Introduction

It's truly amazing how fast technology progresses these days.  Four years ago, I plugged a few switches and LED's together and called it a BayBus.  Today, you can buy a similar unit with much more functionality and style for about the same price.  This review will focus on the Fan Master manufactured by Super Flower (I'm not really sure if that is Flower as in "flows a lot of air", or Flower as in your garden). The Fan Master is a four channel fan controller (with variable speed dials) with four temperature probes. If this was all the Fan Master had going for it, it would still be a bargain at US$34.99.  However, there is a lot of value added in this package, and I was impressed when I opened the box. Many thanks to Directron for providing the review sample.

The Fan Master is a 5.25" bay-mounted fan controller (or baybus, rheobus, etc). The Fan Master allows you to connect 4 fans (with speed monitoring) via its back panel.  The connections are the standard mini 3-pin such as you see on a motherboard fan header. You can buy most popular fans these days with that style, but retrofitting existing fans may require some wiring. There is plenty of room on the back panel to connect the fans, but it does leave the circuit board exposed to dust.  I don't consider this a big issue, since most of the internal components of your computer are exposed as well. 

So far, this all seems pretty standard, but Super Flower has gone the extra mile in a big way by including a lot of stuff in the package.  They give you four fan extensions, each 20" in length, and four temperature probes, each about 30" in length. I've seen fan extensions for sale for a couple dollars each at some sites, so this is a nice touch. The front panel has the standard four dial-type fan controllers for the fans, and a nice LCD screen to give you vital statistics.

In addition to it's function, the Fan Master has really nice eye-candy. The front panel has a sandwich design, with a clear plastic cover over an anodized aluminum plate.  Looks nice, but what if you have a custom case with some other color?  This is the part where Super Flower has gone the extra mile and included four different color backing plates (all anodized aluminum) for the front cover.  They included red, blue, black, and (sort of) yellowish plates.  They also included a spare plastic cover with white lettering so that it contrasts with the background cover of your choice. Not only that, but they even threw in the little Allen key for removing the plates.  Okay, for someone who has personally constructed over a hundred of these units, I was blown away. It gets better, though:  The LED backlight for the dials and the screen is user configurable to match the color of the faceplate you use (there are the basic colors, and a few that appear to be mixes of the primaries).  You can even have it set to rotate through the colors every few seconds, although I think this would probably get annoying after a while.  Even so, the Fan Master is going to be a complement to even the most tricked-out case.

Features & Specifications

• 4 Fan-Speed Controller
• 4 Fan-Speed Display
• Auto Memory
• Four independent thermal monitoring channels
• Audio Alarm Warning
• 7 status colors of LED display

Accessory

• Thermal sensor sticker x 4,
• Thermal sensor x 4,
• Fan control wire x 4,
• Manual x 1,
• Acrylic panel x 1,
• 4 x Aluminum Panel (black, champagne, red, and blue)

 

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