I'm just starting out with Bitcoin mining and I don't really know much about the gear involved.
I’d love to get some insights from anyone who’s got experience in mining.
I’m particularly curious about Antminers and WhatsMiners.
Do AntMiners only work for BTC and BTH and a few other coins? What kind of coins can you mine with WhatsMiners?
Can you install software on these rigs to set them up for different mining tasks? Do they come with an operating system?
Are AntMiners strictly using the SHA-256 algorithm? What about WhatsMiners? Can you change the algorithm?
***** really important *****
Do these machines require two cables to split the energy load if you’re using two outlets from different circuits?
If certain miners come with just one cable, is there a way to split it to use two outlets instead?
Does the WhatsMiner M21S come with two cables?
If anyone can’t answer everything or doesn’t want to go into too much detail, feel free to just respond with what you can.
Thanks a lot!
For a start, checkout the Beginners & Help area of the forum.
Aside from that all BTC miners use ASIC's - Application Specific Integrated Circuits. The chips are hard programed to do only one thing -- process the SHA-256 algorithm. That cannot be changed but it does mean that you can mine any coin that uses SHA-256.
Antminers(Bitmain) make different miners for different algos, but majority are SHA256, Whatsminer (MicroBT) only make SHA256 miners
No you can't, yes they come with an operating system
Antminer usually, because they use C13 which is not capable of doing the 3kw+ they need, Whatsminer use C19 a single cable.
Supplying a PSU that takes a single input from two different sources is probably not recommended, i have seen a C19 - male C20 Y cable which means the same input supplies two PSUs but not the opposite, i won't do that unless approved by the manufaturer.
Nop, only one cable
You can find information on most of your and similar questions on the websites of equipment manufacturers.
I have provided links only for searching technical information.
There is also a detailed video on YouTube with an overview of each ASIC, if you want to use the search.