Automation, Automation
There have always been a few components of the cooling solution that has annoyed me, one is the system currently in use for controlling the ventilation system. A fairly basic setup using simple thermostats to control when turbines kick in and out, this works pretty well, but in the age of the the `@Internet of all the Things`, it feels like its roughly about the time to make something a bit more “intelligent”.
Had this thing laying around for a while waiting for an excuse to mod it.. As its an old school automation system, the choice only seemed appropriate 🙂
Current contents, some nice old cableporn going on there. 1992 was a really good year for electronics.
A bit more modern automation electronics at hand, a cute little thing from Freetronics, an `EtherTen`, an Arduino compatible clone of sorts. Quite some time since last I had a good excuse to play around with Arduino.. far too long.
Never been one to let a solid excuse pass by, adding a small 2×20 character backlit LCD seemed like the reasonable thing to do. The screen is fairly old, so its using parallel communications as opposed to serial, wasting a bit more I/O pins than strictly needed, but as its been laying around for some time waiting for a good use, it was a perfect fit for the project.
Tearing apart an old 12V DC power adapter. While the “Arduino” can be powered off the USB, or even running off PoE if it were available; when running by itself a power source of some kind is still needed. And a 12V is still required by other components, such as the high-current relays.
Nearly a perfect fit, what more could you ask. It only seems appropriate to re-purposing as much of the original components as possible. 
Test mounting, not exactly cable porn worthy, yet, but it’ll do for now 🙂
More sample mountings, always a hard time trying to figure out how to best mount the electronics. By the end there will be a fair bit of wires, so getting a good layout is key.
Adding another 5V adapter to power the TTL relay board, and the smaller electronics components. Luckily the 5V DC power supply makes a good fit as well. 
To be continued..