Official FutureBit Apollo LTC Image and Support thread

[VictorGT]

So if i upgrade my batch 2 unit with new software and plug in the fast 64gb usb drive and reconnect what happens?  Is everything same as normal?  Do i still point the miner in the direction of a pool?   

Of course, that is not enough. You must follow carefully instructions at firts post of this thread. Did you read it?

[1714315151]

1714315151

[1714315151]

1714315151

[1714315151]

1714315151

[1714315151]

1714315151

[estacionsj]

When u upgrade the micro SD CARD with new software ure going to re enter all new login info and pool info. One it’s up and running shut down miner from interface , plug in 64gb fast usb and then restart

[roudaille]

Hi,

got one of my Apollo's PCIE connector overheated this night.
2x Apollos powered by a Corsair VS550 80 PLUS White, both in Balanced mode.
Both Apollos ran for 1.5 years with no issue.

Does any one of you already got this? Do you think I can use the last PCIE connector?
Thanks for advice.

https://imgur.com/a/ibawGmw

[hnelson01]

I have 2 batch 1 Apollos and have installed the upgrade kit on one of them. I have 2 questions:

1.  Everything seems to be working fine on the upgraded Apollo, although the miner dashboard shows the hashrate 121.19 and does not change.  Is this a glitch on the new image?

2.  I ran both Apollos on the original image for months without interruption. (Using Litecoinpool).  Prior to the latest upgrade I put image 1_29 on both Apollos and each day or two they would disconnect from the pool. Although still online, I suspected something related to the Infinity pod they are on in my garage so I connected both via wireless and it seemed to improve.  Now that I have one using the full node image and one using 1_29 the full node image seems to stay connected to the pool, but the other drops off each day and I must reboot the Apollo to reconnect.  My question is can I use the full node image on the Apollo that is not upgraded?

Appreciate the help.

Also of interest, I found a block on litecoinpool a couple of days ago.  First time ever.  Of course mining on the pool there was no monetary reward for it, but interesting!

[jarvisparvis]

I have 2 batch 1 Apollos and have installed the upgrade kit on one of them. I have 2 questions:

1.  Everything seems to be working fine on the upgraded Apollo, although the miner dashboard shows the hashrate 121.19 and does not change.  Is this a glitch on the new image?

2.  I ran both Apollos on the original image for months without interruption. (Using Litecoinpool).  Prior to the latest upgrade I put image 1_29 on both Apollos and each day or two they would disconnect from the pool. Although still online, I suspected something related to the Infinity pod they are on in my garage so I connected both via wireless and it seemed to improve.  Now that I have one using the full node image and one using 1_29 the full node image seems to stay connected to the pool, but the other drops off each day and I must reboot the Apollo to reconnect.  My question is can I use the full node image on the Apollo that is not upgraded?

Appreciate the help.

Also of interest, I found a block on litecoinpool a couple of days ago.  First time ever.  Of course mining on the pool there was no monetary reward for it, but interesting!

Yes you can thats what im doing on my batch until i get the ordered kit through. The panel is the same apart from the addition of a button for node dashboard and if you press that it just gives a message along the line of not functional with batch 1 etc. But otherwise you can mine with this image as with all previous images.

[VictorGT]

My question is can I use the full node image on the Apollo that is not upgraded?

Yes, of course. I also had small stability problems in the past, but they dissapear with full node software. UPGRADE SOFTWARE ALSO ON NOT FULL NODE APOLLOs.

[vsc-miner]

Batch-3 Apollo Miner - full node is up and running !! Along with its siblings Batch-1 (3) and Batch-2 (1) ... Happy mining

https://imgur.com/5s4CF66

[mickeykool]

Batch-3 Apollo Miner - full node is up and running !! Along with its siblings Batch-1 (3) and Batch-2 (1) ... Happy mining

https://imgur.com/5s4CF66

nice! 

[Jota_US]

So something really strange is happening.
- Last week (I posted this earlier): The miner stopped mining but was still online (with hashrate at 0). This somehow corrupted the node's blockchain so I had to retransfer it to the usb and everything was back to normal.

- Last week end at one point the fan went at 100% for no apparent reason (I was in balanced mode), the temperatures were not too high but the dashboard was unresponsive and the fan was at 100% so I had to reboot the Apollo with the switch. This time it did not corrupt the blockchain because the node went right back up.

- Yesterday it went offline for some time (my pool tells me when the miner is offline) but I was not home so I figured there was a glitch with Internet because when I got back home it was mining like nothing had happened.

- Today it went offline again but this time I was home and Internet did not go out so I don't know what happened I just restarted it with the dashboard and it was working again. Later today the Apollo actually turned off (LED off) but the PSU was on. I actually thought it had fried.
Did a manual reboot, without the USB though because I want to test it for a few days just mining not running the node. It's mining now.

Is anybody experiencing this? What can be the cause? It seems like since I upgraded to node I have a lot of problems because it was running for almost a year with no issue.

[TheRipler]

Is anybody experiencing this? What can be the cause? It seems like since I upgraded to node I have a lot of problems because it was running for almost a year with no issue.

I had a couple of lockups in beta because the USB stick I was running was a bit temperature sensitive. I had to up the fan to keep the MCU cooler, and didn't have a problem after that.

I've got a Samsung USB for it now.

[jstefanop]

Hi,

got one of my Apollo's PCIE connector overheated this night.
2x Apollos powered by a Corsair VS550 80 PLUS White, both in Balanced mode.
Both Apollos ran for 1.5 years with no issue.

Does any one of you already got this? Do you think I can use the last PCIE connector?
Thanks for advice.

https://imgur.com/a/ibawGmw

Wow never seen one that bad. This is why I stress to always check your connectors once in a while to see if they are hot, and to never run off one plug if your using a third party PSU.

You can use the other connector, but I would not run it past eco mode otherwise you risk doing the same thing to that plug.

[Jota_US]

Is anybody experiencing this? What can be the cause? It seems like since I upgraded to node I have a lot of problems because it was running for almost a year with no issue.

I had a couple of lockups in beta because the USB stick I was running was a bit temperature sensitive. I had to up the fan to keep the MCU cooler, and didn't have a problem after that.

I've got a Samsung USB for it now.

I have a Samsung USB as well, one that was recommended.

[jstefanop]

So something really strange is happening.
- Last week (I posted this earlier): The miner stopped mining but was still online (with hashrate at 0). This somehow corrupted the node's blockchain so I had to retransfer it to the usb and everything was back to normal.

- Last week end at one point the fan went at 100% for no apparent reason (I was in balanced mode), the temperatures were not too high but the dashboard was unresponsive and the fan was at 100% so I had to reboot the Apollo with the switch. This time it did not corrupt the blockchain because the node went right back up.

- Yesterday it went offline for some time (my pool tells me when the miner is offline) but I was not home so I figured there was a glitch with Internet because when I got back home it was mining like nothing had happened.

- Today it went offline again but this time I was home and Internet did not go out so I don't know what happened I just restarted it with the dashboard and it was working again. Later today the Apollo actually turned off (LED off) but the PSU was on. I actually thought it had fried.
Did a manual reboot, without the USB though because I want to test it for a few days just mining not running the node. It's mining now.

Is anybody experiencing this? What can be the cause? It seems like since I upgraded to node I have a lot of problems because it was running for almost a year with no issue.

Some instability is to be expected when your running a full node, especially if your running of an older usb drive. The controller is near its memory limit when running a full node. My test units some have been running for two months straight and others reboot every few days.

Just comes down to the quality of the drives and each controller unfortunately.

[jstefanop]

Is anybody experiencing this? What can be the cause? It seems like since I upgraded to node I have a lot of problems because it was running for almost a year with no issue.

I had a couple of lockups in beta because the USB stick I was running was a bit temperature sensitive. I had to up the fan to keep the MCU cooler, and didn't have a problem after that.

I've got a Samsung USB for it now.

I have a Samsung USB as well, one that was recommended.

Yea the proximity to the miner most likely effects the USB drive if you get one that’s more sensitive to heat and don’t have good airflow near the unit.

I was going to only recommend SSD and USB drives with cables but these flash drives were a good compromise of cost vs performance, and of course they look super clean plugged into the Apollo 

[roudaille]

Hi,

got one of my Apollo's PCIE connector overheated this night.
2x Apollos powered by a Corsair VS550 80 PLUS White, both in Balanced mode.
Both Apollos ran for 1.5 years with no issue.

Does any one of you already got this? Do you think I can use the last PCIE connector?
Thanks for advice.

https://imgur.com/a/ibawGmw

Wow never seen one that bad. This is why I stress to always check your connectors once in a while to see if they are hot, and to never run off one plug if your using a third party PSU.

You can use the other connector, but I would not run it past eco mode otherwise you risk doing the same thing to that plug.

thanks for advice. Yeah I made an error having only one connector used in Balanced Mode with third party PSU. As you can see in image, second plastic line of my plug totally melted!
I switched my second Apollo back to Eco mode and will order guaranteed FutureBit PSU!

https://imgur.com/a/07diR8t

[vsc-miner]

I found my FULL node locked up this morning similar to JOTA_US, in my case I have the Apollo full version from FutureBit so wonder HW setup is not an issue perhaps. Would you think something happenned to some FuutureBiot nodes while interacting with the Litecoin network to cause this?

In my case, I was able to log in to the appollo and browse both minr and node dashboards, try to re-start things but nothing worked until I power off/on the box. I noticed I had to start the node again after the miner started doing its thing.

[RazerBlade]

Hello, i'm a newbie and thinking to buy an Apollo.
I juste have 2 questions :
- what is the interest to run a full node ?
- what benefit i can expected / month with this Apollo

Many thanks.

[paulrb]

Hello all. I have a couple Batch 1 Apollo miners.  I ordered the MCU upgrade kit for both and node for one of them.  I received my upgrade order and received an 8GB USB.   I thought we were supposed to use at least 64GB for the node.  Please clarify.  Thanks!

[paulrb]

I figured it out.   The package from Futurebit had the 64gb drive underneath the 8gb micro SD card.  Tricky packaging

[iDisturbia]

Hello, i'm a newbie and thinking to buy an Apollo.
I juste have 2 questions :
- what is the interest to run a full node ?
- what benefit i can expected / month with this Apollo

Many thanks.

Short answer; don’t bother.

Long answer; one of the most popular and trustworthy pools for LTC here:

https://www.litecoinpool.org/calc

If you even pay for electricity as low as .10 (USD), there will be loss.

Due to obvious reasons (google it!), the number of LTC miners are decreasing by day - first little guys / penny makers not wasting time / money and now big boys too. Sure the network difficulty decreases ... but the problem is LTC price also keeps going down affecting those who pay for power!

Hope, above answered your 2nd question!

As for your 1st question, absolutely nothing except helping network to become more secure thus helping the giant miners make more $$ - until LTC’s done - forever!

NOTE: as an owner of 1 batch 2 and about 8 or something Moonlander 2, I packed them all up and somewhere in the basement until I figure out what to do with them!! Also, above are my own thoughts based on extensive research on LTC / its founder’s activities.

However, perhaps some other experts on this fine board could share some behind the scene info not available anywhere else.

P.S If you are really interested to get in to this mining business (sort of making a few extra dollars and education), I recommend GPU mining. Check out whattomine.com for detailed info.