In this video I am going to build a “perfect” solution for my home lab “problems”.
I sincerely hope that I am not the only one that has some (or in my case a lot of) passive devices like small form factor PCs, fanless PC, single board computers and so on. Maybe you have some of them running as media server, streaming device, mini network router, game emulator or use it for a similar use-case where features like low-power and low-noise is preferred.
So why did I build this project?
Recently I realized that around my house I actually have quite a few of these passive PC/devices.
I also have media cabinets and 3D printing enclosure.
Recently I have noticed that from time-to-time these devices would start to thermal throttle, especially when they are under load.
This can be especially annoying if your mini-router starts lagging or your media cabinet starts to get hot and lag during movie night…
So it would be perfect if these devices could turn-on a fan when they are under heavy load and need a bit of extra cooling.
But more importantly they need to be able to also turn off the fan when they don’t need it.
After all, we prefer these devices because they are silent.
So in order to solve this problem, I have built a custom DIY fan controller that can be powered over _any_ USB connector. It also has a built-in UI which has some cool features, like for example, you can select if you want it to power a 5V or 12V fan, without modifying the board or moving any jumpers.
More information
OpenFAN Micro is available on WebShop (https://shop.sasakaranovic.com/products/openfan-micro)
YouTube video (https://youtu.be/TqN-tWI42gE)
Project documentation is available at https://docs.sasakaranovic.com/openfan_micro/
Project files are available at GitHub (https://github.com/SasaKaranovic/OpenFan-Micro)