These are my opinions and observations with the Apollo 2 BTC Founders Edition Full Node Miner.
Packaging from Futurebit is always Apple like in quality.
The hardware itself is an absolute tank and is incredibly well built.
Overview Section:
Love the fact you can put the UI into "Dark Mode"
Mining:Over 9TH @ 345W on turbo which is great for a home miner. Love that these don't need a separate PSU.
Mining Integration with Apollo Gen1 BTC:Flawless.... Plugged in the unit and the hashboard showed up within seconds of a reboot. Couldn't ask for easier or better.
Adding 1 Gen 1 Apollo pushes this up to 12TH+ at around 544W according to the GUI.
*Wish the GUI would show the best share submitted for the session when using any other pool (not the solomining option) than built into the miner.*
Pool Configuration:Simple and straightforward.
*Wish there was the option for a failover pool.*
SoloMining:So the stats seem to be legit on the localized solo mining pool in solo mode with just a bit of latency on reporting the last share submitted.
"SOLO LAN Mining Point any Bitcoin Miner on your local network to your Solo Pool with the following URL: IP:3333 Username: <bitcoin address>"
Does this allow for btcadd.workernames? I assume it does as they show in the UI. However this should be clarified further to eliminate confusion.
Does this allow for more than 1 User? It appears so but I won't be trying until this is clarified further!
Showing the difficulty per workername would be helpful as well.
*There needs to be mouseovers explaining what each stat means for the average home user. I took the time to match the stats up locally with other connected miners so I would assume this could lead to confusion.*
*Would be incredibly helpful to identify the idle workers in red
*
*The Solomining starting pool difficulty seems awful low @ 42 this option would be ideal to be configurable or bumped up via the GUI.*
With 18 workers around 38TH pointed at the Apollo 2 FE I show the CPU use is at 4% and Memory use is at 33%. It appears the MCU unit is capable enough of running the CKPool & mining services required for most small home farms.
BTC Node:Finally got the blockchain to sync up of the Apollo 2 FE... Took way wayyyyyy too long about 3-4 days.
The system should really ship with the blockchain more recently downloaded and alot closer than where is does.
The FE shipped with a 2TB drive so there's plenty of room for growth.
In an attempt to get past the 32 connection limit the UI ignores the command
*Would love to be able to allow more than 32 connections. (Adding a few manually allows the work around but this should be expandable within the UI IMHO).*
BTC Node Settings:
Here is where I added nodes manually and removed onion connections.
addnode=IPADDRESS
listenonion=0
Systems Settings
Extra Settings
Allows for you to reset to factory, format your NVME drive as well as backup and restore your config files easily.
Noise level:I wouldn't put this in my bedroom unless I was planning for a divorce but it isn't bad for a garage or mining shed at turbo levels.
Local Pool Stats Page:So after adding a 2nd user to the pool there was no way to actually view the stats for that 2nd user from the UI
*Consider adding a pool stats page for those that wish to add more than 1 user*
My over impression is that Futurebit has delivered again on their promises for early birds with a sweet piece of mining gear.
Superb build, decent performance and a simple to use UI.
This miner / node / solomining combo although expensive does hit the sweet spot for the average home miner who wants to contribute and help secure the BTC network.
They did this with the understanding that many have energy restrictions and now give every purchaser the option to roll the dice to go for the solo block.
