-- UMaxPC Switched Bay Bus
-- Price: ~ $18.50
USD
-- 11.23.2001
-- By: GideonX
-- Page: 1 2
By now most of you know what a fan bus or bay bus
is. If you're not sure what it is, lets recap real
quick. Picture four (4) fans running full speed in your
case. They're loud as heck and your trying to enjoy a movie in
your room. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to turn down the
noise on the fan? To turn down the noise, you need to turn
down the speed on the fan. Of course you could just shut your
machine down while you're watching television, but you need that
idle CPU cycle time to crunch some serious RC5
right!?
So what do you do? Get yourself a bay bus like I
mentioned before. These tiny units let you control the amount
of voltage going to the fan itself, thus lowering the noise
emitted from them. We're going to take a look at a
pre-made switching bay bus today from the fine folks at UMaxPC.
Here's what you get in the package:
-
Circuit board bay bus (no more messy wires)
-
Drill template
-
Molex pass through cable
-
Four (4) LED bezels
-
Some double side tape
What this switching bay bus does is function as an
on/off and variable speed. The LEDs will glow red at full speed
(12V), green at low speed (~5V-11V) and off when the switch is turned
off. The benefit of using this device is the ability to vary the
speed. You can set up one fan to be at a lower speed than
another and vice versa. Very customizable for your fan
controlling needs.
The individual switches each can take up to 6W.
In our case, the 80mm Panaflo comes in at about 2.08W. So it is
well under the maximum wattage supported by the switch. Keep in
mind that the faster and large your fan is, the more watts it
uses. For example, the fastest Panaflo I have seen comes in at a
bit over the 6W mark, so be careful on which fan you use.
Here is the printed circuit board (PCB)
of the device. The top picture shows the four (4) pairs of screw
down clamps you can use to control up to four (4) devices total.
Each area is marked red/black to correspond to the 12v and ground lead
on your fan. You can see the UmaxPC.com logo printed underneath
there if you look real hard. This device can also be used to operate lighting
products like neons and cathodes. I don't advise adjusting the
voltage on those devices though, you'll most likely damage them very
quickly.
On top of each LED are trim pots, which
let you adjust the voltage in the lower speed setting of your switch.
To install this bay bus, you're going to
need a blank 5.25" faceplate and a drill with a 1/4"
bit. Take your drill template and line it first with your bay
bus. Make sure all holes are in the correct position before you
drill. Next, place the template on the faceplate and drill
through. It should take less than 3 minutes to complete
everything.
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