Phew … don’t have a lot of time right now, but do like to share “my secrets” with you, to mine for profit!
My ASIC miner USB ‘farm’
My current (and always changing setup) of hooked up miners currently consists of
- bunch of powered USB hubs
- 3x Zeusminer Blizzard X6 @ 4 MH/s each = 12MH/s (no pic yet)
- 12x Zeusminer Blizzard X3 @ 1.35MH/s each = 16.2 MH/s … powered by 750W Corsair
How to Setup Locally
I prefer mining through a PC, instead of a RaspBerry Pi, to have maximum control … and it’s also least user friendly … unless you know what you’re doing. I’m going to share how I set it all up.
Hardware
I’m currently using 2x Industrial PSU of 360W power each. I can connect either 6x Blizzard X3 or 3x Blizzard X6 or a combination. And a separate PC ATX power supply with PCI-E to 3x power plugs. Depending on the PSU it’s either divide by 3 or 6 to calculate the maximum number of devices per PSU. I wouldn’t power the X6 with it, as the diameter of the cables is rather small and the heat generation is scary high. In fact it’s so high that the 360W are better of with powering 2 Blizzard X6 per 360W.
Drivers, Software and settings
- Blizzard X3 and CGMiner v3.1.1 for X3
Blizzard X6 chips-count 6. Maximum clock frequency: 340 = 1.4MH/s - Blizzard X6 CGminer v3.1.1 for X6 download
Blizzard X6 chips-count 24. Maximum clock frequency: 245 = 4MH/s
Hence my preference for the X3, more MH/s per device although higher power output. At those speeds you will get hardware errors. However everything < 4% is acceptable and ‘normal’. If it bothers you? You can try lower the frequency 5 each, until you find an acceptable ‘sweet spot’ with the lowest error rates and highest hashing rate.
Both use the Windows CP201 driver. But take different parameters! (more on that later)
Script parameters / syntax
Mining for … profit
The Multi-pools are in constant decline. A month ago you 2-5mBTC per MH/s. Currently it’s down to 0.5mBTC per MH/s according to poolpicker.eu … thus I prefer mining single coins. I no longer rely on coinwarz.com and prefer to rely on cointweak.com
Hashrates vs. power usage vs. profit
Cointweak works an interesting ways. By default it displays all coin. You want to filter for scrypt-only. How?
Two stage process:
1) Press the “gear wheel”. Instead of unchecking all the other coins. I just fill in the approx. total hashrate; 20.000KH/s in this example. That way it will show scrypt on top. And if you like to full in Watt usage, to see how much the projected energy costs will be. In my case? I pay 22 eurocent per kWh. Which according to xe.com is 29 USD cent. Which seems very high … but more on that later. Then you press submit.
2) You will see the results with the new numbers you filled in. To only see scrypt again? Just press gear icon again and uncheck all coins except scrypt.
Compare that to Poolpicker
Forget about Karmacoin. That’s no longer a scrypt coin, but X11, hence the numbers don’t add up.
Casinocoin, Mooncoin, Flappycoin are constant winners. And can be hashed through CoinKing. But … CoinKing gives weird problems and time outs often (just try for yourself to understand what I mean). Especially when mining virtually. So I decided to mine a single coin; casinocoin.
After lots of research on the pool I found a nice one on a scrypt forum: http://csc.mastermining.net with 1.5% poolcosts. Which is higher than usual, but couldn’t find a better one. Have suggestions? Leave a comment!
For each coin: wallet + pool account
For each coin you need a wallet and a pool account.
Download Casino Wallet here for example; as it currently does in between 0.7-1.1mBTC. Note: it might take a few hours to sync properly.
And create an account — in this case — at http://csc.mastermining.net + workers. Name and password doesn’t really matter as long as it matches with your scripts. Again more on that later. For example in my case, it looks like this (short example just showcasing 4 miners with rather generic names):
Zeus Miner Automation: Batch scripts
I tried Raspberry Pi, but it isn’t working for me as I want to. I also tried BFGminer but gives mixed results (lot of timeouts; hence loss in hashrate), so currently back at the most difficult (and stable): cgminer.
You can either write batchscripts for all of them. But I divided them into two categories.
Single miner script
Two scripts for each miner (in separate subdirectories) with custom parameters for comport, speed and workername.
Zeusminer Blizzard X3 single miner script
filename: csc-x3.bat
@echo off if "%1"=="" goto bad if "%2"=="" goto bad if "%3"=="" goto bad :good cgminer.exe --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://csc.mastermining.net:3448 -u rhyker.%3 -p x --chips-count 6 --ltc-clk %2 -S //./COM%1 --nocheck-golden goto end :bad echo 1st parameter is com port # echo 2nd parameter is clockspeed 300-340 echo 3nd parameter is workername # :end
Zeusminer Blizzard X6 single miner script
filename : csc-x6.bat
@echo off if "%1"=="" goto bad if "%2"=="" goto bad if "%3"=="" goto bad :good cgminer.exe -o stratum+tcp://csc.mastermining.net:3448 -u rhyker.%3 -p x -S //./COM%1 --chips-count 24 --ltc-clk %2 --nocheck-golden goto end :bad echo 1st parameter is com port # echo 2nd parameter is clockspeed: 230-245 echo 3nd parameter is workername # :end
How to determine com ports?
This is again tricky to setup. You need to know which miners are attached to which comports. You can do this by first connecting the X3s and then later on connecting the X6 (or vice versa), the ports that are than added into device manager are the X6s. Be extremely thorough / careful with this, cause by using the X3 parameters with the X6? You will blow up the miners.
These are my X3 miners for example:
What’s COM1?
An actual serial (not virtual USB comport). Old workstation :) Note: Be mindful that if you reboot the computer? the com ports of the specific miners might change! But if you are mining 24/7 it doesn’t really matter either.
Isn’t it easier to use a raspberry pi then?
If it would work all the time? Sure. As mentioned earlier, couldn’t get it to run properly over longer period of times; it would just stop mining. And having a secondary pool mine to nicehash for example is key recipy for loss (energy cost > mining revenue). Might try later though.
Multi miner script; The Result
Instead of having to run 1 script per window, I prefer to have just 1 window per miner type. There’s a downside to this, you cannot monitor the miners progress in the window (as you usually would) individually. I therefore use the mining pool webinterface to get a rough estimate if the miners are still doing there job. To be able to run miners as background processes? You cannot use the & as you would in Linux. Instead I use scripts like this:
Zeusminer X3 Multi Miner Script
filename: ax3.bat (a stands for all)
start /B csc-x3 12 340 rig1 start /B csc-x3 49 328 rig2 start /B csc-x3 52 335 rig3
(just for example sake using different frequency per miner)
Zeusminer X6 Multi Miner Script
filename: ax6.bat (a stands for all)
start /B csc-x6 11 240 rig4 start /B csc-x6 50 235 rig5 start /B csc-x6 51 245 rig6
(just for example sake using different frequency per miner)
Mining for more profits: compounding!
Now the really cool part. I trade my profits daily through Cryptsy, with a twist …
First of by monitoring through cointweak.com when casino coins tops all other coins, it’s good time to exchange to BTC. I then pay to my BTC wallet from Cryptsy. To purchase … cloud hosting at https://www.miningrigrentals.com/rigs/scrypt . As 0.7mBTC revenue is higher than 0.5-0.6mBTC cost. Combined with local hashing rates, this turns into increasing compounding profits.
Every now and then I also purchase a hosted miner at GAWminers Zencloud!
- 2x Zeusminer Blizzard X3 @ 1.3MH/s each = 2.6MH/s
- 1x Black Widow Fury @ 13MH/s
This setup generating roughly: 0.0065BTC per day, and using those profits to also lease more cloud miners for specific timeframes to exchange to BTC using cryptsy, to be able to purchase more miners, to thus increase profit.
After 1 month the free energy cost Zenminer hosting I let the miners ship to my home for free, and then have more local hashing power, to generate more compounding profit, etc. Or I just sell the miners for a great price to others miners. Note: this new type of mining approach has also been the reason for me to quit with ASICminershop. I’m a product ambassador remember? I can only recommend to others what I’m using / doing myself.
How much profits daily?
No clue, not keeping track at the moment. Probably should Just been experimenting lately.
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