The author of Instructables under the nickname Eriobis uses the PlayStation game console (which model he does not indicate) not for its intended purpose, but as a signal source in the audio system. For example, using the browser available in it, you can listen to streaming services and Internet radio stations. This is impractical, since even in this mode the console consumes significant power and heats up. Make her eat less homemade impossible, easier to replace with a tablet, there is also a browser there. But you can cool it down - with an ordinary computer fan. So that he does not "hammer" continuously at full power, you can use any thermostat. Mercury immediately disappears for an obvious reason, there are contact and electronic. Of the contact ones, for example, YCE-TNO-00-60 is suitable, he does not care which fan to switch, he will also cope with the computer one. But he commutes the fan abruptly, which may interfere with listening to music. Well, it’s more interesting to take an electronic thermostat than ready-made, but assembled do it yourself.
I have already translated an article about one such device, which is quite complicated: a microcontroller, a display, smooth regulation of the fan speed with a PWM. It is suitable for those who are not satisfied with the heating of the transistor that controls the fan. If you come to terms with this shortcoming, you can apply the KISS principle to the thermostat and repeat the following scheme after the master:
What a shame it happens when one of two comparators or op-amps is not used in the microcircuit. With the TL081 microcircuit, it won’t be offensive - the op-amp (which the master mistakenly called the comparator) has only one. The first voltage divider connected to the op-amp non-inverting input has an NTC thermistor at the top. By rearranging the links, you can adapt the circuit to a PTC thermistor. At the second divider connected to the inverting input of the op-amp, the lower link is a tuning resistor. A DC amplifier on one transistor is connected to the output of the op-amp, which controls the fan.The fan motor is with electronic switching of the windings with synchronization from the Hall sensor, therefore, no diode is needed, connected in parallel with the fan in reverse polarity.
Having assembled the circuit on a piece of a perfboard type board, the wizard connects a power supply and a fan to the device. Since the transistor operates in linear mode, it needs a heat sink.
After checking the assembled thermostat in action, the master places the thermistor so that it quickly responds to console heating, and the fan so that it effectively cools it. And he adjusts the thermostat with a trimming resistor so that the console does not overheat, but the fan is noisy not too loud.
The proposed thermostat is also suitable for a computer fan that cools the Raspberry Pi, an amplifier or other electronic device.