Modding my 360.

[35g700]

I've decided I'm going to mod my 360 by doing a number of different things to it. Here is what I would like to do:

-Paint it
-Do the hybrid X-clamp mod to it
-Get some red talismoon fans for my 360, so it improves airflow and looks cooler.
-Cut a hole in the metal part behind the fans to improve airflow and make the leds shine through
-Change the color of the LED's on the RF board
-Put pads inside the DVD drive and make it see through
-Cut a hole in it and put a see through Plexiglas cover over it (If I cant do this I will paint a crimson omen on it instead)
-Cut a hole in the DVD drive and make it see through
-Paint the wind tunnel.

I'm going to attempt to do all those mods to my 360.

I was talking to my dad and the top part of the xbox 360 shell has the metal shield thing on it, he said I should leave it the way it is because the shield is probably to stop RF from escaping the 360 and interfering with cell phones, wifi, montiors, people health etc. It makes sense to keep it shielded but isn't the RF board in the front unshielded? If I decide not to cut a hole in and put Plexiglas on it I wont make the DVD drive see through or paint the wind tunnel.

I have the Benq drive in my 360 and have not been able to find any kits to open the Benq drive and make it see through. Is it possible with the Benq drive?

Once I get further into modding this thing I will post pics.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I've run my 360 without the metal top (...or the case even, just the motherboard with fans and heatsinks) and it runs fine without them. No interference from anything I was using. The metal cover can be removed if you want to get rid of it, I keep mine in but disconnected it from the top piece so I could have the metal case closed without any of the plastic shell. The hybrid X-clamp mod is easy, the fan replacement will be really easy, cutting a hole in the fan vent will be easy, and painting should be fairly easy as long as you paint all the parts individually and use the right kind of paint.

However, cutting the case needs a bit more skill to get good and changing the Ring of Light LED's is going to be ridiculously hard. The RoL LED's are two-color (red and green) surface mount SMD LED's. First of all, if you get rid of them you lose the red light (error reporting) functionality. You won't get the RRoD ever, period, because the RRoD obviously relies on the red lights. However, if your console is broken, it will just not flash any lights and you won't be able to know what the error is.

As for DVD drive mods, be careful, if you mess up the drive mechanism things can go horribly wrong. For one, if the pads aren't lined up properly it will vibrate and make noise, possibly making the disc unreadable if the tracks vibrate too much. Also, cutting the drive will mean sharp edges, and you don't want the tops of your game discs getting scratched up on those edges, because they'll destroy the discs instantly. If you make clean cuts it should be good, just be careful.

 

[35g700]

Then I may not bother with changing the RoL or cutting holes in the DVD drive/padding it. I'm still unsure about cutting a hole in the xbox itself, my dad has all the tools Ill need but that hole RF thing kind of bothers me. I'll ask my PC Servicing teacher tomorrow see what he thinks about it, and if it is dangerous I'll just make spray paint a crimson omen on the thing and see how that looks.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

Putting holes in the 360 case is no different than putting a plexiglass window in a PC...and PC's have a lot more stuff to cause interference, they have more motors, more magnetic stuff, more complex motherboards, graphics cards, etc. The hard part is cutting the case well, if you mess up it'll look bad and you only get one try. I like the look of the 360 as is so I don't want to mess it up trying to cut holes in it but I've seen a lot of people who made nice looking ones.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

If you have money or want to, you can get cases from llama... They aren't perfect matchs, and need some mods, so you can always get one of them

Also if you do ANY cutting, make sure you use a decent dremel and keep the blades/bits COOL, or you will melt the plastic rather easily...

 

[35g700]

I've decided that I'm not going to put a window in it, I'm going to paint it black and then paint a crimson omen on it from gears of war. For the front faceplate I'm going to paint it black and have red memory cover slots/sync button/USB cover.

I'm not quite sure what color I should paint the bottom and top/HDD. I'm thinking I'll probably paint those red.

 

[35g700]

Here are some pics of what I have so far

Here is all the things I have painted red so far



Here is a close up of the HDD, I need to sand and repaint the inner part



Here is a close up of the bottom of the 360



Here is the front of the bottom of the white part



Here's the back (sorry for bad pics I cant get a good shot)





Still got to paint everything with satin enamel.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

IMO nice job.

 

[35g700]

I cut out a crimson omen and spray painted on a piece of cardboard as a test, it came out pretty good. I held down the paper with 2 pieces of tape so it wasn't held down all that well but when I do it to my 360 I will use a piece of paper that is a like a giant sticker and I will spend more time cutting it out.

here's the pic

 

[Gothch1ck]

nice ^.^

I like the red... hehe Red/black/silver are my favorite colours



oh and I think the metal shielding is more for electromagnetic problems then RF things, it was put there to help protect the box from dust and possible interference with the wireless remotes TO the box, but there are many cut cases that have had no mention of problems.


Although IMO, there's nothing really to look at inside... I mean.. there's not a lot of moving parts or Glowy LEDs or anything "fun" your just lookin into the machine... now if you mod it with some colours or something, and obviously change the PSU to get the extra glow going (or secondary power source) then sure, you'd have a good reason to show it off.. but really... it looks cooler in the dark to add some cathodes or something, on a separate power unit, and the Glows come through the cracks/holes in the case.

Or something like this:
http://aleptu.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/xbox-mod-cheif.jpg
or this:
http://aleptu.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/gears_of_war_mod_xbox_360.jpg

but notice the window on the second one, even seeing the disc, it's not really a big deal- it'll be spinnin most the time making 1 big color blur, which is not as cool as it sounds.