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Super Flower SF-609 Fan Master |
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Installation and Customisation
Installation:
Installation is simple enough, mounting the unit into a vacant 5.25" drive bay like any other 5.25" device, using the provided screws. At first I left the silver faceplate on, because the stylin' case of choice around here at the moment is the Lian Li PC-6077 I reviewed a few days ago here. The silver faceplate is not exactly the same tone as the Lian Li case, but it's close enough to look pretty good.
I plugged in a few fans, wired up a couple of temperature probes and connected the molex power plug. When you power up the PC, the Fan Master greets you with the familiar almost-dazzling blue LED effect we're used to seeing on so many cases and components now. Each of the knobs has a surround which glows blue, which has the effect of lighting up that whole side of the Fan Master, while the LCD screen lights up with a blue backlight also. It matches the front LEDs of the Lian Li almost exactly and overall suits the case very well.
One interesting feature is the ability to change the colour of the LCD backlight by pressing the C button on the front of the unit. There's seven colour options, or you can turn off the backlight. There's also an Auto mode, where it cycles through each colour every few seconds. Unfortunately, there's no way to change the colour of the LEDs lighting up the fan-speed knobs. You also can't turn those LEDs off, so if blue clashes with your colour scheme you're out of luck. Here's a few shots of the unit in action in various colours:
   
The backlight looks a bit washed out in the photos, but in real life they are very bright, solid colours.
I changed the faceplate to the black one and then the blue one, using the other clear cover (with white writing). It's a simple process and doesn't really warrant much explanation. The included allen keys don't fit all that well and I partially stripped one of the screws. Using a better-quality allen key or small hex driver is a better idea if you've got them.
 
Actually, you could leave off the clear plastic cover and just have the bare metal for a more stealthy look - as much as a brightly-glowing fan controller can be stealthy. Of course, the labels are not present if you do that, but the buttons from left to right are T F C for Temperature, Fan and Colour. Old-school gamers like me could remember it by thinking of Team Fortress Classic. :)
I'd need to move it slightly forward to make it flush with the front of the case, but you get the idea. On to the actual button-pushing!
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