Powering on the unit does a self POST with a series of beeps and the nixie tubes going through 0-9. The nixie tubes may not be everyone’s cup of tea but they are very well designed and they look outstanding when in use. A feature I both love and hate about the FC10 is its simplicity. It looks great, but having to use a controller isn’t the most convenient. However, the controller is very basic and adjusting the fan controller to view different monitors was very easy to do. The left and right buttons allow you to switch between controlling each channel which is indicated by small LEDs on the controller itself. The M button flicks through voltage, RPM, and temperature of that channel. While the up and down buttons allow you to adjust voltage for that channel.
To test the FC10 I used both Cougar CF-V12Hs and Feser Triebwerk V2 TK-123s. The Cougar fans are very low wattage rated fans and require very little power to operate. The FC10 of course had no problem with running a pair of these per channel with ease while accurately displaying RPMs. Unfortunately I didn’t have the proper adapters to test more than two fans. The Triebwerk fans are rated for a much higher wattage to operate, fifteen watts. Hooking up two to each channel, with a total of eight, the FC10 did not stutter once. Upon boot all eight fans spun up to maximum and RPM and did not have any issues. I was relieved to hear no coil whine as I was maxing out the stated limitations of thirty watts per channel on all channels. The only issues I experienced with the Triebwerks was the RPM counter seemed to bounce around a lot the lower I adjusted the voltage on the FC10, however the Triebwerks are not the highest quality fan by any means and it could be the fan at fault.
Overall the unit is fantastic. It functioned without issues and coil whine at its stated maximum watts per channel so I can’t complain. The only slight issues I had was the inconsistent RPM counting at low voltages and the instruction manual states, “The device must have all three ‘Molex’ connectors installed in order to promote safe operation of this product”, when there is not three molex connectors on the unit. This was quite confusing and wasn’t sure what to make of it but rest assured the product does work just fine with only one molex.
+ Very good looking unit
+ All accessories needed are included
+ Works as advertised
+ Innovative
– Expensive
– Controller is necessary
– Inconsistent manual
http://www.lamptron.com/product/controllers/fc10/
http://www.xoxide.com/lamptron-fc10steampunk-fancontroller.html
