My ultimate goal is to integrate a fan, which uses a type of potentiometer to control the airflow, into Home Assistant so that I can regulate the fan speed with HA. I have this fan [LINK]. My question is, what options do I have to digitally replace the potentiometer? Digital potentiometer and ESP32? Problem is, that the potentiometer probably has high voltage inputs. The fan is for my growbox and I have everything integrated already from water to light and temperatur/humidity. The only thing missing is to regulate the fan speed as a function of the temp/humidity.
Depending on how far you need to turn the knob (only by 20 degrees or multiple turns), you could try a strong servo or a stepper motor. So keeping the original poti, but making it controllable mechanically.
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Hmm… I never thought about that. It’s only like a 3/4 turn. I have a 3D printer so it would be easy to print an adapter to a stepper motor. Also it would be cool to play around with a stepper motor for the first time.
How do you know it’s a potentiometer?
Are you sure it’s not PWM?
If it is PWM then you could get a smart dimmer and control it with that.
Like Sonoff, Shelly, Tuya.