Dilshan R Jayakody’s Web Log

In this post, we describe the fan controller which we designed for our 9U wall mount server cabinet. This fan controller is designed to drive a 12V DC cooler fan with pre-configured intervals or by monitoring the temperature of the server cabinet. The final version of the fan controller with DC brushless fan and 12V - 60W PSU. Core components of this fan controller are CD4060 binary counter, LM35 temperature sensor, and LM358 operational amplifier. In this design, CD4060 has used as long duration timer and it can be configured to trigger cooler fan from 1-minute and up to 4-hour. In this design, an LM35 temperature sensor is used to activate cooler fan in specified temperature. This sensor stage is useful to drive cooler fan when timer stage is in an inactive state. To control the cooler fan we use AP9971 dual N-channel power MOSFET transistor. We design this system to drive 12V cooler fans up to 2A of current. To test this controller we use commonly available 120mm × 120mm...

UC3844 is a popular current mode controller which is commonly found on DC-to-DC converter circuits and switch mode power supplies. This motor speed controller is also based on UC3844 and it is specifically designed to drive 20V - 24V DC motors. In this given configuration UC3844 produces (approx.) 50kHz to 240kHz PWM output and this range can be adjusted by changing the value of C2 timing capacitor. As per the datasheet, UC3844 is capable to produce PWM output frequency up to 1MHz. This circuit is quite sensitive to the noises, and to get the accurate output to construct this circuit on PCB. As per our observations, long wires on the oscillator circuit may change the stability of the output signal. According to the ON semiconductors , UC3844 has now discontinued product but it is still commonly available in the market for less than Rs. 40.00 (LKR). For this circuit either DIP (UC3844N) or SMD (UC3844D1) version of UC3844 can be used but the PCB design available with this arti...

While designing some mechanical projects we often have need for easy to build motor speed controllers. Thanks to the SGS-THOMSON Microelectronic’s TDA7274, now we have easy to build, low voltage D.C motor speed controller. TDA7274 provides wide operating voltage range from 1.8V to 6V and in this project we use it to drive small CD-ROM ejection motors. In this project we design entire speed controller with 39.3mm × 28.9mm PCB. While at the prototyping we test this system with 5V power source and successfully control several CD-ROM ejection motors, cassette motors and toy D.C motors. You can obtain all the circuit diagrams, PCB patterns and other information of low voltage motor speed controller from google drive .

In this project we design 2 channel D.C motor controller with pulse width modulation (PWM) based speed and direction control. This module is mainly design to drive 14.4V to 18V electric D.C motors. This motor controller is design to work with 18V - 1.5A D.C power source and it can be directly interface with general microprocessor / microcontroller system (without using any voltage level shifters). While at the prototyping stages we successfully couple this module with several NIDEC D.C fans and blowers which include D1751M24B7AP, E1331K12B7AZ-00, DME37KA, CF24DM506, etc. Control interface for this module is easy to use and at the designing stages we interface it with PIC16F887 and Atmega64 MCUs. Control interface of this module is consisting with 3 inputs (please refer the J3 in the circuit diagram) and using these inputs user may be able to select the motor, apply the brakes and also change the rotational directions of the motor(s). When constructing the circuit it is recommend...