Cooling Off

My office is hot. The crawl space is NOT! This remotely controlled fan will pull air in from the crawl space into my office from HomeAssistant or HomeKit.

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Inspiration

My office is HOT! The crawl space is NOT!

What it does

Remotely control the fans to pull the cool air out of the crawl space and into the office area.

How I built it

Using an ESP32 board along with a relay and a few 120VAC fans, I coded the ESP32 in ESPHome off my HomeAssistant. I then tested it on my desk and verified the relay was triggering correctly using a continuity tester. I then documented in video the rest of the steps in building the enclosure for the high-voltage and the low-voltage electronics and connecting up to the fans that were installed in the access cover. My youngest printed up my And!Or stickers, my hobby name, for the cover. You can follow them (and order your own stickers) here: instagram and GitHub.

Challenges I ran into

  1. The original intention was to use an ESP32-CAM allowing a camera for AI, but the board didn't stay online for some reason. So, I switched over to the DoIt! ESP32 DEV V1 board for time's sake.
  2. Not being too familiar with Fritzing, there are some inaccurate block images in the PDF since I don't have time to learn how to make blocks today.
  3. The connectors I was using to attach the 120vac to the fans were not the correct size and therefore fell off easily, so I soldered them instead (not in video).
  4. The pin, going to the SIG connector on the relay, bent too many times on the breadboard and broke off. I had to strip the end and solder it to get it back into the breadboard.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

It's a bit cooler in my office now! And I can control it remotely.

What I learned

  1. A bit more about ESPHome controls
  2. It's better to NOT use breadboards on final products - they are for prototyping!

What's next for Cooling Off

  1. Learn more about Fritzing and get the blocks corrected.
  2. Change from the ESP32 to an ESP32-CAM to get a camera in the office and to not use such a powerful tool for a small application (there are a lot of unused resources on the DoIt! ESP32 Dev board).
  3. In the change to ESP32-CAM, remove the breadboard and hardwire/solder everything!

Built With

  • democreator
  • esp32
  • esphome
  • fritzing
  • homeassistant
  • homekit
  • outlet
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