They did! In my limited test it worked quite well, but I only needed it for a few hours.
They have never supported Mac's tho, I think it would be interesting.
Hey, thanks for the reply, I completely agree on all of the precautions, but again, I wouldn't really want to make a business out of it, just allow for some of the costs to be softened or as a proof of concept. If I would take not a random John Doe, but someone with an established name in the industry or even here, then I would have something to hold on to. I already have a modified piKvm so I would just add a custom fan or two and should be pretty sure about the temps as well.
Nevertheless I agree on everything you pointed out :)
What a great confirmation of what I've tried to achieve by getting models to communicate with my local data in shorter communicates to save on token command bandwidth, more or less the same results! Thanks for the article!
This looks really good! I am trying to do the same thing for cooling 11th gen Intel laptop motherboards with micro RP2050 board but came to the conclusion that I should just do it with ESP32 as mine has some limitations.
Would you mind sharing more technical review of what you created?
RP2050 would work, as it also has the necessary built-in peripherals. ESP32 would add wifi and better ESPHome support. I suggest you stay away from the ESP8266, as it needs to do PWM in software and struggles with the 25kHz output frequency.
From my experience: ESP32/RP2040 work without additional circuitry which works with most fans, but for protection, you want to add level shifters. Not all fans pull up the PWM pin to 3.3V, the spec allows for 5V.
Shameless plug, hopefully this is allowed here.
I built something like that, that allows fan control via WiFi. First I built it only for myself, but since the spare boards from PCBA quickly sold, I decided to keep it stocked.
Short gist: 12V Input, ESP32S2, ESPHome-based. Has 4 PWM-fan outputs, onboard temperature & humidity sensor and Qwiic expansion port.
If you want to build it by yourself, the schematic is in the hardware folder. And if you don't want to use ESPHome - there is no firmware lock, you find the pin assignment on the product page and can write your own firmware if you so desire.
