Introduction:

Today I´m looking at a small item the people of Melvine send me. A rheobus , ready to be installed into your system to control fans, CCFL´s and other 12V appliances. The device ships in a small box and is wrapped in “bubble”-plastic so it was in mint condition when it arrived at my doorstep. There is a sticker on the box with a small picture of what is inside and an URL where you can find the manual.

The manual is very good and explains every step in detail. Too bad it is only available in Dutch, but even by just looking at pictures the installation is straight forward and all a bit self explanatory!






Features:

The MC-001 has the following features:
- Operates at 12V
- Step less adjustment by using a variable resistance
- Build-in over voltage & short-circuit protection
- Max output voltage: 12V (untaxed) – 11.5V (3W taxed) – 11V (12W taxed)
- Min output voltage is selectable with a jumper, you can choose between 0 – 4.3 – 6.5 – 8V
- Build-in kick-start for the fans, so they speed up reliably

The jumper is a really good addition to the rheobus concept, this feature makes it possible to use it with different types of fans (cause not all fans operate well at lower wattage).

Installation:

I decided to install this baby in my PC that is nested in my living room. This PC is equipped with a casefan in the side-panel, a 90mm Papst fan that pushes a lot of air, but also makes a lot of noise! Now I don´t know about you, but hearing a constant whining when you are watching a DVD movie is not really enjoyable. So there´s enough motivation to get the installation started.



One noisy 90mm fan

First I decided where I want this little button to appear, the front panel above my DVD-Rom would be ideal. I used the metal ring that attaches the kit and measured the diameter of the hole.




The manual suggests protecting the backplane with tape in case the kit will touch.. well uhm your case. So that´s what I did (picture), set the jumper to 4V and put the rheobus in the frontpanel, removed the excess length in the front and put on the button.




By cutting an unused power splitter in pieces I ended up with the these results,





Everything looking good, I installed in the PC, attached the power and the casefan, and proceeded by booting the system. The silence struck me, the rheobus was at its lowest setting and this made the 90mm inaudible. The fan was so quiet I hurt my finger trying to verify if it was still running: YES it was!

When I turned the button to the maximum setting I was again greeted by the whining noise that I´ve known for some time now. I quickly turned it back down, once you go silent you´ll never want to go back, I promise you!


Now how does the fan perform with most of its power gone? Let´s find out...

Performance:

The reason I installed the casefan in the first place was to keep the CPU temperature down. Without it the CPU would be reaching 65+°C easily, so keeping a good performing casefan running is important. Let´s see how the installation of the rheobus affects the CPU temp.

The Tech. info:
- P4 1.8@2.55Ghz – vcore: 1.6v
- Standard Intel cooler
- Room temp: 21°C
- Running Folding@Home

Before installation of the rheobus
Mobo temp: 30°C
CPU temp under load: 52°C


After installation of the rheobus (minimal setting)
Mobo temp: 32°C
CPU temp under load: 55°C


After installation of the rheobus (maximal setting)
Mobo temp: 30°C
CPU temp under load: 52°C


Conclusion:

As you can see in the results above, this MC-001 is a blessing, it takes away the noise of the fan and does not impact performance a lot. Of course this all depends on the fan used, but with the presence of the 4 setting jumper the risk of running into a fan that doesn´t work with this kit is quite impossible!

It is currently being sold for € 16 , not very cheap but you do get high quality material in return. I´m only using 1 fan but the rheokit supports up to almost 5 of these, making it a worthwhile investment if you want a silent and performing system at the same time.




I would like to thank the guys over at Melvine for sending me this kit to review and also RichBastard for keeping it safe & sound all this time :)

If you have any questions or remarks I´m more then happy to answer them right here!