Up for review today is a fan controller by Lamptron, a name that should be quite well known in modding circles as they’ve got an impressive range of PC jewellery to show off.

The product in question is the Lamptron Innovative Fan Controller aka Rheobus FC-2 which allows up to 6 fans to be independently controlled and comes in either black anodized or silver. The specification is as follows:



It is described as a “working result of Lamptron end users and Lamptron Design Group” which is something that is always pleasing to see, a company that takes the comments of their customers onboard. The “Super-bright” LEDs seem a slightly curious touch for what is otherwise a pleasingly understated product but we’ll see if they are jarring or if they match the style of the product well soon enough.

Website: www.lamptron.com

Packaging and Closer Look

The fan controller itself is smartly boxed with a clear view of the front of it which is important on a product where aesthetics play such a defining role. The protective packaging looks to be sturdy and should be sufficient to prevent any damage. Inside the box you get the controller, 6x 3 pin extension cables and 4x screws so everything for fitting is present. The controller is nicely machined and finished but there are a couple of minor niggles, one of the knobs was marginally squint and didn’t sit flush although not something you’d notice unless you were looking very closely, if you were facing it head on then it is not obvious. The other slight niggle was that one of the connectors at the back was marginally out of true however it would not affect the operation of the device at all, this is just noted in the interests of a full appraisal of the product.



The controller allows adjustment from the fans being completely off to fully on via its resistors, the blue LEDs also vary in intensity according to how far you have dialled the knobs so you have a rough visual indicator about the relative rpm of your fans. I found that glow itself was not obtrusive despite the description of Super-bright LEDs although in a darkened room it would be quite noticeable and I’d not recommend staring into them too closely.

The rating of 45w per channel ought to be easily enough for even the most demanding of fans so if you are using six Deltas (although frankly I fear for your hearing) then this alone might make this controller worthy of consideration.

Installation

The controller sits neatly in a 5.25” drive bay and requires up to three molex connectors to power it. In testing I discovered that you don’t need all the molex connectors if you are only loading it with a few fans, as expected with the high rating of 45w per channel it didn’t struggle with any of the fans that I tested it with.

There isn’t really too much to say about fitting the unit itself, it fits into a drive bay perfectly as you’d expect, the depth is quite short so you can tuck in cabling behind it as required. If you have all six fans connected then it could form a bit of a spaghetti junction but with a bit more thought you should be able to manage. The connectors are all 3pin so you would obviously need adapters if using anything else.



You also need to check that the knobs are not in the off position when switching on if the fans are connected to anything which might overheat quickly, as it is an absolute off unlike some controllers which constantly supply some power to allow the fan to spin at a slow speed, handy if you want to isolate the source of noise in your PC but not so great if you fail to notice and a component suffers.

Testing and Conclusion

The parts used for testing are below:

Chieftec Dragon case
80mm Akasa Amber fan
120mm Tuniq fan as attached to the CPU cooler
80mm fans, a couple of non-descript fans that I had kicking about
X-Pro 400w PSU

This has to be partially subjective as I have no way of measuring how fast each fan is rotating except gauging by sight or sound. In these very simplistic tests it performs perfectly well, the fans can be controlled from completely off to fully on and the simple dial allows you to adjust the rpm to a level which means that the volume of the fan is not intrusive. It easily coped with all the fans I had attached and even with only one of the molex connectors plugged in I didn’t notice it struggling at any point.

Conclusion

This fan controller does everything that you would expect of it and more than competently, items of this sort either work or they don’t – this one does, it looks good and offers good value at ~$35. This however brings us onto the main problem with it, you might have to order from outside the UK as there appears to be a shortage of suppliers here currently. If their other products are of similar quality then I can’t imagine this situation will remain as it is for long and they will soon be in demand from outlets here.

If all the knobs were perfectly aligned and the LEDs were a shade less bright then I’d be tempted to go for full marks on the appearance front. It is another product that I’m happy to recommend, if you are in the market for a fan controller then I’d suggest this should be on your shortlist provided your case is silver or black and you can find a stockist which might be your biggest problem. A big thanks to Lamptron for supplying this unit to test.