I need to brush up on my networking skills, so I thought that I would dig out the old hardware that I purchased back when I initially got my CCNA certification. I figured I’d first start with this ASA Firewall since many job listing I have been seeing for Network Engineer jobs have mentioned firewall configuration. I purchased this ASA in probably 2017 or 2018 and it was past end of life then (foreshadowing…..).
I populated the board with the Arduino board and the pin headers. Assembly was very straight forward. I added pin headers for the GND and +12V lines for testing purposes, in the future I’ll either add a barrel connector or just wire the power supply directly to it.
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I used SimHub top program the Arduino via USB, connected the fans to the Right and Left fan channels and used a barrel connector that has screw terminals that was able to just slide over the GND/+12V pins.
I wanted to add Wind simulation to my Sim Racing setup. As you speed up/down you get more/less wind in your face, and you get directional wind in the corners. This helps with immersion by giving a sense of speed. The PC connects to the Arduino which provides the PWM control for the fans, and the fans are then powered by an external 12v power supply.
Software and hardware designs already exist for this, but they require that you build your own interface using an Arduino. SimHub is the software that most people use to integrate Arduino microcontrollers with sim racing software titles. SimHub allows you to choose and configure the type of Arduino you would like to use and automatically generates the Arduino Sketch file to interface with the hardware setup. The following image shows the Arduino design for a 2 fan setup using an Arduino ProMicro.