Controlling airflow with the Make Controller

Craft & Design Technology
Controlling airflow with the Make Controller

Make Controller Wiring

Former Make intern Jake McKenzie is part of the team of students at UC Berkeley who made the Efficient Cooling and Ventilation System, powered by the Make Controller:

Most cooling systems today do not take into consideration that compartments within the system may represent drastically different thermal loads.

The Efficient Cooling and Ventilation System (ECVS) attempts to solve this problem by controlling the intensity of airflow so that each compartment will receive an amount of cooling air proportional to its thermal demand. Instead of cooling each room evenly, more airflow goes to where it’s hot, and less to where it’s cold. This avoids overcooling compartments that are near ideal temperature while not compromising the cooling demand of the warmer compartments. If ECVS were implemented in the computer room example, it would restrict the cool air supply to all other rooms besides the computer room, allowing the central cooling unit to focus its cooling power on the computer system instead of the entire building. The cooling unit therefore runs at a much lower rate and uses only the amount of energy it needs.

Efficient Cooling and Ventilation System (ECVS)

Makershedsmall

Buy the Make Controller in the Maker Shed today!
A next-generation family of modular, programmable controller boards. The MAKE Controller Kit is an absolute delight to program, and connecting real devices to it is very simple.
Features

  • Self contained unit–ready to connect to sensors, motors, etc. straight out of the box. No additional hardware needed.
  • Comes with simple/common functions pre-programmed on chip for immediate experimentation. Download free software from MakingThings to begin programming/interfacing.
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I'm a tinkerer and finally reached the point where I fix more things than I break. When I'm not tinkering, I'm probably editing a book for Maker Media.

View more articles by Brian Jepson

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