Hi all,
Been a while since I last posted (January 2022)!
Time is a scarce commodity. This became increasingly apparent during the past 2 years where I worked full time and pursued my Masters in Electrical Engineering simultaneously.
I also started a business in January of 2022 (Relectronics LLC, rtron.com). I’ve found a few customers and have been doing test equipment repairs and consulting/inspection for commercial electronic equipment insurance claims.
Needleless to say, I was especially busy. So while I have been working on many awesome things, I rarely had time to sit down and gather my thoughts by sharing online.
With that out of the way, let us discuss the next project. Some of you might remember the PWM fan controller I built years ago based on a design I found on overclockers.com:
Since then, my interest high power computer fans has always persisted. I made some progress in developing my own fan controller with the DIY solder fume extractor project I put together as well:
This latest iteration of my fan controller project is what I believe to be the ultimate stepping stone for the PIC based design.
This board retains the same PIC16F1788 MCU I like to use for small embedded projects. It is adjustable for PWM frequency, tachometer pulse counts, and rotary encoder direction. The board is powered by a wide input DC-DC converter up to 60 volts, and it is capable of switching loads of up to 15A continuously with no added cooling.
Of course, it is much easier to demonstrate over video. You can see all the features, plus a bunch of high powered fans in my collection being controlled by this board (up to 600 watts!).
The fans demonstrated in the video with this circuit include the following models:
80x80x38mm, 40 watts, 14000 RPM – EBM Papst 8212J/2H4P
120x120x38mm, 120 watts, 7600 RPM – Delta THA1248BE
120x120x38mm, 90 watts, 7300 RPM – Nidec Servo G1238B48BCZP-59
120x120x38mm, 100 watts, 10700 RPM – Nidec Servo G1238V50BGYP-76
120x120x38mm, 135 watts, 11600 RPM – Nidec Servo G1238X54BHYP-72
120x120x86mm, 510 watts, 17280 RPM – EBM Papst 8315100198 (Diaforce 120)
120x120x38mm, 288 watts, 12500 RPM – Delta THD1348HE
120x120x38mm, 158 watts, 9200 RPM – EBM Papst 5318/2TDH4P
172x150x51mm, 98 watts, 6300 RPM – Sanyo Denki 9GV5748P5H09
200x70mm, 600 watts, 8000 RPM – Sanyo Denki 9GV2048P0G201
Project files (gerbers, BOM, firmware) are available for download below (MIT License applicable to all contents):
By request, here are the project files for the PWM level shifter (needed for DiaForce fan as demonstrated in the video):
Kevin Aghaei's Lab 
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