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Arduino As PC Fan Controller

nicolaoscon96

Hello there,

 

It's been a while to write here and I came back with a question. I want to build a fan controller for my desktop pc and I wanted to build it with an Arduino (Just add some modes like gaming for full speed, office use for lower rpm and less noise)>>Where I will be able to control by sending a  number for example 1 for gaming mode 2 for office<<. I found some online and they are really cheap but I wanted to experiment with that. So I wanted to ask is this possible? Can I control (4 fans) with an Arduino and get feedback from them about the RPM and the voltage if it possible(have it connected with USB on my computer and read the output in Arduino IDE)? The fans that am using are 3 pins (black-red-yellow).

 

Thanks

nicolaoscon96

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  • nicolaoscon96,

     

    Just a couple of minors notes about your comment:

     

    Most 2-wire fans these days are brushless DC. They stopped making fans with brushes years ago. Too expensive and noisy.

     

    About your arduino resource statement, I'm pretty sure an arduino can do a decent job. Since the temperature doesn't change very rapidly, you could set a counter to read one fans tach output, calc the desired PWM, set the corresponding pin's PWM, then move the counter the next fan. Using a round-robin approach like this, you could control as many fans as there are PWM pins (15 on a Mega). The processing needs are minuscule, and since the tach output is in the kHz region, counting pulses or measuring pulse width takes milliseconds.

     

    As as others have pointed out, the hardware interface is a bit more complex, but there's no reason an arduino couldn't handle the task.

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  • nicolaoscon96,

     

    Just a couple of minors notes about your comment:

     

    Most 2-wire fans these days are brushless DC. They stopped making fans with brushes years ago. Too expensive and noisy.

     

    About your arduino resource statement, I'm pretty sure an arduino can do a decent job. Since the temperature doesn't change very rapidly, you could set a counter to read one fans tach output, calc the desired PWM, set the corresponding pin's PWM, then move the counter the next fan. Using a round-robin approach like this, you could control as many fans as there are PWM pins (15 on a Mega). The processing needs are minuscule, and since the tach output is in the kHz region, counting pulses or measuring pulse width takes milliseconds.

     

    As as others have pointed out, the hardware interface is a bit more complex, but there's no reason an arduino couldn't handle the task.

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