Mining Monero with a Raspberry Pi 3B
For those of you that remember when I tried to mine Monero on a Raspberry Pi Zero and ended up getting 1 whole hash per second, you'll be amused to learn that I tried to mine Monero again... This time using a Raspberry Pi 3B!
I managed to acquire a second hand Raspberry Pi 3B and necessary cords from a guy nearby for about $20.00 US, and I used the same 32GB MicroSD card from the Pi Zero "experiment".
At first, I considered mining ZCash or Ethereum, but once again settled on mining Monero, as fighting against ASICS and GPUs is probably not the smartest thing to do.
Raspberry Pi 3B Specs:
- CPU: Quad Core 1.2GHz Broadcom BCM2837 64bit
- RAM: 1 GB
- Connections: BCM43438 wireless LAN, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), full-size HDMI
- 4 x USB 2.0 ports
- Power consumption: Under 5 watts
So... What happened this time?
Learning from what happened last time when my fan failed and my Pi Zero got fried, I plugged in not one. Not two. But there USB fans into the USB port. It seemed a bit overkill, but better safe than sorry!
While the Pi 3B was absolutely silent, the three little fans made a 24-7 buzzing noise. The device didn't get very hot for the entirety of the "experiment".
Once mining, the device saw a lot of fluctuation, but could mine steadily over 8 H/s on the Cryptonight algorithm, meaning that if difficulty never changes, I don't pay anything for pool fees, and I don't pay for electricity, I'll make a whopping $0.25 US cents a YEAR. While this is over 8 times better than the $0.03 US cents a year by the Pi Zero, this is probably not a smart investment. On the other hand, if I somehow got free electricity and mining difficulties remain static, I'll break even in less than a century!
I decided to let the Pi 3B run for just over one week just to see how it holds up, and I ended up mining 0.00006 XMR. However, I definitely ended up paying more money on electricity than I earned. I also tried my luck and entered a solo mining pool for 3 days. As expected, with 8 H/s, I earned absolutely nothing financially, but it was interesting nevertheless.
Long story short, you can definitely mine Monero and other cryptocurrencies on a Raspberry Pi 3B. But unless you have free power and a century or two to spare, it probably isn't the most brilliant idea... It's a fun project, and can teach you a bit about how mining works, but don't be too optimistic on earning anything noteworthy! If you're looking to learn a little about mining, this is probably one of the cheapest way to enter and have a bit of fun!
