Thoughts on the Apollo BTC Miner

Gotta say, it actually works! I'm connected to the CK solo pool. Using a kill-a-watt meter, it shows it's consuming around 126 to 130 watts.

I will do a video and post some more later today. I like the metal case. Feels sturdy. It is very quiet. I got the plug n play model comes with an instruction card. I loaded ckpool for solo and as you can see with link above it works. What is nice is it automatically started to create a node which has 15 of 32 possible connections. it is synching blocks and is at block 219,989 of 685,168 I suspect that my watts will drop down from 126-130 once it synchs. The gear has a nice crucial nvme.2 500gb ssd I believe this model https://www.crucial.com/ssd/p2/CT500P2SSD8 once I get the node loaded I will know the true power draw. I will use a few psu's to see if watts can be lowered from the nice small quiet one that came from it. I see some easy tweaks for it. I have taller rubber feet I think I will stick them on in a few days. I have an attractive piece of tiger stripe maple to stack the unit and the psu.

spacer A very quick power estimate 127 x 24 = 3048 watts lets argue 3kwatts a day Kwatt cost...........daily.........monthly 05 cent power = 15 cents..... $ 4.50 10 cent power = 30 cents..... $ 9.00 15 cent power = 45 cents..... $13.50 20 cent power = 60 cents..... $18.00 25 cent power = 75 cents..... $22.50 30 cent power = 90 cents..... $27.00 35 cent power = 1.05 usd..... $31.50 You can mine and hold with it or mine solo pool

So I had an internet issue. Not sure if it was me or optimum. Figure out how to reconnect the gear to the net and it is back running. I decided to hit stop button on miner and see what watts drop to. they go to 10-12 and this is while loading the full blockchain node. I am up to block 415,000 of 685,195 I have about 82gb of chain loaded I think we will load around 220gb to fully load chain.  Maybe six or eight hours. I have pretty fast net 300gb down 50gb up. On a killer pc  I can load the full chain in under 5 hours. This will be slower but not that slow. So 10-12 watts just loading the chain and 126-130 watts eco mining and loading the chain I will get back with more watts. update So over night it bogged down. My internet like many around the USA has been terrible since covid-19 made a ton of kids and adults use pcs out of the home. I suspect I have been throttled due to the long large download. I have 30/32 connections I have 511,700 of 685,262 blocks and 182,12gb of the chain. 2 suggestions the option for an upgraded nvme.2 ssd ie a 1tb vs the 500 gb should be given. And maybe slightly taller bigger rubber feet. https://www.amazon.com/Furniture-Adhesive-Dampening-Anti-Scratch-Protection/dp/B083HBDVQQ/ref=sr_1_56? my thoughts are maybe something like the ones above. May be better I do have these and will be trying them https://www.amazon.com/3M-SP954-Naclear-Bumpers3M-SP954-NA-Protects/dp/B07872QV5D/ref=sr_1_2? this is the 1tb ssd https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-NAND-NVMe-PCIe-2400MB/dp/B089DNM8LR/ref=sr_1_4? this is the 500gb ssd that came with it. https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-NAND-NVMe-PCIe-2400MB/dp/B086BGWNY8/ref=sr_1_4? 105 vs 58 retail cost so an upgrade option uncharge of 60 dollars would make a little extra for the builder and the owner would never have to worry about running out of space. It looks like this will take 250 gb of the ssd. I can clone it and drop in a 1tb any time I want but it would be easy to have the gear come with a 1tb.

SSDs come down in price every month..we had to pay over 120 bulk back in Feb for 1TB so the extra cost to users to start at that was not worth it in my eyes. The 500GB drive will run out of space for Bitcoin somewhere at the end of 2022, at that point youll probably be able to get a 1TB drive for under 50 bucks, so its better for end users to just fill up the stock drive then upgrade for cheap down the line. Once we get the bulk of pre-orders out well probably offer a 1TB option as well in the coming months.

I would say to increase the size of the dbcache in the bitcoin.conf file to speed up the initial blockchain download. It really helps a lot. But, I don't know how much free RAM there is on the box and what if any other tweaks @jstefanop made. My unit came in yesterday, but I have been so busy at work I have not even had the time to take it out of the box -Dave

Yea its already optimized for the RAM size...fact that you can sync a full BTC blockchain in under 2 days with this is already impressive for a sub 200 dollar "computer", and is already way faster than what even a Pi 4 can do. You cant expect this to do it in 12 hours lol

Fan started buzzing really loud. Quickly just shut it down as I thought something had fallen into it. Turns out every screw in the outer shell 🐚 was a tiny bit loose. I hand tightened all of them by maybe ¼ to ½ a turn. Do not over tightened tight screws if yours are tight. Mine were all able to turn 90 to 180 degrees. Once I did this the loud buzzing stopped. I am still loading chain 592,000 blocks and more than 270gb. I figure six to ten more hours. So I had 2 stops on the download losing four hours. the download now is around 35-4=31 hours maybe I get it loaded in just about forty hours. I guess chain will be over 333gb. filling ⅔ of the ssd.

Okay I bolded the answer to the chain size that you gave 395 gb frankly I had not kept track of the size. so the ssd will be 80% filled. I will be cloning it  to a bigger one down the road. Maybe I will simply run the down load again on a 1tb ssd stick. I am interested to see if it would simply start over again. Since it is a blank ssd. Would it need to be formatted etc. I  am also interested in cloning the micro sd card so I can have a back up of it. I am now at 636,380 of 685,374   and 323 gb I am pleased to report that the buzzing did not come back and that hand tightening all cases screws ¼ to ½ a turn seems to have fixed it.

And a complaint. I mentioned that the fan was buzzing way too loudly. I tightened it up by hand held screwdriver, all exterior case screws and buzzing went away. A day later it came back. All external screws were.good which means something inside was loose. SINCE every case screw.was.turnable 1/4 to 1/2 I knew I had to turn it off and find the loose screw. So I took 14.side screws.off carefully and.found the problem the cpu has a tiny 3/4 Inch fan that cools it off. Not sure that the fan is cooling the cpu or a different  chip but both screws were very loose. At least 1 full turn to tighten them. Then of course attach the two sides with 14 screws and not to mention I detached both the mobo and the nvme.2 from the back frame. After doing a this and reassembling it all it works a charm. So to sum up this has two fans the one that cools the hashing board and is visible at the top of the unit.  The second tiny fan is hard to see but it was very loose. As a follow up what should my temps be when I am mining with eco setting. Should i be at 70c or 80c Or lower. IT IS ANNOYING  that the assembly has this loose screw issue. Sorry about caps. Oh I have not quite.loaded chain I am about 10000 blocks short. As an  aside; I think it should be easy to.click and.drag the 500 gh info into a 1tb stick.

Yea were still dialing in the torque settings for all the screws. Sorry to hear you had to disassemble it to get to the CPU fan. Im happy that most people are not having issues with the hardware...few loose screws we can deal with

Yeah figured that and mine is one of the first ones. So it does not buzz. Also hashboard temp reads 54c Fan speed reads 1826 there is a second temp at top of screen futureBit       Online     2.10 Ths  85c   I am assuming this is the arm temp which is at 65% load as it does final 10000 blocks and mines at ckpool. The wife will be happy to not hear it buzz.

Yes the top temp is the ARM cpu temp. It will stay in the 80s while its syncing the node and should come back down to 50-60c once it completes.

Yeah I am fully loaded and temps dropped a lot on the top temp. over 394gb. for the blockchain It is very quiet now that screws are tightened. I used this hand held screwdriver. https://www.amazon.com/Wiha-26194-Screwdriver-Phillips-Precision/dp/B000NZ5QGK/ref=sr_1_17? PH1 x 60

I'm at 3.10 Th/s at 60.00C 206w but its in a small closed bedroom.  I also had/have the fan issue.   Totally silent initially, 2nd day in I had the fan problem, went way for the weekend and it was gone, and now its back.   I'll probably follow Philma's lead and tighten the cpu fan next weekend.  My case screws were tight, I checked that first so guessing its the cpu fan like Philma.

So on another thread kano said did you prove the software on the apollo btc can hit a block. I am pretty stupid but I think you can't prove it till you do it. Which means 10,000 of these would need about 500 days to hit a block.  Maybe someone smarter than me can answer this. So if the only way to prove it can hit a block is to hit one then the only way to prove it can't hit a block is to never hit one. I am an american not that it means much but we like to say you are innocent until proven guilty. this was made in america and the seller is in brooklyn which last I looked was in america. So I do not need proof that it can hit a block to mine with it. I would stop mining if you prove it can't hit a block. What I can do is point it to a different pool viabtc.com and mine and hold. so it now mines at viabtc.com at pps+ on mine and hold. I set the payout very high and will not collect it for years. If it is ever proven these can't hit a block I will donate the earnings to wiki. I will cease using it. So my I see myself in the clear with all american laws as I understand them. lastly thanks to kano for checking and confirming that this is not a rip off  of cgminer and is original coding.

uh what? You dont need to "prove" it can hit a block, the proof is in the valid share submission. Submit enough shares of a certain difficulty over time and you have "proved" your hashrate. Submit a share higher than the network diff you found a block, simple as that.

Well same as you my position is exactly what you said. Just worded in a different way. Kano always attacks all btc sha-256 software He will say you stole it from cgminer and if it clear is not a copy he will say prove it can hit a block. As I said I am in the USA and you are innocent until proven guilty which means if he wants to complain about blocks he needs to prove it can't hit a block.