I haven' t been playing much in the way of games lately. Winter' s usually the time when I get some of my better inspiration for modding, however up until this winter I had nowhere to actually do any of my work. It' s too cold to paint outside, and I really dislike working with power-tools in the frigid cold.

I' ve managed to convince the owner of a heated auto shop to let me use one of their bays in the off hours, so I' ve now got an outlet for my creativity over the winter!

This particular piece is the enclosure of a 360 hard drive, for Torr. This is going to be the finishing touch on his box. It' s just been sitting in my house for quite a while, waiting to be painted.




That' s what this beast looked like before painting. I had to work through 2 layers of older paint to get down to smooth primable plastic. Some of you might have noticed that this is actually the HDD lid from my old modded 360, the black & yellow one.

I wetsanted, primed, threw on 2 layers of flat black, and a dusting coat of candy apple red. My original plan was to surface mount the window I cut, but that fell through when I realized that I didn' t have the patience to file that tiny piece of plexiglas for hours on end.[:' (]

The final effect is black & red speckled if you can' t see it. The macro settings on my camera suck.






Ignore all those smudges on the plexi, that' s all getting cleaned up & rubbed out.

My plan is to back light it with some red LEDs, but that requires a trip up to Radio Shack, so that' s probably not going to happen this week. I' ll keep this updated as the project progresses.

Why would anyone customize a console again? A person could completely trick out a bicycle but he' d still be riding a bike. Not only would it be a bike but it would have the same measurements as all the other bikes.

It' s fun to do, it makes the item more personal because you had a hand in it, it shows talent, often times makes it look cooler, etc...

I think it looks pretty cool Eddie. What does your 360 look like altogether these days?

What does your 360 look like altogether these days?

Like that.

It' s deader than Elvis. Although it used to look like



that.

Why would anyone customize a console again?

It' s not just about a slick paint job and a window. The 360 this is going in also has aftermarket Talismoon fans that blow air faster and quieter than stock, and an overhauled cooling system (modified cooling vents and a fan mounted on the front of the CPU).

Some other nifty (and practical) things you can do via modding.

-Install a VGA port. No spending $40 on overpriced MS junk.
-Install a SATA port on your hard-drive. No more space issues.... ever.
-Upgrade your original 20GB HDD to a 120GB, for $100 less than Microsoft wants.
-Internalize your wireless adapter.
-Internalize your HDD.
-Make your own 360 power-brick out of a 250 watt PSU.
-Add an XBL or HDD activity light.
-Dampen the noise your 360 makes, without risking overheating.

-And my personal favorite... the X-Clamp mod.

If it weren' t for modding, the stable fully-repaired Xbox 360 would not exist.

If it weren' t for modding, the stable fully-repaired Xbox 360 would not exist.

You mean like yours? If you didn' t void the warrenty you could have sent it in for a replacement. Even if your 360 didn' t die of RROD, you wouldn' t be able to predict that. If I modded my first 360 I would be 400$ poorer (plus the costs of the mods) from having to buy another 360.

-Install a VGA port. No spending $40 on overpriced MS junk.
-Install a SATA port on your hard-drive. No more space issues.... ever.
-Upgrade your original 20GB HDD to a 120GB, for $100 less than Microsoft wants.
-Internalize your wireless adapter.
-Internalize your HDD.
-Make your own 360 power-brick out of a 250 watt PSU.
-Add an XBL or HDD activity light.
-Dampen the noise your 360 makes, without risking overheating.

Waste of time. Don' t get me wrong if you like that kind of stuff, then more power to ya. You haven' t convinced me with these gimicks though. My point is, if I' m going to spend time modding something, I' d do so with something valuable. Or at least something that won' t die on me in a few months.

You mean like yours? If you didn' t void the warranty you could have sent it in for a replacement. Even if your 360 didn' t die of RROD, you wouldn' t be able to predict that. If I modded my first 360 I would be 400$ poorer (plus the costs of the mods) from having to buy another 360.

No, I couldn' t have. My warranty was long gone when I opened mine to mod it, and their recent 3-year unconditional warranty didn' t, and still doesn' t apply to me, or anybody else who' s 360 died from something other than a Red-Ring of Death. I had a faulty ANA scaler that' d started acting up a couple months before it died. Whether I modded it or not is irrelevant.

Bottom line, the 360 that I' m working on now was non-functional when I got it.

I voided the warranty, repaired it, modded it, and it' s been running like a dream, cooler than stock for the past 3 months. Ask Torr if you don' t believe me.

If I modded my first 360 I would be 400$ poorer (plus the costs of the mods) from having to buy another 360.

Why? Was yours not the regular old GPU failure? (or something else equally fixable).

I' d like to make my 360 look really cool because I like beautiful things.
I want to do it myself but I' m no modder so I want to stick to simple things.
So how do I start? Take a brush and paint a cute little flower on it?
And what about the warranty? Do I break it just for painting some stuff on the surface?

No, you don' t void the warranty for applying anything to the outsides. Stickers, paint, diamonds... you' re covered. However, my suggestion to you is to start with faceplates. They' re cheap, they' re a solid color, and if you don' t like the result when you' re done? You give it away & never look at it again.

You can do some absolutely amazing things to your 360 without ever touching that little silver sticker.

Take a look at SpaceGhost2K from the TeamXbox forums.
http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=529128

Or Pavel Doglov
http://paveldolgov.com/faceplates.

Their work is absolutely amazing. Lemme know if you' re seriously interested in doing some cosmetic work though. I can throw you some links, & hammer out some tutorials to get you going in the right direction.

Eddie_the_Hated You are a talented man no doubt.

Yeah, I like the finish on that hard drive cover.

Eddie is a god among ants.

Wow those faceplates were inspirational. I' d really like to do something ith my 360, although I don' t know what. And I doubt I' ll come close to those nice ones but it should still be fun.
Think I' ll wait until next month with something like that though since it' ll soon be christmas and all. I could give myself a faceplate as a christmas gift and then celebrate the new year by painting it. Hmm, sounds like aplan to me