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

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
 

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

1st, 2nd and 3rd transport sent

Thank your for the response! I wish more companies would do what you just did and I know the community appreciates it too.
 
That makes more sense about the KS vs indiegogo thing. A lot of unscrupulous companies use IGG for funding then kind of disappear. Also I did not know this company made things besides pc cases, I thought that was it.  Sooo many Pc case companies release cool cases on IGG then close and never deliver, not saying you were one of them as you have delivered cases before  ,just it happened a lot, especially on IGG.
 
I don’t want to take up any more of your time but wanted to say the case is def cool and I do wish you guys the best ! I know how competitive it is out there.

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

Thank you for better explaining your thoughts. 
Steel vs plastic definitely has trade-offs with weight and strength but personally, I think the case weight isn't too much. It's only around 7lbs (empty, but including the weight of the stand) which I find to gives the case a strong quality feeling without being difficult to transport. I've had no issues with putting my case in a laptop bag when taking it to parties. Plastic injection moulding being cheaper than steel is only true if the tooling has already been made. If the Sentry 2.0 had custom plastic pieces the price would be significantly higher to make up for the cost of the tooling. There's a reason that the most of the more popular community based case manufacturers (NCASE, DAN, and NFC for example)  use aluminum or steel construction.
 
I don't think that the Sentry 2.0 needs to be significantly smaller than the Node 202 for it to justify the cost; I think those two things are unrelated to each other. I wanted a case that was as small as possible while still fitting a reference size GPU and not needing a power brick. The fact that I can put my computer case in a laptop bag and have a case with the steel construction is enough of a reason for me to justify the increase in price. The Node 202 is ~50% larger which is enough of a size increase to make it more difficult to fit into a laptop bag or backpack.
 
I still don't understand where you're getting this number from. I really do think that you would benefit from skimming through this thread since it should clarify some assumptions that you're still making. For example, they've stated that their engineering sample run had 50 cases made. Not all youtubers only recieved 1 case and there's at least 1 youtuber, Hardware Unboxed, that has received two cases but hasn't reviewed it yet.
 
Additionally, it hasn't been only youtubers who have received an engineering sample. Both ej24 and I have an engineering sample and have written a review of the case and provided feedback to the Zaber team. So, when I talk about the quality of the case and my thoughts on it It's coming from someone who had no issues backing the original V1.1 case on indiegogo and is currently using the V2.0 as their current case.
 
 This project started back in September 2014 over on HardForum when the Sentry case was just a concept and took over 2 years before V1.1 was finalized. The V2.0 threads were created a year ago to gather more community feedback and improvements. I feel like the LTT thread makes this case seem like less of a community project than it actually is due to the lack of activity. The Hardforum and SFF Forum threads have had much more feedback and idea sharing and might give a better idea of how much effort has been put into this case by the Zaber team and other community members.
 
For the record, I'm not ignorant enough to think that this case is for everyone. Some people will want a different case to accommodate large coolers, more storage options, or a lower price point. This case is for small form factor enthusiasts who care more about the size of a case and high quality construction more than a price tag. I am extremely happy that I pledged to the V1.1 campaign and would have pledged to the V2.0 campaign if I didn't already have my V1.1 case and the 2.0 engineering sample.

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.

I don't understand what you are saying here. Which website? Theirs? I don't know when you visited, but now it says its being crowdfunded and that they aren't giving out final shipping dates.
 
 
Linus didn't say anything about it being review. Its literally just showcase of them building in it. Level1 is more review-like, but even with Wendel, you get him saying to go "check it out". It literally means "I like this thing, but you should do your own research". So for me it sounds like you got excited but didn't bother reading the fine print.
 
These you should direct toward Dr Zaber. Its their product after all.

There was no offer to purchase this case made by the cases manufacturer, so I'm really not sure what you're on about. Maybe we should all get angry at 9to5mac.com whenever they report on possible leaks of Apple products because they aren't purchasable the moment we hear about them. The case will be ready when it's ready; these things take time. If you have a factory or at least a CNC machine, you can totally get started making your own case.

I take it that your parents never told you, "NO!"
 
Just think how much joy it will bring when/if it arrives.

Cases need time to produce - there was nothing really irregular about this. LTT often covers material that can take years to get to the consumer.
The Zaber sentry 2 is basically an optimization of their first case. If you're unwilling to wait, you can buy one of their older ones.

Initially I wasn't going to respond to you since you don't seem very open to conversation, but I'm hoping that we can meet on some common ground to clear up some assumptions you seem to have. If you aren't open to a conversation then I'm not going to bother replying to you anymore; I like to help and inform people with my posts and not argue with people who aren't open to other opinions and make factless statements.
 
The Node 202 is a great case but is only similar to the Sentry 2.0 in the way the case is laid out. The Node 202 is made up of a significant amount of plastic while the Sentry is made of steel which causes a wide gap in price and, in my opinion, quality. The Node 202 is also larger than the Sentry 2.0 which makes it more difficult to just throw it in a backpack or laptop bag. Sentry 2.0 is a premium product which fills a niche gap that Node 202 can't fill for everyone.
 
I'm not sure where you got your, '10 cases which can be done by 1 person in a garage' fact from but you can see from the first page of this thread that this is plainly false.

I don't entirely disagree with you; Indiegogo has a significant amount of products that over promise and then never deliver.  But this isn't ZombiPL and SaperPL's first crowdfunding campaign. Their Sentry 1.1 campaign was successfully funded and sent out to backers. The only major complaint with that campaign was how long the case took to reach backers after it had been shipped out. They're planning on using a faster shipping method this time so that issue should go away.
 
I realize that past performance isn't an indicator of future performance; but, the Zaber team isn't starting a crowdfunding campaign with only a vague idea of what they want to do. They've created engineering samples to test manufacturing repeatably and have sent out cases to several tech reviewers to get their thoughts on the case. 

Sentry 2.0 Engineering Sample Review (link)
 
I was lucky enough to be selected by ZombiPL and SaperPL to receive an engineering sample of Sentry 2.0 for review. I'm providing my honest review as well as a comparison of Sentry 2.0 to Sentry 1.1. Click the link above to see my review on Hardforum.com 

Kyle's and Paul's new builds
 
 
 
 
 

ZombiPL and SaperPL sent me a case to review as well. I'm not fancy enough to have a video, but I'll put my review below. 
 
Disclaimer:
 
I received this case to review for free, but the following review is my own opinion/thoughts and hasn’t been influenced by this. Since you aren’t able to buy V1.1 I’m going to keep comparisons between the two products to a minimum. I focus on low noise over low temperatures, so I’ve listed the fan speed associated with the temperature for benchmarks. Just because a temperature is high doesn’t mean that it isn’t being cooled well.
 
Packaging:
 
The packaging consists of a cardboard box which is lined with 20mm thick foam on all sides and is broken up into an upper and lower compartment. The upper level contains the body of the Sentry 2.0 case which is wrapped in a Sentry 2.0 plastic bag. The lower level, which is separated from the upper level with a foam insert, contains the stand, a magnetic torx screwdriver, power cable, anti-vandal power button, hard PCB riser, and accessories required for assembly. The packaging is really high quality and makes me confident that even if the package gets thrown around that the case won’t be damaged. This is by far the best computer case packaging I’ve ever encountered by a long shot.
 
My package arrived in great condition with only a few small marks on the cardboard. The thick foam on all sides of the packaging makes me feel that the case is well protected from accidental damage.
 
All included tools and accessories:

 
Assembly:
 
I highly recommend that you read through the manual before assembling this case. A lot of the components need to be installed in the specific order listed in the manual. The instructions are similar to the V1.1, but some steps such as the new riser assembly have been changed and will require you to read through the installation steps.
 
The case arrived completely disassembled, meaning that the power button and power cord have to be installed by the user. Having to install these parts doesn’t bother me since I always found that the power cord got in the way while building. I intentionally left fastening the socket of the power cable to the outside of the case for last as it kept getting in my way when installing the motherboard and riser. The number of screws has been reduced from 8 screws to attach the outer panel to just 4 which is a minor but much appreciated improvement. I wasn’t ever bothered with the old screw count, but having less screws does help make the case look a little cleaner. I don’t feel as though the reduction in the screw count has impacted the stability of the case; my V2.0 case feels just a rock solid as my V1.1 case.
 
The rest of the installation went fairly well. I had an issue with the power switch interfering with one of the plug locations on my modular PSU, but I was able to attach all of my required cables. I believe that I could have bent the power switch wiring out of the way for my power supply cable, but I feel like this risks damaging the cabling. The power switch location is a trade-off to support an AIO liquid cooler so I understand why it's is located where it is. The only time that I really had to sit down and closely read over the manual was with the new riser bracket. The new bracket attaches like a hinge and must be inserted at a low angle before being lifted into place. The manual does a better job of explaining the steps than I can. Despite my initial confusion, I think that the bracket change is an improvement since it, in theory, should reduce the chance of damaging the riser even if you don’t read the manual. The build quality is still top notch with the case having a nice compact and weighty feel. All of the pieces come together to make this thing feel like a tank.
 
Power Button Interference:
For the record I plugged in the PSU cables all the way after taking this picture. I'm also aware that I don't have the o-ring for the power switch in the right location.

 
Final result after some cable managing:

 
I don’t have any 2.5” drives or AIO coolers so I can’t comment on how well those mounting mechanisms work but they seem well designed.
 
Benchmarks:
I said this in the disclaimer but I’ll say it again for good measure: I focus on low noise, not low temperatures. I’ve included the fan speed % along with temperatures since all temperatures will be on the high side. I never experienced any throttling during these benchmarks. Also, sorry for not owning many recent games. I tried to get a good mix of CPU and CPU loads for my tests.
 
Relevant specs:
CPU: delidded 6700K with a slight undervolt and a Cooltek LP53 cooler with a Cryorig C7 fan
GPU: EVGA 1070 SC with an additional +100MHz memory overclock.
 
Idle:
CPU: 50c at 10% fan speed
GPU: 45-50c at 0-10% fan speed
 
Batman: Arkham Knight
CPU: 60-65C at 36% fan speed. CPU usage was around 45%
GPU: 85C at 63% fan speed Between 95-100% usage. 100% fan speed saw 73C
 
Beat Saber
CPU : 65c at 24% fan speed. CPU usage was around 35%
GPU: 60-70C at 57% fan speed between 70-80% usage. 100% fan speed saw 68c
 
Guild Wars 2:
CPU: 65-70C at 46% fan speed . CPU usage was around 50-55%
GPU: 68C at 40% fan speed at 50% usage
 
My overall impressions:
 
V2.0 is a solid increment on the Sentry V1.1 design. It’s not wildly different from V1.1, but that’s not a bad thing if you appreciate the design decisions in V1.1. V2.0 shows that ZombiPL and SaperPL took customer’s suggestions to heart by making installation quicker by using less screws, increasing ventilation which improved my temperatures by about 5C coming from my V1.1 case, and adding liquid cooling support (along with other small tweaks).
 
The new hard PCI riser is a welcomed addition since it should be more durable than a flexible one (not that I ever had an issue with mine). I’m a little concerned that people will struggle with this step or just install it incorrectly like Linus did during his livestream. Other than having the user read the manual carefully, the only other suggestions I can think of would be to create a youtube video of the entire assembly process of the case (like what was done for the V1.1 case) or to attach a note to the riser bracket saying that it is inserted at a low angle and then swings into place like a hinge. I think the new bracket works well, but I just can’t help but feel that people won’t bother to read the manual and screw up installing it.
 
My only real criticism of the case comes from the trade-off of allowing liquid cooling by moving the placement of the power button. I never felt the need to use a liquid cooler in my V1.1 case since I prefer full sized GPUs but I liked the option for SFX-L power supplies in case the size factor ever gained more traction. Since SFX-L isn’t very popular right now and there was a desire for liquid cooling I agree with the decision to remove SFX-L compatibility and add liquid cooling compatibility, but I’m still a little disappointed to see SFX-L compatibility removed.
 
If anyone has any questions I’ll be more than happy to answer them.
 
edit: removed spoilers for better post visibility

For anyone following Sentry 2.0 here, I'll be posting an engineering sample review soon. You can find more coverage of Sentry 2.0 on SFF.net and [H]ardforum
 

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 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 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.