Best products from r/skytrader

So guys, I am here to present to you...in the last hour of the contest....the Captain of the Skyfleet... our one and only Luke SKYwalker. With a little bit of indulgence from all of you that are avid fans of the series because he is in the Millennium Falcon and not the X-Wing. I bought also the X-Wing but it's way to small so....here we areSmile. The story goes that I originally wanted to build a compact miner, to "hide" it in a corner somewhere but later on I realized that hiding in plain sight, disguised in a cool toy outfit, will work better for my place. For now, because I moved home recently, I am still waiting for the internet to be installed in the flat so I cannot provide the nodes addresses but I expect that in a week time it should be up and running. Also, I was one of the noobs complaining in Telegram about the fact that technically, I have no idea to properly set up the software part but the community was supportive so I am confident that I will get proper help and it will run smoothly. The project needs more aesthetic work until I can call it "finished" for sure, like upgrading the internal lights, adding cooling and more paint job but nevertheless it should be operational as per now. Painting the vintage figure of Skywalker in SKY colors was not the easiest job ever as I expected since it is quite small but somehow I managed to do what I envisioned. I wanted though to have the Skycoin logo on his helm but that area is really small to paint that kind of detail on. More techniques were used for ex. dry brushing for the used/metallic effect on the chest "computer".

Stripping it down, the items list goes this way:

Star Wars Hasbro Millennium Falcon Legacy Collection 2008 from EBAY

Star Wars Vintage Kenner Luke Skywalker (X-Wing Pilot) dated from 1978, Hong Kong from EBAY

8 x Orange Pi Prime Boards https://www.fasttech.com/p/7486001

10 port USB Dock Charging Station with 108W https://www.amazon.com/Charging-Station-Alxum-Multiple-Organizer/dp/B01NBTNEO0

Netgear GS116UK Gigabit 16 Port Switch https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0007SQEPK

8 x SanDisk Ultra 16GB microSDHC A1, Class 10, U1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073S9SFK2

8 x 0.25m CAT.6 Flat Ethernet Gigabit Lan Network Cables https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LF83EZS

8 x USB to 4.0/1.7mm DC plug 80cm (I would have loved to find shorter ones) https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-Black-Cable-Lead-USB-2-0-To-4-0mm-5V-DC-Plug-Power-Charger-for-Tablet-PC-DV/331730090269

Some short led strips in blue that will get an upgrade

Model paints for the figure

Spacers/Standoff's M3x25mm + other

..........

Things to be added/Improved:

Changing the actual foam boards base to acrylic laser cut pieces (just finished vectorizing the blueprints)

Adding better internal lighting. The ship had already blue lights and movie sound effects but those were linked to the internal "piece" that I needed to get rid of. So, I will need to do some rewiring after everything is all set.

Adding internal cooling (plenty of space to do this and already some good ideas in mind Big Grin)

The final thing will be to repaint the whole ship and add some proper Skycoin branding on it, but this will take a lot of time to do so in case people like it I will post a "journal" of it along the way.

.........

I hope the Skyfleet will like this as much as I did working on it. It really grew on me after I got the idea so after that it was only a "hunt for the right items" type of job. Quite time consuming I might add but enjoyable nevertheless. I know we are in the most initial stage of this project and I am glad I can be a part of it's growth. Like Luke we are rebels that want our freedom back so in this regard I think that the actual character that I chose fits the project more than I expected. Even if it does not become one of the unofficial symbols of the project, I still hope that it will take us all to the MOOOOON! Tongue

Goodluck everyone and please share your thoughts!

SKY Wallet: 2QQZp2aN8S9eu4CRsKpu3nDWDmh5DyLtfGK

I recently built a four-board Orange PI DIY Skyminer in order to share a way to create a miner without the need to do any of the electrical wiring or flashing OpenWRT to a router. Hopefully this provides the community with some ideas on ways to easily setup a miner!

Here are the supplies used:

Orange PI Prime Boards

Using the Orange PI Prime boards makes sense for beginners since most of the community is using these boards and thus there are a lot of community members who can assist with issues when installing the software on Linux. Additionally, the Skycoin team will be releasing an image with the software preinstalled that can be easily flashed onto Orange PI boards.

Power Adapter (US Version)

Power Adapter (EU Version)

Micro SD Cards

You will want to use fast Class 10 Micro SD cards. 16 GB is what the official miners come with.

LAN Cables

You can use any short Cat 6 Ethernet cables. I used these from the parts list that has floated around and got some in both 15cm and 25cm lengths.

Case

Any Orange PI cases would work but these are the ones I used.

Switch

This cheap switch can handle up to 7 devices, not including the incoming connection from the router. If you might expand to 8 boards in your Skyminer, use a 8+1 port switch like the one referenced in other parts lists.

Power-Adapter-Compatible Surge Protector

This surge protector can support up to 6 bulky power adapters at a time plus additional standard plugs.

GL-MT300N-V2 Mini Router (300 Mbps) with OpenWRT Preinstalled

This mini-router is limited to 300 Mbps but comes with OpenWRT preinstalled and is likely sufficient for home users in many parts of the world where bandwidth is capped at low speeds. In the long term, this bandwidth would not be sufficient for running a Skyminer attached to an antenna, but it gives you time to flash OpenWRT on a gigabit router while still participating in the Testnet via an OpenWRT router.

Power Adapter for Router

The MT300N requires a 5V/1A power supply, so most USB adapters should work.

Summary

Another reason to consider getting individual cases and power adapters is that FPGA miners and official miners with more than 8 boards are being worked on, and when they are released, a lot of the first-gen equipment will not be as useful for running Skywire. When that happens, I will probably use this initial equipment for other purposes or give some boards to friends/family for them to use for various purposes, and everything is in place from the start to make that transition very easy.

One downside to using the Orange PI boards is that they are in high demand due to the Skywire rollout, so backorders are common and it might be a month or more before you receive the boards. Personally, I feel there are several benefits to using the Orange PIs which I mentioned above, but you would probably receive other boards such as Raspberry PIs quicker. Other users have put together guides for those boards as well, such as this thread on Skywug, so you do have several options.

I hope this simple DIY setup helps the community!