- I have a Sentry 2.0, luckily was able to grab one when they had only a few hundred left last year. However, when I received mine, the side panel was bowed/bent. So even now when it is assembled it doesn't quite line up correctly and distracting from the aesthetic. So my recommendation would be to use a thicker metal by a small margin. Perhaps an additional 0.5mm or something to bolster the strength of the side panels, a small 2mm flange on the face/backplates to support the side panel, or making the center support cross rail actually support up against that middle portion for support.
If you are talking about small concave above the "tooth" that is locking the cover in the middle, then it's something that was made this way because it would require stamping to offset it and also it was good to have a spot with tension for it not to be completely loose.
Other than that, we are looking into potentially reinforcing the cover and making it more rigid on that edge. Adding 0.5 mm won't really do much, but flange/stamp might help. With that said there's always cost attached to such things and here it means redesign in connected areas, so it's not something we can promise we are going to follow through at this point in time.
- The next thing is the extra couple mm for fan proximity for side panels. Right now I get a noticeable amount of turbulent air with my fans as the air flow through the ventilation is so close to those fans. So giving a 2.5 slot gpu would help alleviate this, as well, giving 50mm cpu cooler clearance would help with this.
We will see what we can do about 2.5 slot gpus as this is a valid concern considering where the industry is going, but making the case 3 mm thicker for 50 mm CPU cooler clearance is a significant change and there will always be that one more mm to fit something slightly bigger.
- The USB port problem is just that, the 20 pin USB cable is a nightmare. I know this is just due to how particular usb 3 is. I would recommend switching to USB-C front panel and then offering a 20 pin adapter to type-c header. I did this on amazon for my portable DAN A4.1 and it works like a champ!!! No speed or connectivity issues. That adapter was $4 on amazon. Another option may be to include a metal backplate that would cover or fill the USB ports for those that will not use front panel usb.
The issue with fallback approach is that it is another cable. So everyone who won't get the board with the new type-c header will have additional cable because of it. On top of that, everyone will pay additionally to get that adapter. Moreover if we want to make 2x type-A with the inner type-C header, it'll be treated as a new custom piece and will cost more than those generic cables. Those things do add up especially at the start of production where we don't have thoughsands of those new pieces already made. So question is whether this is something that is worth paying for example $10~15 USD extra for this (customised cable price increase + fallback adapter).
- Obviously as others have mentioned, PCI-e 4.0.
- Much shorter Front Panel cables. I know people have various hardware and the locations for attaching the USB and Power/LED are not all in the same location. My idea is to sell it with short cables that will fit pin headers that are in the location between the MB and PSU. Then include short extension cables for those that have them else where. This will allow people to get their wires where they need close or far without huge cable bulk to hide and stash. I know this will cost a few dollars, but I am assuming those of us that have built in tiny rigs are willing to pay an additional $3 or $4 for a nice clean tidy rig.
This is something I will have to talk about with our supplier. I think the option was minimum 40 cm and we have 50 cm because it's a standard version. The issue is that while the one end is being moulded, you want the other end to be outside of the mould/press to not crush it. I don't have the current updated info on this, it might have changed for our supplier, but not that this is about the tooling and might be costly to improve upon.
But this is a valid point because when we were designing this, there were quite a few board that had the header somewhere between pci-e slot and audio IO connector at the back, so additional length was handling such situations properly. But now we have fairly standardised locations along one edge and maybe few boards on the other edge.
The Sentry is the perfect style and relative size, it would just go a long way to refine a few of these other things.
That's what we are planning to do, and that's why we don't want to make completely revolutionary changes in shape, dimmensions and layout - this would mean starting from scratch both when it comes to design and when it comes to what people want the case for and what they like it for.
