Nikolai Danylchyk's WaKu-ctl Frees Your Watercooling Loop From Motherboard Limitations

Software engineer Nikolai Danylchyk has opened crowdfunding for a flexible open-hardware controller for PC watercooling loops — operating independently of the motherboard: WaKu-ctl.

"Are you a PC enthusiast frustrated by the limitations of current watercooling solutions? Do you dream of perfectly tailored fan curves and precise temperature control, but feel held back by motherboard restrictions, buggy software, or proprietary systems? I felt the same way," Danylchyk explains, "which is why I created WaKu-ctl – an open-source, hardware and software solution designed to give you ultimate command over your custom water loop!"

As desktop-class hardware has grown in performance — and particularly as it grows in the number of cores included, from the days of single-core chips like the Intel Pentium to model parts with double-digit physical cores and twice as many logical cores — their need for cooling has likewise increased. Those building high-performance systems will often — and in many cases are recommended by the manufacturer to — use a watercooling system that pumps liquid from a reservoir through heat-exchange blocks on the CPU and GPU then to a radiator for the heat to be bled off into the room.

Traditionally, such systems are connected to the PC's motherboard — but Danylchyk has found that restrictive, both from a lack of customization options to a shortage of temperature-sensor inputs and even carefully-constructed fan and pump curves being cleared when firmware updates are released.

That's where WaKu-ctl comes in: a dedicated Espressif ESP32-S3-based watercooling controller that operates independently of the motherboard. "It can [do] a lot," Danylchyk claims of his creation. "driving PWM [Pulse-Width Modulation] fans and pumps, ARGB [lighting] with pass-through, temperature control, alerts, MQTT export, step up/down smoothness control, standalone Wi-Fi AP [Access Point], SATA power, and HWInfo64 integration. You get four independent channels for PWM fans/pump. You can easily connect up to 15 fans (depending on their power rating). You also get two independent ARGB channels. Everything is controlled via web interface that runs directly on WaKu-ctl."

Danylchyk is looking to set up a small production line for the devices, and has launched a Kickstarter campaign — his second, after a campaign for an earlier version of the WaKu-ctl failed to reach its funding goal — with boards priced at €49 and full kits including 3D-printed enclosures priced at €69, with all hardware expected to begin shipping in February next year. Hardware design files and firmware source code, meanwhile, are already up on GitHub under the permissive variant of the CERN Open Hardware License Version 2.