Xoxide UV LED Fans Review
Date : Monday, 08 Sept 2003
By : Stygian
Provided By : Xoxide

Introduction

The popularity case lighting has certainly grown exponentially in the past few years. Before, all that was necessary to inspire wonder was a simple case window and a neon light or something similar. Soon, however, people were looking for either brighter lights or more unique lighting, and this came in the form of either cold cathodes or LED fans. Both of these added to the existing lighting scene; cold cathodes made the interior of a case seem that much nicer in the dark, and LED-lit fans added a nice touch to a blowhole fan on a window. It was only a matter of time before UV-reactive products began to cause a stir in the case lighting scene, and what a stir they did cause. One only needs to look at the plethora of UV products available specifically for the case modification scene, from basics things such as UV cold cathodes and LEDs to UV reactive fans, fan grills, holders and even UV treatment for your watercooling system. UV products have the advantage of looking nice even in the daytime when ambient light levels are higher, and generally glow throughout the entire body of the material, allowing for a nicer effect. However, before any UV reactive products were able to really look good, you'd need to buy UV lighting; this was because of the way UV reactive products appear to light up. Basically, without getting into complex stuff, UV reactive materials absorb light at shorter wavelengths than visible light (in the ultraviolet spectrum) and re-emit it at wavelengths that are visible to our eye; this produces a nice effect but forces you to install additionally lighting in the case.

It was therefore a natural progression to integrate the UV lighting into the product to be lit. Following the lead of regular LED fans, nice products in their own right, we have begun to see UV LED fans. These fans have housings and blades that are made up of a UV reactive material, and the UV LEDs necessary for a nice effect, integrated into the housing the same way normal LED fans are built. Xoxide recently sent me a package of their latest UV LED fans, seven in all. They claim to have more combinations/options for UV LED fans than any other US retailer, but is the quality of these units up to par?

Specifications

All of the fans I'll be looking at today are 80mm x 25mm thick models, a size that is pretty much the standard for case fans nowadays. Beyond the visual differences between the different units, all have the same operating specifications, and they are listed below.

As you can see, the specifications of the fans are pretty respectable, as 34CFM at 30dBA is a fairly good rating. However, some of the noise is reduced due to the usage of a sleeve-bearing design, something that also has the unfortunate side effect of reducing the MTBF rating to 20000 hrs, as compared to the 50000+ hrs rating of many ball-bearing fans. Understanding the "Mean Time Between Failures" rating is important; it does not mean that each fan will, on average, last 20000 hrs, or about 2.3 years. Instead, most of the time the manufacturer arrives at the rating by the following method: A large group of fans/units (say 1000) will be run simultaneously until one of them fails. If the first failure occurs 100 hrs into testing, then that is considered to be 100000 hrs of run-time, as the 1000 units each ran successfully for 100 hrs until a failure occurred. They will continue running the tests to get a 'mean time between failures' for the group of units. This is a basic example that is a simplified explanation, but hopefully a helpful one.

I expected these fans to be in retail packaging, and most of them were; however for some reason two of them came in OEM-style whiteboxes with the part number of the fan labelling the box as a sticker. The fans were the same, except for a few minor differences such as this, though - but the changes were curious to see. None of the retail-packaged fans came with anything else but the fan itself; however the two whiteboxed fans came with four self-threading mounting screws. This was unexpected, as you'd think the retail package would come with more goods, but in any event a lot of cases are using tool-free fan holders nowadays. Also, the two fans that came in the whiteboxes were identified on Xoxide's site as Vantec fans while the others did not have a name brand - however, I couldn't not discern any differences between the two types of fans.


The seven colours.
Retail packaging.
Back of package.
Some have hub stickers, some don't.

The seven (7) colours (frame colour/blade colour) that are available are: orange/blue, orange/green, blue/green, green/orange, green/green, blue/orange and blue/blue. As you can see, there are more than enough colour options to satisfy anyone's case! And, as you can see in the fourth picture above, these babies look great even in the daytime when they're not powered on, and are sure to brighten up your case. The retail packaging undoubtedly looks nice, but in the end it doesn't really matter since you're getting the fan despite what sort of packaging it came in. You'll also note in the picture above that some of the fans didn't come with stickers on the hub; both of the whiteboxed fans did not have hub stickers and two of the five retail-packaged fans also did not have stickers. Additionally, these un-stickered retail fans' packages were not stapled shut - a curious combination. However, I should add that the fans functionality remained the same despite these wide packaging differences.


Central hub.
Clear strip helping to hold LEDs and wires in place.
Some LEDs hot-glued into place.
Some fans have hub stickers...

These fans are all about looks, and therefore one thing that had to go with these fans was the green PCB strip seen on many LED fans that is used to provide power to the LEDs mounted in the frame. Instead, clear-insulated wires radiate from the central hub of the fan, towards the outside frame via the arms holding the hub in place, and go to the LEDs to provide power. A clear strip of tape has been placed around the outside of the frame to help hold the LEDs and their wires in place (and prevent any short circuits where the wires are soldered to the LED's leads), and some of the LEDs also appear to be hot-glued into position. Additionally, the power cable going to the 3-pin connector is also insulated in a clear material, and the cable itself is about 46cm or 18" in length, a decent distance; the three wires going to the power connector are also attached together, like a ribbon cable, for neatness; you won't have to twist these wires to keep them together! The combination of the removal of the green PCB strip seen on many LED fans and the usage of clear-insulated wires helps to make these fans look just that much better; usually it's the attention to detail seen in these fans that help finish the job - you can barely tell that these are LED fans until you turn them on.

However, I was disappointed to see that no 3-4 pin adapters were included with any of these fans; while the 3-pin connector will be okay with most fan controllers nowadays (and these fans will work well with motherboard power connectors since they don't draw a lot of current), the retail fans should have came with these adapters as some users will want to power the fans off their PSU in certain situations. I would also like to see stickers on all the fans' hubs, not necessarily for appearances, but because without the sticker it looks like some bare solder points on the PCB in the hub are left exposed... these solder points could have been covered by a clear insulation material but I'm not sure.


... And some don't. (Also check the clear wires going from the hub to the LEDs.)
All fans have 3-pin power connectors.
Solder points possibly exposed on un-stickered fans.
Power wires are stuck together.

Okay, so the fans look pretty, even when they're off. Additionally, I'd say the plastic used in their construction is about the same strength as the plastic of a normal fan - and the nice attention to detail with the clear fan wires and lack of outer strip make the fan look more than nice. But, how do they look when they're on? Check out some daytime pictures...


The presence of the LED's wires and outer strip is hardly noticeable... (though the picture isn't too good!)
Orange/Blue.
Blue/Green.
Blue/Green.

As you can see, these fans only have three LEDs, but they're more than enough to achieve a nice effect, as the nice thing about UV products is that while the UV LEDs may not be too bright, the rest of the fan will glow nicely. And, sometimes you don't really want something too bright that it's distracting. These fans are then the perfect option, as they radiate enough light to be appealing but not annoying. As you can see they do look a little like regular LED fans with "beams" of light visible on one side of the fan but not the other because of the way the blades are angled.


Green/Orange.
Green/Orange.
Green/Orange.
Blue/Green.

Night time and darkness is where the fans really start to show their stuff. The colours are really kind of fluorescent looking, with the green colour being very light and the orange almost looking red. Part of the reason this is so is because of my camera; it has a little trouble capturing the blue/orange combination correctly. As you can see, a nice side effect to the clear sides is that they allow more light to shine out from the fan's LEDs and the glowing material, lighting up the surrounding area a bit. The full-green fan pictures below show this effect the best.


Blue/orange.
Blue/orange.
Green/green.
Green/green.

With the orange/green combination, my camera can better focus on the colours and so you get a somewhat better idea of what it'll look like in the dark. With the many colour combinations you can be sure to find something that'll suit the lighting or colour setup you already have inside of your case, or if not, at least find something to your liking. As you can probably tell from the pictures, the UV LEDs do emit a lot of visible light as well as UV light, so they will help at least a bit in the interior lighting of your case. Overall, I think a combination such as blue/green would look best because of the diversity but as is always the case, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.


Orange/green.
Orange/green - the UV LEDs do emit a lot of visible light.
Blue/blue.

Here I have tried to forge a comparison between these UV LED fans and a generic Tri-LED fan. I set the exposure time and gain on my camera to static value for both pictures, for the sake of a fair comparison; admittedly the Tri-LED fan in the left picture below isn't a good-quality model as the LEDs aren't too bright, but as you can see, the clear body of the fan does not glow along with the LEDs. However, the blue/orange UV LED fan I put in the front fan holder of the Xoxide X-Sonic looks great and very bright. The front fan holder of this case is made of a green UV-reactive clear plastic, which makes it ideal for accepting a UV LED fan as it also displays the effects of fluorescence.


Tri-LED Fan (non-UV).
UV LED fan looks good in the front fan holder of the X-Sonic case.

As for noise and airflow, these fans produce low amounts of both. Compared to a Sunon "PTB2" 80mm fan, these fans are definitely a lot quieter, thanks to their sleeve-bearing design, but also move less air; I'd guess that the 34cfm rating is a bit high, and 30cfm would be a more realistic rating. However, these fans are quiet enough that you probably won't hear them above your HDDs, or CPU heatsink's fan. They're definitely not meant to be powerful fans, and as such, if you want proper cooling you should probably be using more than one of these for intake or exhaust purposes inside of your case.

Conclusion

These fans are certainly nice looking, and will add to almost anyone's case. Although UV reactive stuff is nothing new, as modders have been using the idea for at least a few years, these fans do provide a nice factory-made solution for people looking for a quick fix to make their case look nice. However, there were a few quirks. Firstly, none of the fans came with 3-4 pin adapters, something that should be included with any retail-packaged fan. Secondly, some of the fans did not have stickers on their hubs, something that's more of an aesthetic problem but does potentially expose solder points. Lastly, only the whiteboxed fans came with screws... something that I found at least a little weird.

The fans' power cables are nicely done though, wrapped in clear insulation, and they are also a decent length. The 3-pin connectors do make them ideal for connecting to many ready-made fan controllers nowadays, but the fact that the wires aren't colour-coded makes it a little more difficult if you want to connect this fan to your homemade fan controller that uses terminals. Overall, these fans are a nice adaptation of an idea spawned by modders, and allow the product to be available to most anyone. They are ideal nowadays as well, with many UV-reactive products on the market, from paint to complete cases that are UV-reactive. Be warned however, that these fans are at least a little more expensive than your regular LED fans. I can recommend them as long as you don't care that these fans don't provide super-airflow.

Pros

Cons

Thanks go out to Xoxide for providing these fans for review!

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