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Synopsis - Great idea, just a touch off on the execution.
For those of you that don't know, the Sentry 2 is a touch screen fan controller that can control five fans and monitor five temperatures with the included thermistors.
Now since none of us really care about packaging, which is sufficient, or directions, which are fairly useless, let's get right into the kit, which looks pretty damned good. Aesthetically it works well with my CM Storm Scout and BenQ optical drive. The various bits of black plastic blend well together. The LCD touch panel isn't just pretty, it gives quick easy access to toggle between control of the five fans. Tap the fan icon, the selected fan changes, tap it again and you're on the next fan. As you cycle through the fans, you also cycle through the read outs for the various temperature probes.
There are eleven separate leads - master power, five for the fans and five thermistors. If you're anything like me you'll take the hour or so to zip tie and tape them down into oblivion so that they only peek out where absolutely necessary.
Easy, simple, nice. Then it falls flat on it's face.
Each channel for the fan control has a power lead coming out. Two wires yellow (+12v) and black (Ground) and two connectors - a male three pin and, get this, a male four pin. (Molex, not PWM) Whiskey tango foxtrot? Yes, many fans with four pin connectors have both a male and a female lead so that you can daisy chain them, but not all. This also leaves you with the wonderful ability to connect a hot power lead from your power supply to the hot power lead from your fan controller. If you're lucky you'll only burn out that channel on your $30 fan controller, not your power supply. I was able to quickly build a couple of female to female adapters, but not everyone (likely most) will have my resources.
Compatibility is also an issue. I've thrown several different fans at it - about half of them have worked perfectly, a couple get power but can't be controlled and a couple growl and don't spin up to full speed. I also think one or two of them that I categorized as working perfectly make a bit more noise.
As you speed a fan up the first step is from 0% to 40%, then increases in 10% increments to 100%. It sounds like they have it mapped to spin the fans up to 100% then scale back to overcome any fans that don't like to start at lower speeds, but that doesn't seem to work in all cases.
I can't recommend buying one unless you're willing to take the time to shop for fans that are 100% compatible. However, if they release a version 2.1 without the wiring or compatibility issues, I'd be more comfortable endorsing it. It is a good looking bit of kit, I had hoped the execution were better. It's getting thrown in my box of fun, but useless gadgets.
For those of you that don't know, the Sentry 2 is a touch screen fan controller that can control five fans and monitor five temperatures with the included thermistors.
Now since none of us really care about packaging, which is sufficient, or directions, which are fairly useless, let's get right into the kit, which looks pretty damned good. Aesthetically it works well with my CM Storm Scout and BenQ optical drive. The various bits of black plastic blend well together. The LCD touch panel isn't just pretty, it gives quick easy access to toggle between control of the five fans. Tap the fan icon, the selected fan changes, tap it again and you're on the next fan. As you cycle through the fans, you also cycle through the read outs for the various temperature probes.
There are eleven separate leads - master power, five for the fans and five thermistors. If you're anything like me you'll take the hour or so to zip tie and tape them down into oblivion so that they only peek out where absolutely necessary.
Easy, simple, nice. Then it falls flat on it's face.
Each channel for the fan control has a power lead coming out. Two wires yellow (+12v) and black (Ground) and two connectors - a male three pin and, get this, a male four pin. (Molex, not PWM) Whiskey tango foxtrot? Yes, many fans with four pin connectors have both a male and a female lead so that you can daisy chain them, but not all. This also leaves you with the wonderful ability to connect a hot power lead from your power supply to the hot power lead from your fan controller. If you're lucky you'll only burn out that channel on your $30 fan controller, not your power supply. I was able to quickly build a couple of female to female adapters, but not everyone (likely most) will have my resources.
Compatibility is also an issue. I've thrown several different fans at it - about half of them have worked perfectly, a couple get power but can't be controlled and a couple growl and don't spin up to full speed. I also think one or two of them that I categorized as working perfectly make a bit more noise.
As you speed a fan up the first step is from 0% to 40%, then increases in 10% increments to 100%. It sounds like they have it mapped to spin the fans up to 100% then scale back to overcome any fans that don't like to start at lower speeds, but that doesn't seem to work in all cases.
I can't recommend buying one unless you're willing to take the time to shop for fans that are 100% compatible. However, if they release a version 2.1 without the wiring or compatibility issues, I'd be more comfortable endorsing it. It is a good looking bit of kit, I had hoped the execution were better. It's getting thrown in my box of fun, but useless gadgets.