Small Smart Computer Fan

Hardware
1

Hi guys,

I’m new to home assistant, just got setup a few days ago. I have an residential solar inverter in my garage that was installed recently, there’s really no airflow in the garage, the inverter is passive cooled and I pulled the stats from the api and realised it was reaching temps of 73 degrees! Normal operation should be 60 degrees.

I have a wall mounted network cabinet right next to it and wanted to setup a couple of computer fans under the heat syncs that pushes air through them upwards.

Thing is I only want them to run when inverter temp is over like 50 degrees. Is there any computer sized fan (the little square ones) that I can hook into home assistant?

Thanks heaps

2

Any 240/110V mains powered fans and a smart plug?

Get someone competent to wire the fans to the mains lead.

3

Was hoping to just run from a USB port on my UPS in my network cabinet but yes this is a good idea if there’s nothing else available.

Thanks didn’t even think of this

4

Oh. I saw a USB switch that works with HA the other day. Let me see if I can find it. Then all you’d need was some 5V fans.

5

Sinilink USB Switch | Flashed with Tasmota - CloudFree I think this should work :slight_smile:

6

I didn’t even think of smart switches, I was thinking of an actual smart fan that connects to wireless

7

That’s the one,

8

Below it. Many inverters start derating at 55-60’C

I have exactly this setup on my passive cooled inverter.
Esphome devboard connected to 5V pwm fan. It’s getting the inner temp readings directly from inverter.

9

I would go with an ESPboard with both a fan and temp sensor connected, so it can be made to act independently from HA.
HA can then be used for monitoring the temperature and the fan state and the API on the inverter can be used as a secondary control sensor for a notification service.

10

I use one of these with 3 120mm fans. I get the temperature from my inverter in HA so use that to turn the fan on and off. You could solder onto on of the ESP pins to get a GPIO for a temp sensor

11

Thank you, I ordered one of these yesterday :slight_smile: will see how I go

12

yikes, I’m lucky I caught it early. Mine was 73 degrees