variable fan speed control

TCPMeta

I attend to build electronic projects and when I was building my huge variable bench power supply I had gotten a nifty idea on a small portable battery power supply and thought of other ways to use this circuit. Sure enough it hit me, a fan speed controller. It uses a few cheap passive parts and works very well. With a typical PC power supply 12 volt rail it can spin a fan quite nicely even with a volt or two voltage drop. If you know a bit about electronics you can even modify the circuit for higher loads for voltage and current.

wpblogheader

TCPMeta wrote:

cheap passive parts

I hope it doesn't break down. :shock:

BOD

wpblogheader wrote:

TCPMeta wrote:

cheap passive parts

I hope it doesn't break down. :shock:

I get the feeling you've no idea what that means.

TCPMeta

Yep, he doesn't.

Let me break it down.

What I mean by cheap is these are typical jellybean parts that you can by a dozen or so for a few bucks instead if buying a expensive micro controller and spend hours to program. You can even salvage these parts from old electronics if need be since they're used in almost anything.

wpblogheader

TCPMeta wrote:

Yep, he doesn't.

Let me break it down.

What I mean by cheap is these are typical jellybean parts that you can by a dozen or so for a few bucks instead if buying a expensive micro controller and spend hours to program. You can even salvage these parts from old electronics if need be since they're used in almost anything.

Oh. I thought you were talking about the fan itself. I once tried to build something like this, skimped on the fan, and it was a total disaster.

TCPMeta

I only use Nidec brand fans.