SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project

I've added 360 views for the case to the media page on our server here http://zaber.com.pl/sentry/

You can also open them directly from here:





Just grab and move mouse horizontally to rotate. it's around 5mb each so opening it up on some bad mobile plan might not be a good idea.
 
Saper forgot to add, that those 360deg views are with possible improvements which we'll probably add in our 5th prototype.
 
What do you think about this?

I think, as you said, Dondan kind of has this format covered...
And don't you already have intakes on both sides with the Sentry? I imagine such a slim case being mounted on a wall, but because of the intake facing the wall the case needs to be lifted 10-15mm away from the wall.. I think I'd prefer a long flex riser, and a flipped GPU.

That being said, I am still considering what I should do when the Sentry goes up for sale ;)

EDIT: Sorry guys, I must've been half asleep when I made this comment. Anyway, looking forward to seeing the Sentry for sale!
 
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From where are you quoting me on this? :D

As for the sides those are outlets unless you go for a blower type card. The gpu fans ain't directly touching the case floor. Maybe then you'll be able to screw the case flat to the wall.

As for the rotated gpu to face the same side as other components - it may look good as a concept but it doesn't work properly in such cramped space. First of all if you want to put the card on its back you also need to vent it underneath somehow and you need space for that.

Secondly there's the long riser and additional space you need for bending it and space for the bracket. Unless you're going with the riser under the motherboard, you're going to waste a lot of space managing the card mount system as well.

IF you go with the riser under the motherboard, you'll end up having a cpu cooler in the middle of the case making it really hard to create hard drive mounts anywhere to not block either the cpu cooler, card inlets or component installation. I'd go for it IF I were to limit motherboard support to thin mITX since it has standarized cpu socket location near the pci-e slot but that's generally bad idea for such a limited config.
 
thanks, I didn't notice that before.

I'm not sure how to respond to a question about config idea already discarded almost year ago.
 
Just wanted to say those are some pretty nice photos of the case, and great way to show how all the hardware will fit in there. The market is really lacking in sub 10L Steam Machine like-cases like this (sorry RVZ01, you're too big and ugly).
 
We've got an option of having the holes punched thus making them a lot smaller and a lot more of them but it will cost more unless we order bigger amounts. Making holes smaller (as in small chassis holes) won't really change the fact that a lot of dust will come inside the case anyway so only filters can really solve dust problem. We know about it and we're thinking about solving it somehow.

Any update on this? This is the one thing that's holding me back from purchasing this case immediately when it comes out.
 
Any update on this? This is the one thing that's holding me back from purchasing this case immediately when it comes out.

We're working to solve this problem.

At this time we're working with 3 subjects:

1. Getting a good-quality C13-C14 extension cable.
2. Solving the problem of temperatures in GPU section (actual temperatures are good according to other manufacturers (in most tests our pc case is even better) but we are sure we can improve it).
3. Adding some kind of dust filters.

And now i'm going to tell You the phrase, which all of You hate: "Please wait a little bit" :D
 
By the way, if you didn't notice, I've added two other configurations as 360 view to the "gallery page" this week.

You can check out how the SFX-L fit and why you can't have the drive in the seconds slot when you have such long PSU and you can see how those 14 x 2.5" drives would fit there for a NAS config.



Those load a bit and probably our server doesn't have the best upload to all of the world but I didn't want to cut the image quality too much.

Also the gallery page here http://zaber.com.pl/sentry/ was updated with a gallery script so you wouldn't need to open each photo in new page, except for those 360's.

That page isn't what we think of as product page. We have something better prepared that's responsive/works on mobile and looks okay but I'll have to update it with renders/photos of final design/prototype when we are ready to manufacture.
 
Heyo:)
i've been silently watching the thread from time to time and i am so glad to see that you finally are where you wanted to be. Im am pretty sure ill be buying this asap! I do have some minor cosmetical concerns, but maybe theres a workaround or two for me ;).

First of, is this option without colouring (the "raw steel" type) still valid ? i wouldnt mind the galvanizing spots.
Also the power button, something as it is right now sets me off somehow. Cant really tell what it is though. I remember you said its in the golden ratio, but somehow it looks alone and lost to me. Maybe its the size or the color. actually i hope it is because the placement would be hard to change right?:D

ok as i said cosmetical, ill find something for me especially for that button thing ;).
Going on, lastly where are we with these dust filters ? i would definetly need those, but could find personal solution!

thanks and congrats to you two for the long way you've come! ;)
greetings dave.
 
Any chance of changing the power button? Given the comparisons between the case's aesthetics and the Turret from Portal, maybe this power button would be more fitting in matching the Turret's laser eye thingy.

ELEWIND-25mm-Black-alluminum-Dot-illuminated-Momentary-push-button-switch-PM251F-11D-R-12V-A-.jpg_220x220.jpg
 
Heyo:)
i've been silently watching the thread from time to time and i am so glad to see that you finally are where you wanted to be. Im am pretty sure ill be buying this asap! I do have some minor cosmetical concerns, but maybe theres a workaround or two for me ;).

First of, is this option without colouring (the "raw steel" type) still valid ? i wouldnt mind the galvanizing spots.
Also the power button, something as it is right now sets me off somehow. Cant really tell what it is though. I remember you said its in the golden ratio, but somehow it looks alone and lost to me. Maybe its the size or the color. actually i hope it is because the placement would be hard to change right?:D

ok as i said cosmetical, ill find something for me especially for that button thing ;).
Going on, lastly where are we with these dust filters ? i would definetly need those, but could find personal solution!

thanks and congrats to you two for the long way you've come! ;)
greetings dave.

As you should be able to tell from the photos of empty case there's literally no space to move the button anywhere because its just between the gpu and psu.

As for the filters. We're still not sure which type of filters use but those are most likely be not detachable because of the space needed for additional mounting maybe except for the one under the gpu so you'll be able to clean that one and others with the cover. That's just the idea at this moment bu we're still not sure how we'll solve it. But yes, we know it's a problem and we want to solve it.

Any chance of changing the power button? Given the comparisons between the case's aesthetics and the Turret from Portal, maybe this power button would be more fitting in matching the Turret's laser eye thingy.

ELEWIND-25mm-Black-alluminum-Dot-illuminated-Momentary-push-button-switch-PM251F-11D-R-12V-A-.jpg_220x220.jpg
It's possible but we'd need to buy it from someone who will also weld the cables to it. We're trying to outsource everything except quality control and packing so we can scale it up easily.

Anyway this switch is nice and if you want to use such we can mark your build and not glue the button when screwing it in so you'll be able to replace it yourself. We could also think of some rubber pad under the nut instead of glue so everyone could replace the power button if he wants.
 
We're not ready yet, sorry. We've still got to manage cable factory to properly seal the connection between the cord and back of C14 connector and figure out how to enforce the airflow at the back of the card in horizontal position aaand tackle the filter problem
 
Sorry, I forgot about that question.

Generally I think we can do it either as really bare unpainted version if you want to paint it yourself, there shouldn't be any problem with that OR we could choose some metallic RAL colour or transparent coating if there's really a demand for that colour setting.

Giving you unpainted version for custom painting is not a problem at our end BUT you have to understand that if you won't paint it it'll most likely get rust around welding spots and possibly at the bends and/or edges because laser cutting takes away the protective coating.

So we've got to know what You guys really want first :)
 
Quite possible.

We're ready to manufacture metal parts, I think, so there won't be any delays here. Also we've found really recently a cable manufacturer and except for how C14's going to be isolated, we're happy with what they can make. I'm trying to make them understand we shouldn't make internal grade isolation on this cord but it takes some time.

Also we have one method for the filters that should work but we're not sure if it's optimal.

So technically we could just launch it now and try to fix things on the go but that's a risk of failing the launch because of those tiny details.
 
I think your approach to get the tiny details right is the correct one. Too many times people will decry a product based on one small detail and spread bad word of the entire product based on it. All or nothing attitudes of consumers can break entrepreneurial endeavors so it's best to try to mitigate.
 
Ha-ha heck I'd be OK buying right now and get those parts later even if I have to pay for them again, just T
tell me when since I'm ready to put this skylake in its new home.
 
Glad to hear that but it's like Criko said - if we launch too early with some stupid bugs we could've easily fixed, we're gonna get smashed by the reviews and that could to affect the future sales tremendously.
 
As for the filters. We're still not sure which type of filters use but those are most likely be not detachable because of the space needed for additional mounting maybe except for the one under the gpu so you'll be able to clean that one and others with the cover. That's just the idea at this moment bu we're still not sure how we'll solve it. But yes, we know it's a problem and we want to solve it.

Perhaps thin, magnetic dust filters?

I feel like non detachable is kind of a pain to clean, it was the determining factor for me in not purchasing the Carbide Air 240.
 
There's a real problem with making them detachable with the tools we can use at this point and there's really not much space left above PSU to make a fit with magnetic bracket of the filter.

The thing is, the whole method of mounting the PSU clinched by the front wall makes it hard to add the clearance out there. And that's one of the tricks that let us make it so small. If we'd make a full bracket holding the PSU by all the screws we'd have problems with motherboard mounting and/or space for drives.

All in all, I'm opting for making them not-detachable except for the one under GPU since you should be able to take off the cover and that one filter to clean all of them.

If you want to use your own external magnetic dust filters like demciflex then that's okay. We can ship your case without attaching the filters. Bear in mind though we can't make the crease/bend for magnetic filters to flush in both because of the tooling and space needed.
 
Bear in mind though we can't make the crease/bend for magnetic filters to flush in both because of the tooling and space needed.

Can you elaborate on this? Sorry. Might be because I'm not well versed in all PC components but I'm not quite understanding.
 
I meant something like this:



The filter is magnetic and the top of the case has a area bent inside/flushed in so the filter surface levels with outer case surface. This kind of stuff is out of range for us at this point since it would need press moulds/forms/tools for such things. Also as I said before - there's not really any space inside for it.
 
shouldnt it be possible to just tape some kind of net in there ? also where do you guys find this i/o switches? I think a simple black one might solve my problem :D
 
About the filter - yes, there's enough space to fit a filtering net/mesh but we don't want halfmeasures like using the tape - c'mon, it's something that would blow us away on the reviews. We either figure out how to make them properly detachable or we glue or weld them to the cover.

I'm not sure if we can weld those properly to the metal but I'm sure we can't put them with whole cover to painting if the grid is going to have really small holes, so way of mounting is not decided until we check out what we really need.

Also I don't want to decide anything on my own at this moment since Zombi's abroad for his vacation and I'm occupied by some other projects. I hope I can push the cable subject for now.

AS for the switch - Just look for the so called anti-vandal waterproof (black plastic) switches with 16mm diameter. it's not like there's going to be some big problem with replacing it if we don't glue the nut inside the case.
 
I don't think so. There's not really much space at the front. If we put it on the gpu side it would just hang there from the top when in vertical position.

It's just not something crucial considering that's most likely a case to put on top of the desk and not below.
 
Wow, really? That kind of sucks. I remember that most of the builds I owned had the issues with front audio.If that's not a real problem of getting it done through the front you could go by antenna holes with some simple front audio connectors.
 
Haha, yeah. See the clever thing with the Maximus Impact line is that it retasks the three rear and two front ports depending on what you plug in. So you can have 2.1, 5.1, 7.1, or headphones.

So about what you are suggesting, how would you go about mounting this solution, particularly in the Sentry?
 
I think you could either buy a front panel with only two audio ports that have a distance around 2cm from each other (hard one to find) or find something with usb or simply buy needed connectors and wire and make a DIY cable and then hot plastic/glue the connector to the bent surface above the antenna holes at the back of the case.
 
Ah i see. thanks

Although I would like to note that there is still quite a bit of room at the bottom, under the power supply for such connectors, espcially if you opted for a Headphone/microphone combo jack. Whether or not it falls in line with the aesthetic design is another matter.
 
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