Introduction

What does it take to become the king of kings in the ‘fan controller’ world?  Some try to grab the crown by useing fancy LED’s that zigzag along, which have a passing resemblance to a Cylon from Battleestar Galactica. Others may try to go for a more demur look and try for quality or additional features such as temperature probes. All manufacturers are in a ‘free for all’ in an attempt to grab the crown for themselves. One such contender is Lamptron and we all know the aforementioned company is a ‘dab-hand’ at this game, with producing fan controllers one after another for years.

Lamptron have produced many good products such as the FC/3 and the FC-Touch product. In the past each one of these items have boasted a massive 30 watts per channel. Now any water cooling enthusiast ‘worth their salt’ would connect their water cooling pumps to the product and have the controller power them. However, the FC/9  promises to do a little more than the usual fare, let us see if Lamptron can truly have even a glimpse of the crown, much less snatch it.

Company Background

“Lamptron develops and markets the next generation of high performance computer peripherals using the latest technology that enables a new level of interaction between the end-user and their personal computer. Products developed are through a combination of proprietary technology, innovation and ergonomic industrial design. There are three principal business sectors:

1. PC Gaming products
2. PC Silence products
3. PC Modding products

Products are designed and developed by our experienced Research and Development Department. Our engineering and R&D staff specialize in user analysis, material control and industry design. Lamptron not only has expertise in product easy-to-use and product design, but we also plays a vital role in the enhancement of production efficiency and marketing analysis. We are constantly developing new products and technology to meet market demands and to generate new markets for our innovation products.

Our Global success is attributed to three basic visionary attributes:

1. Continue to offer innovation products which means the products are in the highest quality and innovation.
2. Providing our global partners with a level of service that is consistent with our premium product range.
3. Helping our global partners grow, through reliable service, quality products, flexibility and co-operationThis simple philosophy has allowed us to build long standing relationships with global distributors.”

Specifications

Lamptron shouts out to the industry that this is an enormous 50watt fan controller and as such would be the strongest they manufacture in the four channel section.

• Dimension: 148.5 mm X 42.5 mm X 75 mm (5.25″ Bay)
• Power Output: Up to 50 watts per channel
• Control Channel: 4 Channels
• LED Colour Available: White, Blue, Green, Cyan, Red, Purple, Yellow
• Panel Colour Available: Black Anodized/Silver
• DC Input: 3 X +12V (Standard 4 Pin Molex)
• DC Output: 0V- 12V DC
• Fan Connectors: 4 X 3-pin connectors
• Recommend PSU wattage: 600 W or higher

FEATURES

• CNC Milled Front Panel
• Up to 50 watts per channel
• Throttle Control Operation
• Seven LED colour choices

Wow fifty watts? That is a bold claim as what can it be used for? Well imagine you are a water cooling enthusiast and you want to attach a great many high powered fans. However let us not stop there and look outside of the box and think further than most. Why not attach your water cooling pumps, your cold cathode inverters, LED’s as well as your fans? With this amount of power the sky is not just the limit, it is only the beginning.

The packaging is pretty much the same as all of Lamptron’s previous products that are along the same vein . Sporting dark smouldering looks, with the product image emblazoned on the box and the specifications upon the rear.  The front of the packaging sports an image of the FC/9 with multiple images at the rear of the same product but demonstrating the differing LED lighting that can be used with the product. The side panel is emblazoned with Lamptron’s logo and upon the rear has the items list in conjunction with the specifications.

Next we slide the outer packaging off and the inner box is revealed. Note that the latter mentioned has the same looks as the outer sleeve, but without the photographs. Upon opening the inner packaging we can see plenty of foam to protect the contents.

As clearly shown the accessories include a catalog detailing Lamptron’s products, printed sheet of instructions, bag of screws, one jumper connector and finally a series of fan cables.

Let us now have a detailed look at the controller itself.

First Looks

The product itself sports the same dark ominous looks as the outer packaging. The first thing that leaps out at you is this model has sliders instead of the usual  dials. In all honesty we initially thought that the aforementioned would not have the sensitivity as normal dials. How wrong we were! Upon using these sliders during testing they were very sensitive indeed, however we digress. The sliders are easy to get hold of and are fairly robust at the same time. To the left and right sides of the product there what looks to be ventilation grills, however judging by the images on the box they also serve another purpose, that is to show the LED’s for a nice ‘light show’ experience.

Remember those ventilation grills that we were speaking of earlier? Well here they are

As shown, the front panel is a brushed-aluminium version and feels smooth, yet solid to the touch. Going around the product itself we notice very large coils on the MOSFETS. With 50 watts per channel we can certainly see why these coils are needed. We also see massive heat-sinks and once again at 50 watts per channel this WILL to be able to cope with the generated heat. If we add all this up, that is 250 watts in total that this controller should be able to handle.

Next we notice a deviation from the usual capacitors that Lamptron provide with their products. The Lamptron Endurance Capacitor are utilized on this FC-9, for further confirmation of this let us refer back to a previous product called the FC/Touch and the capacitors used there. See Overclockers Tech’s FC Touch Review for further details.

Additionally there are six large Rubycon capacitors, which have a temperature tolerance of 105 degrees

Below are a more shots of the FC9 showing the capacitor differential. In addition some gratuitous shots of those amazingly large heatsinks and MOSFETS!

Another thing we noticed that is different from Lamptron of old, aka The FC 3, is that the wires for the power are physically soldered in (like the FC Touch) rather than being a socket based design. We prefer there to be a socket, then a cable running from there to the PSU. Whilst were are speaking of this it is noticeable that there are three Molex connectors attached to the main power lead. The reason for this is that Lamptron recommend that all three of these are filled up in order to insure safe power operation.

All in all, albeit with one or two surprises, a good showing by Lamptron and it is good to know that they still care about ‘quality’ and endurance of their products for the end user.

Next up we go into our testing phase. Let us see what the controller can do.

Installation

Installation was a breeze, however before installing the Lamptron fc/9 into your computer it may be worthwhile choosing your colour first. The reason for this is that the colour changing LED’S (which are of course the RGB variety) need to be selected via three jumper switches, which can be seen on the upper left of the image below.

There are seven colours to choose from, which should be enough to fit in with any case theme. They are as follows:

• White
• Blue
• Teal
• Purple
• Red
• Green
• Yellow

However, it must be noted that though there are seven colours available the LED’s are of a RGB Variety and as such only the three main colours are really shown. The White looks a little like Teal and the Yellow looks more like a green. However the main colours are correctly and brightly shown as displayed below. We have photographed five of the best colours and these are:

• Teal
• Blue
• Purple
• Red
• Green

Once the colour was set then installation was a breeze, simply install the Lamptron FC/9 into the computer then tighten up the screws and connect power to all three of the Molex Connectors. It must be noted that the consumer can switch off the side lighting effects by removing a jumper switch from the upper right of the product.

At fifty watts per channel we should be able to add our water cooling pumps to the controller plus cold cathode inverters, other LED’s and our fans for the build. So that is what we did. The wiring was very messy and ad-hoc due to having to make our own custom cables in order to connect to the controller.

We connected the fan Controller up to these items:

• Wired three 18watt Liang DDC Pumps onto one channel  (channel four)
• Connected Two cold cathode Inverters Plus five 120mm and two 80mm fans
• Nothing on channel two as of yet
• FIVE 140MM Alphreon Fans, 120mm and and Four RED LED’s for the feet.

Below shows the rather messy wiring for the testing only

Whilst not at full capacity it does however support more devices and fans than any other fan controller available on the market today. Below are a series of images of the humongous machine that the FC9 was installed upon.

The next Series of Shots show all the Devices powered using the Lamptron FC/9 fan controller.

Here is the light show offered by the fan controller.

Computer Specifications:

• Core I7 950 CPU
• MSI Xpower X58 BIG Bang
• 12 Gigabyte of GEIL EVO TWO Ram ddr3200
• First GPU MSI NVIDIA GTX570
• Second (physix) MSI GTX 285 NVIDIA GPU
• OCZ PCIE 120 GIG REVO DRIVE
• CRUCIAL SATA 3 SSD 120 gigabyte
• ANTEC QUATTRO 1200W PSU

Cooling Specifications:

Loop One

• Liang DDC Ultra Pump
• XSPC UV CLear Tubing 1/2″ id
• 1/2″ ID Compression Fittings
• XSPC LIANG DUAL BAY Reservior
• XSPC RASA 1366 CPU Block
• Black Ice SR1 420MM Radiator
• Three 140mm Alphreon Fans
• Mayhems Pearlescent fluid plus four drops of Mayhem’s Deep Blue dye

Loop Two

• XSPC Razor GTX570 water block
• XSPC Black Tubing 1/2″ ID
• Compression Fittings 1/2″ ID
• LIANG DDC Ultra Pump
• XSPC Liang dual bay res
• XSPC RX 360MM Radiator
• Three 120mm Cool Link Fans
• THERMOCHILL EC6 Fluid and Four drops of Deep blue Mayhem’s Dye

Loop Three

• EK Graphics Block
• XSPC UV Clear Blue Tubing 1/2″ ID
• Compression Fittings 1/2″ ID
• Liang DDC ULTRA Pump
• BLackICE SR1 280MM Radiator
• Thermochill EC6 UV CLEAR Fluid

All pumps, lights and fans controlled by the reviewed Lamptron FC9 Fan controller.

Well that was impressive! All these devices powered by one fan controller device.

Conclusion

Lamptron have built a sterling reputation over the years by manufacturing high quality products at reasonable prices. However, we feel that Lamptron need to expand their product range and offer more than fan controllers, a few case modification tools and cold cathode lights. Going back to the controller, we feel that this is a high quality product and at £50 recommended retail price, is a good bargain. We like the slider idea and also we see no reason why Lamptron should not continue this idea on other products. The only negative we can see with this product is Lamptron should have had the foresight to include a 3pin to molex cable to enable the FC9 to power water cooling pumps. The latter is something that any water cooling enthusiast ‘worth their salt’ have been doing for years. This in turn would make Lamptron’s products a more attractive venture to the previously mentioned enthusiast.

To sum up we recognise the Lamptron FC9 for its sheer good looks and powerful performance. The  use of sliders instead of dials or a touch screen is pure creativity and works surprisingly well. The sheer amount of devices and uses this controller has, apart from powering fans, is simply amazing and we could not recommend this product any higher. Now, if Lamptron would only include a cable to power water cooling pumps then this would be icing on the cake.

 Pros:

• Brushed aluminium surface
• The use of sliders
• Sheer amount of power this product can command
• High quality product overall
• Seven choices of Colour offered by the  RGB LED’s

Author Gilgamesh