SENTRY 3.0: Development and Suggestions

[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

[Senzelian]

I have never used the Sentry, but what I'd like to see is a USB C port at the front. That would be nice to have!

 

And was there a good way of setting the Sentry up in horizontal mode? Something that would probably conflict with your idea of simplifying the manufacturing of the stand, but would be really epic, would be to have a two-piece foot, which you can use to either put it in vertical or horizontal mode.

[SaperPL]

48 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

I have never used the Sentry, but what I'd like to see is a USB C port at the front. That would be nice to have!

 

And was there a good way of setting the Sentry up in horizontal mode? Something that would probably conflict with your idea of simplifying the manufacturing of the stand, but would be really epic, would be to have a two-piece foot, which you can use to either put it in vertical or horizontal mode.

The Type-C connector is a complex issue. If you just want it for the connection to your phone and other accessories, why not use type-A to type-C cable. If you want it for the speed though, it gets complicated because you can have either single type-C connector or two type-A connectors or all of those with a hub but this will take additional space and cost more to manufacture. The issue right now is that type-C header is not standard for all boards right now like back in the day the 3.0 wasn't standard. We need to wait a bit for it to change. Right now you might want to pick a board from Gigabyte that has better layout for the cooling like Black Ridge for example and it won't have this header.

 

Ideally I'd love it if the industry ditched 20-pin header and replaced it with two of those smaller internal type-C connectors to have both handled directly, but it won't happen overnight because case vendors are making cases with 20-pin cable and so the board vendors will support what's already there.

 

Iirc Hardware Canucks had a chassis review where they discussed the issue with current implementations of type-C in cases - you either may have case that handles both port types (two type A and single type C) that's connected through a hub, have type-A connected to 2.0 header or have both high speed but require that additional header on the board. And in all those situations there's always someone who will not be happy with it.

 

The hub is something that seems like a good solution, but we would not be happy with it. We are designing a case and not a USB solution, and we don't want to make a custom PCB with a hub and custom cables that if it breaks, you can't get an industry standard replacement. And with header pieces that we've seen so far that are within our reach (not something that big case vendors are making for themselves) there's nothing that we see as standardised and fitting the space restrictions we have in Sentry.

 

The USB 3.0 cable we supplied with the case uses the cable format introduced with USB 1.0 or 1.1 and it's roughly the same shape since then and it's standardised although there is wider variant, made to handle wider devices connected next to each other, that's more popular right now, but the original one that we've used is still manufactured.

 

So even if your cable dies after few years, you can get a replacement, same goes for the riser in our case - there will be various risers fitting our mounting system because we are not assuming customised attachment points on the riser side, but our mount is made to match the standard shape of PCI-E slot body. You don't have that in most cases that have multiple types of connectors and if your front panel dies, it's easier for the end user to just toss the case and get a new one than finding a matching front panel for replacement.

 

As for the horizontal orientation - we are using standardised FF-series rubberised riveted round feet that are mounted in 8mm diameter hole. We are including one set of those in the package with height of 6.4 mm which seemed optimal for use with ~150W TDP GPUs back when we have designed the first case and optimal for the looks. You can pick height up to something around 24 mm to have more clearance iirc and those feet cost like pennies to a few bucks.

[Senzelian]

13 hours ago, SaperPL said:

why not use type-A to type-C cable

Fair enough.
My phone only came with a Type C to C cable. I rarely use USB A nowadays.

[the juiciest icecube]

I also think it would be nice if there was some way of setting the pc in a horizontal orientation without affecting airflow so much. Even some small rubber feet would probably suffice.

 

Also I have been reading that pcie 3.0 risers don't always work with 4.0 motherboards and expansion cards, so a 4.0 rizer would be a good idea.

[SaperPL]

On 2/12/2021 at 1:28 PM, the juiciest icecube said:

I also think it would be nice if there was some way of setting the pc in a horizontal orientation without affecting airflow so much. Even some small rubber feet would probably suffice.

 

Also I have been reading that pcie 3.0 risers don't always work with 4.0 motherboards and expansion cards, so a 4.0 rizer would be a good idea.

There are 6.4mm tall round rubber feet included in the package. That was both for 1.1 and 2.0.

 

As for pci-e 4.0 this not entirely up to us. I've talked about this a lot in Sentry 2.0 thread on sff, but one thing is that we don't want to state 4.0 compliance if the riser vendor doesn't want to and 4.0 support for risers has just started to develop. There were vendors that event went back and removed statement of compliance from product pages iirc, this was shown in HardwareCanucks video if I'm not mistaken. Our supplier didn't want to go for 4.0 compliance last time we asked them around the time of RTX 3000 launch, but this might change when we will be ready with new design for the case body.

 

We can also look for other supplier now to design and prototype a new one, and some riser manufacturers might be interested since we have shown that we can order a significant volume of those risers for our production.

[Barracuda727]

Great I wait for this new case 3.0 so so long, wow, I have few question.

 

Can U maybe implement tempered glass  it will be looks perfect ,or at least at one side tempered glass on another mesh or make costumer to choose, that would be awesome, and please bring back again SFX-L power supply format just like Sentry 1.1 does it, so that  we all can put inside new power supply Silverstone with 1000W or 800W, something like these beacause new GPUs are really hungry these days, make another epic case guys.......

 

https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=965&bno=22&tb=14&area=en

or this

https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=731&bno=22&tb=14&area=en

[TVwazhere]

On 2/10/2021 at 5:56 PM, ZombiPL said:

At this point we are considering making changes/improvements in the below fields:

- improving ventilation,

For these, I would look to Phanteks and SSUPD's implementations of their mesh designs (Phanteks is using both very small hole front panel designs or entirely stretched fabric mesh in various products). While both options are different, the low amount of material used allows for a high volume of air to pass while retaining good dust filtration. This will help especially with the new targeted class of hardware. These do tend to deviate from the more premium aluminum (steel?) panels used in past revisions (and may not be possible to manufacture) but it's something to consider.

On 2/10/2021 at 5:56 PM, ZombiPL said:

- 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,

One thing to consider is making sure if you're going to officially support the Founders edition RTX 30x0 (and some aftermarket versions of the Nvidia and AMD cards) you will want an exhaust port directly behind the front most intake fan, to allow air to pass essentially through the entire case unimpeded. Cases like the Ghost S1 and Dan A4-H₂0 dont allow for air to exit the back of the card effectively, increasing temperatures and noise. 

(source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3S5y_uaFKQ) 

 

Cards are getting huge, cooling requirements are getting huge, and the PSU's needed to power these will also likely have to be SFX-L (which if I understand correctly isn't a true standard for the Length portion)

 

The good news is I do not believe thee any many new console styled cases out on the market, so if this case hits all the right points and can be produced in larger quantities, it should do quite well. 

 

[Barracuda727]

When we see some news about Sentry 3.0 and what U guys have done better.....cant wait....

[SaperPL]

On 2/20/2021 at 8:40 AM, Barracuda727 said:

Great I wait for this new case 3.0 so so long, wow, I have few question.

 

Can U maybe implement tempered glass  it will be looks perfect ,or at least at one side tempered glass on another mesh or make costumer to choose, that would be awesome, and please bring back again SFX-L power supply format just like Sentry 1.1 does it, so that  we all can put inside new power supply Silverstone with 1000W or 800W, something like these beacause new GPUs are really hungry these days, make another epic case guys.......

 

https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=965&bno=22&tb=14&area=en

or this

https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=731&bno=22&tb=14&area=en

 

We are not planning to go back to support of SFX-L since handling modular cables with those bigger PSUs was cumbersome in first version of Sentry. You can get 750W platinum grade SFX PSUs right now and it should be enough for what you can fit inside such case.

As for TG-panels - we are not planning anything like that, sorry.
 

On 2/23/2021 at 5:19 PM, TVwazhere said:

For these, I would look to Phanteks and SSUPD's implementations of their mesh designs (Phanteks is using both very small hole front panel designs or entirely stretched fabric mesh in various products). While both options are different, the low amount of material used allows for a high volume of air to pass while retaining good dust filtration. This will help especially with the new targeted class of hardware. These do tend to deviate from the more premium aluminum (steel?) panels used in past revisions (and may not be possible to manufacture) but it's something to consider.

From a quick glance on SSUPD - the thing is those panels are made from mass produced perforated sheets and while they are perfect for making flat panels with reasonable amount of non-perforated edge, we couldn't use the ones that are already there  because of the standardised amount of material left outside the perforation. We would need a custom made perforated sheet like this and making so much perforation would quickly get expensive.

On top of that, this kind of fine mesh is okay for a case that has big intake fans, but for a case that depends on the internal component fans inducing airflow, the fine mesh will get restrictive - iirc roughly speaking 1mm at the edge of the hole is an area where the airflow drops gradually and roughly that area has half the airflow of what's in the centre. For small perforation/fine mesh this is killing the airflow, but at the same time this is what's stopping a lot of dust. So for a case that has huge vents with fans almost pushed against this fine mesh, it still makes sense, but for fans that are distanced from it, the airflow will follow path of least resistance, so not necessarily through the mesh.

 

On 2/23/2021 at 5:19 PM, TVwazhere said:

One thing to consider is making sure if you're going to officially support the Founders edition RTX 30x0 (and some aftermarket versions of the Nvidia and AMD cards) you will want an exhaust port directly behind the front most intake fan, to allow air to pass essentially through the entire case unimpeded. Cases like the Ghost S1 and Dan A4-H₂0 dont allow for air to exit the back of the card effectively, increasing temperatures and noise. 

 

We are thinking about this, but this is a thing that has a lot of consequences if it was to be implemented. The good side of it would obviously be 120 mm AIO and Nvidia founders edition cards getting free performance boost. But with mainstream builds in our case people want full length cards for one (so no AIO) and we don't know at this point whether Nvidia will continue to make reference cards like this in next generation and we don't really know if that'll become a standard or something you can't get your hands on.

The consequences for such change are in the looks because there would be more perforation on the cover, and the issues with safety in the horizontal orientation of the case as well as structural rigidity.

 

On 2/23/2021 at 5:19 PM, TVwazhere said:

Cards are getting huge, cooling requirements are getting huge, and the PSU's needed to power these will also likely have to be SFX-L (which if I understand correctly isn't a true standard for the Length portion)

 

You can get a 750W PSU in SFX form factor, anything more means you want a card that's like 400W and such card isn't something we would recommend in our case. Also note that those 1000W PSUs are made like that because high end cards are often matched with really power hungry CPUs like threadripper, but you can't have that in an ITX board.

[Skiphix]

Hi, sentry 2.0 user here.

 

Changes regarding cooling:

1) change the hole pattern so that fans can be mounted

2) extend the perforation on the cpu / psu side

 

Mechanical changes:

1) On the stand increase the hole size for the screw heads. (I want to use m3 washers)

2) make the case feet easily removable from the outside.

 

Component changes

1) Change the power button supplier. (The black ring around the led has degraded from high temperature and it's no longer shiny. See attached images.)

2) pcie 4.0 riser (maybe offer it as an upgrade to sentry 1.0 / 2.0 users)

3) Change the usb 3.0 cable to usb 2.0 (usb 3.0 is too bulky and it sucks)

4) Add a recessed BIOS reset button next to the power plug.

 

If graphics cards move to 3 slots, you'll have to:

1) remove 2.5" drive support

2) make the case thicker

3) change the riser (if you do, add pci-e bifurcation support)

4) add perforation on the back side of the gpu

 

I personally don't think there is enough demand for such a case at this moment.