Ventilation system

A few words for the introduction

I originally wanted to call this chapter “Air Conditioning”, but my system is missing some components to fulfill the meaning of the word. So instead of the “air distribution system from under the table to on top of the table” I called it the shorter term “Ventilation”.

I wanted vents in the cockpit, they kind of belong there for authenticity. And of course I didn’t want them to be just for show. So I designed a simple system with a few pipes, elbows and other distributions that I could use to “pull” air from under the table to the cockpit vents. This air will possibly be warm due to the simulator PC under the table sharing the generated heat (and the PC sweating with the simulator). Of course, the air will not get into those pipes by itself, or it will, but it will not move in the desired direction. That’s why there are 3 60mm PC fans throughout the system to help with this. Yes, the result is not a blower with which you can simulate a breakage of the windshield in flight, but somehow the air does come out of the vents.

The fans are controlled by the same PWM module as the “cockpit avionics cooling” fans.

Gallery

The description is a good thing, but the picture is just fine. Hopefully these pictures will give you a better understanding of what the “ventilation” system looks like and how everything fits together:

Wiring

Here is a picture of ventilation system wiring:

In the ventilation system, there is nothing more to connect than the trio of 60mm PC fans. They are all connected in parallel to the PWM control circuit, so it is possible to regulate their speed. I bought the control circuit on AliExpress, it needs 12V input (either DC connector or USB). Those fans are connected to the output – plus, minus and control PWM signal.

Below is a gallery with used parts… hopefully they will help you find alternatives, when in a few months the links below will no longer be valid 🙁

Downloads

Below you can download the source project for Autodesk Fusion with the complete ventilation system, that is, only the pipe is in it just for show, but otherwise it contains all the designed components. Of course, the archive also contains STL files for printing.