X3CP Compatibility with IR mod?

[tikiboy]

I'm waiting patiently for a crystal X3CP, but in the meantime I have a question. How exactly will the USB ports be "grafted" to the 3rd and 4th controller ports? Is that something you guys took care of with a wire harness, or is that something the end user has to figure out for himself?

I'm just wondering because I'm planning on doing the Internal DVD Dongle mod (the nice one that doesn't involve tampering with the yellow wire), where a relay senses if a controller is in port 4 or not and switches between the controller and dongle. Should I hold off on this until the panel is out, or will it still work? (I guess it could still switch, but it depends on what your USB ports are doing)

Or should I just hook the dongle up to port 2 so you don't have to deal with this?

 

[Gek025]

I've been playing with the idea of installing an internal DVD dongle but havn't been able to find any tutorials. If you could, would you point me in the right direction. Very interested in this, and actually interested in what you had brought up in the post about compatibality with the CP

P.S. Sorry for the Noob question but what does "IR" stand for?
i did a search in the encyclopedia and only came up with IGR

Gek025

 

[tikiboy]

IR - Infra-Red. Has to do with the type of light remotes use to work.

Yeah, my main concern is how many times can you split into one port? I'm pretty confident that even if the X3CP uses a relay to disable the USB ports when a controller is plugged in to port 3 or 4, no matter how they set it up, I should be able to put a relay before that for the dongle mod. But I'm curious about how they plan to set up regardless.

By the way, the tutorial you're looking for is here.

 

[Gek025]

I read somewhere that USB1 can piggyback 128 devices, and USB2 can piggyback something like 256. So yes to you question. And you shouldn't have any problem hooking it all up to one port. stick with the 3,4

 

[tikiboy]

I think with Xbox though there's no way for it to intelligently switch devices. (That's why there's a mod that has to do with switching automatically instead of just expanding the number of ports)

 

[tikiboy]

Ok, this is kind of unrelated, but there are a lot of people who seem to know what they're talking about here, so here goes:

Is there a reason there's always a tinted filter over an IR receiver? Does it help filter out interference from other frequencies of light? (Because I've looked at some of them with NightShot on a camcorder, and they practically disappear.) If I were to just stick the dongle in my Crystal case, would I need that filter on it yet?

 

[hwoBU]

tikiboy,

The purpose of the filter is to prevent the IR detector from being overloaded with the ambient light in a room, including general lighting, reflections from a TV's output, and sunlight to name a few.

Therefore the answer to your question about whether you need the filter in order for it to work is possibly not, however, the performance & responsiveness will improve by having the filter inplace & blacking out the sides and back around the filter/IR detector assembly, much as the dongle itself was designed. 8)

 

[tikiboy]

That's kind of what I thought; I just didn't have time to really research it.

So would you suggest keeping the front half of the dongle in place when I put it in my case? Or at least keeping the filter in place and otherwise sealing it?

 

[hwoBU]

The method of sealing around the lens and detector assembly is entirely up to you. The easiest of course would be to leave the dongle intact. Other options include an opaque epoxy, tape, caulk, or anything else to fill the void and block outside light. Be sure that you don't cover the detector or the lens, because the IR light still has to be able to pass through to the detector.

Please note however, that any chemical compound applied to a circuit board runs the risk of damaging the electrical traces by either corroding them or shorting one trace to another. This includes the adhesive compound applied to the back side of tape. You will have to make the decision at your own risk.

That warning aside, it's entirely up to you depending on the appearance you desire in your xbox.

Another option would be to use a separate IR receiver and emitter combination (probably not the best investment, unless you're applying similar emitters to other A/V equipment). These additional IR devices are available at several home automation sites as well. I will not recommend any particular site. A google search for home automation should produce satisfactory results in locating that type of equipment. This option would allow you to mount the sensor on a portion of the xbox which would be hidden from casual viewing of the xbox.

 

[hwoBU]

On a separate note, here's a link I ran accross if you're still looking for a crystal xbox. http://www.customxbox.net/

 

[thexboxaddict]

im doing the same mod you should just do it to controller port 2 to make it easier on yourself. Im hoping that i can keep the dongle pcb behind he hard drive and move the eye next the the were the x3 IR is going to be.