OCTools - Reinventing the Tools of OC

6 Port Baybus Review

May 27, 2002

Intro

I've had my fair share of Case Modding Experience. I've got neons, windows, hell I even tried to make my own baybus once. Unfortunately electronics is not my forte, and I ended up burning out a few leds and making a mess of a drive bay cover or two. Then I got this little beauty to review.

OCNZ kindly provided us with their 6 port baybus to review, and it's a very nice little unit. Lets start with what you get in the box:

1 x Baybus Unit - 2 PCBs with 6 leds and switched premounted. 2nd PCB contains terminals for fans to plug into
1 x Acrylic Drilling Template - More on this later.
1 x Molex Splitter Cable
6 x LED Bezels
1 x Instruction sheet

Now, assembly is required. You will need... A drill and 1/4" drill bit and a small flat blade screw driver (to tighten the fan terminal screws). Being an idiot, I didnt have drill bits with labelled sizes, so I picked one at random and used that. I ran into problems later because of this, you should actually RTFM and use the size they tell you to.

The Acrylic drilling template is a godsend. its clear, so you can see whats going on under the template, and its hard enough that it wont be warped when u use it. It has glue already applied, just take off the backing paper off the template and its glue and stick it on.

Installation
Because this device requires a fair bit of assembly I will give you a step by step guide with pictures.

Step 1: Peel the backing paper off the Drilling template and attach it to a spare drive bay cover (or take one out of your PC). It has sticky stuff pre applied so you dont need to use any glue. Make sure you put it on straight. Even if it is only a little off, take it off and put it on again.

Step 2: Drill Holes. Fairly Simple. I suggest you put the drive bay cover into a vise or similar clamping device if you have one. Then put the drill bit into the hole in the template and drill away.

Step 3: The instruction sheet tells you to attach your fans at this point, we'll be leaving that for a bit later. What you want to do now is take the 6 LED Bezels that came in the box and put them in the top row of holes in your drive bay cover. Push em in pretty hard.

Step 4: You'll need to remove the little nuts and washers from the switches, leaving one nut on, a little way out from the base of the switch. What you need to do is leave it far out enough that the back of the drive bay cover is at the right level so that the LEDs stick out far enough without bending the drive bay cover or the PCB.

Step 5: Push the drive bay cover onto the BayBus. When you push the LEDs into the bezels they should click once they go past a certain point. I had a lot of trouble here because the drill bit I used was too small. The LEDs would 'snap' into the bezels without using a tupid amount of force. I had to take out all the bezels and drill the holes bigger. Once I did that it was very easy to pop the LEDs into their bezels. You'll also be wanting to get the switches through their corresponding holes. When you push the LEDs into their bezels the back of the drive bay cover should be flush with the little nut you left on the switches before.

Step 6: Hopefully by now everything is level and in the right place. Replace the washers and nuts on the switches and tighten as necessary. You can use a little spanner if you want to, but i found finger tightening to be more than adequate. If you find the bottom of the drive bay cover bending at this point, you need to readjust the little nuts on the switch behind the drive bay cover so they are further out.

Step 7: Now is a good time to install your fans. You'll need to strip their wires, leaving about 3-5mm of bare wire. Put the wires into the terminals (labelled Red and Black and 1-6) and tighten the screws. install the Baybus into a spare drive bay and you're just about done.

Step 8: Route wires and attach power plug. There will be a lot of wires going to the BayBus, I suggest you use cable ties or tape to tidy this mess. Otherwise you might start hitting problems with fouled fans and tangled wires. Attach the supplied Molex Y connector and then boot up.

Now all going well you should have a functioning baybus installed. Well done! Go have a beer or other suitable beverage. This process took me about an hour, but bear in mind that I had to redrill my holes (because I used the wrong size drill bit).

Usage
So now we get to play with our new toy. Each switch has 3 positions, up, middle and down. When the switch is in the up position, the LED glows red, and the fan attached to that switch receives a full 12V of power. With the switch in the middle position the fan receives no power and the LED is turned off. With the switch in the down position the fan receives a voltage controlled by the potentiometers located on the top of the PCB, and you get a green glowing LED. Not having a functioning multimeter I was unable to test the exact output range of the potentiometer, though OCNZ quote it as 5.5v-11.5v. Being a noise freak I run almost all of my fans on the low setting, that's my Crystal Orb, 2 80mm case fans and the little 40mm fan on my satellite card. With the switch on the low setting the fans are barely audible, it's really quite nice. When I need the extra cooling (like at LANs) I can flick a switch and get their full-on noisy, whining power. It's a very very handy thing to be able to do. OCNZ tell you NOT to use any device that drains over 6W of power on the BayBus. 6W is a LOT of power for a fan, so most of your exisisting fans should be fine.

Conclusion
I have to say this is a great piece of kit. It constructed well, it's sturdy, and everything is neat and tidy. No dodgy rush jobs here. There is the small matter of price however. OCNZ has this baybus at a price of NZ$75. That's a fair bit of cash. If you're a dab hand with a soldering iron or actually have some clue as to how electronics work you could easily construct your own baybus for about NZ$25. If, like me, you're not exactly all that good with a soldering iron, I'd recommend this Baybus. It's expensive, yes, but it is very well put together. Hell you even get a 2 month warranty with it.

Pros:
Very well constructed
Drilling Template included
Looks Pretty
bi-color LEDs let you easily see what setting your fans are on
Easy control over your fan speed/ Noise level.

Cons:
Requires tools for install

Our Baybus Kit was supplied by Overclockers NZ, if you are from New Zealand, you can buy this kit thru them.