SENTRY 2.0: Evolution of console-sized gaming PC case

[Octagoncow]

1 hour ago, Srius1 said:

Indiegogo = no thanks. Scam site. Everything is often delayed by years.

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. 

[Srius1]

4 hours ago, Octagoncow said:

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. 

Sending out 10 cases which can be done by 1 person in a garage isn’t manufacturing samples. Save your $ People. Node 202 and call it a day. Or geeek cases 

[ZombiPL]

1 hour ago, Srius1 said:

Sending out 10 cases which can be done by 1 person in a garage isn’t manufacturing samples.

 

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

[Octagoncow]

2 hours ago, Srius1 said:

Sending out 10 cases which can be done by 1 person in a garage isn’t manufacturing samples. Save your $ People. Node 202 and call it a day. Or geeek cases 

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.

[Octagoncow]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sentry-2-0-evolution-of-console-sized-gaming-case

 

Everyone get on the HYPE train. It's happening! 

[ZombiPL]

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

[Srius1]

On 3/31/2019 at 6:11 PM, Octagoncow said:

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 appreciate the non attacking response, rare to find now a days. Yes this case is much better quality , steel vs plastic, but that also means more weight/ more manufacturing cost/higher price. Also yes it is smaller than the node  but it’s not small by a 3-4x Times the price factor. I’m all for boutique cases / small companies but my annoyance is the ‘crowdfunding” aspect ESPECIALLY indiegogo as a format which is significantly  less stringent than kick starter. If they were so confident in their product, they would raise funds / borrow $ to build these then sell them. Not get a interest free loan from consumers for 1 year to fund their manufacturing process. 

 

My comment about the 10 people thing was because only a select few (youtube peeps) are the only ones who see these cases. Those were most likely done in house / production samples not indicative of it when it comes out.

 

i wish them the best though! 

 

Edit: indiegogo page looks pretty cool I will say. Great job with materials. But I found it funny they had 11 case YouTube videos so they sent out about 11 cases. Not a far cry from my 10 comment . Lol

 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sentry-2-0-evolution-of-console-sized-gaming-case#/

[ZombiPL]

2 hours ago, Srius1 said:

I’m all for boutique cases / small companies but my annoyance is the ‘crowdfunding” aspect ESPECIALLY indiegogo as a format which is significantly  less stringent than kick starter.

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. 

 

2 hours ago, Srius1 said:

If they were so confident in their product, they would raise funds / borrow $ to build these then sell them. Not get a interest free loan from consumers for 1 year to fund their manufacturing process. 

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.

 

2 hours ago, Srius1 said:

My comment about the 10 people thing was because only a select few (youtube peeps) are the only ones who see these cases. Those were most likely done in house / production samples not indicative of it when it comes out.

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.

[Octagoncow]

9 hours ago, Srius1 said:

I appreciate the non attacking response, rare to find now a days. Yes this case is much better quality , steel vs plastic, but that also means more weight/ more manufacturing cost/higher price. Also yes it is smaller than the node  but it’s not small by a 3-4x Times the price factor.

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.

 

10 hours ago, Srius1 said:

My comment about the 10 people thing was because only a select few (youtube peeps) are the only ones who see these cases. Those were most likely done in house / production samples not indicative of it when it comes out.

 

i wish them the best though! 

 

Edit: indiegogo page looks pretty cool I will say. Great job with materials. But I found it funny they had 11 case YouTube videos so they sent out about 11 cases. Not a far cry from my 10 comment . Lol

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.

Spoiler

On 1/26/2019 at 6:12 PM, ZombiPL said:

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. 

 

 

 

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.

[ZombiPL]

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

 

 

[Srius1]

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.

[Cody_53027]

Has anyone got a successfully configured Sentry 1.1 OR 2.0 running a Ryzen 7 3000 series CPU, specifically a 3700x, 3800X OR 3900X? I recently swapped my 2400g with a 3700x and I'm running a Cryorig C7 and it hovers in the 90s and has to pull back clocks and sometimes hard crashes too. I'm certain the Cooler has sufficient CPU T.I.M. and is mounted well because if I remove a synthetic load the temps quickly fall. I'm running an Asrock AB350 board. It's "technically" a 65w TDP chip as was the 2400g but only now am experiencing thermal issues after more than a year with prior config w/o issues. I should add I even have the fanspeed on "full-speed" in the bios. I am running a blower style Vega 64 so that kind of helps with exhausting in-case air too. Any feedback is appreciated. 

[ZombiPL]

1st, 2nd and 3rd transport sent

[ZombiPL]

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):

 

[ZombiPL]

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