Jewel Mods

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Undieing_Mole

Full Member
Jun 1, 2005
28
0
South East London
Unfortunately this website only allows me to post max 5 pics. So i didnt bother with them and just put in the text from my word document. This is the mod i used for creating the blue illuminating ring at the top the my box.

First take a hair dryer and aim it at the back of the jewel. Let it warm it up for a while. I let it sit in front of the hairdryer a good 15 minutes. Now take a flat head screw driver and it should pop right up.
You have two options from this point. You can keep your jewel stock, mod the original jewel, or get a whole new jewel. One way to mod the original jewel is to sand it to a clear finish. It actually quite easy and only takes about 15 min. First you’re going to need a really flat surface. I used a ¼” piece of plexiglass. Tape various grits of wet sand paper to it and then rub your jewel against it. I used grits 300 > 400 > 600 > 1000 > 1500 although the 1500 probably wasn’t needed, I had it lying around so I figured might as well use it. Now you will have a jewel that’s not quite crystal clear so to get it looking clear as a piece of glass your going to need a high grit rubbing compound but don’t run to the store just yet. Tape a piece of normal paper to your surface, now take some toothpaste, yes toothpaste, and put a dab on the paper and use that as the rubbing compound. You will end up with a beautifully clear jewel like shown below.

Now the other option, and the options I chose myself, would be to buy a new jewel. There are quite a few places to buy custom jewels, but the place I prefer other the rest would be http://shop.craxtion.com/ They guys form over there were kind enough to send me an un-etched jewel so I can add my own touch later, but they have quite a few of pre-made designs in stock. My jewel came with no delay with the protective paper still on the jewel.



If you go the way of the modded jewel you have to add light to it, so you are going to need to cut out a hole behind the jewel. I used my Dremel with the standard cutting wheel, but make sure to leave enough of a lip for the jewel to sit on, other wise it will just fall inside of the Xbox.

Time for the fun part, Painting! First, you’re going to want to decide on a color scheme. I wanted to do all white at first, since it’s the opposite of every black Xbox, but when I went to buy the paint I saw a real light green color that I though would look good so I decided to get both the green and the white and do a two tone scheme. The paint I chose it made by Krylon, and it’s called Fusion. It’s made specifically for plastic so no primer is needed, which is perfect for a project like this, any steps, such as primer, that can be eliminated is a good thing.

Now with that tedious part done we can move on to more fun modding: The Jewel

If you remember from the previous part I got a blank jewel from the generous people over at http://shop.craxtion.com. I didn’t want a blank jewel in my highly modified Xbox, but I also didn’t want the somewhat generic selection you find at the jewel retailers, so I decided to make my own. I like etched jewels but their a little overplayed now so I chose to do a full color graphic for mine. First I drew the made the graphic in Photoshop and printed it up using glossy photo paper as seen below:



If you look closely I made a light circle 2” in diameter. That’s how big my jewel is so I cut the picture out on the line, then with the help of my lovely girlfriend glued it to the back of the jewel. I was afraid the glue might not come out clear even though the package said it would so I just glued the edges to be safe. Here are a few pictures of the process. I think it turned out really good and I like the end result better than any etching I’ve seen thus far.

Doesn’t that look nice? It gives the Xbox a nice custom look. Yet it’s not quite flashy enough. What can we co too make it stand out more? That’s right, light it! How you may ask? Well what I found is the easiest way, is also the best way. Now that doesn’t happen very often. Well what is it? An 80mm cold cathode fan!



Adding a CCFL To The Jewel!:

This fan, which was generously provided by www.nwca.com is the perfect size to sit just outside the jewel. Thanks NWCA! Now we don’t want the fan just the cathode. The cathode is held on by 4 screws, just unscrew all 4 and off it comes. The protective plastic outside of the cathode itself is actually two pieces held together by the screws also, we cant keep the screws in the cathode due to space restrictions in the Xbox so I used clear packaging tape to hold the two halves together. The tape works perfect.

Now you got the cathode itself all prepped, but there is still a lot of work to be done to the wiring that plugs into the cathode. The wiring goes like this:

Molex > On/Off Switch > Inverter > Cathode

We don’t need to switch and it takes up a lot of space so were going to get rid of it. To get rid of the switch you have to cut the wires leading to both ends of the switch and connect them together. It’s a little hard to explain so look at the pictures and hopefully you’ll understand.


In addition to the switch I find the wires in between the two Molex connectors way too long so I decided to shorten them. Just cut the wires, solder together, and heat shrink and all that pointlessly long wire is gone! In the pic you see I used just electrical tape. I later switched it to heat shrink for a much nicer look.

Now the cathode is nicely prepped and all the wire chopping we did will save a considerable amount of space. Now we will mount the cathode and jewel. As I always do I will be using goop brand adhesive since it hold ANYTHING. Now would be a good time to glue the jewel in place too since its right there also. I didn’t glue all the way around just in 4 spots on eth cathode and 4 spots on the jewel. Make sure to place the jewel in right so the picture is forward when you look at the Xbox and you’re going to want to place the cathode to the wire faces the back of the Xbox since we will be showing the inverter back there in a little bit.

If you’re using Goop you won’t need much as this stuff is STRONG. It will dry good enough to handle in about an hour but be gentle, it will take about 24 hour to completely cure so be careful if your handling it prior to that 24 hours. I don’t know about you but I’m anxious to see how this thing looks so I’m going to plug the cathode into the inverter and hook it up to me PC too give myself a little bit of a preview.

Doesn’t that look nice? Now we have to find a place to put the inverter and a way to get it power while still keeping the top of the Xbox still able to close! With the motherboard and DVD drive in you can see there is a good sized gap in between the two. Luckily for us there is more than enough room in there to fit an Inverter and some molex connectors. There are 2 ways to get power to the inverter. One way would be to use the molex that the HDD uses. Another way, the way I chose, would be to add another power lead from the power supply itself. The reason I chose to add a power lead is mainly because it will make the wiring cleaner and easier. It’s a real pain to string another connector to the hard drive lead because of the limited space for the molex directly behind the HDD. It can be done, but I think it is much easier to add one.

First off you will need a molex to attach to the PSU. I ripped this one form an old power supply and I got rid of the red wire (5V) and its ground. The lights all only use 12v so adding a 5v wire just makes things that much more complicated. The less wires and the less soldering the better I always say. Now if you remember when I shortened the wires for the cathode I left the 5v and its ground there. I later removed them, but if you plan on wiring the lights off the HDD molex you will need to leave them as the HDD uses the 5v lead. Below are pics of my re-modified cathode molex and the connector we will be adding to the PSU unit.

Now where to solder the new connection? Just follow the yellow (12v) and the black (ground) back to the PSU and check where they end up on the pcb. If you have a multi-meter, use it to verify the visual. I have indicated where I soldered in the pics below.

After its soldered you can use electric tape to cover the solder spots and another piece a tape to keep it going out the side it’s supposed to go out. Bending the solder spots too much will cause them to break so taping it down will keep it in 1 place.


Now you can go ahead and test to make sure everything fits under the DVD drive, but if you followed my instructions, it will. That lighted jewel definitely adds a unique lighting effect that you won’t see very often.

Pls post pictures of your finished modded jewel on this thread as I'm sure we would all be interested in other people's ideas and talents.
 
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TadaenSylvermane

Full Member
May 5, 2005
79
0
Tucson Arizona
all that sanding... just get a can off brasso brass cleaner and a few paper towels... takes maybe 5 mins if you drag ass on it
 
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