The Rheobus

The Rheobus made its way to the market a while back and got support from a lot of case modders. The problem with having all these fans in their system was the fact that there case was so much louder and the ability to adjust the speed of the fans was a fantastic idea. The good thing about the Rheobus was that it lived up to the hype; it did exactly what people wanted it to do. In most cases Sunbeams Rheobus has followed the traditional method with the inclusion of four LED's and four knobs giving you the ability to control four fans in your system. One problem Sunbeam was worried about is that if you had your CPU fan hooked up and people didn't have the knobs turned to a sufficient position the fans wouldn't start to spin, this can of course finally result in the death of a processor. When the knobs are turned to a lower setting, one which will cause the fans not to start or spin at all, the normal Blue LED turns Red. This is a very nice feature, but personally I wouldn't recommend that you hook your processor fan up the Rheobus due to the fact that someone could easily come along and switch the knob not realizing its hooked up to your processor.

The installation of the Rheobus is very basic and very similar to the installation of any 5 ¼ device. It is just simply a matter of sliding it into position and tightening it in place with the screws provided with the pack. Once it is in position you then hook your normal molex connector up to it, and then proceed to plug the necessary devices you would like to run off the Rheobus into the back. As far as the Rheobus from Sunbeam goes, it is of excellent design and the inclusion of the changing led when the voltage will be insufficient to turn on a fan or continue it spinning, is an excellent idea.

Round Cold Cathode Fans

Here is a new product to the market that I personally think will take off very well. It improves among the idea of LED fans, by using a round cold cathode; in the end this produces a brighter light. Sunbeam sent us three fans to look at, two of these have a UV Cold Cathode on the outside the other a blue one. The ones with the UV Cold Cathode have a fan that reacts to the ultra violet light that is put out; in the end this contributes to a bright glow on the fan. In this case, the fans glow bright green and orange. There are four ways you can receive the Round Cold cathode kit:

1) The round CCFL with inverter

2) The round CCFL with inverter and Sound Sensitive Module

3) The round CCFL with inverter and rear mounted switch

4) The round CCFL with inverter, a fan (Clear or UV Reactive depending on kit), inverter, rear mounted switch

The blue kit comes with a clear fan to let the ultra bright light comes through and show at the front, rear or top of your case. The specification on the fan is as follows:

- Bearing Type: Sleeve

- Fan Dimension: 80X80X25mm

- Rated Voltage: 10.2 - 13.8VDC

- Current Draw: 0.13A

- Power Consumption: 1.56WATTS

- Air Flow: 31.73CFM

- Rotation Speed: 2700RPM

- Noise Level: 28dB

As you can see the specifications are quite good, while they don't push heaps of air they are quiet which is what a lot of people want. It is unfortunate that the fans are sleeve bearing as ball bearings last a lot longer. At the end of the day the idea is defiantly there and it is a design you may start seeing pop up in people's computers.

The other day we received an email from our contact at Sunbeam with a picture of their new Cold Cathode Fans. Unfortunately, we haven't had the chance to look at this unit just yet, but I am sure it is built to the high standards that their other fans and products have been. Here is the picture of the new Sunbeam fans, as you can see they look very nice. Fingers crossed, we hope to see a few come down to our labs sooner rather then later.