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FpgaminerOnPi.txt
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FpgaminerOnPi.txt
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Fpgaminer on Raspberry Pi
-------------------------
Requisites:
One working Raspberry Pi, preferrably with the latest Debian wheezy, but it should work on most linuxes.
One (or more) Terasic DE0-Nano card, tested and working.
One computer to do the fpga programming (windows, or linux if supported by the Altera Quartus software).
Optional (but recommended), putty or a similar SSH client so you can log into your Pi remotely.
Optional (but recommended), an external 5 volt or 3.3 volt power supply rated at least 1 amp.
Some jumper cables to connect to the header pins (female to female). If desparate you could get away with
miniature croc-clips, but be very careful not to short out the pins (use insulating tape, and only work with
the power disconnected).
Optional: (but recommended) three 4k7 ohm resistors, or components for the opto-isolator circuit described below.
Optional: (but recommended) a small fan (a 5 volt one will run off the fpga power supply) and (not essential
if you've got the fan) a heatsink for the fpga chip. Dynamic Ram (or 16 pin DIL) stick-on heatsinks are good.
Optional: a temperature monitor (one of the indoor/outdoor types with an probe will work fine).
Power off your Pi and the DE0-Nano boards before doing any work on them!
First remove the transparant plastic cover as it will be running hot. If you've got the heatsinks, apply
them to the fpga chip, being very careful not to come in contact with any other components.
Wrap insulating tape around the metal body of the temperature probe and attach it to the top of the heatsink
(I used blu-tak). You don't want the chip's internal junction temperature to rise above 85C, but allow for the
thermal resistance of the package + heatsink so I'd recommend around 65C maximum (a bit less if no heatsink).
If you're going to use the opto isolator circuit, build it, either on breadboard or PCB/veroboard. Test it
using the supplied fpgaserial.sof and com.c (see below). Otherwise, if you're brave and omitting the opto isolator,
connect the Pi and fpga ground leads, the Pi TxD to fpga RxD, Pi RxD to fpga TxD. Use the 4k7 ohm resistors to
give some measure of protection against damage. Again test the connection.
You need to disable the Pi console logging in order to use the serial port, instructions are below.
Get the Pi-de0-nano-miner.zip file onto your Pi (you are connected to the internet I assume, its not much use
otherwise). Unzip the package into a directory, say /home/Pi/Pi-de0-nano-miner. Edit the configuration file
config.txt and set your connection parameters (its currently a bit fussy, so keep to the exact format of the
original, especially do not add any spaces). Alternatively you can test offline using the spoof package, more
on that later.
Install the fpgaminer package on your pc from https://github.com/progranism/Open-Source-FPGA-Bitcoin-Miner
You may want to rename the folder as its rather long! I'll refer to it as C:\fpgaminer from here on.
Install Quartus on your PC, if youve not already done that (it will take up to an hour and needs abour 6GB disk
space on windows). Connect the DE0-Nano USB cable. If you've not already installed the driver then follow the
prompts (you need to cancel the default action and browse to C:\altera\10.1\quartus\drivers\usb-blaster).
Test it using the DE0-Nano demonstrations, which you should copy onto your PC from the supplied CDRom,
vis C:\DE0-Nano\Demonstration\my_first_fpga\my_first_fpga.sof ... you can use the fpgaminer programmer in
C:\fpgaminer\scripts\program\program-fpga-board.bat
Now we're ready to mine. If you're using an external power supply for the DE0-Nano, connect it up now.
The onboard demo should now run (assuming you've not flashed the internal ROM with your own code) and
blinkenlights should occur.
On the PC (assuming windows, YMMV for linux), open a command prompt in C:\fpgaminer\scripts\program
(press SHIFT and right click on the folder and select Open Command Window Here if you're on Vista or later).
Connect the DE0-Nano USB cable (if not already connected), and assuming the driver has been installed, the
(windows) computer will go "Boink". Wait a few seconds then type program-fpga-board.bat (just p then tab).
You should be see some green text bumf, then
0) USB-Blaster [USB-0]
@1: EP3C25/EP4CE22 (0x020F30DD)
Which USB device would you like to program?
Enter 0 (unless you're lucky enough to have several boards connected at the same time!)
You will then be prompted to select a SOF to program, best to start with DE0_Nano_serial-40MHz.sof
Programming should only take a second or two. The blinkenlights demo should now change to a simple binary
count. This is the top byte of the nonce and gives a good indication of the hash speed (its 2^32 divided
by the time in seconds for a complete cycle, or roughly one increment per second translates to 16.78MH/s).
You can do a quick test by pressing the KEY-0 button. This resets the nonce to 0 (very useful for testing
against spoofed data).
On the Pi ...
cd /home/Pi/Pi-de0-nano-miner
./mine.sh
NB The "./" simply says to run the program in the current directory, since by default PATH does not contain it.
You should now be mining. Enjoy.
Normally you'll want to run it in the background so you can log off. Just do ...
./minebg.sh
Nothing will be displayed (other than a message about the log file). To watch its progress do ...
tail -f /tmp/mine.log
To stop the miner either type CTRL-C (if you're running mine.sh) or for background, assuming you're logged
in as Pi ...
ps -fupi
Identify the PID of the minebg.sh and do ...
kill pid
If its really stuck you may need ...
kill -9 pid
You'll probably notice several send_json processes. These are communicating with the mining pool server (one starts
for every message) and they hang around for a few minutes until the remote server connection times out (a
bit naughty, I suppose I ought to clear down the connection from my end). If any are older than a few minutes,
you can safely kill them (I'll write a reaper daemon at some point). The client identifies itself to the mining
pool server as "kramble fpgaminer pi client package 1.0".
More detailed instructions follow ...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To use the serial port on the Raspberry Pi you need to do the following...
cd /boot
sudo cp cmdline.txt cmdline.backup
sudo nano cmdline.txt ... or use vi if you prefer
You should have ...
dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=ttyAMA0,115200 kgdboc=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait
Change it to ...
dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait
NB This needs to be a single line, do not break it up!
cd /etc
sudo cp inittab inittab.backup
sudo nano inittab ... or use vi if you prefer
On the last line, add a # at the front ...
#T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyAMA0 115200 vt100
Reboot ...
sudo shutdown -r now
All should be fine, but if you've made a mistake and the Pi refuses to boot, this is how to recover...
First, try power-cycling. Turn it off and on again. If that does not work.
Disconnect the power cord and remove the memory card. Insert it into a card reader on another computer.
Delete cmline.txt and copy cmdline.backup to cmdline.txt
If on windows, right click on the drive letter and do "Safely Remove" or "Eject"
Reinsert the memory card into the Pi and power it up.
If that does not fix it then you'll have to re-flash the card with an fresh installation image dowloaded from the Pi website.
BUT you could try this first (NB I have not tested this, so you may want to google for it)...
Back on your other PC, edit cmdline.txt and at the end add " init=/bin/sh"
Power it up, you should have a command prompt (BTW, this is good for recovering from a lost password too).
You're root, so no need to sudo.
cd /etc
cp inittab.backup initiab
shutdown -r now
It is also possible to fix inittab on another computer, but you'll have to mount the partition which is best
done on a linux box as windows does not support ext4 without additional software (google is your friend ...
"mount ext4 windows", or DuckDuckGo if google is not your friend).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Connecting the Pi and DE0-Nano
------------------------------
The Pi header looks as follows (best displayed in a fixed font), looking at the board with the memory
card on your left and the header at the top left.
+------------------------------------ ...
+ o o o o o o o
+ 5V 5V GND TxD RxD
+
+ 3V3
+ o o o o o o o
+------------------------------------ ...
P1 ... Note the P1 marking on the board.
I am using the J1 header on the DE0-Nano, looking at the board with the usb connector on the left, and the
leds at the top, J1 is the connector above the leds. From the extreme left of the connector ...
+----------------------------------- ...
+ o o o o o o o
+ RxD TxD Bias1 Bias2 nc GND (nc=no connection)
+
+ 5V
+ o o o o o o o
+----------------------------------- ...
Be very careful not to attach anything to the 5V pins ... the Pi is not protected against overvoltage and
applying 5V to any pin will destroy it. The same probably goes for the DE0-Nano.
The "Bias" pins are simply driven high for use in biasing the opto-coupler (I did not want to use a 3.3V supply
in case of accidental shorts, and certainly NOT the 5V supply which would risk destroying the fpga device).
If not using the opto-coupler circuit, connect as follows [this is UNTESTED, use at your own risk]:
Pi GND <-------/\/\/\/\--------> DE0-Nan0 GND
4.7K Ohm
Pi TxD <-------/\/\/\/\--------> DE0-Nan0 RxD
4.7K Ohm
Pi RxD <-------/\/\/\/\--------> DE0-Nan0 TxD
4.7K Ohm
The resistors give some measure of protection aginst damage and should NOT be omitted, though 4.7K Ohm
is probably too high. If it does not work try lower values eg 1K Ohm, or even 100 or 47 Ohm.
The opto-coupler circuit is as follows (rough ASCII-Art sketch, best viewed in fixed font)...
The pinout is for an EL825 device (they are very cheap, less than a dollar), if you use a different
one then take care to look up the datasheet as the pinout may differ.
Viewed from above: EL825
+--------------------+
1 + (spot) +
Pi 3.3V <-------/\/\/\/\-------+------+ + +-------/\/\/\/\-----> DE0-Nan0 Bias1 (or 3.3V)
Rtx 1K Ohm + + + 8 + Rrx 220 Ohm
+ ----- + /----+------+--------------------> DE0-Nan0 RxD
+ \ / +/
+ \ / +\
+ + + \----+---------------------------> DE0-Nan0 GND
2 + + + 7
Pi TxD <-----------------------+------+ +
+ +
3 + +
DE0-Nano <-------/\/\/\/\------+------+ + +-------/\/\/\/\-----> Pi 3.3V [NOT 5V]
Bias2 or 3.3V Rtx 1K Ohm + + + 6 + Rrx 220 Ohm
+ ----- + /----+------+--------------------> Pi RxD
+ \ / +/
+ \ / +\
+ + + \----+---------------------------> Pi GND
4 + + + 5
DE0-Nano TxD <-----------------+------+ +
+ +
+--------------------+
Rrx can be adjusted to tweak the maximum baud rate. Lower values are needed for faster speeds.
The 220 ohm shown works well at 4800 baud, but will draw about 15mA. The absolute max for the EL825 is
80mA, but I would not recommend trying this as the Pi 3.3V supply is restricted to 50mA and the DE0-Nano
FPGA can only supply 40mA per output pin. Stick to the values above as 4800 baud is plenty fast enough and
my current fpga bitstreams are hard coded to run at this speed. Note that this is a very crude circuit,
much faster speeds should be possible with a slighly more complex design.
Several optoisolators can be used in a wire-or configuration so as to support more than one DE0-Nano.
Simply connect them in parallel, but only use a single common 220ohm Rrx resistor on the Pi RxD. Thus
Pi TxD is sent to all the DE0-Nano's in common, and the RxD is wire-or combined. The risk of the DE0-Nano's
sending data simultaneously is very small and the pi mining software will simply ignore the resulting garbage.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------