Sunbeam 5’25” Rheobus Review
Let me begin by thanking SVC.com for sending this to be reviewed. Make sure you visit them for more products at great prices.
(Starting your computer)
Wife:
AHHH! (Angry) Honey, turn that racket off!
Insert Name Here: Crap! I need a rheobus! Honey you are going to have
to let me buy one if you want quiet (smile to yourself)
Have you ever been in this situation where your wife or family member tells you to turn of your noisy computer off? Well I have before and am sure most of you as well. What is one way of curing this? Today we will be looking at the Sunbeam Rheobus.
The Rheobus comes packaged in a nice box that includes the following:
-
The Rheobus unit
- 4-pin cable to get it started
- Manual and quick start guide
- Screws
- Mounting gear
Fan not included:)
There are two versions, a black version and the silver one we are looking at today. When I first got the unit out of it's packaging the first thing I noticed was that the faceplate wasn't flimsy or a separate piece from the construction. The faceplate is a part of the construction. It is made out of aluminum and is well made. My first impressions was that this product is high quality.
The manual is very clear and easy to follow. They have taken the time to include installation pictures, as people understand better through the use of pictures.
The installation is very easy to do. All you need to do is to plug in the 4-pin Molex connector into the end of the rheobus and then plug in you 3-pin fan connectors also at the back of the unit. There is no way to monitor fan RPM, so your out of luck.
The Sunbeam has the abilities of supporting up to 20 watts each channel! That is enough to handle any power hungry fan.
When you operate the unit, it allows you to turn the fan on or off via click sound. While speeding the fan up past 7V, the LED’s on this unit will amaze you. There are 4 LED’s for each channel. They are red when on low speed. Turning the dial up past half speed will transit into a super bright blue LED. I assure you, these are so bright, and they will light up a part of your room. You will see what I mean later on.
The rear of the unit features 4 separate pieces of aluminum blocks to dissipate possible heat and cool down the chips on the PCB. The rear has lots of room and is constructed well. I did notice that some parts of the aluminum construction are sharp and you should be warned when handling it.
Flipping it upside down is covered with black foam pad.
One thing that is unique is that the Rheobus according to Sunbeam can handle cold cathodes as the included power connector has room for two more 4-pin connections.
Specs
·
Power: 20 watt per channel
· Input voltage: DC 12V
· Output voltage: 0 ~ 12 V
· Output current: up to 1.67 A
· Dim: 148.5x 105x 42 mm
· Weight (Net): 184
Testing
There is really no accurate ways of testing the rheobus expect my opinion.
The rheobus works great! I connected a 60mm Delta fan, a 120mm Cre-Air fan, a Thermaltake Volcano 7+ fan, and a 80mm case fan. As you guessed, with all the fans running at full speed, the room is loud as a factory. However, using the Sunbeam Rheobus solves the noise problem. I tried getting the rheobus to fail, by turning all 4 fans lower and higher for about 20 minutes but could not find any faults. One thing that you should know are that when you turn the fans really low, they might not turn, and the rheobus is still on. That’s no fault of the Rheobus; the fans just don’t have enough power to turn anymore…
The Rheobus is virtually no lag when turning the fan levels low or high. And yes, the LED’s are really bright! They are so bright; it hurts if you look at them directly. Never look at them directly as LED’s that bright are sure to damage your eyes. Take it from a person who looked directly at them for your sake. These LED’s are bright enough to light up apart of your room!
Hear is a video of the Sunbeam Rheobus in action with a 60mm Delta fan, 120mm Cre-Air fan, the fan on the Thermaltake Volcano 7+, and a regular 80mm fan. Please right-click and download for yourselves. You will first see the rheobus working and the fans speeding up and slowing down. Make sure you listen to the noise difference. Crank up your volume because my camera was situated far so you can see how bright the LED's are. The second scene is the 120mm light show.
DOWNLOAD
VIDEO - 202KB (Make sure you have the latest version of Windows
Media Player to properly play the video)
Conclusion
I am leaving this review awed! The Sunbeam Rheobus really rocks and does it in fine fashion. There are many things I liked such as there is no fan speed lag when turning the knobs, construction is top notch, the LED’s are bright, and it is your cure for noisy computers.
All
in all, I rate the Sunbeam Rheobus a…
9.5/10!
Pros & Cons
+ 20 Watts per channel!!
+ Looks sweet
+ Construction
+ Easy installation
+ A sweet deal at SVC for only $19.99 U.S.
- Some sharp corners
Let me thank Rodney from SVC for sending this product to review. It goes for $19.99 U.S. for either black or silver. If you buy one, (if you have a noisy computer, then buy it!) tell them Modsynergy.com sent you! This is without a doubt a kickass product for an amazing price!
