CalcProgrammer1
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- Illinois, USA
You may remember my previous project from early this year, the RGB LED Fan Controller. It is a custom fan controller I built that not only has digital, software controlled fan speed and RPM feedback but also four color-changing LED's that allow you to manually set the colors or cycle them using a program (or even make them flash different colors to music with a special app).
Well, I just built my new i7 build and going back to plain old blue LED's is getting boring. The Antec Nine Hundred case has four 120MM fans that are all within plain sight so just swapping one fan is hardly an option, but building four of my original fan controllers will require four serial ports and a lot of room to mount the boards.
The solution? A new, smaller design that simplifies multiple devices using daisy-chaining style connections. I will design a smaller RGB Fan Controller board using surface mount components that can be glued or otherwise directly attached to the fan, minimizing cable clutter. A single cable carries power and data to the fan and two ports per fan means that you can string them together in a chain. I will also design an LED controller that uses extra RGB LED's to shine onto the motherboard and PC components visible through the side window. All of these devices will connect to a "master" controller, which will connect to the PC using either serial or USB. The master controller may either be a small board that does nothing but interface, or it may be built into a front panel with an LCD display and digital knobs. This will allow the fans to be controlled either by software on the PC or front mounted knobs.
To simplify the interconnects, I plan to learn how to use the I2C interface to communicate between the master and slave devices.
This is just an idea I've been thinking about for the past few days, but I think it would be a very clean and professional way to connect case accessories and fans, and if I do it right the software shouldn't be terribly difficult either. Would anyone be interested in a system like this? I'm not doing this for money but I'd like to know what people think of the idea.
Well, I just built my new i7 build and going back to plain old blue LED's is getting boring. The Antec Nine Hundred case has four 120MM fans that are all within plain sight so just swapping one fan is hardly an option, but building four of my original fan controllers will require four serial ports and a lot of room to mount the boards.
The solution? A new, smaller design that simplifies multiple devices using daisy-chaining style connections. I will design a smaller RGB Fan Controller board using surface mount components that can be glued or otherwise directly attached to the fan, minimizing cable clutter. A single cable carries power and data to the fan and two ports per fan means that you can string them together in a chain. I will also design an LED controller that uses extra RGB LED's to shine onto the motherboard and PC components visible through the side window. All of these devices will connect to a "master" controller, which will connect to the PC using either serial or USB. The master controller may either be a small board that does nothing but interface, or it may be built into a front panel with an LCD display and digital knobs. This will allow the fans to be controlled either by software on the PC or front mounted knobs.
To simplify the interconnects, I plan to learn how to use the I2C interface to communicate between the master and slave devices.
This is just an idea I've been thinking about for the past few days, but I think it would be a very clean and professional way to connect case accessories and fans, and if I do it right the software shouldn't be terribly difficult either. Would anyone be interested in a system like this? I'm not doing this for money but I'd like to know what people think of the idea.