Official FutureBit Apollo LTC Image and Support thread

[ejonathonw]

Pretty sure that means there's something wrong with the info in your pool setup.
Are you trying to connect to an auto switching pool?

[jstefanop]

Got my Apollo today, however I keep getting connection issues. Not sure what to check. It was up and working for a minute or two in the beginning now I can't seem to get the connection to work. I can get to the IP address but it keeps saying that the miner isn't connecting.

Error: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:4028

This means you put in your pool credentials in wrong.

[miningcoins]

I have pimped up the Apollo with lots of heatsinks to reduce the noise further (fan runs below 1620rpm at 30 degrees C ambient) and I run it without the case. As a minimum I suggest adding a heatsink to the R44 power converter at it is quite hot (>60 degrees C).

https://imgur.com/a/SB6A4pu

I use the following heatsinks:
20 off 20x20x10mm
11 off 8x30x8mm
2 off 6x4x4mm
1 off 14x14x5mm

The 8x30x8mm heatsinks probably help cool the Apollo down the most as they are at the base of the main heatsink.
Smaller 20x20x5mm heatsinks would probably work just as well and be cheaper at the top of the main heatsink by the fan.

[devincrypt]

Are you saying the stock Apollo is inadequately cooled?

Has anyone actually experienced overheating damage?

[miningcoins]

With the case on and no heatsinks the Apollo stopped hashing at high temperatures (40 degrees C ambient).
A restart fixed the issue, but this happened to me a few times in ECO mode with the fan on auto.
I think the fan could not cool the Apollo enough at high temperatures as it is only rated to run up to 40 degrees C ambient.

So I added all the heatsinks and improved the cooling in my loft.
Both of these really helped and the heatsinks stopped the fan intermittently surging to high rpm which was annoying.
Now my loft ambient peaks at 33 degrees C ambient and the Apollo is very quiet.

As the Apollo is not so cheap I wanted to protect my investment for a long life so added the heatsinks and removed the case.
I would recommend others to do this if they are running the Apollo above 35 degrees C ambient.

[jstefanop]

I have pimped up the Apollo with lots of heatsinks to reduce the noise further (fan runs below 1620rpm at 30 degrees C ambient) and I run it without the case. As a minimum I suggest adding a heatsink to the R44 power converter at it is quite hot (>60 degrees C).

https://imgur.com/a/SB6A4pu

I use the following heatsinks:
20 off 20x20x10mm
11 off 8x30x8mm
2 off 6x4x4mm
1 off 14x14x5mm

The 8x30x8mm heatsinks probably help cool the Apollo down the most as they are at the base of the main heatsink.
Smaller 20x20x5mm heatsinks would probably work just as well and be cheaper at the top of the main heatsink by the fan.

R44 is the inductor to the main power stage. This is designed to run a 90C+ ...60C for this part of the power stage is pretty cool. There is no need to put heatsinks on it, if anything the smaller heatsink right behind it probably helps the most, since thats the main MOSFET block and produces the most heat. These are rated for 125C but cooling them down helps with power efficiency and longevity of the mosfets..but again this is not needed.

[jstefanop]

With the case on and no heatsinks the Apollo stopped hashing at high temperatures (40 degrees C ambient).
A restart fixed the issue, but this happened to me a few times in ECO mode with the fan on auto.
I think the fan could not cool the Apollo enough at high temperatures as it is only rated to run up to 40 degrees C ambient.

Have you installed the latest firmware image? You were probably experiencing the MCU overheat issue, and the latest image fixes this issue. If you want to make sure your MCU does not overheat pull it out of its socket and put a heatsink on the ARM processor (the big black chip on the other side of the blue board).

Thats probably the best use of all those heatsinks

The main heatsink/fan for the ASICs is way overbuilt. They can both dissipate over 300 watts of heat at max fan airflow.

[vaporjoes]

I have three rolling in balanced mode.   I keep it at 15% fan and put a Thermaltake USB self standing fan in front of each.  It really does make a difference. A solid 5-8c temp drop. 

Two power supplies... EVGA 450BT runes the first two and a 450BR to run the third and possibly 4th one. 

I had an issue with the 3rd one.  It would get 20% hash errors on balanced no matter what I did.  I contacted support and they had me adjust the voltage and mhz to mimic balanced but give it some extra voltage. Worked like a charm.

___________________________________________
Picture of the set up.

https://i.ibb.co/DgH2y1v/cccxxx.jpg
___________________________________________

[maxinflow]

My Apollo arrived last Friday, well packaged and no damage. Setup was a breeze, up and running in less than 30min, maybe another 30min researching different pool options. This is the first time I've attempted mining so kudos to you for making it painless, Dashboard is clean and the Apollo is beautiful, now I want a whole row of them. A very simple and sleek design I played around with the WiFi and successfully connected on both my routers, seems my signal is fairly weak and spotty so the Apollo dropped off within a couple minutes. Running in Eco mode is very quiet and preferred since I have this sitting right on my desktop, the noise is quite tolerable (for the moment) but once the WiFi options improves it will be relocated to run on balanced or turbo in the future. Can't wait for updates, thanks again! Now off to figure out some good pools, if anyone can recommend anything, by all means... my new addiction...HASH RATE!

[pancakehero]

My Apollo arrived last Friday, well packaged and no damage. Setup was a breeze, up and running in less than 30min, maybe another 30min researching different pool options. This is the first time I've attempted mining so kudos to you for making it painless, Dashboard is clean and the Apollo is beautiful, now I want a whole row of them. A very simple and sleek design I played around with the WiFi and successfully connected on both my routers, seems my signal is fairly weak and spotty so the Apollo dropped off within a couple minutes. Running in Eco mode is very quiet and preferred since I have this sitting right on my desktop, the noise is quite tolerable (for the moment) but once the WiFi options improves it will be relocated to run on balanced or turbo in the future. Can't wait for updates, thanks again! Now off to figure out some good pools, if anyone can recommend anything, by all means... my new addiction...HASH RATE!

Hi man, good to here you're all set up ! Maybe you can join our party with apollo only miners ;p someone on the forum set one up !

stratum+tcp://scrypt.mine.zergpool.com:3433

user=your ltc wallet address i.e LKEyiGGfp1ZjTQxwAB7CddRv7Nrrc1iQQt

password     c=LTC,m=party.Apollo

[Pusdad]

Any Apollo firmware updates in the works ? Any chance of faster hash speeds ?
Thanks

[jstefanop]

Any Apollo firmware updates in the works ? Any chance of faster hash speeds ?
Thanks

No, any future updates will increase the reliability of mining, and probably some voltage/efficiency gains but hash speed will remain between 100-140 MH/s. Im focused on brining the big functionality updates like full node/wallet functions etc.

[devincrypt]

The some voltage/efficiency gains things are always welcome but

bringing the big functionality updates like full node/wallet functions....

Will either of those increase what goes into a wallet? IE, more coin?

[philipma1957]

The some voltage/efficiency gains things are always welcome but

bringing the big functionality updates like full node/wallet functions....

Will either of those increase what goes into a wallet? IE, more coin?

 to be fair making some money is part of the game. So I understand your concern.

So the scoop is
This is the most efficient miner there is for LTC so watt per hash no better.
This is not the cheapest miner there is $ per hash for LTC.

I know this miner can run quietly and be used in many spots.
Mine will mine 24/7/365 even though it most likely will lose money
I purchased it to support the designer.
The designer gave out valuable  software for the bitmain L3+
I save 16 x 100 = 1600 watts of power 24/7/365 on my solar array hosted L3+ gear.
So I tossed him some LTC and I purchased one of these.
It is solo mining Ltc and Doge  I hit 2 doge blocks so far.
If I hit a LTC block I will give the op a LTC coin.

As for a node I run a node and a full ltc wallet  but I have 30 pcs and 100 pcs of different mining gear.

You look to be smaller scale.
So it is a low end machine for power cost it is very efficient.
it is stable.  you can actually earn some coin with it.  all good things.

do not knock voltage and efficiency gains bro = most imporant numbers at the moment.

[devincrypt]

My question was legitimate. The first couple of lines of your reply is obvious and the stats of the Apollo are a given. To rephrase my question - are the hash speeds a fixed limitation of the hardware?

I prefer you don't answer philipma - please don't force others to read how wonderful your setup is nor your gloating. It was my understanding this was an Apollo thread - not a boasting with non-Apollo hardware one (or you have 1?).

BTW - you said "do not knock voltage and efficiency gains bro" - well gee bro, I never said I knocked them and in my first line said they are always welcome.

BTW2 - jstefanop's past entries have stated their market target - and it didn't include you, so back off and stop attacking beginning Apollo users just because you don't like how a question is phrased.

BTW3 - Yeah, I'm small scale as are many others here. Scales are relative so just remember your a minnow dweeb compared to the really big fish miners.

[whiteogre]

To rephrase my question - are the hash speeds a fixed limitation of the hardware?

Kind of fixed. There's some random element involved in the quality of the ASICs you have but that can't be changed after manufacturing. As a result, I'd bet the operation modes currently provided in the Apollo software are safe (or worst case) averages to ensure the software works without issues with almost all units. The variables that can still be changed are:

• voltage
• frequency
• temperature
• bfgminer
• other parts of the Apollo software

Playing with the voltage and frequency values could provide some unit specific efficiency or speed gains, as was the case with the Moonlanders. Temperature is obviously also part of the equation if you go for maximum speed. Since bfgminer isn't static, some new version could theoretically improve something. The other parts of the Apollo software are mentioned mainly from efficiency point of view as the MCU also has some consumption but it really doesn't matter when compared to what the ASICs need.

I'd guess some future version of the software could include some kind of autotune for the voltage and frequency values if speed or efficiency is the target at some specific hash rate but I don't see that as a priority and there hasn't been any discussion regarding such being even in development.

[devincrypt]

Thanks whiteogre! - pretty much what I thought. I have purchased 2 so far and still learning about crypto stuff. I know efforts, as mentioned by jstefanop, to bring full node to Apollo. I understand what that means but not sure how that would impact mining. For example, it seems like less network latency time would be realized so there should be less stale shares. Just guessing.

I did put a usb fan in front of each which helps as they purr perfectly in balance mode.

[roudaille]

Hey,

any work done around the GUI? Would be great to have the capability to manage with one ApolloUI instance the rest of the ASICs.
Cheers

Any Apollo firmware updates in the works ? Any chance of faster hash speeds ?
Thanks

No, any future updates will increase the reliability of mining, and probably some voltage/efficiency gains but hash speed will remain between 100-140 MH/s. Im focused on brining the big functionality updates like full node/wallet functions etc.

[roudaille]

Thanks whiteogre! - pretty much what I thought. I have purchased 2 so far and still learning about crypto stuff. I know efforts, as mentioned by jstefanop, to bring full node to Apollo. I understand what that means but not sure how that would impact mining. For example, it seems like less network latency time would be realized so there should be less stale shares. Just guessing.

I did put a usb fan in front of each which helps as they purr perfectly in balance mode.

I've got 2 as well and use this https://i.imgur.com/PDY5ruN.jpg
It's using one usb port of my ASIC and cooling down really well both MCUs thus Miners. In that way I can run both in balance mode with 10% fan speed.

[roudaille]

Any Apollo firmware updates in the works ? Any chance of faster hash speeds ?
Thanks

No, any future updates will increase the reliability of mining, and probably some voltage/efficiency gains but hash speed will remain between 100-140 MH/s. Im focused on brining the big functionality updates like full node/wallet functions etc.

Would be great for full node to have the possibility to sync the blockchain to an external drive so that it preserves SD card