Production SENTRY 2.0: Evolution of console-sized gaming PC case

SaperPL

Master of Cramming
DR ZĄBER
Oct 17, 2017
471
880
This is what I voted for, so I'm happy, but I was quite interested to see what you'd come up with as a mechanism to secure the back panel without affecting the look too much. It isn't a trivial problem, it seems to me. I couldn't come up with a particularly elegant solution, at least.

Imagine "H" letter point welded to "O" letter's back. You would slide it slightly off center to let the "H" letter's ends loose (that's why there is so much space between the inner and outer shape in the renders).

The challenging part was keeping this thing in place while also not making the mechanism too complicated and expensive. There were few ideas like a wire for spring tension or additional internal sliding piece locked with screw that would keep the rails from sliding out - for the latter, keep in mind that the lock had to be somewhere outside the motherboard area while at the same time panel had to be smaller than the motherboard because of the standoff locations.

Both ideas would work, but at the same time they were straying away from our policy of making the case a long-lasting and service'able product, because spring could be broken at some point and making a simple internal locking slider would mean a small piece that could be easily lost.

TL : DR : panel was supposed to slide in and be locked from inside by screw located next to the motherboard.

Also, I was wondering about the airflow around the aio, since there are no vents on one side of it. Maybe this was discussed elsewhere, but do you imagine it to be pulling air into the radiator from the top and exhausting out the side, or pushing the exhaust out the top?

There is no perforation directly above the AIO. The AIO is supposed to pull the air in from the outside and help pushing the air from the inside above the GPU out. It's not like the fresh air passing through the AIO radiator will instantly get +20 degrees and make the back of the GPU hotter, it's still really fresh air as long as it isn't recycled in a loop.

I'm currently running silverstone tundra slim with gigabyte 1080 mini inside heavily modded rev 1.1 for testing. It can handle Ryzen 7 1700 running at 3.9~ish (I couldn't get past that because of the board that I'm planning to change soon) with really decent temps.

Noteworthy is that I'm mostly using it on a vertical stand, but so far we've seen it as the most common use case as well.
 
Last edited:

SaperPL

Master of Cramming
DR ZĄBER
Oct 17, 2017
471
880
Have you guys considered compatibility with the AmeriRack bifurcation riser in your redesign of the riser clamping system?

I recall at least one of you seeing my mod of it and asking about the cost of the riser.

I thought about it, but since the new riser mounting mechanism will let you install such riser without cutting out that piece of case, that should be enough. You will have to drill your holes for some standoffs/threaded rivets if you want to fix them to the center wall, or figure out some other way like for example using hot plastic gun.

It's a really niche configuration and as such we don't want to add complexity and in effect production time/cost for everyone just for the sake of few users.

Note the fact that we have already moved the grounding standoff and two other threaded bushings from the piece holding riser and drives to simplify its production (grounding standoff is now on the piece holding motherboard standoffs and the arm holding the 2.5" drives has a threaded bushing on its own).
 

Freeks

Chassis Packer
Apr 7, 2018
19
16
Your AIO-plans got me thinking. What about putting the aio where the PSU is and switch to a PSU like the HDPlex 400. I blocked it out with my current setup and a 120mm aio in the rev 1.1. With a graphics card a little bit shorter than the nvidia founders edition it might just work.
 

SaperPL

Master of Cramming
DR ZĄBER
Oct 17, 2017
471
880
Your AIO-plans got me thinking. What about putting the aio where the PSU is and switch to a PSU like the HDPlex 400. I blocked it out with my current setup and a 120mm aio in the rev 1.1. With a graphics card a little bit shorter than the nvidia founders edition it might just work.

We don't want to perforate the case below the PSU (because of the case looks) and making a lifted AIO so it is directly touching the cover and have space below would be complicated if we want to still support the SFX mount (which we do want to support) - both because of complexity of such structure lifting the AIO and the way of fixing the AIO to it. You would have to screw it from the bottom or that piece would have to be detachable and installed by mounting on additional standoffs.

At the same time we don't want to mount the AIO to the cover because closing the case would be a complete mess with the hoses.

Also HD-PLEX is not something mainstream as SFX at this moment and we don't want to support it yet at this point.
 

Freeks

Chassis Packer
Apr 7, 2018
19
16
We don't want to perforate the case below the PSU (because of the case looks) and making a lifted AIO so it is directly touching the cover and have space below would be complicated if we want to still support the SFX mount (which we do want to support) - both because of complexity of such structure lifting the AIO and the way of fixing the AIO to it. You would have to screw it from the bottom or that piece would have to be detachable and installed by mounting on additional standoffs.

At the same time we don't want to mount the AIO to the cover because closing the case would be a complete mess with the hoses.

Also HD-PLEX is not something mainstream as SFX at this moment and we don't want to support it yet at this point.

Ok, maybe this would have been more appropriate in the "old" Sentry-Thread. I thought about it more like a non-destructive modding idea with 3d-printing the standoff bracket that screws to the PSU-bracket. I absolutely agree that it is much to niche for mainstream production.
 

quetzacoatlx

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Aug 11, 2017
103
62
We plan to support SFX, don't worry. We aren't changing to HD-PLEX or any other DC-ATX. If you meant the SFX-L, then we're not going to support it anymore though.
A reasonable choice. I tried the Silverstone 800w titanium and it sucks (the first unit broke in a month, the second one can not hold a Vega 64 at full load whose recommended PSU is only 750w)
 

Biowarejak

Maker of Awesome | User 1615
Platinum Supporter
Mar 6, 2017
1,744
2,262
A reasonable choice. I tried the Silverstone 800w titanium and it sucks (the first unit broke in a month, the second one can not hold a Vega 64 at full load whose recommended PSU is only 750w)
Mind defining "full load"? And what CPU? Not to derail, I just can't imagine that unit giving out. :)
 

hyp36rmax

Trash Compacter
May 7, 2018
43
60
Is the lack of perforation and hump on the internal GPU side cover a design choice? I imagined full perforation of the top cover would be ideal for venting. I'd love to see plans to offer a replacement top cover with a full perforation. Seem's to make a big difference when using the Sentry in the horizontal position in my use case when running with the top cover off.

Can I commission a custom top cover? Would love to discuss that option.
 

SaperPL

Master of Cramming
DR ZĄBER
Oct 17, 2017
471
880
Is the lack of perforation and hump on the internal GPU side cover a design choice? I imagined full perforation of the top cover would be ideal for venting. I'd love to see plans to offer a replacement top cover with a full perforation. Seem's to make a big difference when using the Sentry in the horizontal position in my use case when running with the top cover off.

Can I commission a custom top cover? Would love to discuss that option.

We don't plan on supplying customised components, that's for sure.

We don't want to perforate the cover above the GPU because we don't want the cover to be fully perforated - this would affect the rigidity of the case. Also we don't want to expose backside of the GPU to the perforation and we didn't like how the case would look with such perforation when we designed the 1.0.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LeandroB

hyp36rmax

Trash Compacter
May 7, 2018
43
60
We don't plan on supplying customised components, that's for sure.

We don't want to perforate the cover above the GPU because we don't want the cover to be fully perforated - this would affect the rigidity of the case. Also we don't want to expose backside of the GPU to the perforation and we didn't like how the case would look with such perforation when we designed the 1.0.

Do you offer replacement parts? How do you manage support issues for those of us who want to refresh our cases down the road?
 

SaperPL

Master of Cramming
DR ZĄBER
Oct 17, 2017
471
880
Do you offer replacement parts?

We do not offer replacement parts apart from warranty claims at this point. We may consider doing that if we get to the point where we can handle retail properly.

How do you manage support issues for those of us who want to refresh our cases down the road?

Our general approach to design of Sentry is to make it a lasting product that you can fix on your own on assumption that since it's pretty niche product, we might not be able to be in this market forever, but still we want it to be something that'll survive way more than mass produced cases.

Our cases are made of pretty thick steel that is powder coated, so if your case paint job wears down after few years of travelling, bumping, scratching etc, you can use something like aircraft remover to clear out powder coating and paint the case once again. You can do it either on your own with some spray paint or get it powder coated in some local shop - that's actually not that expensive to do, unless you want some fancy paint job.

As for the other parts, everything is something standardised that you should be able to pick off-shelf.