# Sunbeam Rheobus Extreme - Black



## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

http://www.xoxide.com/sunbeam-rheobus-xblack.html

im considering buying this in replacing my Windmill controller. there is nothing wrong with what i have now (and its for sale just to let you know) but i dont really care for the lcd panel in it.

my question is how hard would it be to remove the blue leds and replaced them with orange/red leds?

http://www.jab-tech.com/4000MCD-5mm-Red-leds-10-pack-pr-2391.html


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## GJSNeptune (May 30, 2008)

Not hard at all. The LEDs aren't soldered in or anything. Their pins are simply inserted into the connectors. You can pull them right out with pliers (space is a little tight around one or two of them).

I actually pulled out my LEDs, clipped their ground leads, and soldered on resistors to dim them. They're ridiculously bright. I used 22k resistors, and I flipped the LEDs to reverse the left and right leads, as they control which color the LEDs are for voltage ranges. Mine are now blue from 0-7v, and red for over 7v.

The LEDs are probably half as bright as the power LED on my Lian-Li case. Without the resistors, they were probably two or three times brighter.


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

^^ do you have that? could you post some pics if you do?

So i could get these and i would be ok?
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1805/ele-15/3mm_Red_LED.html


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## Silverel (May 30, 2008)

I dunno about the Extreme version (really, how extreme can a rheobus be?), but I have the regular one. If I recall, the red LED's don't work at all, and the pins are soldered onto the board. Not bad though, enough room to clip and re-solder them without too much trouble.

There should be a dozen guides floating around the internets to help ya through it.


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

^^link?


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## GJSNeptune (May 30, 2008)

Oh. The Extreme version. Sorry. I have a regular Sunbeam Rheobus with four channels.


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

hmm, ok. is there much difference? i just want one with a knob instead of a lcd


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## GJSNeptune (May 30, 2008)

Apparently the Extreme (which has six channels) has soldered LEDs. The four-channel one, the one I have, is quite easy to mod.


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

oh  well i like it because each can handle 30w


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## GJSNeptune (May 30, 2008)

Fair enough, but the regular Sunbeam Rheobus has 20W per channel. They're designed to power fans, CCFLs, and more. Do you need six channels though? Or 30W per? If you're going to want to mod it, you might have to go with the normal one, as someone mentioned the Extreme's LEDs may be soldered.

Manufacturer's specifications:

    * Power : 20 watt per channel
    * Input voltage : DC 12V
    * Output voltage: 0 ~ 12 V
    * Output current: up to 1.67 A
    * Dimensions: 148.5x 105x 42 mm
    * Weight (Net) : 184


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

yeah, i need one that does at least 6. thats one reason i bought the sunbeam windmill controller (good one too imo) but like i said, i dont really like the lcd on it.

im not into all this fancy looking crap, i just want my computer to glow orange/red and be relatively cool and incredibly neat.


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## Silverel (May 30, 2008)

http://www.overclockers.com/articles1141/


That should be exactly what you're talking about.


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## GJSNeptune (May 30, 2008)

Only if the Extreme is built the same way. That's a guide I referenced when modding mine.


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

Silverel said:


> http://www.overclockers.com/articles1141/
> 
> 
> That should be exactly what you're talking about.



thats for the Sunbeam Rheobus not the extreme. if there the same then sweet! i can do the mod but if there different in the way the led are attached...then yeah.


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## Silverel (May 30, 2008)

There shouldn't be any major differences if you're just talking about the LEDs. Howbout ya take a picture of it?


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

Silverel said:


> There shouldn't be any major differences if you're just talking about the LEDs. Howbout ya take a picture of it?



i dont have it yet. thats why i asked lol. i hate blue themed cases (sry i like being semi original and or original) and thats why the red


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## GJSNeptune (May 30, 2008)

I don't think modding it would be very fun. Looks likes the enclosure has an overhang over the LEDs. You can see the resistors a bit though.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sunbeam/RheobusExtreme/images/sbrbe15.jpg

Blue is my favorite color. I see nothing wrong with that.


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

http://www.techpowerup.com/printreview.php?id=/Sunbeam/RheobusExtreme


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

so your saying it will be hard to change them?


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## Silverel (May 30, 2008)

Yeaaah... I guess I never noticed the Extreme on the front of the box... but that's the exact same one I have. Lol... I'll pick up a couple LED's on my way home from work, some resistors, and get a mod posted up here. All that kind of stuff is cheap, and I've been meaning to do it anyways. Shouldn't be any more difficult than removing the board from the housing via 4 screw or so, possibly having to remove the knobs (which I hear are glued on), snipping the LED's out, and attaching new ones of the same size. Then if they're too bright still, I'll have some 10k resistors to add onto it...

Should give me something to do for the weekend at least.


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## GJSNeptune (May 30, 2008)

Sweet. I look forward to it. So if you have the Extreme, are the LEDs blinding like the normal Rheobus?


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

Silverel said:


> Yeaaah... I guess I never noticed the Extreme on the front of the box... but that's the exact same one I have. Lol... I'll pick up a couple LED's on my way home from work, some resistors, and get a mod posted up here. All that kind of stuff is cheap, and I've been meaning to do it anyways. Shouldn't be any more difficult than removing the board from the housing via 4 screw or so, possibly having to remove the knobs (which I hear are glued on), snipping the LED's out, and attaching new ones of the same size. Then if they're too bright still, I'll have some 10k resistors to add onto it...
> 
> Should give me something to do for the weekend at least.



sweet! im going to go ahead and buy it then and order 6 red 5mm leds to go with it.


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## Silverel (May 30, 2008)

Yeah, they are. They adjust brightness with the speed of the fan. You can actually see some of the light they give off in the pics from my coolermaster mod, lol. That case was probably 10 feet away at the time too...

Ah, I'm not sure if they would be 5mm or 3mm, there are 2 for each knob according to the review...


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-of-50-5mm-R...kparms=72:552|39:1|65:12&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

would those work?


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## Silverel (May 30, 2008)

Not sure, gotta wait til I get home and take a look at it. I'm thinking the LED's are 2 post 3mm ones...


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

Silverel said:


> Not sure, gotta wait til I get home and take a look at it. I'm thinking the LED's are 2 post 3mm ones...



ok. i'll order it all when you can confirm


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## Silverel (May 30, 2008)

Alrighty, well the LEDs are indeed 2 post 3mm, but the problem I'm having is getting the damn knobs off this thing. It's like they used NO glue on 3 of them, but a TON on the other 3...

This is getting difficult already...

Good news though, it looks like the LEDs plug right into the board, so you wont have to do any soldering if you're just replacing them.

edit, broke one already. These knobs were meant to survive a nuclear holocaust apparently. theres still a chunk stuck to it...


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

Sweet.

ok im ordering it from frozencpu


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## Silverel (May 30, 2008)

Nerp, and the LED's are actually soldered to the board as well, there's just a sleeve on them that makes it look like that plug in... sigh.

There I go, broke the other 2 knobs that were stuck on as well. Gonna have to pick up 6 of those too. 

I'll post up a full walkthrough of disassembly, replacing the LED's, and reassembly later tonite. Due to the fact that these are 2 post, there's no easy way to go about making them dimmer without affecting fan-speed. It's all inline. The more voltage you're pushing through your fans, the brighter the LED's will be. No way around that short of removing one entirely, and bridging the gap. I might try that anyways. You'll only have 1 bright ass LED that way...


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## freaksavior (May 30, 2008)

led brightness is no big deal, i have a door on my case and its shut most of the time. i should have a nice glow through the top and bottom slots though.

I am pretty good at soldering so that shouldn't be a problem.

i need 3mm right?


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## Silverel (May 31, 2008)

Aye, 3mm. Take mind of the power of the LED too, the only ones I could find that matched up well are 25cdm, whereas the ones included are 750cdm, and the ones you're looking at are 1000cdm. All different measure of brightness.

Batteries in my cordless soldering iron died out last nite, which ended up in me passing out. Found some rather funky looking knobs straight out of the '80s or something, but at least it'll keep the light from blinding, and the way the front of the panel is, it might disperse into it. I think that would look rather nice.

Anyways, point being that I'll be back to working on it when I get home this afternoon.


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## freaksavior (May 31, 2008)

Silverel said:


> Aye, 3mm. Take mind of the power of the LED too, the only ones I could find that matched up well are 25cdm, whereas the ones included are 750cdm, and the ones you're looking at are 1000cdm. All different measure of brightness.
> 
> Batteries in my cordless soldering iron died out last nite, which ended up in me passing out. Found some rather funky looking knobs straight out of the '80s or something, but at least it'll keep the light from blinding, and the way the front of the panel is, it might disperse into it. I think that would look rather nice.
> 
> Anyways, point being that I'll be back to working on it when I get home this afternoon.



Im going to have 6 stop lights


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## freaksavior (Jun 1, 2008)

(from brother who hijacked F.S's screenname)

You guys mean "mcd" not "cmd". mcd is short for milicandela. 1/1000 candle power.
Also, to you guys having problems getting the glued knobs of the controllor, here's a tip. I can say with almost absolute certainty that those knobs are glued on with cyanoacrylate (super glue). Stick the whole assemply in the freezer (for a few hours) and the glue will become VERY brittle and break when you pull the knobs off.


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## Silverel (Jun 1, 2008)

Shhh... dyslexia ftw... lol

Good call, I totally misread that abbreviation on just about everything I've got sitting around.


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## freaksavior (Jun 2, 2008)

got mine in. good news and bad, it used 12 led's i bought 6. so far taking it apart is easy. had all the tools. its in the freezer now as my brother suggested. and i got solder and all that, i may end up using 1 led per knob.

edit: just bought 50 x 3mm 4000mcd leds from ebay.

they should be here in a week. im going to do half of the led's anyway and when i get these in i will replace them


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## Silverel (Jun 2, 2008)

Yeah, the 6 I got were horribly dim. Too lazy to return them thus far. Been busy with the Stanley Cup playoffs (go wings!), and lots of drinking. Gonna see if I can find a small electronics shop around here that has a better selection of LED's. On the plus side, the LED's are run parallel to the potentiometer, so you don't have to have them in at all. Which means having only 6 out of 12 should work as well.


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## freaksavior (Jun 2, 2008)

Silverel said:


> Yeah, the 6 I got were horribly dim. Too lazy to return them thus far. Been busy with the Stanley Cup playoffs (go wings!), and lots of drinking. Gonna see if I can find a small electronics shop around here that has a better selection of LED's. On the plus side, the LED's are run parallel to the potentiometer, so you don't have to have them in at all. Which means having only 6 out of 12 should work as well.



i want 12 in it though.  hence reason i bought 50 more  maybe i'll give each knob 4 led's


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## freaksavior (Jun 3, 2008)

there we go. i still cant get the knobs off. i don't want to brake them either


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## freaksavior (Jun 4, 2008)




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## Silverel (Jun 4, 2008)

Please, bear with my crappy 80$ camera. Oh what I would give for a Macro setting on it...






There's a lot more broken chunks than that lying all over my basement... somewhere. Essentially, after trying to pry them off for an hour or so, I just grabbed some pliers and made em explode. Was a lot of fun, and as you can see, I have replacements waiting.







To pop out the LED's I just used a soldering iron, pushed the backside of the LED pin through with it as it was heating up, and gave a little pull with the exacto blade. Something similar would work I'd imagine. If it were possible to see, all the holes for the LED's are nice and clean, which means for a quick and easy install when I get some that suit me.






For now it's just going to look like this and it does INDEED run without any LEDs at all. Or I could switch out those three clear ones for the same style black and silver. I haven't decided yet. Nice thing about the front bezel on this being a smokey tint on clear plastic, is if I did use these knobs with lights, it should make the entire bezel glow, instead of the piercing blindness that would occur otherwise.


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## freaksavior (Jun 4, 2008)

any idea were to get some clear knobs like that? 

post some more pics of the lights glowing. what color you using anyway?


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## Silverel (Jun 4, 2008)

That is with the lights glowing 

I don't have the LED's I like, so I just left em empty. No idea where you could get those exact knobs, but places like FrozenCPU and Xoxide should have knobs.


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## freaksavior (Jun 4, 2008)

OHH so you just un-soldered em.

edit: frozen cpu, and xoxide dont knobs


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## Silverel (Jun 4, 2008)

Ah, but radioshack has a couple. I noticed they didn't, I know I've seen em at some mod site before...

A couple more here


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## freaksavior (Jun 4, 2008)

just e-mailed tech support asking for some new knobs. see what they say. i refuse to use blue.



Silverel said:


> Ah, but radioshack has a couple. I noticed they didn't, I know I've seen em at some mod site before...
> 
> A couple more here




what are you looking for exactly? i google clear knobs and find nothing.


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## Silverel (Jun 4, 2008)

Potentiometer knob would be my key search term. There's a handful more across the internets. Finding clear ones is tough :/


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## freaksavior (Jun 5, 2008)

I tried calling them but nothing. i really want red.


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## Silverel (Jun 5, 2008)

Mmm... I just ordered a pretty decent camera from Newegg.






The quality of my pictures should go up about 4-fold. My craptastic 2.5mp camcorder/camera and my 3.1mp cellphone camera aren't gonna cut it anymore.

That's a Vivicam T25, sale today for 100$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16830241046

Supposedly it ends at 6pm...


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 5, 2008)

Megapixels only matter if you use the corresponding resolution. An 12MP camera isn't necessarily better than a 3.1MP camera if you use both at the same resolution.

Granted, a camcorders still-picture quality will be lacking, and a cell phone camera will suck, so your purchase will definitely improve your pictures.


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## freaksavior (Jun 6, 2008)

still no word from them.


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## Eclecticos (Jun 8, 2008)

I think the advertisement has sold you. Have some dignity make one yourself.


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## freaksavior (Jun 8, 2008)

Eclecticos said:


> I think the advertisement has sold you. Have some dignity make one yourself.



what are you talking about? are you trolling my thread?!


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## Silverel (Jun 8, 2008)

Yeah, lol. Use the quote button. I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you talking about making a rheobus from scratch? Wouldn't be too hard, but the Sunbeamtech one still looks a lot better I'd imagine...


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## freaksavior (Jun 13, 2008)

still haven't figured this one out.


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## freaksavior (Jun 20, 2008)

i think i found them


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 20, 2008)

Oh wow. Haha.


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## freaksavior (Jun 20, 2008)

What do you think? would it work?


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## Silverel (Jun 21, 2008)

Wow, those first ones look just about perfect. Just hope they fit right. I found the actual dimensions for the D-shaped potentiometer knobs somewhere. There's only a handful of different ones to go on. If anything, you can fill them with glue to make up for the extra space if any.


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## freaksavior (Jun 21, 2008)

Silverel said:


> Wow, those first ones look just about perfect. Just hope they fit right. I found the actual dimensions for the D-shaped potentiometer knobs somewhere. There's only a handful of different ones to go on. If anything, you can fill them with glue to make up for the extra space if any.



yeah, except there guitar knobs. im going to order 2 of them and if they are the right size then order some more.

edit: not buying those from the one player, they want $11 for 2 knobs


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## wtf8269 (Jun 22, 2008)

You need knobs that are no more than 3/4" in diameter and with a 1/4" bore hole. I think 3/4" diameter would be pushing it too. 1/2" would be best I believe. I'm still in search for the perfect knobs. I would personally prefer black anodized aluminum knobs such as what comes on the regular four channel Rheobus. As far as breaking the knobs off, I was able to get it by just turning the knob until it broke off the potentiometer. I actually changed the faceplate on mine, and I just colored over the LEDs with sharpie and then put some electrical tape over them.


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## freaksavior (Jun 22, 2008)

well i e-mailed them AGAIN and asked but i doubt i will get a reply.


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## freaksavior (Jun 26, 2008)

i got a REPLY! woot!!! sent three to them and there replying i think im getting them


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