Production Dr Zaber Sentry - Console-sized gaming PC case project

[ZombiPL]

So cool! It must feel great to see all those builds inside your case after you've worked so hard to make it happen.

Yes, this is a great feeling, but we won't have time to enjoy it until we will send all packages to their new owners

 

[SteGa]

Apologies if you may have already answered this, because I feel like I saw this somewhere in this thread, but when is the Zaber being released to the public? i feel like I read July somewhere... Maybe I'm just dreaming.

 

[ZombiPL]

Apologies if you may have already answered this, because I feel like I saw this somewhere in this thread, but when is the Zaber being released to the public? i feel like I read July somewhere... Maybe I'm just dreaming.

Before the campaign afair we thought that August/September will be a realistic date for retail. Now when we know Indiegogo delayed transfer of the funds for almost a month, customs services and paintshops add another delay to every transport, etc., there is no chance we will go retail in August. Next week we will start assembling cases for 5th out of 7 transports for indiegogo backers. After delivery we need to gather all the feedback from our supporters to make some improvements (if it will be possible). It will take some time, so at this moment i can't give an estimated date of Sentry retail sale. Everyone who is subscribed to our newsletter will be informed in advance.

 

[SteGa]

Before the campaign afair we thought that August/September will be a realistic date for retail. Now when we know Indiegogo delayed transfer of the funds for almost a month, customs services and paintshops add another delay to every transport, etc., there is no chance we will go retail in August. Next week we will start assembling cases for 5th out of 7 transports for indiegogo backers. After delivery we need to gather all the feedback from our supporters to make some improvements (if it will be possible). It will take some time, so at this moment i can't give an estimated date of Sentry retail sale. Everyone who is subscribed to our newsletter will be informed in advance.

Understandable, thank you for the detailed reply!

 

[ZombiPL]

Sentry manufacturing process - weekly update​

Another "packaging week". We know these updates are becoming boring (assembled, packaged, sent, assembled, packaged, sent...), but many people are still waiting for their cases, so... let's begin



- Next transport of Sentry units (white ones) is packaged and is waiting for filing customs papers. Those cases will be shipped this week.

- Packages for backers living outside EU are/were mostly sent by the sea. It means the waiting time for their delivery is usually several weeks. If your package is transported in that way, after 4 weeks from shipment the tracking information on our courier's website can disappear. This is normal, so please don't be scared and just press 2nd "Search button", which will show up after clicking the 1st one.

- We also received another transport of black Sentry bodies, so immediately we're starting assembling process of units for 5th shipment (5 out of 7).

- As usual we ask you for sending us photos of your builds made inside your Sentry cases. Just like in previous updates, in every 2nd week we will be inserting some of them at the end of the update. For us it is a great fun to watch your ideas and see if your are happy with what you received. For other backers this is a way to show Sentry's possibilities and talk about issues you had while cramping your hardware in such small case.

 

[Phuncz]

Boring ?! Those stacks of SFF cases give me hope ! The amount of hard work that went into these and the happy faces of the people receiving them... This is what seperates (most of) us from poo-flinging monkeys.

 

[Dragocan]

Hi all
I'm new to the SFF Forum and to SFF builds. I got here because of Dr Zaber Sentry Case. Before this I was building giant ATX builds only, but after my Sentry case was delivered and I have completed the build I do not want to go back to Full ATX cases ever again Here You can see my build. Here You can see my build:

And also I want to share something with You all. I have MSI Armor OC 4GB RX 570 in this build, and I have made some calculations about temperatures and noise. I have made a TEST with Fire Strike. Both standard test, and custom stress test running for 45 min with each configuration. I made it because I wanted to lower the noise without loosing any performance. Well as You will see it worked absolutely great and the GPU is very very silent now even under full load

So First the Standard Fire Strike Test:

3D MARK TEST WITHOUT DMCI FILTERS ON CASE, STANDARD MSI THERMAL PASTE, WITHOUT CHANGING ANY GPU SETTINGS
Fire Strike Standard

GPU Temperature - 71*C
Fans RPM - 2348 RPM
Fans Usage - 54,00%


3D MARK TEST WITH DMCI FILTERS, STANDARD MSI THERMAL PASTE, WITHOUT CHANGING ANY GPU SETTINGS
Fire Strike Standard

GPU Temperature - 75*C
Fans RPM - 3017 RPM
Fans Usage - 81,00%


3D MARK TEST WITHOUT DMCI FILTERS ON CASE, GRIZZLY KRYONAUT THERMAL PASTE, WITHOUT CHANGING ANY GPU SETTINGS
Fire Strike Standard

GPU Temperature - 71*C
Fans RPM - 2269 RPM
Fans Usage - 51,00%



3D MARK TEST WITHOUT DMCI FILTERS ON CASE, GRIZZLY KRYONAUT THERMAL PASTE, GPU SETTINGS CHANGED - TARGET TEMPERATURE CHANGED FROM STANDARD 70*C TO 75*C
Fire Strike Standard

GPU Temperature - 73*C
Fans RPM - 2030 RPM
Fans Usage - 43,00%


And now the custom 45 min Fire Strike Test:

3D MARK TEST WITHOUT DMCI FILTERS ON CASE, STANDARD MSI THERMAL PASTE, WITHOUT CHANGING ANY GPU SETTINGS
Fire Strike 45 min Stress Test

GPU Temperature - 73*C
Fans RPM - 2517 RPM
Fans Usage - 61,00%


3D MARK TEST WITH DMCI FILTERS, STANDARD MSI THERMAL PASTE, WITHOUT CHANGING ANY GPU SETTINGS
Fire Strike 45 min Stress Test

GPU Temperature - 76*C
Fans RPM - 3011 RPM
Fans Usage - 81,00%


3D MARK TEST WITHOUT DMCI FILTERS ON CASE, GRIZZLY KRYONAUT THERMAL PASTE, WITHOUT CHANGING ANY GPU SETTINGS
Fire Strike 45 min Stress Test

GPU Temperature - 73*C
Fans RPM - 2470 RPM
Fans Usage - 59,00%



3D MARK TEST WITHOUT DMCI FILTERS ON CASE, GRIZZLY KRYONAUT THERMAL PASTE, GPU SETTINGS CHANGED - TARGET TEMPERATURE CHANGED FROM STANDARD 70*C TO 75*C
Fire Strike 45 min Stress Test

GPU Temperature - 76*C
Fans RPM - 2096 RPM
Fans Usage - 45,00%


So to sum up. MSI Thermal Paste put on their GPUs is quite good, so the changes are minor when putting on Grizzly Kryonaut (but it can help more on other GPUs). Focus on changes with DMCI Filters on - the noise dramatically increased so i have decided not to use them and clean my PC more often. Also check the last data with Grizzly Kryonaut and changed GPU setting - I didn't lose any performance, but the FANs RPM and the noise went down noticable and the comfort greatly increased with very nice GPU temperatures

I hope You will be able to use these tests and decide for yourself if You want to make a small change in the settings to get a great increase in comfort

Dragocan

 

[Rusty McFot]

Hmmm... I wonder how long it will be until I get mine. Order number 552. I haven't even had time lately to read the Sentry emails sitting in my inbox.

 

[EndlessWaves]

Hmmm... I wonder how long it will be until I get mine. Order number 552. I haven't even had time lately to read the Sentry emails sitting in my inbox.

Yours was a black case wasn't it?

I'd think you've got a good chance of being in the 5th consignment, the one they're currently working on. If we assume it gets sent at the end of next week and takes six weeks to get to Australia then that would be late August.

 

[Rusty McFot]

Yours was a black case wasn't it?

I'd think you've got a good chance of being in the 5th consignment, the one they're currently working on. If we assume it gets sent at the end of next week and takes six weeks to get to Australia then that would be late August.

Yep, mine was a black one.

Well that's good news if its going to start floating towards me soon. The PC I just built to go in it is naked sitting on my desk, on a piece of cardboard. But hey, my temps have never been better!

 

[jeshikat]

The PC I just built to go in it is naked sitting on my desk, on a piece of cardboard. But hey, my temps have never been better!

That's my favorite case, it's 0 liters!

 

[confusis]

Not the 0L case again...

 

[Necere]

Just saw this comment on the LTT tiny case round up video, gave me a chuckle:

Ah the perils of using commodity anti-vandal switches.

 

[jeshikat]

Yeah, anti-vandal switches are pretty common once you start looking for them. I've seen them in all sorts of industrial stuff.

 

[ZombiPL]

Sentry manufacturing process - weekly update​

Almost all packages from 4th transport sent. Only few cases are still waiting for the courier companies to pick them up, because some of you decided to change their addresses after we locked this option in your indiegogo accounts. Don't worry. Those will be sent on Monday and Tuesday. For people waiting for next transports we have one request: If you will decide to change your address to another country, please let us know about it. Indiegogo doesn't allow such option, so we have to solve it on our side. Your information will help us to avoid problems with sending packages to non-existing addresses in different than original destination countries. Thank you.

Ok. Back to the topic. As we wrote before, most of the packages from 4th shipping were taken by our transport companies:

​

At this moment we are working on assembling accessory boxes for 5th transport. By the end of this week we should be able to start preparations for another packaging process.

As a bonus to this update we are adding some photos sent by our supporters showing their nice PCs assembled inside Sentry. As usual you will find more in our forum topics.

 

[ZombiPL]

Sentry manufacturing process - weekly update
​

Today we want to answer 5 most common questions from the last few weeks. Let's start:


1) My package was sent several days ago and i still didn't get it. Why it takes so long? I live outside Europe.

About 90% of packages for backers living outside Europe are being sent by ship. It means your package will have to travel through the sea and it will take several weeks.

2) You sent 1st shipment. How long is the "real-life" delivery time, which you measured?

a) EU delivery (based on 4 transports):
~70% within 5 days,
~85% within 7 days,
~100% within 10 days,

b) Non-EU countries outside European continent (average for whole world, based on 1st shipment):
~65% within 6 weeks,
~75% within 7 weeks,
~80% within 8 weeks,
- about 20 packages from this transport still weren't described as "delivered", so at this moment we can't say what is the max waiting time.

3) What should I do if my package was sent and after many weeks my tracking information still says only "Sent from Poland"?

Please contact with your nearest post department and ask them which customs services office should receive your package after shipping from Poland (tracking number should be enough for them). After that you should contact that customs office. Those two institutions aren't updating their tracking information as often as they should, and your package can stay at their warehouse for weeks while you think it's still on a ship.

Example: Yesterday (8.07.2017) USPS updated information for several packages saying "Item arrived to the delivery office - 12.06.2017. Almost a month later...

4) Why you didn't give an option to choose more expensive transport?

Indiegogo didn't allow us to do it. We were allowed to use only one transport option for each country and we picked the one which was the cheapest among those which included online tracking and insurance.

5) Paper manual included in Sentry box isn't enough for me. Do you have something more informative?

Yes, we have. On every paper manual we have a web address and QR-code leading to our online manual. You can also find it here: http://zaber.com.pl/sentry/manual.pdf



Other standard news:
- we are at the stage of screwing steel Sentry bodies for 5th transport,
- accessory boxes for this shipment are ready,
- this week we will be packaging everything into printed carton boxes and then into transport boxes.

 

[Biowarejak]

Very informative! Hopefully it addresses some concerns for people

 

[JosephEK]

What I would use this case for is putting it underneath a small monitor stand so that the monitor isn't sitting directly ontop of it blocking the vents.

The Ryzen 3 / Ryzen 5 1400 stock cooler is 53.4mm tall according to AMD. Would it work with the Sentry? Your page says 47mm so sadly I guess that's my answer right there . I wonder what options there are for Ryzen then. There's always the Noctua L9a.

I have recently learned about the Cryorig Cu version of the C7 which is only copper and no aluminum. No idea when that's even available though.

 

[EndlessWaves]

Yeah, there's 47-48mm total clearance, so ducted top-down fan coolers like that only work if they're even lower than that, otherwise there's a lot of noise and turbulence from the vents, the C7 was causing this behaviour.

On the [H] forum the L9 is proving popular, I believe the AM4 brackets fit both variants. The Zalman CPNS 2X also has AM4 brackets now so that would be an option too.

 

[JosephEK]

Yeah, there's 47-48mm total clearance, so ducted top-down fan coolers like that only work if they're even lower than that, otherwise there's a lot of noise and turbulence from the vents, the C7 was causing this behaviour.

On the [H] forum the L9 is proving popular, I believe the AM4 brackets fit both variants. The Zalman CPNS 2X also has AM4 brackets now so that would be an option too.

Yeah I saw that thread where the L9 outperforms the Zalman and the Kozuti.

One bizarre possibility is I have this cooler...
"DP/N 0WKGR1"

It's like an Intel stock cooler, It's got a copper core, but it has this odd plastic frame around it that holds a (standard!) 90mm fan as well as the Intel mounting screws. It's overall noticeably heavier than my Intel Stock coolers

My Intel stock coolers weigh 216g on a Kitchen scale, this Dell cooler weighs 354g, about 39% heavier if my math is correct.

The heatsink is slightly taller by a few mm, but I can't measure it precisely enough because I don't have my ruler ATM and there's a plastic shroud that covers the side fins. Overall the height is about 49mm.

So what I would do is...
1. Replace the 90mm fan with a slim 90mm fan so it would fit in the Sentry.

2.Remove the Intel mounting screws and structure.

3. Remove most of the plastic that skirts the heatsink fins so it can behave more "omni-directionally", but leave the flat areas flanking the fan (visible in picture above) so that I may use them to adhere a DIY AM4 mounting system... Whatever that may be. (worst case scenario zip-ties?)

What do you think? Should I leave that plastic skirt around the fins? I would think it would make cooling harder in a confined area, but IDK what the engineers were thinking on that one.