The Cooler Master folks sort of surprised me with this little guy showing up at the door.  After figuring out that my unexpected package wasn't Anthrax, I opened up the box to find a ... case fan?  Upon closer inspection this wasn't a run of the mill, $4 case fan.  This is the new Cooler Master TLF-R82 Neon LED fan.  (I know what you're thinking, but I have no idea who comes up with the names for these things either.) 

What makes this fan different is that its body is made of clear plastic with four LED in each of the four corners on the unit.  Included in the package were four case fan screws and a three pin to four pin Molex adapter.

Here are the specs.

• Size: 80 x 80 x 25mm

• Rated Voltage: 12V

• Bearing Type: Rifle Bearing (patented)

• Input Current: 0.15 A

• Fan Speed: 2500 RPM

• Air Volume: 32 CFM

• Noise Level: 25 dBA

• Connector: Three pin

The use of Rifle Bearings rather than traditional Ball Bearings helps to make the unit quieter which, for us older folks is a plus.

Shown below is the Cooler Master fan installed in our Lian Li PC-6089A case, with and without a finger guard in place.  You can see how bright the blue LEDs are.  While they are not bright enough to light up a windowed case on their own, they do add quite a bit to the overall looks.  I'm speculating that multiple fans of this type COULD light a case to an acceptable level.  That will be something to try later though.

Even from the back of the case, the LED fan is styling.

The TLF-R82 fan in normal operation is indeed quiet.  Some people out there, me for one, have all their fans connected to either a FanBus or a single Rheostat.  Rheostats, even with turned "wide open" offer some electrical resistance.  This was painfully obvious in the case here.  The blue LEDs just flat couldn't get enough juice at any setting when connected to a Rheostat.  The LEDs were either dim or off altogether.  No in between.  The picture below gives the LEDs more credit than they are due.  The light was amplified automatically by my camera subsequently making the photo misleading.  Look to the left side of the picture below, look at the light on the wall.  The earlier pictures above with the fully lit LED fan were taken in the same light.

This was the only issue we had with the Cooler Master LED fan and this is a mild to trifling issue because the fan really doesn't make enough noise to warrant even thinking about using it with a FanBus.

The Cooler Master Neon LED fan proves itself to be a nice addition to any case mod.  Pricing and availability information are as of this time are unavailable.  You should expect to see these online within the next few weeks I would speculate.  Thanks again to Cooler Master HK office for sending us this nifty fan to play with.

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