Energy Efficient Cooling Fan for PC Chassis

Abstract

The Energy Efficient Cooling Fan (EnCool Fan) was designed to improve the energy efficiency of the axial cooling fan used in the PC chassis. The EnCool fan has the ability to maintain the same or better heat ventilation rate as compared to ordinary axial cooling fan, and it uses less power. The EnCool fan uses embedded microcontroller with on chip temperature sensor, Analog to Digital converter, PWM module, Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter and LED output port embedded in an 8 pin chip to control the fan. The EnCool fan is made up of a transparent axial fan installed with 4 tri-colour LEDs located at its 4 edges for visual indication. By referring to the on chip temperature sensor, the 4 tri-colour LEDs would emit 7 different colors to indicate the temperature range that it sensed and the fan would rotate with an adequate speed to exhaust the heat out of the PC chassis. A prototype of EnCool Fan has been built to demonstrate its heat ventilation performance and energy efficiency. The temperature data inside the PC chassis is acquired using LabVIEW for performance analysis. Experimental results show that EnCool Fan has slightly better heat ventilation rate and saved more then 61% of power as compared to ordinary PC fan. EnCool Fan System shows promising heat ventilation and cooling solution in desktop and laptops PC chassis.