discussion SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project

[ZombiPL]

Dmitry just published another video of some other pc-case where he also made a size comparison between this case, standard atx case and SENTRY:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMi5qKHf8LA

 

[ZombiPL]

*** Little update ***

While we are still waiting for some papers from our administration, we've managed to send SENTRY to YetAnotherTechChannel for the 3rd and last professional external video review before the start of the campaign.
It was made in a climate of more realistic typical gamer scenarios, so if you still had some questions after watching Linus and Dmitry's reviews, we hope You will find answers in this video:

 

[SaperPL]

We've added Frequently Asked Questions section and all reviews to the gallery on our website:
zaber.com.pl/sentry/


For those of You who haven't subscribed to our newsletter

Update!
Hello again!

We did not do any updates through our newsletter for a while and we think now is the time for it. At this moment we are only waiting for last documents and confirmations from our public administration, and we will be ready to go with indiegogo campaign.

Meanwhile, as we promised, we sent our prototype for the 3rd and last external video review before we start our campaign. Here You can check the result made byYetAnotherTechChannel:



If You did not watch earlier reviews, You can find them here:



Finally, we made a STRAW POLL, where we are asking what colour of SENTRY will you pick:



To speed up the production, we decided we will be applying powder coating in two different paintshops. The information about the color popularity will help us to optimize the painting process. In advance, thank You for Your help.

This is probably the last newsletter before our crowdfunding campaign. In the next one, when we will be ready, we will send You detailed information how You can get Your own SENTRY. Stay tuned!

 

[ZombiPL]

I have to admit that community of this (Hardware Canucks) forum is different from other forums :sad:. Every day we are getting several emails, where people claim they saw our posts in this forum, but instead of writing questions and their thoughts here, they prefer to send us an email. We are not allowed to post those emails here, so because of that, we have a request:

If you will have a question about our SENTRY pc-case, please try to write them here, in this topic. Thanks to that, more and more people will get better knowledge about this project, and with your support together we will make it better. Thanks.

 

[SaperPL]

There were quite a lot questions about using 120mm AIOs over the project progress and I usually responded to them with CAD images, but at some point I thought that I should check it out IRL, since wires and hoses are not something that's easily figured out with CAD.

I've ordered silverstone tundra slim for the test because it was the only AIO that measurements did add up to what we can fit through the central wall.

Here's the result:

Note that while HDD slots are obstructed by tubes, 2.5" drive still fits above the pump/block. I also forgot to put the USB front panel back in place, it fits though.

I think this was one of the hardest builds I ever made, but still, it's doable.

What I had to do:
1) Remove the power switch //EDIT: - currently it fits 165mm long GPU and power switch fits with pins bent to the side.
2) Install the motherboard with water block mounted
3) Put the radiator through the hole in central wall
4) Put fan on the radiator and attach it screw by screws to the rad
5) Ziptie radiator to the central wall and bottom air inlet - temporary solution, I'll try to figure out something better later

I'll make performance tests with EVGA GTX1060 SC 6GB when I get the card next week (I'll see if it fits with this AIO first).

Conclusion:
It's doable but will require different short switch instead of the one are be providing and possibly might require some modding to the central wall depending on the AIO radiator dimensions.

It might be better to pick some AIO with slimmer and softer tubing or make your own hard pipe water cooling.

Pros:
+ makes CPU ~10 degrees cooler both in idle and full load (~30/58 vs 40/68)
+ It's actually silent under full load, not inaudible, but neatly silent.
+ It might do good to the card cooling since it's blowing out the air from the back of the card

Cons:
- you have to figure out what to do with power switch
- you have to use short 170mm long GPU
- you have to use short SFX power supply
- you block the hard drive slots with the tubes and have to put the 2.5" drive above the pump
- it is not an elegant solution and closing the cover requires some amount of force
- It's extremely hard to build and figure out what to do with the hard hoses like the ones of tundra
- your power cable routing is blocked by the radiator


What do You guys think? Any ideas to improve this?

 

[SaperPL]

As promised, updated photo of the AIO setup:

the GTX 1060 doesn't fit yet though.

At this point I can see that we could have some space to move the cooler up to the front since hoses have the length for that, but we'd have to figure out the switch and probably widen the hole in central wall (I don't think that's possible at this point though)

I kind of see that this could be possible if someone got a 16mm plug instead of power switch and used dremel to widen the hole so the radiator can leave 1cm more for the 175mm GPU. At the same time, small switch could be installed in one of the holes for the antennas, or one of the holes at the back of the case near the power connector.

 

[SaperPL]

R9 Nano + AIO photos:

 

[ZombiPL]

We just made a tiny modification to our website:

www.zaber.com.pl/sentry

We hope you will like it

 

[stlouis1]

For your non-watercooled mockup in the most recent pictures, it occurs to me that there's venting one the case above the CPU fan so it can pull cool air in. The thought occurs to me, that it may almost work better if you flipped that fan upside down so it pulls air up and exhausts it right out.

The same in theory could be done with the power supply since it's pulling cool air from outside, and exhausting it inside the case. If you're not worried about warranty, since the psu exhaust port currently just blows hot air in the case...it might make sense to try having it suck air from in the case and blow it straight out.

I think it's worth trying anyway. With the GPU blowing hot air out already with the blower, pulling air from inside the case to cool the cpu and power supply and sending the hot air straight out may maintain a lower ambient temp inside the case over the time it's running rather than slowly heating the inside more and more

 

[SaperPL]

For your non-watercooled mockup in the most recent pictures, it occurs to me that there's venting one the case above the CPU fan so it can pull cool air in. The thought occurs to me, that it may almost work better if you flipped that fan upside down so it pulls air up and exhausts it right out.

The same in theory could be done with the power supply since it's pulling cool air from outside, and exhausting it inside the case. If you're not worried about warranty, since the psu exhaust port currently just blows hot air in the case...it might make sense to try having it suck air from in the case and blow it straight out.

Power supply is pulling fresh air from the outside - cooling its components doesn't mean the air will come out 10 degrees hotter. Unless you create a situation where air is getting recycled then its not a problem if PSU gets air after CPU cooler "used it" (like in standard ATX chassis with PSU on top of the motherboard) or vice versa however closing the loop will end up with recycling the air that will get hotter over time.

If I were to flip the fan on the CPU cooler it could crate a loop where you push hot air from cpu outside and this air is sucked in by PSU and recycled internally by cpu cooler just as you noticed. In standard configuration sucking air inside makes it so the positive pressure will at least try to push the hot air coming out from the PSU out.