Lamptron Fan Controller Touch FCT
by Dark MantisThe Fan Controller Touch from Lamptron is their latest product in this range. It is also the top of the series. It comes attractively packaged in a white cardboard box with a black sleeve displaying the product and a brief description of it's attributes. On the rear of the packaging is a little more detail and the basic specifications of the module. It is available in either matt black anodised or silver anodised brushed finish.
Upon opening the box I was greeted by a very nicely laid out and protected extensive product in seperate compartments.This consisted of the front panel, power cable with molex connections, 6 adequately long sensor leads, 6 long fan connector extension leads, 4 fixing screws, a miniture jumper, an instruction sheet for setting up and use and a microfibre cloth for keeping the touch screen looking nice.
The FCT installs into a single 5.25" drive bay with the aid of the supplied screws. However I would suggest connecting all the cables up to it before final installation for ease of access. If you are watercooling It is advisable to not install the alarm jumper until after all the air is cleared from your loop and everything is running correctly otherwise it will drive you mad! The front of the unit is very clean and streamlined with just the aluminium facia and the screen showing when off. When powered up the display springs to life and all the options are avilable from the touch screen. This is very responsive and doesn't require a lot of pressure to activate the desired funtion.
This controller is well built both by manufacture and quality of components. It will handle pumps or fans up to 30W on each channel which is more than adequate for most items you are likely to want to connect up. The power is supplied directly from the power supply unit in the computer so there shouldn't be any problem there. The sensors can be positioned anywhere you prefer on the system that needs to be monitored. They are long enough to reach the extremities of even a very large case. Again any fans that you have installed can be run from this unit and Lamptron have even supplied extension cables in case your fan wires are a bit on the short
side.
As mentioned earlier there is an optional alarm that can be enabled via a jumper on the rear of the facia board. This will then give an audible tone when one of the settings is exceded. Which brings us onto the controls, most of which are fairly self explanatory. When initialised the screen shows six fan icons in the main part of the display. Touching any of these will select that fan controller channel and display the relevant speeds and other related information such as temperture of the sensor connected to it, the voltage or RPM of the fan and even a moving icon of the fan turning if it is active. The speed of the fan can be controlled by dragging an indicator bar to the required amount or by touching the up or down buttons on each end of it. This can be set to Auto or Manual. There is one very clever thing about this controller that isn't even listed in their information sheet and that is if a fan is set to a very low speed/voltage normally it wouldn't start because the startup voltage is usually 7v although some are less at 5v. This machine is clever enough to supply full voltage for a few seconds to get the fan running and then drop it back down to the selected setting. Nice one Lamptron! There is the option to have the temperature displayed as either C or F and the overall brightness of the display can be set to any of three levels.
I would suggest that when setting it all up a list is made of what channel is connected to which fan and sensor as with six in total it can be easy to forget which one relates to which position. Once up and running the controller is very neat and unobtrusive and just sits there doing it's job silently. I have mine situated near a window and that does cause problems with reading the LCD display during the day when it is bright but that is no fault of the product just the nature of LCDs. Reading it from an angle is not a problem in particular horizontally and I would estimate about a 130 degree viewing angle, even from above it is quite easy to see but from anything less than level and it fades very quickly but I wouldn't expect that to be a problem for the majority of users.
I would have liked to have seen the cables braided especially on an item of this quality and price but that is my view. Apart from that there is litle to find fault with allowing for the LCD viewing which is not a Lamptron fault. I would highly recommend this Lamptron FCT controller and award it 9/10.
Review sample supplied by CandC Central
http://www.candccentral.co.uk/
