Official FutureBit Apollo BTC Software/Image and Support thread

[jstefanop]

Been trying to fight this, but it's a shared codebase we co-maintain and we are still under NDA. The 14nm IC is essentially "EOL" so hopefully we will be able to push to open source the firmware.

The 14nm IC is the one in the original Apollo? That would be ideal. Looking forward to your update regarding this.

Updated Apollo-Miner binaries are in the works for the Apollo 2 release in the coming weeks.

Are there going to be any new miner binaries updates for the original Apollo or just for the Apollo 2?

Yes 14nm was the regional and 5nm is the Apollo II

Both binaries will be updated with a bunch of fixes and updates (major fix is the device now powers down when there is no active internet connection).

[n0nce]

Both binaries will be updated with a bunch of fixes and updates (major fix is the device now powers down when there is no active internet connection).

Would it resume hashing when the internet connection comes back or do you really mean a full device shutdown?

[zapomatic]

Can I point the FutureBit Apollo to a testnet mining pool or solo testnet mine?
I tried pointed it to a local Public Pool instance that's sitting on a testnet Bitcoin Core, but the FutureBit Apollo shows the pool as inactive (I even tried rebooting the futurebit).
Do I also need to update the FutureBit bitcoin.conf to testnet=1 and reboot--I would have thought the pool is doing the work of the testnet node behind the scenes...

[johnstewart]

Hello , Today my apollo stopped the mining.

I looked at the raw stats and it shows : "brokenPwc": 4

it seems that is the problem ... what is that is it broken forever ?

Thanks you

[poonasor]

has anyone tried to add btc usb miners to their futurebit apollos?

i'm just wondering if its possible to add like a USB hub and add some compact f usbs

[nullama]

has anyone tried to add btc usb miners to their futurebit apollos?

i'm just wondering if its possible to add like a USB hub and add some compact f usbs

It depends on the model you got.

The full model is basically the miner and a mini pc, so you should be able to connect any other miner to it, like a compac F for example.

If, on the other hand, you bought the miner only, then you don't have a computer in there to connect the miner. In fact you need a host computer to run this version of the Apollo. In that case you can use say a Raspberry Pi, and that Pi can also be connected to a compac F for example.

So, at the end of the day, if you have an Apollo mining correctly now, you should be able to add a compac F to the system that is running it.

Can I point the FutureBit Apollo to a testnet mining pool or solo testnet mine?
I tried pointed it to a local Public Pool instance that's sitting on a testnet Bitcoin Core, but the FutureBit Apollo shows the pool as inactive (I even tried rebooting the futurebit).
Do I also need to update the FutureBit bitcoin.conf to testnet=1 and reboot--I would have thought the pool is doing the work of the testnet node behind the scenes...

You should be able to connect to it.

Here's a guide I wrote to do just that, using a compac F as example, but should work the same with the Apollo:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5415335.0

[zentraveler]

Hi,

My Apollo 1 BTC Full node suddenly stopped running with no changes made on my side. Only the cooling fan was running at high speed with no LED's or lights on for the board or the NIC.

Successfully flashed a new SD card with the latest image but NO change..... It will not boot and no lights are coming on. Only the cooling fan.

Is there ANY after sales support for the Apollo's? Or do I just own an expensive paperweight at this point?

Thanks!

[jstefanop]

Hi,

My Apollo 1 BTC Full node suddenly stopped running with no changes made on my side. Only the cooling fan was running at high speed with no LED's or lights on for the board or the NIC.

Successfully flashed a new SD card with the latest image but NO change..... It will not boot and no lights are coming on. Only the cooling fan.

Is there ANY after sales support for the Apollo's? Or do I just own an expensive paperweight at this point?

Thanks!

We dont really monitor this forum anymore...all support is doing through email on the site, just either reply to your order email or reach out via contact form.

Also In the process of revamping our support site on a real support platform + knowlegebase...hope to have all that done after which ship out the initial Apollo II's

[jstefanop]

Can I point the FutureBit Apollo to a testnet mining pool or solo testnet mine?
I tried pointed it to a local Public Pool instance that's sitting on a testnet Bitcoin Core, but the FutureBit Apollo shows the pool as inactive (I even tried rebooting the futurebit).
Do I also need to update the FutureBit bitcoin.conf to testnet=1 and reboot--I would have thought the pool is doing the work of the testnet node behind the scenes...

the UI is not setup for testnet, with the launch of Apollo OS 2 you'll be able to switch to test net to test your solo mining setup (not on initial release but its in the works for a . release)

[zentraveler]

Hi,

My Apollo 1 BTC Full node suddenly stopped running with no changes made on my side. Only the cooling fan was running at high speed with no LED's or lights on for the board or the NIC.

Successfully flashed a new SD card with the latest image but NO change..... It will not boot and no lights are coming on. Only the cooling fan.

Is there ANY after sales support for the Apollo's? Or do I just own an expensive paperweight at this point?

Thanks!

We dont really monitor this forum anymore...all support is doing through email on the site, just either reply to your order email or reach out via contact form.

Also In the process of revamping our support site on a real support platform + knowlegebase...hope to have all that done after which ship out the initial Apollo II's

Appreciate the reply here and the update. Looking forward to the new support platform and will continue to reach out by email.

Thanks!

[SG11]

I'm looking for a guide that helps tune the apollo btc to improve watts/TH.  I can't seem to find any kind of link or article in this thread or from an actual internet search engine.  Anyone done any work on this made public?

[nullama]

I'm looking for a guide that helps tune the apollo btc to improve watts/TH.  I can't seem to find any kind of link or article in this thread or from an actual internet search engine.  Anyone done any work on this made public?

The most efficient default mode is ECO. That means you get the most TH per Watt in that mode out of the box.

You can then start fine tuning the startup script with different setting to get what you want. Personally I like to run it even lower than ECO to be able to basically run the whole miner virtually silent and still get around 1TH/s.

[cryptocookies2]

Hi I am New to futurebit mining

on my standard apollo It is blinking on and off Red light

is that normal? I am mining bitcoin with it currently
not sure if I am mining as fast as I should be.
thanks!

[heslo]

Hi I am New to futurebit mining

on my standard apollo It is blinking on and off Red light

is that normal? I am mining bitcoin with it currently
not sure if I am mining as fast as I should be.
thanks!

Yes, the blinking light means the unit is operating correctly and mining

[daniel.duese]

https://github.com/jstefanop/apolloui-v2/tree/dev

Is it possible to integrate this dev branch into a current Apollo Miner?
I tried to install the new Web Ui V2 on the miner using git clone and checkout dev via npm...Unfortunately I get an error message when building

[poonasor]

https://github.com/jstefanop/apolloui-v2/tree/dev

Is it possible to integrate this dev branch into a current Apollo Miner?
I tried to install the new Web Ui V2 on the miner using git clone and checkout dev via npm...Unfortunately I get an error message when building

whats your error?

[daniel.duese]

i change code in

/opt/apolloapi/backend/install

Line 33
git clone --single-branch --branch dev-BTC https://github.com/jstefanop/apolloapi-v2.git $APOLLO_DIR

line 35
git clone --single-branch --branch dev-BTC https://github.com/jstefanop/apolloui-v2.git $APOLLO_DIR/apolloui

and start the Install with #./install dev

Code:

root@futurebitbtc:/opt/apolloapi/backend# ./install dev
 ---> Installing required system packages
Hit:1 http://ports.ubuntu.com focal InRelease
Hit:2 http://ports.ubuntu.com focal-security InRelease                                                                             
Hit:4 http://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/saiarcot895/chromium-beta/ubuntu focal InRelease                                             
Hit:5 http://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/mozillateam/ppa/ubuntu focal InRelease                                                       
Hit:6 http://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/oibaf/graphics-drivers/ubuntu focal InRelease                                                
Hit:7 http://ports.ubuntu.com focal-updates InRelease                                                                              
Hit:8 http://ports.ubuntu.com focal-backports InRelease                  
Hit:3 https://box64.debian.ryanfortner.dev/debian ./ InRelease           
Ign:9 http://mirrors.xtom.de/armbian focal InRelease            
Err:10 http://fi.mirror.armbian.de/apt focal Release   
  404  Not Found [IP: 65.21.120.247 80]
Reading package lists... Done                          
E: The repository 'http://apt.armbian.com focal Release' no longer has a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  chromium-browser chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra python3-software-properties python3-update-manager software-properties-common software-properties-gtk ubuntu-advantage-tools update-manager
  update-manager-core
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
libreadline-dev is already the newest version (8.0-4).
net-tools is already the newest version (1.60+git20180626.aebd88e-1ubuntu1).
whois is already the newest version (5.5.6).
zip is already the newest version (3.0-11build1).
python-dev-is-python2 is already the newest version (2.7.17-4).
tor is already the newest version (0.4.2.7-1).
traceroute is already the newest version (1:2.1.0-2).
curl is already the newest version (7.68.0-1ubuntu2.21).
git is already the newest version (1:2.25.1-1ubuntu3.11).
libpq-dev is already the newest version (12.18-0ubuntu0.20.04.1).
libsqlite3-dev is already the newest version (3.31.1-4ubuntu0.6).
libssl-dev is already the newest version (1.1.1f-1ubuntu2.22).
libxml2-dev is already the newest version (2.9.10+dfsg-5ubuntu0.20.04.7).
libxslt1-dev is already the newest version (1.1.34-4ubuntu0.20.04.1).
network-manager is already the newest version (1.22.10-1ubuntu2.4).
openssh-server is already the newest version (1:8.2p1-4ubuntu0.11).
sudo is already the newest version (1.8.31-1ubuntu1.5).
vim is already the newest version (2:8.1.2269-1ubuntu5.22).
zlib1g-dev is already the newest version (1:1.2.11.dfsg-2ubuntu1.5).
imagemagick is already the newest version (8:6.9.10.23+dfsg-2.1ubuntu11.9).
libmagickwand-dev is already the newest version (8:6.9.10.23+dfsg-2.1ubuntu11.9).
build-essential is already the newest version (12.8ubuntu1.1).
iptables is already the newest version (1.8.4-3ubuntu2.1).
iputils-ping is already the newest version (3:20190709-3ubuntu1).
unzip is already the newest version (6.0-25ubuntu1.2).
htop is already the newest version (3.1.0-0~armbian20.08.2+1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.
 ---> Adding futurebit user
adduser: The user `futurebit' already exists.
 ---> Cloning Apollo app
 ---> Using DEV branch
fatal: destination path '/opt/apolloapi' already exists and is not an empty directory.
Cloning into '/opt/apolloapi/apolloui'...
warning: Could not find remote branch dev-BTC to clone.
fatal: Remote branch dev-BTC not found in upstream origin
 ---> Installing firewall
 ---> Installing NVM
Installing nvm
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/usr/local/nvm’: File exists
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 14926  100 14926    0     0  66337      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 66337
=> nvm is already installed in /usr/local/nvm, trying to update using git
=> => Compressing and cleaning up git repository

=> nvm source string already in /root/.bashrc
=> bash_completion source string already in /root/.bashrc
=> Close and reopen your terminal to start using nvm or run the following to use it now:

export NVM_DIR="/usr/local/nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"  # This loads nvm
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion"  # This loads nvm bash_completion
v14.16.1 is already installed.
Now using node v14.16.1 (npm v6.14.12)
default -> 14.16.1 (-> v14.16.1)
 ---> Installing API modules

> yarn@1.22.22 preinstall /usr/local/nvm/versions/node/v14.16.1/lib/node_modules/yarn
> :; (node ./preinstall.js > /dev/null 2>&1 || true)

/usr/local/nvm/versions/node/v14.16.1/bin/yarn -> /usr/local/nvm/versions/node/v14.16.1/lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js
/usr/local/nvm/versions/node/v14.16.1/bin/yarnpkg -> /usr/local/nvm/versions/node/v14.16.1/lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js
+ yarn@1.22.22
updated 1 package in 2.161s
yarn install v1.22.22
warning package.json: License should be a valid SPDX license expression
warning apolloapi@2.0.0: License should be a valid SPDX license expression
[1/5] Validating package.json...
warning apolloapi@2.0.0: License should be a valid SPDX license expression
[2/5] Resolving packages...
success Already up-to-date.
Done in 1.06s.
 ---> Installing UI modules
./install: line 79: cd: /opt/apolloapi/apolloui: No such file or directory
yarn install v1.22.22
warning package.json: License should be a valid SPDX license expression
warning apolloapi@2.0.0: License should be a valid SPDX license expression
[1/5] Validating package.json...
warning apolloapi@2.0.0: License should be a valid SPDX license expression
[2/5] Resolving packages...
success Already up-to-date.
Done in 1.11s.
 ---> Building UI (could take few minutes)
yarn run v1.22.22
warning package.json: License should be a valid SPDX license expression
$ pkg . --targets node8-linux-armv7 --no-bytecode
> pkg@4.5.1
> Fetching base Node.js binaries to PKG_CACHE_PATH
  fetched-v8.17.0-linux-armv7  [                    ] 0%
> Error! 404 Not Found
  https://github.com/zeit/pkg-fetch/releases/download/v2.6/uploaded-v2.6-node-v8.17.0-linux-armv7
> Asset not found by direct link:
  {"tag":"v2.6","name":"uploaded-v2.6-node-v8.17.0-linux-armv7"}
> Not found in GitHub releases:
  {"tag":"v2.6","name":"uploaded-v2.6-node-v8.17.0-linux-armv7"}
> Building base binary from source:
  built-v8.17.0-linux-armv7
> Error! Not able to build for 'armv7' here, only for 'arm64'
error Command failed with exit code 2.
info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/run for documentation about this command.
 ---> Starting firewall
 ---> Installing miner binaries
cp: cannot create regular file '/opt/apolloapi/backend/apollo-miner/futurebit-miner': Text file busy
 ---> Installing systemd files
 Installation complete

[cryptocookies2]

edited: nvm fixed my problem

note to selfs

Dont turn computer down first without first powering down apollo miner
on standalone miners
im 10 days old mining with the miner and turned my computer off while apollo was not mining but still running.
as soon as i turned off my computer becuase it crashed. and had to hold power button on computer.  the apollo power supply now makes a buzzing noise since doing that, and its  not from the fan on power supply

[daniel.duese]

it works now - looks nice !!!

https://duse.de/Apollo.png

[heslo]

it works now - looks nice !!!

That looks great!