Lamptron FC-10 SE fan controller review
Testing
Installing the fan controller is quite simple, you connect the power cable and plug in all necessary temperature and fan cables. When booting up, the fan controller uses a POST function - the four Nixie will flash progressively from 0 to 9.
After the installation I encountered my first problem with this fan controller, none of my fans were working! I thought the fan controller was defective but after some testing I discovered that the extension cables were to blame. Whoever assembled these cables switched the yellow and red cable on the male end of the cable, no wonder that the fans wouldn't spin. The issue was easily resolved by gently pulling the pins out of the connector and re-inserting them in the correct position.
After that I quickly discovered a more annoying issue: the remote is very sluggish. You need to press and hold the buttons for a full second or longer, otherwise the signal doesn't get picked up! Operating the device with the remote feels very slow and unfortunately there's no other way the control the fan controller because it has no physical buttons.
Other than these two issues the fan controller works perfectly.
As mentioned earlier in this review, four LED indicator lights show which of the four channels is being read out, and the three indicator lights in the upper right corner reveal whether the Nixies are displaying the temperature, the fan voltage of the fan's RPM speed.
A closeup of the glowing Nixies.
The voltages can be regulated from 1V to 12V in 1V increments, unfortunately, there's no off function for the channels.
The final picture shows fan RPM readout.
Conclusion
Lamptron's FC-10 is probably one of the most unique fan controller on the market, the Nixie tubes are definitely a major selling point over typical fan controllers with knobs and LCD displays. The device looks awesome and will look very good in mods with a steampunkish theme. My biggest gripe with the product is the awful remote, it feels very unresponsive and more often than not you have to keep pressing the button for at least a full second or the device doesn't react all. The Lamptron FC-10 has a limited availability and the MSRP is $109.99.
The Good Stuff
- Very unique
- 30W per channel
The Bad Stuff
- Awful remote, poor quality and feels very unresponsive
- Fan cables weren't properly assembled
- No labels on the fan/temperature cables
Lamptron FC-10 SE is an awesome product let down by a very awful remote. Without the remote issues I'd give it a rating of 9/10 but in its present state it doesn't deserve more than a 6/10.
Previous Page (2/3)Added: November 5th 2013
Product reviewed: Lamptron FC-10 SE fan controller
Reviewer: Thomas De Maesschalck
Score: 6/10
Page: 3/3
