fanshim Device

fanshim Device

A fanshim device exposes a Pimoroni Fan SHIM. The Fan SHIM contains the following devices:

• A LED on GPIOs 14 and 15. This is exposed as a blinkt;
• A button on GPIO 17. This is exposed as a button;
• A fan on GPIO 18. This is exposed as a switch.

Instead of specifying a single fanshim device, you can instead specify the LED, button, or fan separately. This is useful when you want to use custom device names, or when you don't want to expose all the Fan SHIM's devices.

The fanshim device uses the following config.json keys:

key	type	Description
name	string	The name for the device in HomeKit.

Caveat

I think the Fan SHIM is a neat little device, but, in my experience, it doesn't do its main job of cooling the Raspberry Pi. After using it for a couple of days, the fan no longer spins up. This has happened on all three Fan SHIMs I own, and I've seen the same issue mentioned in the Pimoroni forum.

This seems to be a mechanical problem with the fan: it simply encounters too much resistance to spin. I confirmed this by uninstalling the Fan SHIM from the Raspberry Pi, and blowing air through the fan. After lubricating the fan with WD40 spray, the fan was spinning more easily and the problem no longer occurred ... for a couple of weeks. After that, the problem re-appeared.