CONTROL THE SPEED OF A USB DC FAN USING NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS LABVIEW SOFTARE.

SUBMITTED TO: JAGANATHA PANDIAN SIR

SUBMITTED BY:
AAYUSH PAL SINGH

AIM: TO CONTROL THE SPEED OF A USB DC FAN USING NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS LABVIEW SOFTARE.

SOFTWARE USED: LabVIEW (short for Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Engineering Workbench) is a system design platform and development environment for a visual programming language from National Instruments. The graphical language is named "G" (not to be confused with G-code). Originally released for the Apple Macintosh in 1986, LabVIEW is commonly used for data acquisition, instrument control, and industrial automation on a variety of platforms including Microsoft Windows, various versions of UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X. The latest version of LabVIEW is version LabVIEW 2011, released in August 2011.

INTRODUCTION:

The subject of controlling fan speed in today's electronics presents ongoing challenges as today's systems employ more and more electronics in smaller and smaller spaces. More components packed into smaller spaces means a greater need to remove heat. Heat is a primary enemy of today's electronics. For well over a half of a century the simple fan has been a solution to removing excess heat from enclosures. Fans simply work well and get the job done. However even the simple fan can use improvements and we will take a look at some of the methods we can employ to make our fans used for cooling more efficient. We will take a look at ways we can control fan speed and some of the fans used to cool today's electronic systems with a focus on the home computer.

Not much to look at is it? A simple DC motor fan having two wires for power. We will assume it is a standard off the shelf 12 Volt DC fan. We apply 12 Volts with respect to polarity and the fan runs at its rated speed, we remove the power and the fan stops running. Laughing we could say we have a two speed fan as in on or off, nothing in the middle. :) Since the fan is little more than a DC motor with blades to move air and since this is a simple DC motor if we vary the voltage we apply we can, to a point, vary the speed of the motor. Thus we can take a look at the simplest form of fan speed control using DATA ACQUISITION in LABVIEW.

SOFTWARE WINDOW:

CONCLUSION: Why should we even bother to control fan speed, why not just let the fans run at full speed whenever power is applied? Since the fans we are going to be looking at are no more than a small DC motor with blades to move air they behave like any DC motor. When a DC motor (like just about any motor) runs at full speed constantly things like bearings take frequently undue stress and reduce the overall life expectancy of the motor. Fans use power! Though minimal power the harder a fan runs, the more power consumed. Reducing power consumption can be of great importance in battery powered mobile devices such as laptop computers. Fans make noise and a slower smoother running fan generates less noise. People tend by nature to dislike noise and especially unnecessary noise.