Project Blue BoxX - XBoX Moddin .:update 01/03/04:.

Well I noticed that some other people have put up game console mods and I have had my x box for about 3 days and allready have done lots of work on it so i figured i would post some of the current work before I finish modding it. As i am currently at work I will post more pictures and stuff when i get home bc they are all still on my desktop and not on the web atm. but then again it is my 20th birthday so we will have to see how sober I am tonight before I go posting things.

o and on th way to work I picked up some dark window tinting to use on it too.. hehehe

 

Ok so I got around to putting some pics on my server. I did some more work tonight but no pix yet. I have tomarrow off so I will be doing more then

here we go.. my nice unmodded xbox only 2 hrs old!


I started with the controler...



and soldered some resistors together


then soldered the led's on and positioned them so they would fit with one behind the jewel.


and here is the finished controler

 

looking good mate

 

damn i did a whole page worth of stuff then ie decided to be gay and crash when i hit submit!!!

 

ok here we go again...

I opened the box with some torx bits i found lying around... who knew i would ever need them!!


and here are all the pieces


so after figuring out that i have a 1.4 x box i went to work on the fan since i am putting in a 160 gig hdd.

here is the 80mm temp controled fan i found at a local store


so then i broke off the old fan tabs


and started dremmeling off the corners to make it fit in the same space


then soldered a ring terminal so i could ground the fan making it run at 12v not 7v


it fit pretty nice at first


then i realized that the hdd tray had to go ontop of it and it was not even close to fitting. so i cut off more corners of the fan and went to work on the hdd tray and ended up with a sink full of black plastic and this...


but it fits perfect now! safty sticker still intact


i also did not like the back fan metal grill so i snipped that out


here are some of the finished pics of the fan



then i tried to put blue led's int he fron pannel in this board


but they were 3mm and i only have 5 mm... so untill they get shipped here i decided to swap the pairs of wires to make the front glow red instead of green

 

I have more pics online but will wait till tomarrow to post... going out to see the day after tomarrow with friends for my b day -later

 

from that first pic of the main box i couldnt see a modchip, so i take it u got that to do too, unless you're softmodding it...

got a modchip and 120gb hdd in mine, its the bees knees

 

the chip is comming in the mail tomarrow so that will be installed asap. the 160 gig hdd is being sent to my friend who will load his 120+ games onto it and be sent back. if i dont get tired later i might post some more pics of the case painted and the jewel. either way... more soon

 

ok so on with the modding.... realizing that i have nothing better to be doing at 1am on a tuesday more updates!!!

lets go over the painting since it was the next step in the modding. ... o yeah i almost forgot i took the jewel out of the center of the xbox (the green thing)
i proped up a hair drier and left it pointed at the back of the jewel for about 15 min and when i came back it only took about 10 min of careful prying to free the jewel from the horrable black foam sticker backing.

after that i took the dremmel to it and cut out a hole where the jewel once was leaving a small lip for it to rest on. after that i washed and dried everything and taped it up with masking tape... everything i wanted to stay black was taped.



after that i took it to the garage to paint.... sorry no pic's of the work in progress.... i put 3 coats of blue krylon paint on it. sanding inbetween each with fine sand paper. after that i put 2 clear coats on it and ended up with a pretty good result.... i was suprised the masking tape did as good a job as it did... i expected the paint to leak through etc. anyway the color looks a lot lighter in these pic's than it actuialy is but i will worry about that when i take final pic's.. i put the jewel back in the hole to take the pictures btw



and the back



i tried to come up with a paint design that flowed a bit more with the curves of the xbox and did not look so much like the stick on paint jobs anyone can buy. i still have some sanding to do around the controler ports as they were hard to tape up due to their roundness...

next.... the jewel modding...

 

IMO the colours DO NOT match at all. If i were you the black would be changed silver and i'd take out the green XBox logo and put in something shiny, with a mirror finish []

 

Yeah I'd suggest taking care of the Jewel.

 

mmm. I think its better than that black BS. The thing that throws the color off it the jewel, clean it up and paint it a dark mettalic silver, or atleast I think it would look good like that. Try and keep the XBOX lettering in the jewl tho. Go to http://xbox-scene.com/tutorials.php?t=0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0 and look for "Jewel Modifications" or something. Good luck with your case, make sure to check mine out oh and, that 80mm fan isnt to smart as far as I've been reading.. "they" say that it doesnt push to much air from where it is, but I say keep it

 

Wow thats looking pretty good i never thought an Xbox could look that good lol. Keep up the good work.

 

If you want to get the green paint off of the back of the jewel, soak it in soapy water or paint thinner for about 10-15 minutes then take a scrubby to it. Don't press too hard else you'll make it cloudy.

If you do it well you can preserve the silver word 'XBOX' on it if you want. Then you can paint the bottom of it (be sure to tape really well) and it'll look cool.

 

I like it... but if you decide to paint the xbox thing to, you can try to mask off the letters...

 

I know for a fact the he is not done with it (he is one of my best friends and lived in my town). He already took care of the jewel, just didnt have the pics yet. AND he was working on the letters durring the day yesterday.

 

Yeah so like i said before.... I have allready done lots of the modding i am just getting around to putting the pictures up... i made it to finishing the jewel so far and if you read what i said before i have allready removed the jewel and it was sitting on the painted case just for the picture! now i am going to go eat some lunch then post the pic's

 

Ok so on to jewel modding!!! yeay!

First i put the jewel in the sink and got some easy off


then spraid the back with the easyoff and left a pile of it foaming on it for about 10 min


after doing this over and over again then scrubbing it for a few min all of the chrome and paint came off easily and i ended up with this



while the easy off was taking its time disolving the paint i started working on lighting the top of the xbox. i had lots of blue led's so i figurd i would use six of them at the top facing the center. i started by sanding them to make them more diffused.


then i cut some resistors and the neg legs of the led's


and attached the resistors to the led's


after that i warmed up the hot glue gun and started gluing them in a circle ( i marked out the loactions before hand)


then i took a piece of wire and cut little notches in it where it laid over the legs of the led's and soldered all the positive legs together


then i did the same for the negitive legs trimming them as well


by connecting the circuit this way all the led's get the same volatage instead of each one getting less and less if they were in series. this is the lead wires so that i can connect it to the x box power


then i turned it on to see how it looked on 5v


not too bad but it was too bright and uneven glow. so i stopped at a custom car place on the way to work and got some scrap window tint.

i repainted the xbox letters in the center of the jewel silver, as the easy off took that off as well.

here is what the xbox looks like off now... just how i wanted.. black and silver in the center


and when turned on.... glows blue with silver letters


these pics are still with it running on 5v not 12 that it will be bc i just did this to the hdd connector so it get's 12v. no pic's of it yet though.. prob when i get the led's in.


so there ya go... about 80% there

 

I only get red X's
I think you should paint the rest of the box lime green like the plate in the middle...

 

yeah i forgot to put xbox/ in the pic links... took me like 1 min to fix that.. and of course someone posted in that 1 min