I'm about to embark on some board projects with my kids. One candidate is a makeup air controller for a dryer and woodstoves.
There are several threads here about controlling a standard 24V motorized damper via a relay, and maybe encoders to control partial-open states, which seems workable but more complicated than we need.
But I just ran into this Eco Damper which can apparently operate on 5V PWM direct from an Arduino:
Their documentation links are misdirected, so I'm curious if anyone has actually used one, and how it worked out. (If not, I'll probably take a flying leap and try it, and report back at some point.)
They use a servo motor. It can be used with the Arduino Servo library.
Although the valve is used from 0 to 90 degrees, and the servo motor can go to 180 degrees. So you have to take care not to break it.
Do you use it for the incoming air or the outgoing ? The servo motor will melt easily.
They say 40F to 140F, that is 4 Celsius to 60 Celsius. So it is only for indoors at room temperature.
The documents do not exist, even Google can find just one PDF-file : the 2-year warrenty.
Can you make something like this yourself ?
I would buy a servo motor and use an existing valve and try to make an Arduino operated valve. Just to get to know how it is working for the dryer and woodstove.
I'm going to use it for incoming air, so freezing (-20F) is more of a problem than melting!
The DIY option is interesting. I'd rather focus on other things than making the pipe and damper assembly, but on the other hand making it would permit changing the form factor to something that's easier to integrate with the downstream pieces (a heat exchanger).