[Schroinx]

Some hardworking person out there have developed this very interesting board capable of:


Temperature driven fans by PWM and with RPM monitoring. Interface to the PC via the serial port (want to port it to USB but too much work involved in making the drivers). You can get the full story here or check out the webpage for this project. Also someone Ars are working with this here .

Also it is pretty easy to hook up a LCD to this device if needed and control a few general purpose outputs.


So as of now tree things are needed: Poeple who would like to pay a premium price (non-profit) for a premium product and someone who can make a USB driver and someone who can make a nice frontend app.


Unfortunately there have been a lack of interest and it seems as everyone have different opinions about what the board should do also because the price for one board as of now is around 65USD.


Are you willing to pay like 65-100 USD for a USB controllable board that can control your noisy fans to run no more than needed while watching Casablanca on your 3000USD HTPC? And are you willing/able to solder the thing yourself if needed? Or can you contibute in any other way?


Regards

/Schroinx

 

[RDaneel]

Sounds like an interesting homebrew project. The issue for me is that I can buy a temperature controlled fan controller for about $20, and that can control a pair of fans. It would be neat to be able to monitor rpm and temperatures in the OS, but I don't think it would be worth $50 MORE to me to be able to do that.


The cost of the board is the issue, the features are great. I would love to be able to control fans, lights, etc. all from the OS, but I doubt that a home made solution can be cost effective for something of this complexity. Besides, there are a ton of fan speed controls out there already that don't offer a interface to the OS, and they are $25 or less.


Keep us posted...


RDaneel

 

[James Thorne]

I use a black face Digital Doc that I converted to blue backlight in my server. It controlls 8 fans, monitors 8 temps and fan speeds and 2 system voltages. Has a nice LCD display. Cost was about $40 plus the 2 blue leds. I think there are plenty of fan control solutions already in the market to justify one at that price point. Then again, might just be me.