Controlling a small computer fan with an audio signal

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1

I’m prototyping a project where I need to control a fan with an audio signal. I purchased a WAV Trigger and I’m wondering if there is a turnkey solution that would connect to one of the speaker outputs of the WT to the fan. The general idea is that the amplitude of the file would spin the fan faster or slower, but I’m guessing there would be some coding involved in that. Any ideas big or small?

Thanks!

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I’m fairly sure all you would need to do is hookup an MCU like this one https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15123 , with the output going to an analog input of the redboard…then use the PWM output of the redboard to the fan

It would require a bit of code, check out the examples under each products ‘documents’ tab for links to hookup guides and similar which have code examples

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Keep in mind that fans don’t usually respond to either starting or stopping too quickly. When you remove power from a fan, inertia causes it to spin for some time. Similarly, they take some time to get up to speed when power is applied. This might be ok for slow changes in amplitude but you won’t get very good resolution for a lot of music, speech, beats, etc.

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TS-Russell:
I’m fairly sure all you would need to do is hookup an MCU like this one https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15123 , with the output going to an analog input of the redboard…then use the PWM output of the redboard to the fan

It would require a bit of code, check out the examples under each products ‘documents’ tab for links to hookup guides and similar which have code examples

OK great thanks for the suggestion :slight_smile:

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brow:
Keep in mind that fans don’t usually respond to either starting or stopping too quickly. When you remove power from a fan, inertia causes it to spin for some time. Similarly, they take some time to get up to speed when power is applied. This might be ok for slow changes in amplitude but you won’t get very good resolution for a lot of music, speech, beats, etc.

True that. The idea is to try and simulate the air moved when you whisper into someone’s ear. For sure the fan won’t do for higher energy plosives (P, T, etc…) for which I’m going to try hooking up a transducer to some kind of flexible membrane.