Bolt II Overhaul

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PC enthusiasm is recognizing a Maximus VI Impact and Corsair Dominator Platinum from a 6-foot-away top view through a case window.

Thanks, but there are others with much more keen eyes than I on this forum.

On another note, RIP Bolt series cases, DigitalStorm uses big heavy Lian Li cases now

I intend to keep my Bolt alive and kickin' for a good while now! Maybe they'll do a 180 and create another SFF case of their own for the Bolt 4...probably boils down to supply chain for them because I know they've had issues keeping the custom made cases in stock in the past.

 

[hat1324]

Thanks, but there are others with much more keen eyes than I on this forum.

Lmao... That's insane. How???

 

[confusis]

It was one of the boards I considered when spec'ing the SFFn Thermal Testing Rig. Plus i've owned enough Gigabytes over the years to recognise them

 

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I got down to my friends place today. He has a drill press and experience working with acrylic. I needed to get an outlet in the front face of the pump top in order to not have a ridiculous amount of angled brass fittings.

First, we got the pump top secured and aligned to where we were going to drill it:

We used a graphite/alcohol spray lubricant and sequentially moved from small to larger drill bit sizes to prevent any brittle shattering of the acrylic. We had also affixed an ice pack to the underside of the drill press table to try to extract as much heat away as possible (acrylic isn't very thermally conductive, so it probably didn't help too much).

Here it is with the final hole drilled in it before we tapped it:

Here is the final form of the top with the tapped outlet. We slightly marred the top with an aluminum piece we used to keep the tap vertical when reaming out the threads.

I need to do another cleaning pass to get the graphite completely removed from the part. Carbon is at the opposite end of the galvanic scale from copper, so it is not good at all to mix them.

 

[Phuncz]

Got to love drill-presses. For me the most annoying thing about them (or mine) is the way to securely clamp precisely allign it, I have yet to find a solution for that but with so many different uses, a single solution seems impossible.

 

[|||]

The drill press was definitely needed for this job. My friend had his drill press on a mobile cart, but to get it rigidly mounted to took an aluminum sheet (almost thick enough to be called a plate) and used that as a working surface we put the press on. We still needed to drop the adjustable table on the press every time because it didn't have enough z-axis travel to get the drill bits replaced, but we managed and it turned out as good as could be expected.

 

[planebreaks]

Hey, may I ask what power supply that is?
I have a bolt 2 as well, and want to do exactly what you're doing.

 

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The one I currently have in there is the 500W 80+ Gold FSP 500-501UN that came with the case. It is a 1U form factor PSU. You can find other models here, that you can swap in. You will get a bare aluminum one, so if aesthetics are important to you, you will need to paint or cover it. Also, be aware that the length of the PSU varies between all of the units. The Bolt II can handle a fairly long PSU as they were designed to also be configured with a 700W 80+ Bronze unit they used with the Titan Z, but if you are putting things into the lower area as I am, that should be a consideration.

 

[planebreaks]

The one I currently have in there is the 500W 80+ Gold FSP 500-501UN that came with the case. It is a 1U form factor PSU. You can find other models here, that you can swap in. You will get a bare aluminum one, so if aesthetics are important to you, you will need to paint or cover it. Also, be aware that the length of the PSU varies between all of the units. The Bolt II can handle a fairly long PSU as they were designed to also be configured with a 700W 80+ Bronze unit they used with the Titan Z, but if you are putting things into the lower area as I am, that should be a consideration.

Thanks heaps for the answer, man!
I've been wondering what I can do with this case and the parts. It was quite difficult to start without knowing what my limitations are - mostly the power supply.
Thank you so much, and good luck with your build!

 

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Thanks! I've had it on hold for a little...some of the components didn't have the dimensions they specified to have and scuttled my short term plans. So I've decided to put it on hold until I'm ready to execute long term plans, hopefully by sometime Q1 next year. In the mean time, I have one of the limited edition S4 Mini's coming in that I can move my computer internals into. I got sick and tired or deconstructing and reconstructing my computer every time I wanted to measure something in the case. I used my computer for work and it was getting in the way.

Don't be shy and post up what you have on this forum. This place has some of the most passionate and knowledgeable people in the small form factor computer niche. Plus I have gone through pretty much everything there is to go through with the Bolt II and could help you along. We'd love to see what you're doing! I'm also curious what the initial specs are; whether you got the hardline cooling option or front panel LEDs.

I also found this 650W 80+ Platinum supply used on ebay, however, you will need to do some cable mods.

 

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Alright, time to get back to building out the Bolt II. (My computer has been moved into an S4 Mini (#73, 5th of 5 LE Gunmetal Diamond) for some time now)

First up is a 3.5" HDD cold plate where the 1U PSU used to be. It is connected directly to the output I drilled and tapped in the pump top.

 

[Phuncz]

Watercooled storage, that's been a while since I've seen that ! Although the new PCIe storage does invite it once more.

 

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While fitting things together, I noticed the Barrow filter was going to be too long. So, I got an Alphacool Eiszapfen filter and made a domed brass filter for it, like I had for the Barrow. It has an even larger surface area; just hoping the correspondingly larger outer diameter doesn't pose an issue.

I also got new memory in: Super Talent DDR4 Project X 2 x 16GB (dual ranked) at 3600MHz (17-18-18-38 timings). I ordered them with the heat spreaders separate, so I could add my own without voiding the warranty (pretty cool of Super Talent to do that ).

 

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I recently got an AquaComputer Aquaero 6 LT USB Fan Controller to handle not only the fans, but the pump as well as monitor all of the temperature sensors (8 in total) and flow meter. The sheer number of temperature sensors is what persuaded me to go with this controller. While Digital Storm has a fan control board of their own with dedicated mounts in my chassis, it lacks a lot of the advanced functionality, including flow metering, and a nifty relay that can be put inline with either the power switch or PSU sense line to turn the computer off if, say, you wanted it to turn your computer off if it senses the water flow has stopped.

I initially wanted to place it in place of where the USB hub was to the side of the GPU toward the front of the case (I'm still using the USB hub, it is smaller and can easily be relocated elsewhere in the case). However, it is just a few square millimeters large in a specific area to clear a tab, so I needed to relocate it. I had no idea how it would fit, but as luck would have it, it fits perfectly beneath the optical drive, even with the connectors sticking out of it.

I even prefer this mounting position...I would have never thought of it without having the unit in my hand. It gets fully concealed when the optical drive and it's bracket are in place.

(Those threaded posts on either side of the perforated part above and behind the ODD bracket is where the Digital Storm unit mounts)

 

[3lfk1ng]

Yes, keep the updates coming!

 

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I got my new motherboard in today. It looks like a very nice piece of kit: excellent power delivery (for a SFF ITX board, at least), awesome I/O, and good looks to boot. @confusis will have a review of this model coming up.

Waiting on the processor I've ordered, still, but shouldn't be too long.

 

[3lfk1ng]

Bought damn time...

 

[confusis]

I'll be throwing the review unit into a S4M too

 

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I'll be throwing the review unit into a S4M too

I'm debating whether or not this will go into my S4M-C...the thermal loading is going to be quite tremendous.

Bought damn time...

I mean, if the component manufacturers would only come out with these things faster, I could do this all that much sooner. Geez But on that note: more hardware! I feel the need...the need for speed!

I only went with the 480GB drive because I have found over the years that I really don't use too much drive space at any given time and ~500GB is more than sufficient for me. The U.2 form factor has several advantages. The externally connected SATA power isn't limited by the connector limitations of M.2 and PCIe slot power limits. I am also going to look into dropping the 3.3V power rail for a future change to the power supply. I got a broken response from Intel about whether or not this is possible, so I need to test it out for myself.

I fitted it to the front M.2 slot under the heat sink cover, but the plastic 'Intel' cover on the adapter card was 1.3mm too tall to get the heat sink screwed back on (I could have just left it off, but visually and functionally, I would prefer to have the heat sink cover on to dissipate more heat from the VRMs, as it will be operating passively). So, I removed the mylar sticker over the threads for the M.2 on the back and test fitted it in the Bolt and it works! I'll post pictures of that fitment when it is more securely installed.

The bad news is that I heard the processor I ordered has been delayed another week...stupid supply chain

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

I'd really like to see board manufacturers dropping the sata connectors in favor of a u.2 or a mini-sas connector on mITX boards.

My ideal ITX would have an m.2 and an U.2, and nothing more.