CaseETC.Com
Maelstrom Rheobus Review
Date : Wednesday, 09 January 2002
Author : Sn1per
Provided By : CaseETC.Com
Introduction
Are you an electronics guru? Can you understand any of the schematics you see in how-to's for a rheobus? Do you not have the time to plan out a rheobus, go out and get the parts, or put it all together? If you answered no to all of these questions, or even to one question, and you really want a rheobus. Have I got something just for you. Introducing the Maelstrom. The Mael what? The Maelstrom. It is a brand new designed rheobus by Cole of Case Etc. and Ryan "Uller" Myers who is the creator of LCDriver. Two of the best in their field bring you the best in its class. The Maelstrom.
Maelstrom Contents
Not much really since all of the hard work has been completed by Cole and Uller.
• Maelstrom (PC Board with all components
installed and ready to go)
• (4) Knobs with allen screws to tighten to the potentiometers polls.
• (1) Allen Wrench
• (1) Lexan cutout with 4 1/4" holes drilled out for a template.
• (1) Molex Splitter to connect Maelstrom to 12v power supply.
• (2) Rubber bands (Used to hold template to drive bay cover for drilling)
 Talk about quality |
 Kit Top View |
 Kit Front View |
 Maelstrom |
 Knobs |
 Allen Wrench |
 Lexan Template |
 Molex Splitter |
 Rubber Bands |
 Rear View of The Maelstrom |
 Side View of The Maelstrom |
 Maeltrom Power Connector |
As you can clearly see from the pictures, the Maelstrom has impeccable quality, design, and components. Good quality capacitors and LM317T voltage regulators. And just look at those monster heat sinks attached to the LM317T. There is no way that these will even get luke warm. The PC Board is not of cheap quality either like a lot of other rheobuses are. This is a double sided PC Board with quality written all over it.
Tools Needed
This kit is pretty simple and only requires 2 tools, 3 if needed. The 2 main tools will be a drill with a 1/4" bit and a small flat head screwdriver. The third, and probably not needed if you have a good drill bit, will be a small file to debur your drill holes. The allen wrench is included with the kit so you do not need one on hand. Now you will also need a drive bay cover if you plan on installing this the normal way inside a 5.25" drive bay. The drive bay I used for the Maelstrom is from my Lian-Li PC-60.
 Front View |
 Side View (Arrow Up) |
 Rear View |
For Lian-Li users, note the direction your arrow is pointing so you don't confuse
yourself and mount it opposite to the way you wanted.
All you really have to do is align the drill hole template to your drive bay cover and use the included rubber bands to hold it. Once you have it aligned and strapped tightly to your drive bay cover, grab the drill and get to work.
 Template aligned & attached (front) |
 Template aligned & attached (rear) |
 Holes drilled out |
Very easy process as you can see. I am talking about 1 minute attaching the template to the bay cover, then about another minute drilling out all 4 holes. Now if needed you could spend a couple of minutes filing down your holes if needed. Lian-Li users do not worry, the Maelstrom fits perfectly inside of the 5.25" drive cover. Also note to other users, it will fit in your drive bay cover also, unless you have some super weird nonstandard cover.
Putting it all together
The hardest part is now done. You could put the rest of it together now at the dinner table if need be. Actually, during putting it together you will see what I consider as the worst flaw with the Maelstrom. And because it is the worst, doesn't mean it is all that bad. You might want to do a test fit before you somewhat permanently attach it. Here is what you should have when attaching it to the drive bay cover.
 Double Sided Sticky Tape |
 Attached to drive bay cover |
 Knobs attached |
Here is how the wires are attached
from the fans to the Maelstrom.
There you can see the flaw I just stated. The double sided sticky tape. Why is it a flaw? It is already attached to the potentiometers. So? Well you have a 100% bond to the potentiometers, when you go to press it into the drive bay cover, it is hard to get a 100% bond if at all possible. You get a good enough bond to hold in place, but how long this will last I don't know. And I am not going to spend the time waiting for it to fall off. Once again, Lian-Li users have an added benefit though. The Maelstrom fits nice and snug into the 5.25" drive bay cover.
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Full frontal view |
As you can see, I need to tweak my knobs and get them straight. Here is another thing that can be considered a flaw. When the knobs are turned all the way clockwise, the Maelstrom provides very little power, minimum. With the knobs turned all the way counterclockwise, the Maelstrom provides all the power, maximum. Now I am used to turning a knob counterclockwise for minimum and clockwise for maximum. To me, and maybe not you, but this seems reversed to what I am used to.
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Some testing
I really don't know how to go about testing the Maelstrom, so I kind of come up with my very own little test to check voltage when the fans are minimal and when they are maxed. Just to see how much juice this baby sucks up. All I did was take my Multimeter and connect it to measure the 12v line and see just how much the 12v line varies. Now be forewarned about the 2 voltages you are about to see. I used an old 250w Deer Power Supply that I had laying around. With nothing connected to the power supply, the voltage was around 10.85v to 10.90v. Pretty bad I would say, but it worked for this test. Now the differences in voltage between minimum load and maximum load could have varied the way they did due to the quality of the power supply I used.
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 Voltage with all fans maximum |
Not to bad, only 7/10 of a volt drop. Like I stated, this drop
could have also been caused due to the fact the power supply was pretty much
junk to begin with. I had measured previously and didn't take any pictures at
all so you will just have to take my word on this one. When the potentiometers
are turned all the way down or minimized, the voltage reading I received was
just under 2v. At this voltage you can pretty much guarantee that your fan will
be dead stopped. I turned up the potentiometer to see what voltage it takes
to turn the fans on. The average voltage was anywhere between 5v and 6v. With
the potentiometers maxed the voltage reading I got was just below 12v. Now I
know there are very few of you that would be running 120MM Delta's at 190CFM
plus in your case. I just used these since they consume a lot of power and wanted
to see if I could stress the Maelstrom at all. The Maelstrom didn't even flinch
at the fans all maxed at the same time. Pretty impressive. As for the temperatures
from the voltage regulators while the fans were maxed, were about the same temperature
as the Maelstrom sitting in the packaging not hooked up to anything. My experience
with previous rheobuses showed some pretty warm heatsinks when maxed, not the
Maelstrom.
UPDATE: with a 450w Enermax power supply, the voltages did not change at all. I had everything running in my system except for the case fans. The Enermax was displaying 12.47v with no fans running. With all 4 of the fans running at maximum, the voltage was still 12.47v.
Conclusion
This being the second rheobus that I have had run across my desk, I can clearly say it is by far the winner of the two. For one the shear size tells you that you can expect good things to come with it. The first thing I noticed when I received the package was how heavy it felt compared to the other rheobus and rheobuses that I have made in the past. Then when I opened up the packaging and got the first glimpse of it, I was stunned once again at the size of the heatsinks attached to the voltage regulators. You can definitely tell that Cole and Uller enjoy tweaking, since this is something that only a true tweaker and overclocker would do. I wonder what's next, maybe a Maelstrom 2 with Swiftech MCX462's attached to the voltage regulators, or even water cooling.
Like I said earlier, the only flaws that I saw with the Maelstrom was the double sided sticky tape, and that the potentiometers seemed reversed to me. Rotating the knob clockwise minimizes power while turning it counter-clockwise increases the power. Let me just state, that neither of these 2 flaws are anything major at all. Heck, if I wouldn't have said anything about the potentiometers being reversed, you would have probably never noticed. And the sticky tape problem has the easiest fix either by Case Etc. or yourself.
Pros
Cons
Now the con's can pretty much all be easily fixed by yourself. The double sided sticky tape could be removed from the potentiometer and pressed hard against the drive bay cover before attaching the Maelstrom. I would recommend to Case Etc. that instead of attaching the double sided sticky tape, add 4 pieces premade. This way here you can pull off one cover and press it firmly to the bay cover w/o sticking to it and causing the one side to loose stickiness. As for the potentiometers being reversed, Case Etc. just needs to flip the potentiometers over to give me the correct feeling of turning the knobs to the right for power, and turning them to the left for quietness. As for the knobs, maybe Case Etc. could look at offering different types of knobs that would cater to your case maybe more then an aluminum knob would. And the blue LED's. You know we gotta have them, but unless the rheobus has potentiometers that can turn on and off besides controlling the voltages, then there really isn't a need for them. If the rheobus just controls temperatures and can't be turned on and off, and will always be on when the computer is running, then why would we need LED's? It's not that we need the LED's, it's that we want the LED's. You could always run some off of the 12v power supply to make it look the way you want, unless of course you are an electronics genius and make a circuit that will detect a certain amount of voltage and turn the LED on or off.
Who would I recommend this to? Hmmm, this is actually a tough question. Actually not really tough, just that it has quite a few answers. Answers to the questions that I started the article off with. If you are experienced with electronics and know your way around schematics, making your own pcb's or using bread boards, then there is no reason for you to purchase a rheobus at all. You can make your own to your standards. Now for those of you that have a hard time understanding the components, electronics and/or the schematics, then the Maelstrom would be perfect for you. You want to be able to have more control then 7v/Off/12v or even On/Off, and do not have the time to spend designing and creating a rheobus, once again the Maelstrom is there for you. Say you want to learn more about electronics, schematics, rheobuses or whatever, then the Maelstrom would be perfect. You can use it as a learning tool as well as using it for it's functionality.
Well that concludes my review of the Maelstrom from Case Etc. Cole and Uller have come up with one hell of a design for their first one. Yes, their first one. Cole and Uller are currently working on a series of control devices as we speak. I can't wait to see what they come up with next. If you have any questions concerning the Maelstrom and this review, please feel free to E-mail Me or visit the forums for any comments and/or suggestions you may have. Thank you.
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