ZombiPL

Hello once again, As you all know, Sentry 2.0 crowdfunding campaign ended almost 2 years ago. In the last few months we received many, many emails, pm’s and tweets from you guys asking if we will make another run of the case. Because of the pandemic situation last year was very busy for us at our daytime jobs, so we really did not know if and when we would be able to move forward with this project. Since the time we were designing Sentry 2.0, we have seen AMD’s Zen2 and Zen3 launch as well as 300W+ TDP GPUs becoming more mainstream, so we had to start thinking about catching up to the PC components evolution with our product design. At this point we are considering making changes/improvements in the below fields: - improving ventilation, - analyzing adding support for thicker GPU cards, - analyzing adding support for full height 120 AIO’s in GPU chamber, - analyzing adding support for Founders Edition Nvidia GPU cards, - making changes in the vertical stand, to simplify manufacturing of this component, - analyzing possible changes in galvanization process of the Sentry, - changing the manufacturing methods to use molds, which should allow us faster production and even better final quality, while keeping the last revision’s price (or even make it lower), - redesigning shipping box to make it smaller, which will result in cheaper shipping cost, - many smaller changes to improve manufacturing time and improving final quality of product. The most time consuming part of the above changes is designing the molds, which not only improve the quality of the final product, but also will allow us to make it faster in bigger quantities. It also means we will need some time to prepare for it properly. While we are still gathering your ideas on what we could or should improve, we would like to do so within the SFF community here, so if you have any ideas for the next version of Sentry, make sure to write them here on the forums and also discuss them with others. With regards DR ZĄBER Sentry Team

Hi guys, You probably noticed that we’ve been busy for a while, and we were moving making another batch of SENTRY cases for an indefinite future. Right now we are still lacking time with our current projects, so we won’t be able to make a big crowdfunding campaign for Sentry project like we used to (at least for now). But we still have some good news We will be able to find a little bit of time and are going to prepare a direct sale for a batch of 150 Sentry cases (100 deep black units / 50 navy gray units). All will be sent within 2 weeks after the end of the sale and we will keep the price from the last campaign (~230EUR). This will probably be the last chance this year to get the Sentry case directly from us. However this time there will be some additional rules and guidelines which you will have to follow to get your pc case. We still want to keep Sentry as a truly community project, so we have to address some situations which occurred during the last few months/years. In forum/reddit topics we see many complaints from people who want to get second-hand Sentry for themselves and they can’t find it at a reasonable price (prices going up to $1000 USD weren’t rare). Because of that in this sale we want to limit orders to one Sentry case per buyer. We know many people bought several cases in the last campaigns just for resale value. We understand that, if you find a good product and you can’t get it nowhere, then the market value for it is going up. In the sale which we will be preparing right now we want to sell cases to the people who really want to use them, not to only get financial profit out of them. That is why we introduced this limit: 1 case per buyer. We want to make cases for those who want to buy the case for themselves, who really appreciate this product, not for the profit of “middle-men”. We also have made some guidelines about placing an order with the current Paypal fee policy and shipping companies additional COVID-fee. All of those informations and terms you will find here: http://zaber.com.pl/sentry/terms/ Sale will start on Tuesday, 21/07/2020 at 18:00 CET (we are currently working on updating our website for this sale). I think that is all for now. If you will have questions, please write here in the forum, or directly to us: sentry@zaber.com.pl

In case you were wondering which type of GPU use (with open-air or with blower-style cooler), Optimum tech made a direct comparison between those cards in console style cases (Senty 2.0) and shoe-box cases (Ghost S1):

1st, 2nd and 3rd transport sent

Optimum Tech just made some benchmarks with AIO water cooling. You may want to check that out

We wanted to go with kickstarter... we really did... but we couldn't. Kickstarter service isn't present in Poland. If we would like to go with kickstarter, then there are 2 ways: 1. Start a company in another country, which will involve paying taxes and other connected costs there, which will obviously slow down the whole process and increase the final cost of Sentry, or... 2. Hire an external company from the country where kickstarter is allowed for starting the campaign, and let them start this compaign for us, for an % from the raised amount... which will obviously again increase the price of Sentry... Sentry is already very expensive in manufacturing so we simply did not want to do that. This is why we went only with indiegogo, which is present in Poland. If we would have an option to go with kickstarter directly from Poland, then right away we would do that. There is no hidden philosophy behind this. We just couldn't use Kickstarter in a way which wouldn't increase the price of the Sentry. Yes, we are very confident about our product, but we are not making it for living. This is just a community project, and we are a company who are making wind turbines and heavy duty machines for heavy industry. It means, we do not have pressure on making it (Sentry) and we will make it only if people will really want it. If we would reorganize our business target only to pc hardware, then you would be right: then we should borrow some $ and start a production of premium pc cases. But like I just wrote... we are doing something else for living. Sentry is a project made together with you guys. If you will want it to be funded, then we will make it for you. If not, we will think about some changes or something else. Sentry is a premium case. Yes. It is very expensive in manufacturing. Yes. It takes long to manufacture it. Yes, because simply we are doing it without molds or automatic assembling machines. But remember, that we do not have a typical pc-case-manufactuing production line, but most of work is done with the assist of human hands. If we would like to go your way and borrow $ for molds and robots, then if we would like to calculate Sentry for 1000-5000 units, it would cost around $500-800 per unit, because of the cost of molds which would need to be compensated. Our profit from every case is ultra low compared to the other premium PC cases which are made in Asia (Sentry is made in EU), so the cost of molds would be added to the cost of the product... increasing the final price of Sentry. This comment was really unfair, mate. It shows that you didn't follow our topics, both for Sentry 1.0 and Sentry 2.0. We made many prototypes and all of them were made according to the manufacturing process we expected to be the final one for our future campaign. Every time we were discussing results with the community on our forum topics, we were showing the best information we can give. When we decided we are at the point in which we might have a good pre-production prototype, then we were making a batch of 25-50 cases in the same way in which those cases would be made for our future clients. Same sub-manufacturers, same elements, same manufacturing process, same quality control and same assembling process. It means those cases which we sent to our youtube reviewers would be at least the same quality like the ones made for you guys, who would order them in the crowdfunding campaign. We are an engineering bureau which is on the market of heavy duty machines for almost 3 decades. We have our reputation and your assumptions are just unfair towards us. If you think, that such complicated product like Sentry case can be made in a garage by several men, then we would like to see that. There are so many manufacturing processes involved in making our Sentry, that it would be great if someone would come to us and say what we are doing wrong to make things cheaper. But for the last 4 years no one pointed out things which we are doing wrong. What is more, when we asked some other sub-manufacturers about manufacturing elements for us, then we were receiving offers for 10 000+ units, and nothing less. And not one or two of asked companies, but most of them were shooting at us with such numbers. It means, currently in our opinion Sentry is very expensive as a product for the current market of pc cases, but to be honest it is very cheap if you consider the small quantity in which we want to make it. Our clients will receive the same quality or even better products then our reviewers. We treat people who receive engineering samples as our testers, and if they will find some problems with their cases, then we will make sure to solve them before Sentry will go into full production.

https://twitter.com/paulhardware/status/1112774982067580928

We see that you have a really nice garage there... congratulations

We will start the crowdfunding campaign on 1st of April and it will last for a month. After the campaign (if it will be successful) indiegogo will send us the funds within 2-3 weeks.It means at the end of May/start of June we will be able to send orders to our subcontractors. If we will be lucky, at the start of July we will be able to start assembling process of first Sentry cases. Depending on the number of orders it will take 2-4 months, and probably one more month to send all cases. It means you won't be able to get your case before LTX We redesigned whole manufacturing process to speed everything up, but we are still dependant from our submanufacturers, and the time when they will send us all ordered elements. It means that, when ordering Sentry in April, you will get it in September or in November. Everything will be dependant from the scale of orders.

Kyle's and Paul's new builds

Our topics: Sentry 1.1 https://hardforum.com/threads/sentry-console-sized-gaming-pc-case-project.1832126/ https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/dr-zaber-sentry-console-sized-gaming-pc-case-project.1346/ Sentry 2.0 https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/sentry-2-0-evolution-of-console-sized-gaming-pc-case.7106/ https://hardforum.com/threads/sentry-2-0-evolution-of-console-sized-gaming-pc-case.1957662/ Necere's LRPC concept: https://hardforum.com/threads/the-next-ncase-project-a-steam-machine-style-case-indeterminate.1831382/

Necere tested it because he wanted to make a similar to Sentry project, with different aesthetics, and he looked for best spot for his drives. If I remember correctly, this was one of the reasons why his project died.

Necere from Ncase M1 project tested this spot for 2,5'' drives and those were getting really hot there. M.2 drives can also get very hot by themselves, and if you combine this heat with the heat from the back of the gpu... you really can damage your drives and loose your data. For example, samsung's 850 EVO M.2 working temperature is 0-70 deg C. The target temperature of your GPU is something like 80-85 deg C. I'm sure you understand where I'm going with this analysis.

When designing Sentry v1.1 we made multiple benchmarks. We tested many different configurations and we found out that the hot air which is gathering behind GPU's PCB can be the cause of lowering the GPU boost clocks from 50 to even up to 300MHz (depending on your gpu) or can be a reason why GPU can hit the target clock too fast during heavy load. What is more, next to the back of the GPU you have a surface of the Sentry's cover, which you are touching and it can get really hot. Both of those problems were reduced thanks to this steel air pocket.

Another two reviews you might want to see

We also would like to get to the point where Sentry will cost $150, but for the last 2 years we were fighting to keep the previously declared retail price (980PLN), and it was really hard. Right now (rough estimation) 1/3 of the price are the external costs (sub-manufacturers), 1/3 are our internal costs (cost of hiring workers, machines, warehouses, keeping the warranty, future improvements, profit) and the last 1/3 are taxes with indiegogo fee. At this moment it is not possible for us to get lower with the price, because we would need to invest in the mass production elements like molds, robots and automatic assembling machines, and with orders below 10 000 units it is hard to do that.

We are also very excited that this design comes to its fruition :) Everything moves forward. We will be sending packages on Monday, so probably after next few weeks we will see some first reviews and tests of this new project. We also talked with @LinusTech about it, and he will get his engineering samples like in the previous campaign, but we do not know if he will find time to give us some feedback about them. Time will tell Target date for the campaign is still end of March, so please be patient

Things are getting pretty serious...

Small update!- Last month we ordered a batch of 50 Sentry 2.0 cases to check the repeatability of the current design. This week we received those elements and we can say that we are very happy with their quality. Right now we are waiting only for the feet for horizontal installation which we ordered and we will be ready to send our prototypes for first external reviews. - With this new test batch of cases we were finally able to check how much weight new Sentry lost compared to the previous design. Sentry 2.0 body will be 0,25 kg lighter then the one from 1.1 revision. - We designed a new shipping box for this revision of Sentry. It is a 5-layer cardboard with high quality internal foam which should protect the product a little bit better from the couriers cleverness, than the shipping box from the last campaign (2.5m drop test, 1-floor stairs drop test and 5-minutes football test with one of the new prototypes inside... all passed ).- The dimensions of the new transport package are: 40x40x15cm, 4.4 kg. We asked DHL representative for the new shipping offer for our new campaign and we were informed that after next weekend we should get it.- Right now we are pushing everything forward so we would be able to start the new campaign around the end of March (We do not know how long we will be waiting for the reviews of our prototypes, so March is a safe date).To sum up: We are on the best way to start gathering orders in the next two months. We hope you can wait that long.

After many requests we made additional pack of photos showing configuration with 3.5'' drives and some without internal components. Link below:

We finally found time to make some photos of the revision 2.0 prototype no1. You can find image gallery here: We still have many things to improve, so for sure there will be at least one more prototype before we will be able to check manufacturing repeatability. We will try to make some benchmarks in the middle of this week.

Last week we sent an order for the 1st prototype of the 2.0 revision. We will have to test it, probably make some manufacturing improvements, made repeatability check and then we will be able to talk about some dates. We planned to make another campaign by the end of Summer holidays, but we will see how long the whole prototyping process will take.

We wanted to check this idea, but according to the poll people just did not want it, so we didn't include it in the new revision.

Hi Yesterday we sent an order for the 1st prototype of Sentry v2.0. We know that there is still quite big demand for this case and we are trying to move things forward in that matter. Right now we gathered a feedback from the users who received their Sentry (in this or other way) and we made some improvements according to their thoughts and wishes, and we are waiting for the parts we ordered. You have to be patient, because everything takes time. Please join our topic and write your questions there, so everyone who is interested in our case could also read an answer: