Project CMBlack

What is it : Rheobus Fan Controller
Manufacturer : PCMods
Supplier : PCMods
Cost : $20 for base unit (sale price!), $4 for knobs, $13 for blue leds from PCMods

Availability : Now
Verdict : Functional, with good customisation options!




The lovely guys over at PCMods sent us out their latest rheobus to play with. Now, the advantage of this new bus is : customisation!! PCM will spec you out with whatever colour knobs you want, as well as whatever colour LEDs you want. Being Bit-Tech, what colours do you think we chose? Bl0000 baby!! Blue knobs, blue leds, looks sweet as hell :)



You can see the circuit board here. Big heatsinks adorn the unit to keep it nice and cool. The back of the board houses the molex connector for power and the screw-in connectors for the fans. Whilst I\'ve never really been a big fan of bare wire connections, I\'m prepared to accept it if that\'s what everybody else likes :p It would be too much trouble to simply attach a bunch of molex connectors to the screw terminals if you were that way inclined...



Included in the pack is a nifty template for drilling the holes in the right place, which makes life a lot easier.



Part assembled, you can see how its coming together...its a doddle to assemble really. Simply push the circuit board into the holes and secure it there using the washers and nuts. What you should really do is plug in the leds to the circuit board first, which is something I gloriously forgot :p



Fully assembled, it looks the biz :)



I hacked some extensions onto my fan leads so they could reach the screw terminal :)



All in place. One feature I thought was nifty was that the leds glow proportionately to the fan power you have on each channel. As you can see here, I don\'t have any fans connected to the middle two channels, and the power is on half on each end.

The rheo bus is a fairly well priced unit and it is built well. The circuit board makes things a lot neater inside your case than a self-built (which, in my experience, entails a good many wires flopping around) and makes for good portability should you switch cases. Custom colouring is a major plus point, and the instruction leaflet and drilling template make assembly a breeze. I\'m well happy with the result :)