want to get a fan with a tachometer (three wire connector) and either a ball bearings or fluid (rifle) bearing for lower noise and longer life. The fan size is 120mm by 25mm.

I found one of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835119032 in my "scrounge" bin.  It seems to work well.  A couple of things to note, however:  it will only mount with the airflow reversed from stock (not necessarily a bad thing) and the aluminum case is enough thicker than the plastic fans that you must be really careful in placement to get it to go in.
The cube came right up, though, so I'm happy.

[DanZaph]

I found one of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835119032 in my "scrounge" bin.  It seems to work well.  A couple of things to note, however:  it will only mount with the airflow reversed from stock (not necessarily a bad thing) and the aluminum case is enough thicker than the plastic fans that you must be really careful in placement to get it to go in.
The cube came right up, though, so I'm happy.

Dogie has posted that reversing the fan is good, that it will increase the mining speed slightly.

[gamersglory]

I would advice no one to buy ASIC miner Cubes as they break to easily and are too expensive. As I have 2 and both are now doorstops. Wasted too much time and money on them. 

[dogie]

I would advice no one to buy ASIC miner Cubes as they break to easily and are too expensive. As I have 2 and both are now doorstops. Wasted too much time and money on them. 

Nothing wrong with cubes, failure rates are in line with anything else on the market?

[ceslick]

@gamersglory, want to get rid of your doorstops?

[k3t3r]

Hi all, great thread, thank you dogie for these guides.
Everything is working great, I am wondering if it is possible to add a failover pool or even load balance to slush's proxy.
Any ideas how these might need to be formatted?

Maybe there is a thread for slush's proxy, I will have a look for that too.

[dogie]

Hi all, great thread, thank you dogie for these guides.
Everything is working great, I am wondering if it is possible to add a failover pool or even load balance to slush's proxy.
Any ideas how these might need to be formatted?

Maybe there is a thread for slush's proxy, I will have a look for that too.

Can't balance load with these. You can run a backup pool, gets a bit more complicated so I don't include it in the OP.

Duplicate the proxy and put it in another folder called Proxy2.
Create another .bat file with a different pool and with -gp 8333 and -sp 3334. This changes the ports the second proxy lives on so they can be on the same IP (that of your computer) and not conflict.

So you will have:
1st proxy

Code:

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Proxy
mining_proxy.exe -o eu-stratum.btcguild.com -p 3333

2nd proxy

Code:

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Proxy2
mining_proxy.exe -o stratum.btcguild.com -p 3333 -gp 8333 -sp 3334

On the cube config page, edit the second repeated port to 8333. If it detects the 1st proxy/pool is down, it will attempt the second proxy/pool. $$$Profit$$$

[k3t3r]

Excellent 

So I am geussing either of the following are ok.

Have the same worker names in the back up pools
or have cube config page workers set as proxy1user:password.proxy2user:pass

thanks for this and your other guides.
I will be looking at the s1 guide shortly too. 

[dogie]

Excellent 

So I am geussing either of the following are ok.

Have the same worker names in the back up pools
or have cube config page workers set as proxy1user:password.proxy2user:pass

thanks for this and your other guides.
I will be looking at the s1 guide shortly too. 

Either works, simplest on pools where they have regional servers you can swap to.

[divinesnail01]

Hello everyone

Has anyone tried this power supply?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182072&ignorebbr=1

Showing 64 amps available on a single 12v rail.

they're out of the usual cx750m corsair unit.

'snail

[dogie]

That will be good.

[divinesnail01]

Really short version:  The more you can isolate these on the network the happier they'll be...

[snip]

Longer version:  I didn't think the Android issue would apply to me...

The issue with Android is using IP addresses after the DHCP lease expires, not traffic. See ”DHCP client ignores lease time”: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=11236.

So, a good solution is to put the Android devices on a separate logical network. If the primary network is 192.168.1.x then create a second network such as 192.168.2.x (both with a net mask of 255.255.255.0). Unfortunately that means two routers.

Is this what you did with the second router?

And that was exactly some of my reasoning for not worrying about the Androids:  Though on the same logical network, the Android device addresses were assigned in a different part of the address space than the addresses I was using for the cubes and the proxies; I have my DHCP leases set for 7 days; my DHCP server pings the address as it's being assigned to be sure that there isn't a "squatter" on the address before offering it.  It's pretty difficult for a lease to expire and create an address conflict under those circumstances.  Further, I saw the same behavior with the proxies in my DHCP space as I did with them assigned statically outside of the DHCP pool.

I haven't spent the time, and probably won't, to dive deeper into what's going on on the network, but I can say with some confidence that it's not an issue of IP address conflicts, unless the android devices are "making up" addresses to use elsewhere in the address space, and managing to do that without causing other devices to squawk about an address conflict.  Ultimately, however, that turns into a Quixotic discussion - there definitely IS something about having cubes on the same network with other devices, likely Androids, and the solution is the same regardless of the root cause: get them isolated from each other.

My solution has been to create a completely separate physical network.  I've used different IP addressing for that network, but since they aren't interconnected, it really doesn't matter.  It's a little bit of an extreme solution, but very effective.

A follow up seems in order.

Since moving the cubes and proxy machines to a separate network, I have had no / none / zero / not any of the communication problems I was seeing, and it has been 13 days.
Whatever the reason (I'm still not buying the IP address conflict theory, but I'm not going to go back and run a network sniffer to prove it) these little monsters really like being on their own network.

Perhaps that will help someone else who may struggle.

'snail

[socal]

Has anyone been able to set their Cubes up to use a wireless connection via the USB port on the back or even a Raspberry Pi instead of a wired connection? Just curious since this would make my life so much easier if it is possible since all I have is a laptop and don't want to tie it down just to feed my Cube an Internet connection and due to physical space constraints around my router it wouldn't really be feasible to run a direct line to the router either. Just wondering because with two children running around the house I would much rather have my Cube setup as a wireless stand-alone unit that I can put safely into a corner of my room/closet without worrying about it getting demolished by my kids

[dogie]

Has anyone been able to set their Cubes up to use a wireless connection via the USB port on the back or even a Raspberry Pi instead of a wired connection? Just curious since this would make my life so much easier if it is possible since all I have is a laptop and don't want to tie it down just to feed my Cube an Internet connection and due to physical space constraints around my router it wouldn't really be feasible to run a direct line to the router either. Just wondering because with two children running around the house I would much rather have my Cube setup as a wireless stand-alone unit that I can put safely into a corner of my room/closet without worrying about it getting demolished by my kids

The USB is purely for debugging and serves no purpose for us. It has to receive ethernet. Use one of these if you want to run the cube remotely:
http://goo.gl/3436Iw