Guide DigiBus - Software Fan/Lights Controller Guide

Kickstart or timed over-ride if worst comse to worst. I've never come across a fan thats done that though, since it'll either be off (which it is most of the time) or on full, because the BIOS isn't going to PWM it.

 

if when the sytem froze and the fans stoped, wouldn't the same thing happen with the matrix orbital and other such tools? because isn't this basically the same thing without the lcd?
*discloser-have no idea if this is right so feel free to insult my inteligence

 

In some systems yes. But two things are different between the DigiBus and an MO's GPOs: The GPOs are latched so when you tell them to turn on, they stay on until they are told to go off, and there is no speed control.

In reality though, most people don't trust a hardware bay-bus enough to connect there CPU fan too it, and that is the only fan that matters if we're talking about a system freeze for a few seconds.

 

the matrix orbital allows you to attach fans to it, and then using software adjust the fan speeds, typing a little code you can even link the fan speeds to temps and have the system automatically adjust the fan speed. check over at procooling.com pheatus disscussed it in i believe his MO vs. crystalfontz article.

havn't really studied much electronics,
question:
will this bay-bus vary any from the one on the MO?

 

Cool, didn't know about that, I'll check that out now.

This bay-bus is much different from the MO one. It's a little less advanced obviously, this is a mostly software solution to the problem, it's cheaper, it's more customiseable (well i like to think so anyway), this uses the parallel port where as the MO uses a serial port (COM/usb?) (I am discussing a serial version with mikecx at the moment, but it will be much more complex), this bay-bus doesn't link speeds to temps but thats being coded in at the moment with MBM5, in the latest version of the DigiBus software you can link system activity to fan-speed though, which I think is pretty cool. I'm just guessign here, but i expect the DigiBus can handle higher-power fans than the MO/CF but i'll have to check that one. Another feature of the DigiBus is that it's development is steered by you (and others on the forum), I take any suggestions seriously and have already re-coded and re-thought aspects of this project thanks to the input of people on the forums.

 

sorry i was a bit wrong you can read about it here, it looks like it is more a modification of the cf 633 software, as it runs as a service


here's a quote from the article:
http://www.procooling.com/reviews/html/crystal_fontz_633_-_update__pa.php

CF633 Service for Windows NT
I was asked to beta test a win32 service for the CF633 a few months back, and once I got it working it has totally changed my opinion of the device. Mark Willians, aka MWP, of Overclockers.com wrote this service. You may be familiar with his work; he is also the author of the Crystal Control LCD software that CrystalFontz has on their site as well. We will get to that software in a bit; for now let me run down the features of the 633 service.

Once installed, the CF633 service runs in the background and automatically launches with windows. You can find it in Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Services/CF633 Service:



The service allows for one to name temperature sensors, set fans to run at a given speed at boot, set alarms for different fans and temperature sensors, and most importantly, it can couple a temperature sensor to a fan's PWM control. This allows one to set up extremely flexible temperature-controlled fan adjustment. All of these settings are controlled with a .ini file that can be configured in your text editor and then just dropped into your /windows/ directory. Mark sent his ini file with the service, and it is clearly annotated and has instructions. For example, I set up the following configuration for Fan 4 on my CF633:

; fan 4
sensor4=1
lowtemp4=20
lowspeed4=30
hightemp4=32
highspeed4=80

What this configuration does is PWM the fan on connector 4 at 30% power at 20C or lower on temp sensor #1, and at 80% at 32C or higher on temp sensor #1. These temperatures were chosen so I could force the fan PWM control to change just by squeezing the temp sensor between my fingers. As you can see from screen captures, the service works perfectly:
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i think if ths software could be set up the same it would be great.
keep up the good work!

 

I'm coming pretty close to that, but the software can only control your fans whilst it is running (obviously) so the boot-up thing is out of the question for now until I come up with some more complex circuitry, however the main idea of this controller is simplicity, so i'll focus on more complex electronics after the guide is done.



The speed control software (Advanced Edition) should be released later today.

 

sounds great, i wish i could set one up for myself... but it's kinda hard to find electronic parts in a country where you don't speak the language... oh well i'll have to wait for summer....

the MO mx2 series had the same problem.. it was fixed with a little window defogger and couple lines of code...
http://www.procooling.com/reviews/html/matrix_orbital_mx212_vs_crysta1.php
i have no idea how eaither of these works, but it'd be great if you could get the fans to boot at startup
(and sorry if i'm trying to make more work for you)

 

and would there be any way to add support for temp probes such as these.. they can draw their power from the line i believe http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm?qv_pk=2812&ln= or http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/2815

 

try http://www.futurlec.com for the parts, they prolly ship to you (and are very cheap).

Talking about the software again, if you like Acrimonious i could make you a device driver for this project that did all the PWM in kernel mode (far more effecient on the CPU time), and you just set the speed via an IOCTRL. This would also start up a lot sooner than a svchost'd service. All this is assume nothing else dies on my main dev box (so far 2 hdds, one power regulator on the mobo, one network card, an SCA adaptor (how the hell that happened!)).

 

trit187, it's possible in later versions.

Sure, why not, thanks.

 

SOFTWARE RELEASE #2:

DigiBus Advanced Edition Software.



Version 1.7.6

No Known Bugs

ON/OFF and speed control of upto 4 devices

System monitor graph (temporary, untill MBM is fully plugged in)

1.46MB

Download it Here

 

Looks awsome, just need to go buy some tip120's and i'm set

 

sweetness it works for me! as a added effect i hooked it up to my led lighting and variating the controlls will give me a really cool strobing effect

 

Got my tip 120's

 

TIP102 TIP102 NPN Power Darlington
TIP122 TIP122 NPN Power Darlington
TIP125 TIP125 PNP Power Darlington
TIP127 TIP127 PNP Power Darlington
TIP137 TIP137 NPN Power Darlington


thanks alot for the link, it looks like they have everything but the transistor, these are the closest ones... could any substitue for the tip120?.. otherwise i might be able to get someone to try to find me one locally.... but that could be interesting....
the site looks great for getting stuff.. $4 shipping to china sounds pretty darn good to me.

----------
a little reading i've been doing of simialer projects
http://www.electronics-lab.com/projects/pc/021/index.html

heres a temp sensor one, which seems to require only thermistors, and some time with calibration
this one might be a good addition, allowing the correlation between fans and temps.
(with more software)
http://vortex.shacknet.nu/thermogamer/

 

How do you edit the captions of the fans?

 

move your mouse to the upper left had corner of the program, where it says digibus, you will see a "C" a "I" and an "X". Click on the "C" pretty sure that it stands for configuration.

 

I'd go for the TIP122, simply becauase i've used them in the past but any one marked NPN will be fine.

I've used the thermo-gamer program before when playing with the idea of the game port as an analog measurement device. Compared to the MBM plug-in i'm coding into the software, which requires no calibration or additional hardware, i've ruled out the game or COM port for external, additional thermistors. Good program though

 

Twitch's answer was correct.

In the next version of the software there will be more options to customise the appearence of the program, possibly leading upto a fully skinable interface.