SENTRY 2.0: Evolution of console-sized gaming PC case

How about idea top side motherboard access plate - same with bottom side. I saw many people they cut top plate to install higher cooler.

The point of the bottom access panel is for the ease of maintenance. Making a case promoted as small as console just to install a cooler that is standing out of the case outline defeats the point.

Also adding the same thing on both sides isn't something that would help the looks. If we were to do that, we'd rather have to make such panel above the GPU, and making one above the motherboard would completely break the looks of perforation on this side.
 
Look good add logo in front side is better, this's one of best cases with this layout.
 
I get it. I agree that adding another asymmetric element like this breaks the otherwise clean look. The question is, whether it can be designed in a way it doesn't affect that clean look.

We'll probably decide upon this based on some polls. First we need to design the internal locking mechanism to know what we can do with the shape of this access panel. After that we can draw some concepts for the shape of it, make renders and poll which one looks the best, and finally after that make some decision with another poll about whether its worth it or not.

At this point, we will be designing this feature anyway for the sake of our internal performance testing, but this could end up as a review unit (we'd have to thread lightly there though to make sure people don't get confused about this feature being in the final product or not).
Love you, bro :)
 
Glad to see you guys are following up with version 2.0. Can't really think of anything major to change.

  • The concern with the vertical stand seems a bit too much, and if someone is really worried about another person bumping it they may as well lay it flat only the real concern there would be someone completely tipping the case over with the stand still attached.
  • Can't go wrong with more ventilation, and the extra holes near the bottom of the stand was a good idea, though it never bothered me much. On the topic, I do notice that my noctua cooler doesn't have its fan with full access to the little holes on the case, so hopefully more fix this. I don't think it's much of a big deal, but to some it might be.
  • I don't get the backlash regarding the hex screws. Unless someone is using the L shaped wrenches I can't see a issue. If anything I think the phillips screws for the hard drive sections should be replaced with hex.
  • I can't blame those wanting a access to the back of the mobo. It really would be a pain to take all of this apart with the crazy cable management.
  • Speaking of cables, I don't see the point of cable ties, because for me all of the cables just all bunched together at hot spots anyway. Maybe this is different for custom sleeved (which I don't have). Further we aren't navigating cables through a giant case where these ties are generally found.
  • I don't blame you for cutting back on things to reduce weight. Suppose I'll cherish these little HDD brackets. It's funny because I remember some people talking about a 15 2.5" HDD NAS box with you guys offering to send more HDD brackets for those that wanted more.. yet here we are with ~1% of people even using them. Oh well.

I can't count how many times I've moved this thing from one place to another in my house.

Has anyone tried taking this on a plane? Wouldn't want to risk taking it to a airport only to leave it there or cancel my flight.
 
The concern with the vertical stand seems a bit too much, and if someone is really worried about another person bumping it they may as well lay it flat only the real concern there would be someone completely tipping the case over with the stand still attached.

If i understand correctly you are talking about that request to mount the vertical stand with screws. The issue that some people had with how it is mounted right now was that there's some leeway between the holes in the stand and the screw heads, so when you insert something in front USB and then in the back you are slightly pushing the case back and forth on the stand. This is like 0.5 ~ 1 mm back and forth, but still it's a movement. We want to take care of that, but by removing that leeway instead of fixing the stand with screws compeletely.

Can't go wrong with more ventilation, and the extra holes near the bottom of the stand was a good idea, though it never bothered me much. On the topic, I do notice that my noctua cooler doesn't have its fan with full access to the little holes on the case, so hopefully more fix this. I don't think it's much of a big deal, but to some it might be.

If you check the renders in the opening post, you'll see that we've already taken that into account. The vent area is bigger and also the vent is closer to the edge of the panel so the more of it is above the CPU socket area. That shouldn't matter for the noctua that much (the placement) as it isn't directly facing the perforation but it has some distance to it, unless of course you made some kind of tunnel around the fan. Apart from that the perforation is denser - the distance between holes is smaller, so we hope it will have good effect on the audibility of fans directly facing the case cover.

I don't get the backlash regarding the hex screws. Unless someone is using the L shaped wrenches I can't see a issue. If anything I think the phillips screws for the hard drive sections should be replaced with hex.

Well, If you are not carrying the case around, that's not really a problem, but when you're mobile, there are some additional forces working on the case and if someone tightens the screws too much, those additional forces may make some minor moves on the panels, which in effect means you need bigger force to unscrew the screw than what the screw socket can withstand with the wrench not perfectly fitting in it.

We are promoting our case to be mobile and at the same time we know that it's a real pain when such thing happens right when you want to access the inside of your case, for example because of some hardware failure.

Speaking of cables, I don't see the point of cable ties, because for me all of the cables just all bunched together at hot spots anyway. Maybe this is different for custom sleeved (which I don't have). Further we aren't navigating cables through a giant case where these ties are generally found.

We'll be checking the possibilities and figuring out how to do this, but at least this is a must for the AIO hoses to be tied down somehow or they'll be pushing against the cover when closing the case.

I don't blame you for cutting back on things to reduce weight. Suppose I'll cherish these little HDD brackets. It's funny because I remember some people talking about a 15 2.5" HDD NAS box with you guys offering to send more HDD brackets for those that wanted more.. yet here we are with ~1% of people even using them. Oh well.

We've had in mind platforms like intel avoton (which had a 12 sata on ITX board) for 12 2.5" HDD, but that didn't really kick in for few reasons. First of all such boards weren't popular as the barebone NAS systems became a thing where you buy a case with psu and a board, so the avoton itx boards were really expensive. People generally don't want to stack multiple 2.5" drives, they want to use singe 15 mm 2.5" drive that can hold 4TB instead (this is something that is still really hard to do in Sentry).

Instead of stacking those, we want to give an option of using ITX sized GPU with full-sized 3.5" HDD in that place. The drawback however will be that you'll need a real ITX-sized GPU, Zotac's mini series won't fit with 3.5" drive.

The biggest issue we had with this feature though is that it required two additional types of screws that varied by 1 and 2 mm from the rest of the standard M3 x 6 which made a mess in manual for people who never required to use this feature.

Has anyone tried taking this on a plane? Wouldn't want to risk taking it to a airport only to leave it there or cancel my flight.

I remember someone on reddit talking about it with another case I think, specifically in context of water cooling and all they had to do is to state that their PC has water cooling and be ready to take it out of the luggage for inspection.

As for Sentry itself, I believe Sam-I-Am has carried his on a plane few times and posted about this in Sentry thread.
 
I saw somewhere (probably in KS comments section) some guys from Croatia who were talking that they bought A4, but i didn't see any A4 manual in Croatian. Did you provide a manual in all of those EU languages where you exported your case? In my opinion you did not have to, because your product is not a final product, but just a part to make it, and if you have some sort of online manual, it should be enough.

I have to add one point to this, because I found out that what I wrote is not fully true (Sorry for that).

If the EU directive you are using enforces you to make a paper manual as a manufacturer, then yes, you have to make a "local language" version for a client, but only if you are legally existing in that country (if you have your representation there which is selling your product to the customer). If a customer is buying your product directly from you (online or goes to your country and picks it personally), then he becomes an importer to his language-market and he is responsible for the translation (if he needs it or if he will want to sell it to someone else). It means, in the Croatian example I mentioned, if you do not have your representative there and your supporters ordered and received your product directly from you, from Germany, then this is another reason why you did not have to make your instruction in their language. This was their duty as internal-EU importers to that language-market (if they wanted to or needed to have this manual in their own language). If DAN-Cases will grow up to a bigger company and will open shop in Croatia, then you will have to start making Croatian version of manual. But now, with online sales you have to have a manual in your (manufacturer's) local language as long as it is on a list of the official EU languages.

In LVD directive (2014/35/UE) there is an information that the manufacturer should provide the manual in a language which will be understandable to the end-user. If this would be read directly, then it looks like we all should be making our manuals in all EU languages that are on the official list. But it's not like that. EU directive does not give a stright definition of an "end-user" and how manufacturer has to determine who will be the end user of his product. The only such situation I can see here from the manufacturer's point of view is when the manufacturer exists on that market or has some sort of distribution registered in that market. In other situation I think that only manufacturer's local language manual is needed if it is one of the EU languages. For example, if you go to France to buy a TV directly from the manufacturer, then who is responsible for making and instruction in your (German) language? Manufacturer? No. You are the one who came to the manufacturer, to his country and you want to take this equipment with you to your country. If manufacturer does not have time to translate the instruction to your language, does it mean you can't buy this product? No. You have to translate it by yourself. Same situation is with online-sales. You are offering your case in Germany, but you say if someone from other country wants to buy it, you can send it to him if they will pay for transport. It's the same situation like he would come to you and take the package directly from you, but in this case client pays transport company for the shipment to bring the product to him.

I hope now this is clear. I read those directive articles (about language version of manuals) in that way. If you have some other point of view, it would be great if you will show where we might be making a mistake.


I looked in my version of the EN 60950-1:

"1.7.2 Safety instructions and marking" they write:

The operating instructions, and the installation instructions for PLUGGABLE EQUIPMENT intended
for USER installation, shall be made available to the USER.

So maybe you are right because they don't write it has to be printed.

I know I already answered to that, but I want to keep conversation in that field. In the LVD directive there is an information that the manual should be provided with the product (added to a product). Yes, there is no information it must be a paper manual, but can we say that "online-manual" is added to a product? In my opinion we can treat online-manual in that way (like with my previous example with RAM modules or HDD), but I am not sure if all national authorities designated to make some random checks of products will see that in the same way. In Polish version of this directive (which should be translated 1:1 with other EU languages), the only situation when you will have to provide a paper "documentation" is when being asked by national authorities who will want to check if your product complies with this directive. Do you see it in the same way?

p.s. EN 60950-1 norm which you are using is old, and was switched with EN 62368-1 in 2014, and updated in 2015 (EN 62368-1:2015-03).


Sorry for making this post so long, but many cases creators have problems with the legal side of manual, and some things still aren't clear (even for us). Maybe we can help each other to solve those problems.
 
Has anyone tried taking this on a plane? Wouldn't want to risk taking it to a airport only to leave it there or cancel my flight.

Just put an analog clock in a bag with your Sentry and watch the face of x-ray scanner operator :D
 
Would it be possible to make the vertical stand a bit less taller (and maybe increase the angle of the feet, to maintain same stability)? I don't see why it needs so much vent space, unless it's placed on a carpet.

Another idea would be to split the vertical stand in two parts (on the long side), and make it so each part can also be used for the horizontal position of the case (by mounting each part of the stand on left and right side respectively); rubber feet won't be needed anymore and i think it would look more interesting this way.

Some minor thing would be if the new torx screws are flat and not rounded (like the hex used on sentry 1); rounded screws look bad on this case, especially those on the front side, imo.


Something else i'm curious about, why the decision against making the case one sided (i mean, with the gpu and cpu on the same side)? What are the disadvantages to such a setup?

And finally, when is 2.0 coming out? I missed the 1st one.
 
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Would it be possible to make the vertical stand a bit less taller (and maybe increase the angle of the feet, to maintain same stability)? I don't see why it's need so much vent space, unless it's placed on a carpet.

The 45 degree angle matches cutouts on the case corner and is also easiest non 90-degree bend to maintain in production. We won't be changing that. The height comes from the required width of the stand for some reasonable stability. We also don't want to change the look of the case on a stand by different proportions, so we'll definitely won't be changing that.

Another idea would be to split the vertical stand in two parts (on the long side), and make it so each part can also be used for the horizontal position of the case (by mounting each part of the stand on left and right side respectively); rubber feet won't be needed anymore and i think it would look more interesting this way.

I talked about this recently, I believe on sff forum. We don't want to add complexity to what is working and splitting the stand would make mounting mechanism more complex than it needs to be. Those small round rubber feet work properly and are simple to implement in comparison to vertical stand.

Some minor thing would be if the new torx screws are flat and not rounded (like the hex used on sentry 1); rounded screws look bad on this case, especially those on the front side, imo.

Can you give us an example photo of such screw? I'm not sure if you are talking about the countersunk screws with flat head or something different.

Something else i'm curious about, why the decision against making the case one sided (i mean, with the gpu and cpu on the same side)? What are the disadvantages to such a setup?

Short cheaper riser, that's for one. No wasted space under motherboard - we'd have even less space for the cooler because of that. If you route the riser under the GPU instead then you are wasting space around the GPU etc. GPU mounting mechanism would be a lot more complex if we were to route the riser below the GPU.

More rigidity to the panels because you don't have one fully perforated side that could easily flex, so we don't need additional construction to support that.

There's a lot of reasons to not do this and just a few reasons to go that way honestly.

And finally, when is 2.0 coming out? I missed the 1st one.

Hopefully sometime this year. We've got prototyping stage to go through, this time it should be a lot faster, but still, that's a step we need to take.
 
Can you give us an example photo of such screw? I'm not sure if you are talking about the countersunk screws with flat head or something different.
Either flat head countersunk or low profile flat head, like these
110302280540_20149999_m_01_99999_jp?$product_main$.jpg

Even ones that are higher profile would look better than the convex ones, i think:
s-l500.jpg


The convex screws used in Sentry version 1.x don't match the angular look of the case and remind me of cheap rounded rivets, that's why i don't like them very much. :)
 
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Either flat head countersunk or low profile flat head, like these
View attachment 65453
Even ones that are thicker than this would look better than the convex ones, i think:
View attachment 65454


The convex screws used in Sentry version 1.x don't match the angular look of the case and remind me of cheap rounded rivets, that's why i don't like them very much. :)

The first ones look neat, but I'm not sure if there will be such screw in M3 or similar size. Those seem to be significantly bigger.

The ones on the second photo are closer to what can be made in M3, but those would look like this:

mchxYqbxl9WxItoBOZzSjKA.jpg


Remember that you need some material around the socket, so such neat flattened heads are mostly available only for significantly bigger screws.
 
The first ones look neat, but I'm not sure if there will be such screw in M3 or similar size. Those seem to be significantly bigger.
The ones on the second photo are closer to what can be made in M3
Here are a bunch of them, in M3 and other sizes: https://uk.misumi-ec.com/vona2/mech_screw/M3301000000/M3301060000/ I've used the left menu there, they have about 6 types of M3 sized, torx (hexalobular) screws.

Most probably other shops have something similar as well.
 
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Only just discovered this thread after seeing your tweet.

I like the planned changes. Would now not be a good time to email previous customers/backers and ask for experience and feedback? Or do you feel to already have enough planned?
 
Only just discovered this thread after seeing your tweet.

Wow. It looks like that someone is really reading that :)

Would now not be a good time to email previous customers/backers and ask for experience and feedback? Or do you feel to already have enough planned?

We were gathering feedback from our supporters/backers since last campaign. 90% of changes are based on their requests. It looks like most of our propositions are accepted (we will probably have to make some straw poll about motherboard's backside panel), but we still did not show you guys the proper internal design/layout (how we want to arrange everything to work). Before we will send a newsletter we would like to have our first concept finished to the point where our subscribers will be able to see all the aspects we mentioned in the improvements list. In forum we all (forum users) are more "technical". We can talk about problems which probably most of our subscribers do not want to hear, because they simply would not be interested in such conversation. They are waiting for the final product and many of them would be angry when getting such information, that they will have to wait for the finish of that concept and prototyping stage. For them at the current stage our newsletter might be treated like a spam. If you have thousands of people subscribed, and in subscription form you write "Get notified when your product is ready", you would like to show them a design which is at a closer stage to the final product than we have it now.

From the other hand we know that we are bad at marketing and all that connected stuff, but we just hate SPAM and we want to have "something" to show (it's some kind of engineers disease :p).
 
In the last week some people spoke negatively about motherboard backside access panel, but we haven't heard many opinions supporting it. We are still in the prototyping stage, so we think now it is the time to talk about things which make some controversy. Because of that we made our first straw poll to check what you guys really think about this improvement.


POLL 1: Motherboard backside access panel https://www.strawpoll.me/15507008


IFXr1EJ.png



Improvement 7. Motherboard backside access panel
After many conversations with you guys, we decided it would be good to have this option. Many of our backers had several coolers they wanted to test in Sentry and having a possibility to access to the back of the motherboard without unscrewing it would really help them. We will check the possibility of this feature in the next prototype (we’re still not sure if we have a right solution for this problem).
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In the last week some people spoke negatively about motherboard backside access panel, but we haven't heard many opinions supporting it. We are still in the prototyping stage, so we think now it is the time to talk about things which make some controversy. Because of that we made our first straw poll to check what you guys really think about this improvement.


POLL 1: Motherboard backside access panel https://www.strawpoll.me/15507008


View attachment 66957

Improvement 7. Motherboard backside access panel


View attachment 66952 View attachment 66953
I have been thinking about such a panel. I would find it useful to access the m.2 slot. But I'm not sure if manufacturers have a different placement. Or is thinking and plan to make it a large enough panel to work regardless of placement?
 
I have been thinking about such a panel. I would find it useful to access the m.2 slot. But I'm not sure if manufacturers have a different placement. Or is thinking and plan to make it a large enough panel to work regardless of placement?

If you check the render in the first post you will see the panel is nearly as large as the motherboard.
 
Hey ZombiPL and SaperPL,

Would it be possible to adjust the spacing of the vent holes on the sides (when horizontal) to line up with spacing of 40mm fans? I was able to mount four 40mm exhaust fans in the gpu bay though it's mostly just a mass of tape holding them in so it's not very elegant.
 
Hey ZombiPL and SaperPL,

Would it be possible to adjust the spacing of the vent holes on the sides (when horizontal) to line up with spacing of 40mm fans? I was able to mount four 40mm exhaust fans in the gpu bay though it's mostly just a mass of tape holding them in so it's not very elegant.

We've talked about this on previous page.

I don't think that aligning the holes for mounting it on the case cover is a good idea since you have to mount it somehow and put the cables (and fans) through the GPU side wall/bracket. That would be a total pain to go through a procedure like this.

Also if you mount the fans directly on the perforation expect this to be loud.

Rather than this, I'll design a simple inlet piece to hold the fans inside the bracket, but that'd be available as DXF to order yourself from local laser shop and mount inside your GPU bracket.

kingtron This is what I mean (fast draw though):

It is slightly asymmetric to fit both old and new design, I will have to refine that after finalising the 2.0 designs if we are to release such DXF file for you guys.

One caveat is that to make it really simple in production it needs to be a single sheet of metal without any bends. Bends are bad if we don't know who will be making those for you. This means you'll have to glue this to your bracket and glue is not a neat solution.

We definitely won't be making such pieces as a part of the package, but we might investigate interesting mods during prototyping stage.
 
Hey ZombiPL and SaperPL,

Would it be possible to adjust the spacing of the vent holes on the sides (when horizontal) to line up with spacing of 40mm fans? I was able to mount four 40mm exhaust fans in the gpu bay though it's mostly just a mass of tape holding them in so it's not very elegant.

One more thing to what Saper said:

In the first post we wrote explanation for every improvement we mentioned (in spoilers). In point no.1 we explained that we want to make up to 65% bigger ventilation area than we had in Sentry 1.0 and 1.1. In such situation do you think you will still need those additional fans? (the efficiency of this improvement we will be able to test after we will get our first prototype)
 
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We've talked about this on previous page.

I don't think that aligning the holes for mounting it on the case cover is a good idea since you have to mount it somehow and put the cables (and fans) through the GPU side wall/bracket. That would be a total pain to go through a procedure like this.

Also if you mount the fans directly on the perforation expect this to be loud.

Rather than this, I'll design a simple inlet piece to hold the fans inside the bracket, but that'd be available as DXF to order yourself from local laser shop and mount inside your GPU bracket.

That's true about how loud it would, and yes routing fan cables is a pain. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes with the prototype. I have confidence you guys know what to do after compiling all the feedback from the first generation.

One more thing to what Saper said:

In the first post we wrote explanation for every improvement we mentioned (in spoilers). In point no.1 we explained that we want to make up to 65% bigger ventilation area than we had in Sentry 1.0 and 1.1. In such situation do you think you will still need those additional fans? (the efficiency of this improvement we will be able to test after we will get our first prototype)

That's very true, with that much more ventilation, a few 40mm fans probably won't make much difference. I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes with the first prototype!
 
One more thing to what Saper said:

In the first post we wrote explanation for every improvement we mentioned (in spoilers). In point no.1 we explained that we want to make up to 65% bigger ventilation area than we had in Sentry 1.0 and 1.1. In such situation do you think you will still need those additional fans? (the efficiency of this improvement we will be able to test after we will get our first prototype)

Yes. I've noticed with my 1.0 version laying horizontal inside a cabinet tends to get hotter than I would like. I don't think it would hurt to allow for fan fitment on the sides in addition to the increased ventilation. Honestly I would love to see a more asymmetric ventilation such as the S4 Mini. Especially on the top cover.
 
For the last week we were analysing different options of the motherboard backside panel installation. Most of them are doable, but all of our ideas have an influence on the external look of the case and also would increase the time of production (longer manufacturing, bigger possibility of errors and longer quality control) which will end in higher cost and longer order realization time.

Because of the above we were wondering if this function is really worth it, and if it is even such a “must-have”. What is more some voices showed up asking if anyone really needs this panel if usually it will be used only once per one PC installation. That still did not convince us if we should leave this feature. This is why we asked you guys to help us with this decision answering to our straw poll. It looks like only ~25% chose the “must-have” option, while almost 2 times more do not want it at all.

3Sb1dpe.png


We won’t be forcing options or features which you guys do not like while at the same time they would have an influence on price and manufacturing time. Because of that “motherboard backside panel” will not be added in this revision of Sentry. Maybe in the future we will get back to this idea.
 
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Is it possible to cut a rounded rectangle into the backside of the Sentry? No idea which specific material one would use but with some serious DIY people they might have the determination to find a way. One of you representatives for Dr. Zaber mentioned taking the Sentry to a metal shop to get it sandblasted & powder coated again or order specific parts to be cut (like the drive brackets). With that in mind this backside panel project doesn't seem too far off to me, not that I know much about metalworking, engineering, CAD, or painting.
 
Is it possible to cut a rounded rectangle into the backside of the Sentry? No idea which specific material one would use but with some serious DIY people they might have the determination to find a way.

You can always cut a hole, but are you confident about cutting it out properly and making it look good? You have to have plan for that as well as what to do with the hole afterwards :)
 
You can always cut a hole, but are you confident about cutting it out properly and making it look good? You have to have plan for that as well as what to do with the hole afterwards :)

Those are questions for the DIY folks, haha. I'm just hoping to give those same people ideas if they haven't considered it already.

If it was me I might just get a slim 140mm fan and some foam tape. I would drill four holes around the 140mm circle and use some kind of string/zip tie material (to avoid scratching the paint), and press the foam between the fan and the case. If you also weatherstrip your CPU cooler(unless you use AIO) then you wouldn't have to worry about pulling air from the GPU into the CPU. This is assuming a 140mm hole would be big enough for the CPU brackets. Might not be the best idea but at least this way I'd make use of that hole.
 
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We won’t be forcing options or features which you guys do not like while at the same time they would have an influence on price and manufacturing time. Because of that “motherboard backside panel” will not be added in this revision of Sentry. Maybe in the future we will get back to this idea.
As I said before - love you, bro! :)
 
Hello everyone. I just found out about this. I own and love the first iteration of the Sentry case. Looking at the improvements you have planned so far this new version is looking good but to be honest the biggest issues and features I would want for the sentry for me are 2.

1. A 125mm removable panel on top of the motherboard so that the sentry can fit bigger CPU fans if necessary allowing users to use a different cooler or fan at home than the cooler you would use for travel. This allows for people to use their own filters on top of the fans and gives fast easy access to the fan/motherboard area while still having the option to put the original panel back in and use your sentry like with version 1. Also if it was blended with the holes design it would look sick. Also the hole design with some fans/coolers is actually bad because it doesn't allow enough airflow in. It would be very helpful if we could remove the panel and just have the bare metal show up or the fan itself allowing for more airflow into the motherboard area. Personally I have struggled with the fact that the hole cutouts in the design of the Sentry do not allow for proper airflow with some coolers and can become very noisy, specially if the fan is really close to the cover. Furthermore it sucks when your cpu/fan doesn't fit by like 2 to 5mm which is the case with many CPU coolers that don't fit in the Sentry. A removable panel would solve this. Also its a good way to add RGB fans to the case that are noticeable. All of these issues would be solved if it had a removable panel on top of the motherboard.

Some concept images:


D9nSYTg.jpg


9WQ0GwE.jpg


2. Better feet. The rubber feet on the version 1 are useless. I had to use crazy glue to get them to stay in place.


Personally I own the Cooljag falcon CPU cooler with a noctua fan for my 7700k lidded cpu but when I am at home I plug in the original fan to the side of the case on top of the motherboard chamber because I get much better temperatures without having to break or modify my cooler. This works great and if it was an actual feature of the Sentry it would be even better. I would gladly buy the Sentry Case again if the motherboard panel was removable or more flexible to cpu coolers.
 
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The location of the CPU socket is different from motherboard to another, a cutout will be difficult. maybe a fan friendly holes is a better solution.
Yes the location of the CPU socket can differ but generally its around the same area and you can still move the fan around. It doesn't have to be exactly above the heatsink, but fan friendly holes is also a good solution. Thanks for suggesting that. Perhaps a bracket that matches the case texture/color where a fan can be attached.
 
Side 40mm fans will be optional in v2, or maybe Sentry’s team need to test it first. Lets hope it can make a deference for the CPU.

I suggest to do somthing about the holes since the PSU will be restricted to SFX only,,, so PSU fan location will be fixed.
 
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1. A 125mm removable panel on top of the motherboard so that the sentry can fit bigger CPU fans if necessary allowing users to use a different cooler or fan at home than the cooler you would use for travel. This allows for people to use their own filters on top of the fans and gives fast easy access to the fan/motherboard area while still having the option to put the original panel back in and use your sentry like with version 1. Also if it was blended with the holes design it would look sick. Also the hole design with some fans/coolers is actually bad because it doesn't allow enough airflow in. It would be very helpful if we could remove the panel and just have the bare metal show up or the fan itself allowing for more airflow into the motherboard area. Personally I have struggled with the fact that the hole cutouts in the design of the Sentry do not allow for proper airflow with some coolers and can become very noisy, specially if the fan is really close to the cover. Furthermore it sucks when your cpu/fan doesn't fit by like 2 to 5mm which is the case with many CPU coolers that don't fit in the Sentry. A removable panel would solve this. Also its a good way to add RGB fans to the case that are noticeable. All of these issues would be solved if it had a removable panel on top of the motherboard.

We won't be making access panels/holes like this. That would break the look of the case, make it more complicated just to let people too big coolers inside. There has to be a line which we can't cross in compatibility/fitting parts when doing a sff case this small.

Maybe a fan friendly holes is a better solution.

We have included a single 120 mm fan mounting holes in the vent above the motherboard.

2. Better feet. The rubber feet on the version 1 are useless. I had to use crazy glue to get them to stay in place.

The feet themselves aren't that bad, the way of mounting them will be fixed. All units that we are using internally have those feet still attached and in good condition. It looks like the glue is the issue when the case has to be shipped in varying climate conditions.

Personally I own the Cooljag falcon CPU cooler with a noctua fan for my 7700k lidded cpu but when I am at home I plug in the original fan to the side of the case on top of the motherboard chamber because I get much better temperatures without having to break or modify my cooler. This works great and if it was an actual feature of the Sentry it would be even better. I would gladly buy the Sentry Case again if the motherboard panel was removable or more flexible to cpu coolers.

We were targeting 65W non-K CPUs for first Sentry and we don't want to change that. 95W unlocked CPUs need some beefy coolers to unleash their potential and there simply isn't enough space for that.

If you want to use an unlocked 95W CPU in Sentry 2.0 then you should compromise on the GPU and use 120 mm AIO with something like gigabyte 1080 mini instead of 1080TI.

Apart from that, improved perforation should improve the thermal performance of the coolers actually fitting inside.
 
Does the metal insertion above the back of the GPU really improves the thermals of the GPU? By how much, assuming you did test it with and without? I wonder if its additional weight and cost really matter that much and wouldn't be better if you just removed it and instead punch a few ventilation holes in the case; not many, maybe 2 lines of holes or something similar, enough so the heat from the back of the card can escape. I think this will help tremendously when placed in horizontal position, imo, especially with non-blower cards (of which some of them, if not most of them, have a 0-rpm passive mode until they reach 60c, and they could use some help to stay this way in the horizontal position).
 
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Does the metal insertion above the back of the GPU really improves the thermals of the GPU? By how much, assuming you did test it with and without? I wonder if its additional weight and cost really matter that much and wouldn't be better if you just removed it and instead punch a few ventilation holes in the case; not many, maybe 2 lines of holes or something similar, enough so the heat from the back of the card can escape. I think this will help tremendously when placed in horizontal position, imo, especially with non-blower cards (of which some of them, if not most of them, have a 0-rpm passive mode until they reach 60c, and they could use some help to stay this way in the horizontal position).

The insertion above the GPU is there to limit amount of space for the recycled hot air to gather above the GPU and to separate the case cover from the heat coming off the GPU directly for the safety reasons. With that, there are only small hot spots where the inlet connects with cover instead of big hot surface and if you put hand on them you won't get burned because with small spots the skin will easily dissipate the heat without damage.

As for the perforation, we have tested that and the cover inlet performed greatly better than small perforation without fans. We could only achieve some good results with a lot of huge holes like in the first prototypes but we don't want do that both for aesthetic and safety reasons.

Dmitri from hardware canucks tested that inlet in their review, sadly on GTX 1060 FE only, but with some reasonable results:


We have tested this on open air R9-270X which is a 185W TDP GPU and this really showed significant difference.
 
We won't be making access panels/holes like this. That would break the look of the case, make it more complicated just to let people too big coolers inside. There has to be a line which we can't cross in compatibility/fitting parts when doing a sff case this small.



We have included a single 120 mm fan mounting holes in the vent above the motherboard.



The feet themselves aren't that bad, the way of mounting them will be fixed. All units that we are using internally have those feet still attached and in good condition. It looks like the glue is the issue when the case has to be shipped in varying climate conditions.



We were targeting 65W non-K CPUs for first Sentry and we don't want to change that. 95W unlocked CPUs need some beefy coolers to unleash their potential and there simply isn't enough space for that.

If you want to use an unlocked 95W CPU in Sentry 2.0 then you should compromise on the GPU and use 120 mm AIO with something like gigabyte 1080 mini instead of 1080TI.

Apart from that, improved perforation should improve the thermal performance of the coolers actually fitting inside.
Oh well. At least try to improve the perforation around the CPU area because the airflow there was not great.
 
Oh well. At least try to improve the perforation around the CPU area because the airflow there was not great.

All vents are getting better perforation (smaller distance between holes and more holes) and there is also added perforation at the back of the case - there's 65% more venting area in comparison to R1.1

Looks like it wasn't clearly visible so I have added some screenshots of motherboard vents to the gallery.

08Jb3wYl.jpg
v9lb9LFl.jpg
 
The revisions look great, I looked at the images a few times/ I think the ventilation improvements are very subtle and effective, and people will be able to see more of their components which could lessen the desire for a transparent panel.

I can't wait until you guys test it! I would love to see how the new ventilation compares to rev. 1.1.
 
Beyond excited to see that a ver 2.0 is (hopefully) coming this year. High probability I’ll be ordering the expected black case when the indiegogo launches, but my gf would squeal with delight if at some point ya’ll offered Sentry 2.0 in something more gf/wife-friendly like brushed aluminum/white/gunmetal/anodized blue/etc.

Oh who am I kidding, I’d be the one squeeing, WAGs will just be happy living rooms aren’t cluttered with the usual doom-n-gloom Batman black. :ninja::blackalien:

Really great job by you guys Dr Zaber/Zombi. The [H], bit-tech, etc appreciate you accommodating feedback into the designs!
 
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