Noctua 4 pin PWM fans

The Sensa Fan Temperature Control runs up to two 4 pin PWM fans, such as Noctua's, at whatever speed you choose. It can also speed them up and slow them down on its own, following a temperature sensor in your van.

Sensa Connection Method

Network: Wi-Fi.

Installation

The fan controller is a small Sensa box that sends each fan its speed signal. The fans take their power from a 12 V supply, and the box from its own 5 V supply or its USB-C socket.

Configuration

It needs 4 pin PWM fans. A 3 pin fan has no speed input, so it would just run flat out. Put a 3 pin fan on a relay channel instead, for plain on and off.

Join your Wi-Fi

1. On your phone, join the Wi-Fi network named ss-setup-fan. The password is sensasetup.
2. Pick your van's Wi-Fi network from the list and enter its password. It must be a 2.4 GHz network.
3. Power the box off and on again. It then joins your network.

Adding to Sensa Nomad

Once it is on your van's network, Sensa finds it on its own. Open Settings, choose the Devices tab, tick it under Discovered and press Add Selected Devices. If it is not there yet, press Scan.

See Adding devices for more.

What you see

A fan card on the Climate tab with a row for each fan: its name, On and Off, a speed slider, and an Auto line showing the temperature it is following.

Set it to follow a temperature

On the Devices tab, tap the cog on the fan controller's row. Each fan has its own settings, labelled Fan 1 and Fan 2:

• Name, so the card says "Bedroom" rather than "Fan 1".
• Temperature Sensor, the thermometer the fan follows. Leave it on Manual to control the fan only by hand.
• Start Temperature, below which the fan is off. 25 °C to begin with.
• Max Temperature, at which the fan reaches full speed. 35 °C to begin with. In between, the speed rises steadily.
• Critical Temperature, above which the night limit is ignored. 45 °C to begin with.

Night Cap sets the top speed while the van is in Sleep mode, 40% to begin with. Set it to 0 to keep the fans off at night, unless it gets critically hot.

Moving the slider or pressing On or Off on the card takes that fan off Auto, so Sensa does not undo what you set. Press Auto on the card to hand it back.

Good to know

• The fans run at full speed without a signal. For a second or so after power-on, and for as long as the box is off, the fans run flat out. Bear that in mind when choosing where they go.
• Speed is a percentage, not a fan speed reading. The box cannot see the fans turning, so a stuck or unplugged fan is not reported.
• Most Noctua fans stop completely at 0%. A few models hold a minimum speed instead, so they need a relay to switch fully off.