I just received my Sunbeam Rheobus the other day. So far it seems like a well built solid fan 4 channel fan controller. You cant go wrong as they sell for around 12$ + shipping. The one major draw back is that the LEDs are super brite. If your in a dark room and turn this unit on it will cast blue/red circles on the opposite wall of the room. I guessing that this is what most people would like to change about this unit.
First off I want to give credit to Jason Padrick for his idea for this mod.
I simple want to better illustrate the comparison between the stock and modified brightness the best I could.
In Jasons tutorial he used 5K and 10K resisors.
Since my PC sits adjacent to my desk facing towards me I wanted the LEDs as dim as could be. I wanted the least amount of light thrown off by them.
I decided to use a 22k omh resistor. Radioshack sells these in packs of 5 for 99cents. You might want to pick up a few different ones rated of differnt omhs to get the leds to the dimness you are looking for. I took a quick amps reading with my multimeter without the led in place. 31mA, was the stock, and with a 22k ohms resistor in the curuit the reading dropped to .5mA. So that 60 times less amps.
I tried to get a accurate to life brightness with the photos below.
This Photo shows the 2 of the stock LEDs on in the +7v mode. Yeah, there that bright.
To remove the LEDs all you have to do is reach around the back and move the black little clips out of the way that are surrounding the led. Then push the led threw. Once is out of the black plastic retainer, I used needle nose pliyers to pull it out of the board.
Here is what the led looks like after removing it from the unit.
Here is the LED shown with the ground leg cut so that I can solder on the resistor
Soldering complete.
Excess wire has been cut, now the led is ready to be reinstalled.
This is a pretty accuate photo of how less bright the moded led looks. You can compare the difference from the first photo in this thread.
Showing the difference between the two, the stock led and the led with the 22k resistor on it.
Now here is the red. As you can see the red LED is very dim. Alot dimmer then the blue one.
Since I'm going to be running all my fans above 7volts this did not matter to me.
Here is a shot showing the modified led installed.
If anything doesn't read right it is due to the fact that I have put few back at the Taste of RI this afternoon. So I'm apologizing in advance
I'll be back tomorrow to edit things, if needed.
-ty1er
First off I want to give credit to Jason Padrick for his idea for this mod.
I simple want to better illustrate the comparison between the stock and modified brightness the best I could.
In Jasons tutorial he used 5K and 10K resisors.
Since my PC sits adjacent to my desk facing towards me I wanted the LEDs as dim as could be. I wanted the least amount of light thrown off by them.
I decided to use a 22k omh resistor. Radioshack sells these in packs of 5 for 99cents. You might want to pick up a few different ones rated of differnt omhs to get the leds to the dimness you are looking for. I took a quick amps reading with my multimeter without the led in place. 31mA, was the stock, and with a 22k ohms resistor in the curuit the reading dropped to .5mA. So that 60 times less amps.
I tried to get a accurate to life brightness with the photos below.
This Photo shows the 2 of the stock LEDs on in the +7v mode. Yeah, there that bright.
To remove the LEDs all you have to do is reach around the back and move the black little clips out of the way that are surrounding the led. Then push the led threw. Once is out of the black plastic retainer, I used needle nose pliyers to pull it out of the board.
Here is what the led looks like after removing it from the unit.
Here is the LED shown with the ground leg cut so that I can solder on the resistor
Soldering complete.
Excess wire has been cut, now the led is ready to be reinstalled.
This is a pretty accuate photo of how less bright the moded led looks. You can compare the difference from the first photo in this thread.
Showing the difference between the two, the stock led and the led with the 22k resistor on it.
Now here is the red. As you can see the red LED is very dim. Alot dimmer then the blue one.
Since I'm going to be running all my fans above 7volts this did not matter to me.
Here is a shot showing the modified led installed.
If anything doesn't read right it is due to the fact that I have put few back at the Taste of RI this afternoon. So I'm apologizing in advance
I'll be back tomorrow to edit things, if needed.
-ty1er
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