Which Fan Controller?

Keel · Post by **Keel** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 1:28 pm

I'm gonna get a fan controller...I have looked at various models but can't really decide on what to get. help me out!!!

Vantec Nexus 201-imo looks awesome but it's pwm and only lowers to 7v... do all pwm controllers generate "buzzing" or is it the luck of the draw? can the buzzing be muffled by foam?

Various enermax models-again...pwm

Zalman MFC1-the transparent blue is FUGLY

and i really don't need so many knobs/switches

Sunbeam-i can't bear to look at the bright leds, even in pictures and there doesn't seem to be a way of turning them off...will i go blind if i get this? also from my understanding, the sunbeam will generate some heat(but i guess there's no way around that)

Coolermaster Aerogate I- it might be pwm (can't tell by specs) and can't tell if the lowest output voltage is 7v or 5v, sure looks sweet though

preemptive grassy-ass

aphonos · Post by **aphonos** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 9:33 pm

Keel wrote:Vantec Nexus 201

You're right. Universally reported to buzz.

Keel wrote:Various enermax models-again...pwm

pwm will give you more fan noise at lower voltages.

Keel wrote:Zalman MFC1

You may have already seen the review by Mike. Here's a link to a mod to un-fugly it.

Keel wrote:Sunbeam

Mike's review mentions technique for dimming lights.

Keel wrote:Coolermaster Aerogate I

Not familiar with it. Sorry.

Personally very happy with having my Zalman ZM-MFC1.

axle · Post by **axle** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 7:23 pm

aphonos wrote: Here's a link to a mod to un-fugly it.

That is one thing that need de-fugling! Thanks for the link (I'll probably be getting that one- edit// scratch that, just ordered the Sumbeam. $30 shipped from SVC w/ two rounded IDEs)

Anyone have any opinions of Sharka's baybus?

Keel · Post by **Keel** » Sat Aug 09, 2003 4:58 pm

thanks for the responses, figured out the the aerogate is pwm by the circuitry...arg
a shot of the back of the aerogate I

circuitry of the vantec nexus nxp-201

the internals of the aerogate look to be of higher quality...what parts of the circuitry actually cause the buzzing?

Post by **Rusty075** » Sat Aug 09, 2003 6:21 pm

The buzzing doesn't happen at the controller, it happens at the fan. The controller itself will be silent, so unfortunately the quality of the components really won't matter.

tonycd · Post by **tonycd** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 11:48 am

Is it ok to attach the motherboard fan to a Zalman MFC1?

UrbanVoyeur · Post by **UrbanVoyeur** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 2:03 pm

vantec - intolerable buzz

baybus/baby bay bus - can olnly reliably run 1 fan per bus. I burned out 3 learning this. Luckily ther were on sale.

zalman - the only fan controler i've like so far. I do like that mod.

Cams · Post by **Cams** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 12:05 am

I've just had fan controllers brought to my attention by al bundy in this post on the Cases & Damping board.

It sounds like a great idea, so I started doing some research and can't seem to find what I'm looking for, which is basically a four-channel controller to fit in a 5.25" drive bay that can regulate from 0-12 volts and will allow me to simply plug in my 3-pin fans. The Sunbeam Rheostat looks like a good product, but would require me to cut the ends off my fan cables. And I want to be able to go down to 0 volts so I can switch fans off if I need to.

Can anyone recommend a product that fills my requirements? Or if not, is chopping the fan cables a fairly straight-forward endeavour?

Cheers,
Cams

al bundy · Post by **al bundy** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 1:10 am

Cams wrote:...I started doing some research and can't seem to find what I'm looking for, which is basically a four-channel controller to fit in a 5.25" drive bay that can regulate from 0-12 volts and will allow me to simply plug in my 3-pin fans. The Sunbeam Rheostat looks like a good product, but would require me to cut the ends off my fan cables. And I want to be able to go down to 0 volts so I can switch fans off if I need to.

Can anyone recommend a product that fills my requirements? Or if not, is chopping the fan cables a fairly straight-forward endeavour?

Cheers,
Cams

The latest edition Sunbeam Rheobus allows 3-pin fans to be simply plugged into the unit. It is in fact exactly what you are looking for. I get them at svc.com.

Walker · Post by **Walker** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 12:28 pm

Snorlax wrote:My MFC1 is on the way and soon it will fit my black chieftec winner case just right

Does ZM-MFC 1 fits in a chiftec dragon, can u still close the door?

aphonos · Post by **aphonos** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 1:27 pm

Walker wrote:Does ZM-MFC 1 fits in a chiftec dragon, can u still close the door?

Yes.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 4:39 am

Has anyone had any trouble with their sunbeam fan controller other than not liking the bright lights? I have 1 120mm panaflo on exhaust, a 80mm fan over the video card, and possibly another 120mm fan on intake (only if really needed). This will be in the antec 3700 case. I was planning on just using fanmates but im not sure if power supplies even have 3 pin connectors? And the 4 pin to 3pin adapters I found cost $6-7. Would it be best to just get a sunbeam? Will the door close? Are there any other concerns or ideas, im not sure what to do?

Gnerma · Post by **Gnerma** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 11:44 am

I'm looking for a fan controller myself. I'm strongly leaning towards the Sunbeam for a few reasons.

Full voltage range
No buzzing
The ability to run two fans from each line.
Great price!

I have a stupid amount of fans and the sunbeam would allow me to attach them all to the controller unlike any other controller I've looked at. Have any of you guys ran more than one fan per line? I am wondering how it will hold up running 8 fans (7 x 80mm & 1 x 120mm)

silvervarg · Post by **silvervarg** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 1:54 pm

Gnerma:
I'm looking for a fan controller myself. I'm strongly leaning towards the Sunbeam for a few reasons. ...

Have you considered Fancontrols board?
You have almost run out of time for getting that board, but I think you can still get it up till monday.
Things you might see as drawbacks:
Price $65 for main board.
Lack of LCD (it is mounted compleatly internally and has no buttons or other crap).

Some of the things you might see as positiver with it:
Full control range (from stopped to 100% speed).
No buzzing.
Can run multiple fans on each line (3 lines). 4*80mm fans on single line should not be a problem. More is probably possible, this depends on how much power your fans use.
Great price for what you get.
Fan speed is automatically adjusted according to temps and your settings.
Configuration via software on the PC.
Possibility to connect "dauter boards" if you need more fan lines and more temp sensors. Max is 1 main board and 2 daughter boards. Total 9 fan lines and 6 external temp sensors (+3 internal)
It is a non-commercial, non-profit product (for good and bad).

A drawback is that you might want to read a _huge_ thread to know what this board is about.

Gnerma · Post by **Gnerma** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 2:14 pm

My 80mm fans are all Panaflo L1As. The 120mm I don't have yet.

Fancontrol's unit does sound interesting, but...

It costs 4x more than the sunbeam.
I would want the external hardware controls the sunbeam offers.
If I were to buy the sunbeam I'd turn the LCD's around like MikeC did. I have a door on my case to hide it anyway.
The Sunbeam would just be great for my setup, because I have 8 fans all in sets of 2. My 2 front intake fans, 2 exhausts fans, 2 side intake fans & 2 CPU fans (dual AMD). So I could hook up each pair to each line giving me consistent control of fans that are doing the same thing.
It is a commercial product so if it breaks I'm not screwed.

If I was considering spending this much on a controller, I'd opt for one of the Antec dual 120mm cases instead. It would cost about the same and would eliminate the need to control all of these fans.

pangit · Post by **pangit** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 4:07 am

Has anyone had any trouble with their sunbeam fan controller other than not liking the bright lights?

I bought a Sunbeam recently and I love it. Total control over the fans without opening the case every time. I was thinking about removing the LEDs or replacing them with dimmer ones (which in UK you can do for about £2 from Maplins) but they don't really bother me so I'm not going to. And I like the way they change from red to blue at 7V so I can see at a glance roughly what they are doing. You could also remove the LEDs completely if you don't like the bright light, as they are simply plugged in to the PCB, not soldered.

The other reason I got a Sunbeam is that I was originally going to make my own based on one of cpemma's designs, but this ended up being cheaper than just a few switches, knobs and diodes!

The only downside, as Mike points out in the review, is that you can't tell if the fans have stopped spinning, other than by making sure the LEDs are turned to blue. But what you can do is make a couple of marks on the faceplate that correspond to the minimum "safe" speed for your fans, and make sure the knob is never below that.

Highly recommended!

haysdb · Post by **haysdb** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 9:07 am

Is there some reason the Zalman could not support two fans per header? Granted, it's more expensive than the Sunbeam, but it sure does look sweet fitted into a Lian Li faceplate. I did this, by the way, just like the link earlier shows.

Is there some reason PWM controller MUST cause more noise than controllers which adjust voltage? I too have read bad things and that I should avoid them, but then there is the fan controller that fancontrol is making, which is based on an ADM1027 PWM chip. Will it necessarily cause the noises which seem to be characteristic of PWM controllers? Good question.

David

cmcquistion · Post by **cmcquistion** » Tue Oct 21, 2003 9:06 am

I, too, have a Sunbeam, and I highly recommend it. It is a really good unit (better than the Vantec unit I had previously).

The only thing I don't like about it is the dual-color LED's. I can live with this, though. I generally run most of my fans at 7V or higher, so the LED's stay blue, anyway. I suppose if I really wanted to, I could turn them around, remove them, or replace them, but it isn't really that important. It is probably a good thing, for me, because I can see really quickly if I have accidentally turned down the fan speed, while moving the computer, or something.

Gnerma wrote:Have any of you guys ran more than one fan per line? I am wondering how it will hold up running 8 fans (7 x 80mm & 1 x 120mm)

I've run up to three fans on one channel, with no problems (I had eight 80mm fans, total, on the unit.) They are supposed to handle 20 watts per channel, so you could probably put a load of fans on each channel, if you wanted to.

Nefarious · Post by **Nefarious** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 6:38 am

I like the Sunbeam as well, but was a bit turned off when I read Mikes review about how you don't know if the fan has stopped spinning. But then, even if you hook up your fans to your PSU, you don't know if your fan has stopped as well. Eitherway, I think this is a awsome fan controller.

SebRad · Post by **SebRad** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 8:24 am

Hi, the Zalman MFC1 is rated for 7w (~0.58A) per channel so as long as the total wattage of the 2 or more fans is below that it should be fine. I've got a pair of 80mm L1As on one channel of mine.
I've done the faceplate mod with a slight variation. As the face plate in my case is held in place with screws I used them as the mounting method and left the brackets off the back of the MFC1. Not sure I've explained this very well, in their mod the MFC1 is holding the faceplate, in my mod the faceplate is holding the MFC1. To me the advantage is less cutting work and the faceplate is held in the right place as its still using its original mountings.
Seb

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 1:09 pm

Nefarious wrote:I like the Sunbeam as well, but was a bit turned off when I read Mikes review about how you don't know if the fan has stopped spinning. But then, even if you hook up your fans to your PSU, you don't know if your fan has stopped as well. Eitherway, I think this is a awsome fan controller.

You can always split off the rpm leads of the fans and connect those to your mobo headers. I think my Sunbeam actually included one cable which did exactly that, but I am not really sure. Anyway, loved this baby a lot, mainly because of the full control it gave. Hooled on T-Balancer now though...

IIRC, the Zalman unit uses blinking leds to indicate fans running... if that is true, I'd prefer the über-bright Rheobus a thousand times over. It's actually kind of cool to have 4 leds throw spotlight-like beams across your room

meglamaniac · Post by **meglamaniac** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 3:12 pm

Akasa FC03.

This controller is confirmed as using voltage regulation, NOT pwm. So no buzz from fans and no buzz from poor quality PWM components (like the vantec).

slashdotcomma · Post by **slashdotcomma** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 7:03 pm

Any suggestions on a 3.5 fan controller that would fit in an Antec 3000B?

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