A decent fan controller? FC2 Useless

Craterloads · 9 Oct 2010 at 17:16

Just took delivery of a Lamptron FC2 controller today and my god is it poor. Not put together well nor does it function well, which is a shame as it looks so dam good. Cant reduce fan speed below 50%ish without it starting & stopping and causes a wierd humming noise. Even a crappy single fan controller that i got bundled with a akasa cpu heatsink managed to perform better.

Loose naked wires which is just asking for trouble.

Anyhow i need a controller for 4 fans with 0.75a which suck around 9Watts. The simpler the better so no fancy screens etc.

Ive had a look at the Zalman MFC1 which is looks brilliant but can only manage 7watts. The other option is the Sunbeam Rheobus which looks perfect as is 4 channel at 20watts.

Is anyone here using the sunbeam and what are they like? Also any other recommendation?

ThomasTheTankEngine · 9 Oct 2010 at 18:10

That's always the case with fan controllers. If you lower the voltages below a certain point, the fan doesn't get enough juice to run. The cheap controller probably has a crapper transistor which only allows you to adjust the voltage from 5-12v. The Lc2 gives you full control, but anything less than around 5v won't be enough to run most fans properly.

The wires shouldn't be a problem, they've gotten pulled out a bit, just shove them back into the connector.

accod · 9 Oct 2010 at 18:38

Out of interest, why not use something like speedfan to control the fans from within Windows? Have them connected to your motherboard with splitters if necessary (ones that supply power themselves rather than relying on the motherboard header to power lots of fans).

Craterloads · 9 Oct 2010 at 19:14

jimbob27 said:
That's always the case with fan controllers. If you lower the voltages below a certain point, the fan doesn't get enough juice to run. The cheap controller probably has a crapper transistor which only allows you to adjust the voltage from 5-12v. The Lc2 gives you full control, but anything less than around 5v won't be enough to run most fans properly.

The wires shouldn't be a problem, they've gotten pulled out a bit, just shove them back into the connector.

Ive run the fans direct of the PSU at 3.3V so thats not the problem. Anything below half and the fan stop/start on the FC2 + the humming seems to be inherent with the FC2

The wires are not pulled out, they havnt been seated in far enough into the crimps so would either need new crimps or some heatshrink to cover.

accod said:
Out of interest, why not use something like speedfan to control the fans from within Windows? Have them connected to your motherboard with splitters if necessary (ones that supply power themselves rather than relying on the motherboard header to power lots of fans).

These fans im using are Delta's from Apple and work a little differently to standard fans. 3 pins
|_|_|

pin 1 - Ground
pin 2 - 12v
pin 3 - either 3.3v/5v/12v for speed control

So depending on what voltage is being supplied to pin three regulates fan speed. To get the working on fan controller i have pin 1 & 3 going to the fan controller and pin 2 going direct to a molex 12v line.

From what ive read on forums is that the FC2 doesnt do low voltage very well.