Project: Madness (a Fan/Electronics modification)

[Tealc]

So the matrix board doesn't have copper strips. So I would need to wire wrap instead. With my shaky fingers that could be a tricky task and I have even less experience of mounting on matrix board than I do with stripboard.

I know it's ugly but I will probably stick with it on Stripboard mate. It will be mounted in a box (probably).

I was thinking of slicing the stripboard into 2 parts though.

 

[egnshane]

matrix board has lots of copper pads instead of strips, a lot of people seem to 'solder blob' between them or you could wire link as you say. It's a personal preference I just like it because I don't have to bother cutting tracks

 

[Tealc]

Might be worth grabbing some of that stuff for a future project.

There does seem to be some difference though between types. No copper. 3 hole strip. Single hole.

I find working with stripboard quite confusing so it might be a welcome change as you can plan the circuit without thinking about the long strip circuits and not worry about removing the tracks, which incidentally caused an error or two for me.

 

[egnshane]

Yeah I have the same trouble, I am pretty rubbish at planning circuits out on strip board. I think that the matrix board requires the least amount of planning

 

[Tealc]

Prepped the second fan (the semi transparent one) today by drilling 18 holes. Also cut the cables and prepped the ends ready for a terminal block and resistors I'm waiting for.

Managed to replace the 10uF caps for the 2.2uF as well. The 50v 2.2s are identical in size to the 16v 10uF ones I had fitted previously.

Hopefully the terminal blocks and resistors will come tomorrow.

A screw type terminal block (a small thing) will allow me to have several fans served off one connector if I desire such a thing. What I do know us I wont be using these Tricools or Alpenfoehn fan in my rig. I might grab some decent ones.

 

[Tealc]

The 2.2uF caps in place.

As expected I had a few things in the post over the last few days.

First up were the 390 resistors. Soldered a resistor to each of the 18 LED anode wires and then added an additional length of cable to the end to extend the overall lead to the fan. Put some heatshrink over the joint.

And the terminal block. It's a PCB mounting one with a screw type fastening for accessory wires.

I soldered the incoming wire from the controller to the PCB pin and fitted the fan wires to the screw end. It doubles over itself a bit and I'm not 100% happy with them as I thought they might be pass through terminal blocks like you get on mains.

The overall assembly with black bladed fan.

Next up the translucent Alpenfoehn fan...

 

[Tealc]

Before commiting to the drill I test ran a LED with the original LED hole powered by a 3volt lithium battery.

It's quite bright.

Having learnt about mounting 18 LEDs with the Tri-cool it was so much easier adding LEDs to the Alpenfoehn fan. Marked then drilled the holes around the circumference and added in some LEDs.

This time it was so much easier and I was able to make the job much neater than before.

And then wire it up to the controller by fitting the wires to the terminal block and power on.

Short video recorded during the day.

And shots at night time.

Video of both at night. It is not a coincidence that they both start lighting at the same point on the circumference.

And some of the Alpenfoehn fan on it's own.

It really is shocking how much noise this fan makes at it's full speed.

Overall I am pleased with the result of the second fan and it's better than the opaque.

I think I might actually go with translucent fans when building this into a system. Not the Alpenfoehn fan but maybe an Enermax TB silence.

I wonder how much energy this circuit consumes. I bet it's a fair amount.

 

[joxang]

Wow...looks like 70s disco . Well done mate fantastic result.

You going to use these in a build? Several of them all synced up would be quite a sight.

 

[Tealc]

Now that I've finished, sort of, I thought it might be a good idea to speak about the costs involved buying the many components needed to build this.

I couldn't figure out how to copy and paste a table here, or how to import ane excel spreadsheet so a screen grab will have to do.

This list doesn't include heatshrink, the wire or solder used in the project, nor does it count the breakages, blown ICs and stuff.

LEDs cost me £4.40 for 50.

I got all but one item from the UK so I could probably have done it for half the price if I'd got everything from Hong Kong or gone for larger batches of stuff.

 

[Evoss]

Youtube vid is awesome !

 

[RollerBall]

This is why I could never do engineering. You folk are just crazy.

 

[Greavesy]

Awesome fans

 

[PhillyDee]

Ive got an idea for you . . . .

How easily can this be altered to take the output from the hard drive light and fed into the decade counter (say at a max of one pulse per 100ms or whatever - adjustable via a pot)?

I have ideas, but really do not have the time to develop and build it! I am waay to busy with everything else I have going!

 

[Tealc]

It would be simple enough to connect the hdd led output to the clock input of the 4017 but not sure how you could slow the signal down to minimum 100ms. As can be seen from the videos the 4017 can accept scary fast inputs and at times hdd activity can be pretty fast.

I'm sure there are ways of slowing down and ignoring unwanted pulses but having only limited knowledge I dont have the perfect answer.

The 555 could also receive the hdd led current and only relay a pulse to the 4017 every 100ms or more. As I see it the cap if the 555 would charge a little bit on every little pulse the activity led sends. Even if they are 1ms pulses the cap would eventually charge and send a pulse down pin 3 to the 4017.

Not sure if I would want to test this with a working system though.

Funny though as I was thinking of the hdd led earlier and how it could be used for stuff.

 

[MAXIBOY]

just a thought as im very impressed with this project but running lights as pairs on opposite sides on the fan might look better just an opinion

 

[Tealc]

just a thought as im very impressed with this project but running lights as pairs on opposite sides on the fan might look better just an opinion

You mean two LEDs opposite each other on each fan? Or rotate one of the fans through 180 degrees? Or have on go clockwise and one go anti clockwise?

 

[PhillyDee]

I would imagine one either side, so you get a horizontal line when used.

 

[Tealc]

Probably would involve totally changing the way the circuit works. It could be done though with a single 4017 decade counter.

I suppose I could hack it by joining output 1 to output 9 and output 2 to output 10 etc but I'm unsure how the joining of outputs would affect the dimming circuits.

Upon reflection though that sort of tinkering is better if the circuit were microcontroller based.

 

[PhillyDee]

Or just connect both LED's to the one pin, and put them on opposite sides

 

[Tealc]

I'm not sure that would work right as the circuit stands.

It would be simple to wire in LED 1 and LED 9 into the first active circuit on the terminal block and each LED would get 22mA of current. The trouble would start when the circuit reaches output 9 as nothing would light up. I'd then either need to stop the count at 9, which is something I didn't manage to work out on dual 4017s, or wire an additional 18 wires for the second revolution. I'd need to build on breadboard to work out how to stop reset the count.

Because it was never designed to do two LEDs at a time anything I do to the circuit now will be a hack.

Anyway here's a video of one of the fans rotated through 180 degrees so the LED light on opposing sides.

Now wondering what it would be like if the LEDs were to light clockwise on one and anti-clockwise on the other.