Cheap CSE-PTJBOD-CB3 Alternative?

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SycoPath

Active Member
Oct 8, 2014
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I was hunting through eBay today and found this little gem for $9:

DC 12 24V 48V 2-Way 4-Wire Computer PWM Temperature Control Fan Speed Controller | eBay

Might save me about $150 for a Supermicro CSE-PTJBOD-CB3. I'm thinking I can use this with a CSE-PTJBOD-CB1 instead and have a nice quiet case for under $45. Cheapest I could find a CB3 was around $200. Only thing I lose is IPMI, and I have no real need for IPMI in a JBOD case. I'm thinking I can probably use a 1 to 3 PWM fan adapter to pass the PWM signal to 3 fans and just wire the +12v directly to the power supply. The case I'm using is a Chenbro NR40700 which has 2 fan walls with 3 120mm fans each. The fan controller also has 2 temperature probes, I'm thinking stick 1 on a hard drive near the rear, 1 on the SAS Expander chip, and set thermostats to my preference.

I also found this one:
DC 12V Fan Temperature Control Speed Controller CPU High-Temp Alarm PWM PC CPU | eBay

Which might be better for eliminating single point of failure. I like the metal ring style temperature probe on the 1st one better though. However, this one has 3 fan channels, so two controllers would natively take care of all 6 case fans.

Any opinions/suggestions? Also, I'm curious, will the CSE-PTJBOD-CB3 connect to the I2C connector on the NR40700 and read the temperatures directly from the expander and drives? If so, this might be a lot safer since I've got close to $4000 in drives in this case, and another $150 to protect them properly is well worth it.

NR40700 Expander Manual link:
http://usa.chenbro.com/en-US/DownloadFile/download/946
 
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T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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Oddly enough I just ordered 3x of the CB3 after waiting months for something different or them to drop in price.

WiredZone.com had the cheapest price I could find 'online' and in-stock (VERY likely drop shipped from SM), but if you have a sales Rep at SuperBiiz give that a go, I was able to beat the price WiredZone had by a good amount.
 

sth

Active Member
Oct 29, 2015
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T-minus: did you order any of the extras along with the CB3, i.e the Cat5 extension lead or the mounting plate.