The bay unit itself is not much bigger than a floppy disk and indeed it is designed to be mounted in a floppy drive bay in your case. Since the decline of the floppy drive these bays are often not used by end users so designing a unit for this purpose makes a lot of sense.
At the front of the bay we find the 4 dials for fan and light control. Starting on the left and moving to the right we have the 3 dials for fan control. These dials allow you to control fans from 0v to 12v or off to full speed and anything in between. The dials turn the prescribed distance in that when marked off, they point to off rather than travelling too far or not enough. To the far right we find the dial for the CCFL control. This dial has a shiny face when compared to the matt finish of the fan controls to distinguish it from the others. Turning the dial to the far left equates to OFF for the CCFL's. At the mid position or pointing up the sound reactive setting is enabled, which uses the mic port to the right of the dial itself. At the far right position the lights remain on.
The sides are uneventful with the exception of the screw holes, but on the bottom of the blue PCB we find the various solder points for the electronic components as well as a protective covering for the inverter. Turning the controller over we can see this protective covering mimic's on the top of the PCB as well.
On the rear edge we find the connections, starting from the left the 2 outputs for the CCFL's, the 3 three pin fan headers and the 4 pin Molex power input.
At the rear of the front facia we can see the rear of the dials including the 5 blue LED's which give the front dials a bright blue surround under power.
The CCFL's are straight from the Spectrum line-up that are also part of Vantec's product line. The CCFL's are solidly constructed with a triangular lump of Perspex at each end. The triangular nature of the end caps for the CCFL's could affect some users in that the tip of the triangle will protrude out from the CCFL too far and could hinder you closing up a side panel if you can't mount the CCFL's back far enough in the case; so something to watch out for.
Installation and In Use
Ok, time for my first real complaint, and it's the exact same one I had with the NXP-205 and the NXP-301. The wiring supplied, both for the Fans and the CFFL's, is not long enough by at least half. In the case of the Fans, it makes it difficult to hide your wiring, especially if you have to make the wiring run to the back of your case. You wont be tucking it out of sight, which ordinarily wouldn't be an issue, but since this is a Light Controller as well, it stands to reason you will have a window if you want to get the most out of this product. The last thing you will want if you have a window is to see all of your wiring in a mess but unless you do a bit of D.I.Y and extend the cables yourself, they will be on show.
The same problem can be found on the CCFL's with the wiring for them being not much longer than the tube itself. Like I said you can extend them but with a kit like this you would think it would be ready to go out of the box. A real shame that this one flaw hinders the ease of use in an otherwise great product. Everything else about it is great, nice colouring, build quality, easy to use and install. The dials turn the appropriate distances as marked on the controller, no sloppiness or overshooting the mark. When adjusted, the dials don't instantly change the speed of the fan; there is a delay of about a second as the power is adjusted directly to the setting you have chosen. The sound activated dial is somewhat adjustable in that you can make small movements with the dial to dictate how sensitive the sound pickup is.
Despite this controller being basically a smaller version of the 301 I reviewed a while back (and therefore having had plenty of time to get used to it and play with it) I still find that the sound reactive CCFL's make for a great amusement (you can see a video of them in action here).
Final Words
In actually functionality when compared to its big brother the NXP-301 there is no difference, but utilizing the often disused (in this day and age) floppy bay does have an advantage all of its own. The controller will allow you up to 18w each on it's 3 channels, and whilst Vantec state only one fan per channel, I've personally had no issues running more than one fan from a channel (up to you, do it at your own risk). The other thing that differs with this controller when compared to most on the market is its ability to adjust the voltage from 12v all the way down to 0v, so you can if you want to shut the fans off completely.
With its onboard dual inverter and simple dial control from the front of the unit, everything to do with the fans and lighting in your system can be easily controlled from one accessible location.
Installation is a breeze, but the wiring for both the Fans and the CCFL's needs to be extended for the farther reaching mounting points in a case, more so for those with large towers. This is the NXP-305's one failing, and whilst you can extend the wiring easily enough, you shouldn't have to; it should long enough but it isn't.
It's a real shame that something as silly as that can mar an otherwise perfectly good device, but despite this one flaw, it is a good package overall if you prepared for a bit of extra D.I.Y when installing. I prefer the advantage of the NXP-305's floppy mounting bay arrangement to the usual of taking up a more widely used 5 1/4 “ bay but this is something the end user would have to decide on.
Pros: 0v - 12v Fan operation, 3 Channels - 18watts per Channel, Easy installation, 3.5” bay install, Complete kit, 2x Blue CCFL's included, Dual CCFL Inverter Onboard, funky sound reactive lighting for you CCFL's
Cons: Included Cables are too short by at least half on the CCFL's and for the Fans
Bottom Line: This is a great controller, you can have flashing lights, and full control for such. Couple this with a 3 channel (18w per channel) fan controller and you have yourself a bay device that will bring control of your fans and CCFL's to the front of your case. The included cables are not long enough by at least half though, on both the CCFL's and the Fan cables. Feel free to hit me up in the forums if you have any questions or comments.
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