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RBMODS REVIEWS |
Date 2003-10-14
Provider: Sunbeam
Author: BigMan
Editor: Princess Ammie
Sunbeam CCFL fan grill
The fan grill arrive excellently packed and in a plastic ‘bubble’ packet, the colour of the grill is marked on the back, also stating that the grill has not one but 2 cold cathodes inserted in its plastic exterior, these can be seen clearly, when not connected to the power they are a bright white, the cables from the cold cathodes are separate meaning 4 wires trail from the grill, at about 20cm each. The mounting holes for the grill are raised up roughly half a centimetre. The centre of the grill is also indented, which gives it a unique look, along with its spiral design it almost looks like an alloy wheel (or have I been playing too much NFS-U?).
About Sunbeam:
Sunbeam Company, launched as a promising new company in the field of optoelectronics in 2000, specializes in developing cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL) which mainly applied on in LCD backlight , scanners, automation in office and decorations.
Today Sunbeam Company focus on PC modifying, aims to supply top-notch products to satisfy modders all over the world .. Over the past year, we have updated and improved ourselves to meet the needs of our customers and tweakers .Our goal is to continue designing and developing new and exciting products as well as defending our position as the markets #1 brand in the field of casemod equipment.
Specifications:
1 Diameter of double round cold cathode: µ7.3CM & µ3.15CM
2 Supply voltage:620V
3 Current draw:0.007A
4 Brightness:28.000cd/m2
Spectcification:(Fan)
1 Bearing Type:sleeve
2 Fan Dimension:80*80*25mm
3 Rated Voltage:10.2~13.8VDC
4 Current Draw:0.13A
5 Power consumption:1.56WATTS
6 Air Flow:31.73CFM
7 Rotation Speed:2700RPM
8 Noise Level:28dB(A)
The product:
 
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The fan grill comes with an inverter, with 2 outputs, one for each CC (cold cathode) tube, the other end of the inverter has a molex connection with ‘y-spliter’ so that a molex connection isn’t lost something I like to see. I was also please to see the addition of a switch with the grill, this switch is mounted on a PCI blanking plate, if the bright light gets too much for you, the lights can be switched off. The necersary screws come with the fan grill, 4 small bolts and 4 small nuts, and some Velcro to hold down the inverter and keep it tidy.
 
Please click on thumbnails to get bigger pictures
When it came down to attaching the grill I encountered a few problems, the biggest being the length of the small bolts that are supplied by sunbeam. The blowhole on my case is in my window, this means the bolts have to go through 1mm of alu, 4mm of arylic and 4mm of the fan hole making 9mm plus the height of the fan grill holes which in total are 15mm making a total length required 24mm, but supplied the bolts are a tiny 20mm leaving 4mm short, problem. Not everyone will mount the fan grill like me most will only go through 1-2mm of metal, but some like me wont and this creates a problem that could be easily rectified with a bolt 10mm longer.
 
Please click on thumbnails to get bigger pictures
The solution I came up with was to loosely screw the fan to the blowhole only through 2 holes, so a nut could be placed between the fan and the hole in my window, I would then screw the grill to the blow hole using the remaining 2 holes, this would solve the problem, if a bit tricky to get it tight. The cables also had to be ‘dangled’ outside the case, but this can be solved by pushing them between a gap between the fan and case. I connected the grill to an available molex connector…
 
Please click on thumbnails to get bigger pictures
Reach for your sun glasses these things are truly bright, I have a high quality 12” blue CC and it puts out nowhere near as much light as this grill, when I switched off the lights the run was clearly light in a cool bloo, nice! The pic on the right above shows the light shining through a A level mathematics paper. The switch really comes in handy now especially if you leave your computer on in a room you sleep in, another interesting effect was when I switched my lights back on everything had a pink/orange tint. The fan grill does to a certain degree stop my fingers passing into the fan grill, much better than the CS LED fan grill I reviewed earlier. The airflow also seems to not be restricted much which is good as this is a main objective of a fan grill.
Conclusion:
The grill looks great and has enough power to give you a suntan it is seriously bright, the screws let it down though, are longer threads too much to ask, still an excellent grill.
Pros:
+ Looks great
+ Bright
+ Easy to use
Cons:
- Need longer screws
4 out of 5 on this product
Was anything left out?! - Discuss this in our forums
Thank you Sunbeam for making this review possible
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