My Portable Xbox is finally complete

[pb2themax]

I got the heatsink at CompUSA. I haven't been able to find it at their online store. It was called something like- Mirrored Copper Core Heatsink. I bought it at a walk-in store. I forgot the part #. I also applied Arctic Silver 5, just to go the extra mile.

It's held down by some custom bracketry, and a little Silicone RTV around the edges, for extra support. Since this thing is portable it gets handled, turned on its side, upside down, and moved around a lot. So I secured everything down extra good. It has worked flawless so far. This whole system is about 5 months old now.

This weekend I plan to add some better speakers to it. I got some small Altec Lansing computer speakers that can connect to the audio output of the LCD screen. I'll post some pics when it's done.

 

[RealestDeMo]

Little overkill on the cooling, lol. Even inside that case I'm sure it's nice and icy. That's a 250GB drive and you only have 55 games on it, you've only got 90GB left... I have a 200GB drive with more than 100 games and I got like 70 GB left... You should check out the file deletions http://rahszhul.jonmega.com/ and check out downsampling movies. It really helps.

 

[Derelict]

Wow!

That is absolutely gorgeous!

 

[pb2themax]

I've got all the wiring done for the speakers. Now I just need to mount everything and make it look good. The speakers that are built into the LCD screen are pretty weak. So I disabled them. Then I got some small satelite speakers from the Creative I-Trigue 3400 set of computer speakers. I'm just using the small speakers. Wish I had room for the sub, he he.






And to power the speakers I needed a small but powerful amplifier with some volume controls. So I took apart a nice set of Altec Lansing MX5020 speakers to strip out the amp and controls. The internal amp was a little bigger than I thought it would be. It actually has 2 circuit boards, and I had to separate the 2 boards about 5 inches apart to get it to fit where I want. The 2 boards were hard-wired together, so I had to unsolder them and connect them back together with 12 jumper wires.

Everything works and sounds great. The Doom 3 intro demo sounds sssweeeeet! I'm really happy with how it's turning out so far. It's going to be [email protected]$$ when it's all finished. I'll try to get it finished today or tomorrow and post some pics.

 

[threeballspin]

You are officially my Xbox modding hero. haha

 

[pb2themax]

Thanks.

I'm almost finished with the speaker addition. It's taking a little longer than I thought it would, because I keep stopping to listen to the speakers, ha ha. The Brothers In Arms opening demo sounds sweet!

Today I got the speakers mounted, and did a little more wiring. Because space is at a premium, I'm trying to keep the cables and wires as short as possible. I made some custom length Monster Cable s-video for the LCD and RCA cables for the speaker amp. Soldering s-video connectors is a little tedious. The connections are close, so you have to keep everything short and clean. I hope to have pics up tomorrow of the completed project.

 

[bradabutt]

Nice truck man. If I was to ever get rid of my Explorer, I'd get either a Tacoma, or a Tundra. Sounds cool what you are going to do. Good luck to you.

dude toyota sucks especially tacoma get achevy tahoe or blazer or better yet the avalanch or silverado way more ass to the rear wheels

 

[pb2themax]

dude toyota sucks especially tacoma get achevy tahoe or blazer or better yet the avalanch or silverado way more ass to the rear wheels

Hey noob, you're totally off of the subject and trying to Flame, but I'll entertain the subject.

05 Tacoma - Motor Trend Truck of the Year. Plus highest re-sale value by far.

No Chevys were even considered in the truck of the year 'contest'.

And I won't even comment on the sheer ugliness of the Assalanch.

If I wanted a full size truck I would've got a Hemi Ram or a F-250.

Even though I get a pretty nice GM discount, I won't even consider buying one. They make a good product, but the style doesn't appeal to me at all.

Now back to the subject...

 

[threeballspin]

Yeah, good choice with the Toy'. And Bradabutt, don't flame.

 

[pb2themax]

OK, finally I'm done with the speaker addition. The glue is still drying and the solder is still cooling . Just finished. It sound sweeeeeeet! I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

I added a bigger power supply for the LCD TV and then tapped into its 12 volt power to power the speaker amplifier. The small amp is just basically 2 circuit boards. It has volume, bass, treble, and headphones. You can't really see it in the picture, but the headphone jack is up close to the back of the Xbox case. I made a little cover out of ABS plastic to cover the circuit boards. The ABS has some wierd curves in it because of the shape of the circuit board. The circuit board is kind of shaped like a "C".

 

[EMAXX620]

nice

 

[wrboyce]

extremely nice mod dude. very well done, if you ever did want to sell it though, my advice would be to sell a replica, not the original, and nor for a fixed price, eBay.. you'd make a mint.

Regards

 

[pb2themax]

Yeah, I've been thinking about it. I could make them a lot cheaper if I just used a stock case, no extra fans, no XLCD, stock speakers, no wireless controllers. The hardest part though, is getting all of the parts together. I have to order the case from one guy, the LCD screen from another, the mod chip from another place, HDD from another place, switches and misc. stuff from another place. It takes a lot of time. I don't think I would sell one for less than $1k. I have a good job, work a lot, and my time is worth too much to me. I wish I was a kid again. I'd build these things all summer long.

If I was to sell my current setup I'd have to get at least $1600 for it. It's hard to put a price on an Xbox that has 60 games on the HDD. That's about $3000 worth of the just games.

 

[sparrowhawk]

If you ever put one of these things on ebay you could have some major trouble. They’re VERY strict about these things, no mod chips at all, ever notice? No you would have to do it some other way. Search the shops though you could probably end up buying from just like 2 or 3 places. I’ve done some case moding and it is some hard stuff if I were you I would charge parts and 15-20 bucks an hour at least…. Man I just can’t get over it, the speakers really top it off. One thing however the mod inside logo….. I don’t know never have liked it don’t know why. But that’s nothing you’re the man. Also I’m surprised nobody said anything about the wire covering to your hard drive that was very unique never seen anything like it, you pay attention to every detail and that’s what I like about this thing. I would say you deserve the respect from every moder out there. Keep on modin man

 

[pb2themax]

If you ever put one of these things on ebay you could have some major trouble. They’re VERY strict about these things, no mod chips at all, ever notice? No you would have to do it some other way. Search the shops though you could probably end up buying from just like 2 or 3 places. I’ve done some case moding and it is some hard stuff if I were you I would charge parts and 15-20 bucks an hour at least…. Man I just can’t get over it, the speakers really top it off. One thing however the mod inside logo….. I don’t know never have liked it don’t know why. But that’s nothing you’re the man. Also I’m surprised nobody said anything about the wire covering to your hard drive that was very unique never seen anything like it, you pay attention to every detail and that’s what I like about this thing. I would say you deserve the respect from every moder out there. Keep on modin man

Thanks.

If I put one on Ebay I'd have to be careful about the wording, and just get potential bidders to e-mail me for more detail, and then I could tell them all about the chip and stuff.

That stuff covering the HDD power wires is braided expandable wire loom. They make lots of different colors. It's like that Chinese finger trap stuff. I really wanted to hide the IDE cable by running it underneath the HDD, but I have a custom CPU heatsink with a fan on top of it, and also a HDD fan under there too.

 

[freakzilla3333]

Unfortunately though, ebay get 10% of what you sell it for, and if you use paypal, they also get 10%.

 

[pb2themax]

I sell lots of stuff on Ebay. And the Ebay fees are more like 5% and the PayPal fees are 3.1%. Which is not bad considering the amount of people that are able to view the auction. I've sold old used stuff on Ebay for more than I paid for it retail, brand new.

 

[bardie]

I think your xbox is sweeeet. I've been looking to do the same thing. I'm going camping with friends, no TV and no XBOX!!!!! So I have 3 months to get something sorted. Looks the job now the speakers are hooked up.

What are the dimensions of the case you have used?

 

[bardie]

Oh yeah. And how much does it weigh?

 

[pb2themax]

It weighs about 20 lbs . The Xbox and LCD screen are pretty heavy.

The exterior dimensions are 19" x 14.25" x 7.25"

It's a photography case. I got it on Ebay.