FutureBit Apollo III - Next Gen Home Mining

[philipma1957]

Received is also.
New Apollo will be one of the best home miners once it's out!

Yea while waiting for our suppliers delays we have put in a lot of work on the firmware and have some serious gains on these. I was never expecting these ASICs to operate below 13w/TH but with some crazy optimization algos we have been able to get them to nearly 10w/TH at 8TH.

Quick shipment updated, we finally getting our thermal assemblies in on monday. Going to start slow assembly and testing ramp this week, but since we have 4th of July things are going to be slow until after the holiday.

Expect most early pre-order to be out by second week of July. Will do our best to get as many out as we can but with our order backlog will probably take end of July before all are shipped.

Its okay july 14th July 20th would be decent.

If it tweaks to 10 watts a then it will be the most effective unit i ever owned.

[Welsh]

Very tempted.

I was expecting shipping to be more, so that's a plus.

If it tweaks to 10 watts a then it will be the most effective unit i ever owned.

Eagerly waiting on a few reviews, since it would be pretty neat if the specifications translate to real world. There might be cheaper options out there in terms of hobbyist miners, but I would've thought this is engineered to last a lot longer than those. I also like the idea of a integrated node.

[philipma1957]

Very tempted.

I was expecting shipping to be more, so that's a plus.

If it tweaks to 10 watts a then it will be the most effective unit i ever owned.

Eagerly waiting on a few reviews, since it would be pretty neat if the specifications translate to real world. There might be cheaper options out there in terms of hobbyist miners, but I would've thought this is engineered to last a lot longer than those. I also like the idea of a integrated node.

Yeah I want to do a nice long review on it.

I am adding a 2tb Samsung that should cover the blockchain for a while.

I do have a 4tb Samsung which is absolutely overkill.

His gear tends to last. I have owned most all of them.

[heslo]

Just got a shipping update email! Looking good to hopefully get something out the door next week so hopefully I'll get my unit the week after; can't wait!

[philipma1957]

It is exciting. I will get mine also.

Plus I just got other gear to review.

[philipma1957]

maybe I get tracking this week. still waiting. not to complain, but I do want to compare it with the hammer miners I am

reviewing. Here is hoping it ships this upcoming week.

[heslo]

maybe I get tracking this week. still waiting. not to complain, but I do want to compare it with the hammer miners I am

reviewing. Here is hoping it ships this upcoming week.

I keep refreshing my inbox more than I should as well 

[philipma1957]

Still waiting for tracking getting  tired of looking.

[heslo]

Still waiting for tracking getting  tired of looking.

I think my F5 key is broken now lol

[jstefanop]

Still waiting for tracking getting  tired of looking.

I think my F5 key is broken now lol

We just started shipments, it will take a this week and next to clear most of the early pre-orders.

Unfortunately ramp up is taking longer than planned, we are seeing yield issues with our PCBs that we are working through now, and have much more strict quality controls than our previous Apollo II builds.

Either way most March/April preorders should be out by end of the month!

[philipma1957]

just for the record my order was feb 26.

It is okay to have delays as shit happens.

You need to do what scotty used to do for Kirk

under promise and over deliver.

I have ordered 4 or 5 models over the years from you and I know they

tend to run late.

I know that USA and tariffs slowed every thing up.

As I said I am fine with delays.

But simply say everything is late.

Don't send an email to me On July 3 saying shipments are starting. I am one of the first 6 or 7 orders made on February 26th  and still do not have  tracking by July 14th.

It is frustrating.

If you sent that email that on July 8th I wouldn't be frustrated.

It would be only six days time.

Instead it is 11 days no tracking and I was one of the first orders made

on February 26 which was the special pre pre order date.

Hoping it does run well and pulls 10 watts a th

[jstefanop]

just for the record my order was feb 26.

It is okay to have delays as shit happens.

You need to do what scotty used to do for Kirk

under promise and over deliver.

I have ordered 4 or 5 models over the years from you and I know they

tend to run late.

I know that USA and tariffs slowed every thing up.

As I said I am fine with delays.

But simply say everything is late.

Don't send an email to me On July 3 saying shipments are starting. I am one of the first 6 or 7 orders made on February 26th  and still do not have  tracking by July 14th.

It is frustrating.

If you sent that email that on July 8th I wouldn't be frustrated.

It would be only six days time.

Instead it is 11 days no tracking and I was one of the first orders made

on February 26 which was the special pre pre order date.

Hoping it does run well and pulls 10 watts a th

Well at the volumes we ship we cant win at everything....if we dont do pre-orders people complain we are sold out all the time. When we do pre-order people complain when we miss the estimated ship time 3 months out. We make it clear pre-order WILL have delays, there is no way around it especially on a new product launch. Wish we had millions to build up thousands of units ahead of time but we dont. We only do pre-orders for people like you that want the product and are willing to wait anytime for it. My team does the best to update everyone based on the info we give them at production but things move around all the time.

For example our fab fucked up our PCBs twice in a row...something I have never seen in 10 years of manufacturing...its always something new every time and always happens on the initial pre-order runs 

Also our customer base is in the 10s of thousands, thousands of people order on the first few days...I know on here it might seem like there are 10 preorders on feb26th and you are one of the 10 but thats not the case. It's going to take a week just to clear the first day orders.

Eiher way we are at the finish line so almost there!

[scryptr]

EAGERLY WAITING
--------------------
Well, there have been a few posts since my last.  I really hope that things are going well for the FutureBit crew, and that the orders go where they are sent.

I do have a couple questions:

        1)  If I hit a block on my FullNode, is there a display que?  That is, BitAxes have confetti when a block is found.  Is there a similar display poolside?

        2)  Is there a new FullNode software edition near a release date?

        3)  What features might be expected in the next pool software edition?

Thank you in advance for your response.       --scryptr

[jstefanop]

EAGERLY WAITING
--------------------
Well, there have been a few posts since my last.  I really hope that things are going well for the FutureBit crew, and that the orders go where they are sent.

I do have a couple questions:

        1)  If I hit a block on my FullNode, is there a display que?  That is, BitAxes have confetti when a block is found.  Is there a similar display poolside?

        2)  Is there a new FullNode software edition near a release date?

        3)  What features might be expected in the next pool software edition?

Thank you in advance for your response.       --scryptr

Yes we have a cool display in the dashboard if you find a block, not sure what you mean by full node software edition, if you mean an update to the solo pool we are making some big changes to the UI for easier reading of the data as well as lots more configurability in pool options (payout options, reward sharing etc).

We also have a cool idea to gamify best share for Apollo users in the future (think monthly prizes for top best shares etc) Fun way to get rewarded even if you dont find a block.

[scryptr]

A RAPID RESPONSE
----------------------

Thank you for the quick answer.  Yes, I did mean the "Solo Node", but was still thinking of the LiteCoin "Full Node" miner in the back of my mind.  I still have mine, but I think it needs larger drives to do the job.  I hope the softwares are still reachable on GitHub.

As to the "Solo Node", I have a matching pair of 2TB NVME drives that I plan on using.  Currently, there is a single drive in place.  Is the "mirror drive" option ready to be implemented?  I'd like to clone the current drive and then set it up as mirrored.

        Again, thanks.       --scryptr

[crypto_curious]

A RAPID RESPONSE
----------------------

Thank you for the quick answer.  Yes, I did mean the "Solo Node", but was still thinking of the LiteCoin "Full Node" miner in the back of my mind.  I still have mine, but I think it needs larger drives to do the job.  I hope the softwares are still reachable on GitHub.

As to the "Solo Node", I have a matching pair of 2TB NVME drives that I plan on using.  Currently, there is a single drive in place.  Is the "mirror drive" option ready to be implemented?  I'd like to clone the current drive and then set it up as mirrored.

        Again, thanks.       --scryptr

Bitcoin blockchain doesn't need to be mirrored on your PC - it's mirrored by people 10,000 times already. Doing mirror for already heavily-mirrored data is inefficient.
If you NVMe die, just replace it and blockchain will be re-downloaded.
If you already have two spare NVMes, I suggest doing the opposite - set them up in stripe/raid0 mode, they will work in together for double read/write speed, and double capacity. You could even use cheaper, smaller NVMe to arrive at desired joint capacity. If anything ever breaks - data is secured in the cloud, it will get re-downloaded to new set up very quickly without any loss.

[vapourminer]

Bitcoin blockchain doesn't need to be mirrored on your PC - it's mirrored by people 10,000 times already. Doing mirror for already heavily-mirrored data is inefficient.
If you NVMe die, just replace it and blockchain will be re-downloaded.
If you already have two spare NVMes, I suggest doing the opposite - set them up in stripe/raid0 mode, they will work in together for double read/write speed, and double capacity. You could even use cheaper, smaller NVMe to arrive at desired joint capacity. If anything ever breaks - data is secured in the cloud, it will get re-downloaded to new set up very quickly without any loss.

some of us have really really bad internet. re downloading the whole blockchain can take longer than many of us want. so RAID 1, or other mirrored drive would be appreciated.

[FP91G]

Tell me, why would a small miner want to set up their own node?
I can do it on my own PC, but my connection quality will be worse than in a data center.
For example, when setting up a Bitcoin node, I noticed that synchronization was slow, and RAID 0 probably won't improve the situation much.

[vapourminer]

Tell me, why would a small miner want to set up their own node?
I can do it on my own PC, but my connection quality will be worse than in a data center.

to privately bounce your own software off of your local copy of the full blockchain.

[scryptr]

A RAPID RESPONSE
----------------------

Thank you for the quick answer.  Yes, I did mean the "Solo Node", but was still thinking of the LiteCoin "Full Node" miner in the back of my mind.  I still have mine, but I think it needs larger drives to do the job.  I hope the softwares are still reachable on GitHub.

As to the "Solo Node", I have a matching pair of 2TB NVME drives that I plan on using.  Currently, there is a single drive in place.  Is the "mirror drive" option ready to be implemented?  I'd like to clone the current drive and then set it up as mirrored.

        Again, thanks.       --scryptr

Bitcoin blockchain doesn't need to be mirrored on your PC - it's mirrored by people 10,000 times already. Doing mirror for already heavily-mirrored data is inefficient.
If you NVMe die, just replace it and blockchain will be re-downloaded.
If you already have two spare NVMes, I suggest doing the opposite - set them up in stripe/raid0 mode, they will work in together for double read/write speed, and double capacity. You could even use cheaper, smaller NVMe to arrive at desired joint capacity. If anything ever breaks - data is secured in the cloud, it will get re-downloaded to new set up very quickly without any loss.

DRIVES THAT ACTUALLY SPIN ARE GETTING OLD
------------------------------------------------------

Testing shows that RAID 0 with SSD drives does not perceptively increase read/write speeds.  The creator of the APOLLO III Solo Node mentioned that he was interested in implementing the "mirror drive" feature sometime earlier in the development process.  I am still intrigued, and looking forward to seeing it.  It would increase local data security.

       L8r...       scryptr