rpi-fan

Basic Node.js Fan controller for Raspberry Pi.

When The temperature reachs a specific threshold value, the gpio is activated and the transistor lets the fan spin! You can see the current RPi temperature and Fan status using the built-in server functionality or installing the basic RPi-Dashboard: https://github.com/roccomuso/rpi-dashboard

Once the fan starts to spin, there will not be a temperature check for 5 minutes. This behavior avoids too many fan switches in short periods of time.

Hardware

1. Scheme (works on both Raspberry Pi and Raspberry Pi 2 model):

For Raspberry Pi pinout, check out https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/usage/gpio-plus-and-raspi2/

2. Recommended Transistor: 2N7000

3. Recommended Fan: 5V - 0.2A

Software

Configuration

1. You can edit the gpio number, temperature threshold, refresh time etc. directly in the config.json file:

    "PIN_NUMBER" : 18,
    "REFRESH_TIME" : 60,
    "TEMPERATURE_THRESHOLD" : 45.0
   

2. Optionally, you can also activate a web server to show the current temperature on http://ip_address:SERVER_PORT/. Make sure to choose a free port.

    "WEB_SERVER": true,
    "SERVER_PORT": 4949
   

Another available option is to pass these parameteres through the CLI:

	node index.js -n 18    # 'Choose the GPIO number'
	node index.js -p 4949  # 'Start the server on port 4949'
	node index.js -t 45    # 'Set a temperature threshold of 45 degrees'
	node index.js -r 60    # 'Check the temperature every 60 seconds'

Run on start up

1. clone the repo on the /home/pi/Desktop:

    git clone https://roccomuso@github.com/roccomuso/rpi-fan.git
    cd rpi-fan && npm install
   

2. add this rule to crontab:

• Launch from CLI crontab -e and add the following line:

    @reboot /usr/local/bin/node /home/pi/Desktop/rpi-fan/index.js >/tmp/fan_output 2>/tmp/fan_error
  

(General console.log and error messages are respectively in /tmp/fan_output and /tmp/fan_error - Update: /tmp/fan_output can now be seen on the web server page.)

You can also better use a process manager (like PM2):

sudo pm2 start index.js --name="rpi-fan"

Author @ Rocco Musolino - hackerstribe.com