[Official] Phantom 410 Mid-Tower Owner's Club - Page 97

Originally Posted by IT Diva 

That would be for each channel, as most commonly used fans are in the 4 to 6 W range and it's not uncommon to have a couple fans on a channel.
That being said; I would never trust an NZXT, or for that matter, most other onboard controllers, to be capable of that for continuous use.
When you look at controllers, look physically for capacitor / inductor size and heat sink size on each power transistor / mosfet.
I'd trust the built in controller for maybe 12 to 15 W max, and even then, I wouldn't trust it to something critical.
Much like stereo system power ratings, it's a lot more impressive to give some sort of "peak" power rating than the "RMS with all channels driven" rating.
A cooling pump is about the last thing anyone should ever plug onto a built in controller.
And for what it's worth, I had my 410 window mod posted on the NZXT forum back in January, just after the 410s came out.
Darlene

Originally Posted by fudsey 

Window finished yesterday and I'm already thinking of changing it up.
Has anyone done the window like this on a 410? I haven't seen one in here but I might have missed it. Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show) I did a Photoshop of mine to come to this. It mimics the angle and tight corner of the upper window.
What do you think, should I do it?

Originally Posted by IT Diva 

That's really a waste of time....... and tells you almost nothing.
Taking just a multi meter to it won't tell you anything more than what the output voltage range is from minimum setting to max.
To learn a little more;
You would need to set the multi meter to its current measuring function, and put it In Series with your load to tell how much current (milliamps) the load draws.
If you measured the max voltage out, and then measured the current draw for whatever you had attached when you measured the voltage, you could compute the power (Watts) that that particular load took. It would not tell you anything, however, about how much maximum power the controller can handle.
The more load, fans etc. you put on, the greater the current that will be drawn from the controller, and typically, the voltage may drop with added load.
To actually measure how much power (in Watts) the controller is capable of, you'd need 2 multimeters, one measuring the voltage at the load, and the other in series with the load measuring the current draw.
Multiply the voltage times the current and you'll have power (Watts)
Now the problem with that, is the only way to know what the max was is to slowly increase the load untill the controller fails. Destructive testing gets expensive, but at least you've determined what your real world max is, at least for that controller channel, and may still vary somewhat from one controller / channel to another (even of the same type).
At least then, conservatively, you could figure half that load would be fine for continuous use.
The manufacturer (NZXT in this case) likely uses the best case scenario specs for the design / components used in the controller and goes with that for the 30W rating, knowing that in most cases, users will probably have about half that much at most.
Darlene