Basic Mining Kit

[djsmiles]

Hello all. Looking for a simple, all in one type kit that I can setup and run with my teenage boys. I buy/sell/trade with BTC, and own several different altcoins.  And I am looking for something fun to do with my kids to help keep them out of trouble and engaged, especially with all this Covid stuff going on.

I'm not really familiar with the hardware aspect of mining, but I am more than willing to learn.

I'm not looking for anything fancy, or to turn any real profit.(although, it would be nice)  I really am just looking for some sort of all in one type kit, that is relatively inexpensive, and somewhat simple to set up and use.  Does such a kit exist?  Or is this something I will have to piece together?  I just want something kind of basic, so I can have some fun with my kids.

I did do a search here, and either failed at it, or a thread like this doesn't exist.

Thanks in advance.

[os2sam]

There is no all in one kit ready to go.

But, Sidehack's R606 and a Pi 4 would be an excellent candidate for what you want.  You can find it here.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5053833.msg47068859#msg47068859
and here
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5131245.msg50578412#msg50578412

Setting up the Rasberry Pi 4 would be a really good thing for kids to do and they could do allot of other projects with that as well.

I like your idea, good luck with it.
Sam

[djsmiles]

Thank you.  I have done a lot of searching, and never come across a kit.  But I really never though a Pi could do any of this. 

[adaseb]

Well there are 2 ways of mining these days ( i will ignore FGPA's and such)

1) ASICs - Basically its a big box and you only need to give it some electricity and plug in your LAN and you are all set. The newer ASICs are expensive but if you don't care about pulling a profit go to your Craislist or FB marketplace and buy some old second hand Antminer for like $50. Its a great way to learn how mining and crypto works.

2) GPU mining - Basically all you need for this is a standard PC with just 1 PCIe slot where you can buy some cheap RX 470 8GB GPU for like $100 and can mine alt-coins such as ETH. You make like $0.50 per day with $0.10 kwh power. So more profitable than an old Antminer but more complicated to set up.

[os2sam]

Thank you.  I have done a lot of searching, and never come across a kit.  But I really never though a Pi could do any of this. 

I'm using a Pi 4 to run CGMiner for my two R606's. Along with an ATX Power supply that makes a pretty good kit.

Pi's have often been used as a controller for ASIC miners.  Plus they have allot of other uses too.  CPU consumption for CGMiner is very low.

[styleshifter]

You could buy a Futurebit Apollo.
It starts at $374.99 and mines Litecoin.
You can even run a Full Litecoin Node on it.

https://shop.futurebit.io/products/apollo-ltc-pod-asic-miner-for-scrypt-algorithm-cryptocurrencies-batch-2

[dikobraz123]

Well there are 2 ways of mining these days ( i will ignore FGPA's and such)

1) ASICs - Basically its a big box and you only need to give it some electricity and plug in your LAN and you are all set. The newer ASICs are expensive but if you don't care about pulling a profit go to your Craislist or FB marketplace and buy some old second hand Antminer for like $50. Its a great way to learn how mining and crypto works.

2) GPU mining - Basically all you need for this is a standard PC with just 1 PCIe slot where you can buy some cheap RX 470 8GB GPU for like $100 and can mine alt-coins such as ETH. You make like $0.50 per day with $0.10 kwh power. So more profitable than an old Antminer but more complicated to set up.

Actually, there is a 3rd way also - CPU mining. Monero and some shitcoins are CPU mineable. You can even make Raspberry Pi 4 (or any other decent Single Board Computer - Odroid XU4, Rockpro64,...) to mine Monero. A few results of SBC-s are listed on monerobenchmarks.info, so it looks that people like to play (or educate kids) with SBC-s. Don't expect any profit, though. For profit with Monero mining you need newer Ryzen.

[grendel25]

Alt coins will get a lot of attention when bitcoin is done running.  Bitcoin running could very well proceed all the way through 2021 which means the next year is a terrific time to speculatively mine and you can do that with just about any CPU/GPU setup. 

Non-referral links in my signature to a good speculative mining option and I'm sure there are other mining options out there as well. 

It's fun to look back on coins you were mining that were maybe worth .30 cents and then to see them worth $1, $10, and maybe more a year from today.