The Fan Controllers
These are a cool setup, each controller is independent and has it’s own four pin molex power cable, fan plug, and temperature sensor.
The middle button under each display controls color and temperature scale, the two outer buttons are fan speed up/down. The fan speed goes in notches, there are 100%, 95%, 80%, and 60% settings. At first glance a person has to wonder why nothing under 60%, but realistically speaking many fans simply will not turn, and definitely will not start turning, under that level.
The only issue with them is that they are only rated for 2watt fans, be sure to check your fan wattage before plugging in, as you don’t want to kill the controller. If your fan lists amps instead of watts, 0.166 amps is the magic number, as 0.166 amps at 12 volts is 2 watts. This is vaguely disturbing as the fan that comes with the case is rated at 0.20 amps!
In the interest of being thorough I spent some time examining the fan controllers and figuring out how they work, what components limit the fan power draw, and whether 0.166 amps really was the limit, and whether running the 0.20 amp stock fan was safe.
To do this I first found the IC that does the actual regulating in the fan controller, it turns out to be a “B772” power transistor, and while I couldn’t find an exact match in a datasheet all the datasheets I found rated it for a maximum temperature of 150*c. That my friends, is HOT! Touch a 150*c object and you’ll find yourself burnt quite quickly! For those not used to centigrade, 150*c is 302*f.
Once I had the IC identified I hooked up varying sizes of fans via an amp meter, and put my thermocouple temperature probe on the IC. I also checked the voltage output at full speed, to make sure the fan was getting all the voltage it needed.
As it turns out, 2w really is about the maximum the fan controller can deal with happily, over that number the full speed setting is unable to produce the full 12v and the fan runs slower. Not a lot slower, in the case of the 0.20 amp fan, but slower.
At full slow speed (60% voltage, for this controller) the IC gets hot quite quickly, with a 0.27 amp load (at full speed, less at this speed) in my test room’s ambient temperature of 28.6*c, the IC peaked at 95*c, well within the 150*c maximum but also hotter than I feel comfortable recommending. At that load level the “full” speed was only around 9.5 volts, significantly lower than the 12v it is supposed to put out.
Final analysis and recommendation on the fan controller’s maximum load: Don’t use fans over 0.2 amps, fans at or under 0.166 amps are ideal. There are three totally separate fan controllers, so don’t worry about the combined load.
With that out of the way I looked at the controllers themselves and their functionality.
Each controller gives you the current fan speed rounded to the nearest 100rpms, as well as the current temperature for it’s temp probe (this is a very cool feature), you can hold the middle button down for four seconds to change between Celsius and fahrenheit scales.
Pressing the middle button for less than four seconds changes the color of the back lighting, as you can see in the pictures there are plenty of options to choose from. I found the backlighting to be quite bright, easily seen in a brightly lit room. You can also turn the backlight off entirely for stealth gaming at night, the fan controller continues to operate despite appearing to be turned off.
They also have an alarm buzzer built in, which sounds if the fan connected stops turning for some reason or another.
All together it is a very cool setup, the only improvement I can think of would be the capability to handle higher power fans.
