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Can an Xbox 360 be "portablized"?

I love videogames. I am going to buy an xbox 360 soon. The only problem is that i want to be able to play in the car, in the backyard, wherever without having to mess with a buncle of cables and a huge TV. This gave me an idea. A modder named Ben Heck (http://www.benheck.com) creates portable game consoles from existing ones. I could possibly use the motherboard and extend the ports, put it in an aluminum suitcase, and use an LCD computer monitor for the screen in the lid. I already have most of the materials I need, but I have a few minor concerns. I don't want the unit to overheat leaving me with a dead xbox. I don't know what resolution LCD monitor I should try to get. And I'd like to know if it's possible to hook up a battery that could power the completed unit. Can anyone give me some advice?

30 answers
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Apr 7, 2009. 11:36 PMfrollard says:
easiest 'monitor' hookup would be hdmi. If you get a computer monitor with speakers, or hd lcd tv that can handle hdmi, go for it. To prevent overheating, keep your heatsinks adequately sized, and make sure the 'briefcase' has no less fan power (in cubic feet/min) than the original xbox did. One nice thing about this is you can hook up a standard sata hard drive, you dont have to use the special ones that cost so much.
Aug 19, 2011. 6:30 PMIwantbigboom says:
use a box housing all the electronics and use a hmd to see the game and make some mods to the controller for the hmd and put the box housing the electronics on a back pack.
Aug 19, 2011. 6:27 PMIwantbigboom says:
use a hmd (head mounted display).
Apr 20, 2009. 6:12 PMfrollard says:
Thats the first step! You just need the measurements of all the parts inside - and then figure a way to make them all fit!
Apr 21, 2009. 6:36 AMfrollard says:
it looks to have a fair amount of wattage dissipation ability - for large quantities of not very high heat, these are good - like on big electric motors, they are a tradeoff between surface area and ruggedness.
Apr 22, 2009. 4:09 PMfrollard says:
That thing is gigantic!!! it would be good to power an air-hockey table...or the likes :D
May 19, 2010. 7:44 AMabadfart says:
use a peter unit like the old imac you can get them out of powered car coolers
May 8, 2009. 5:30 PMthetech101 says:
http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2008-05/best-game-console-mods

Here you go. The second page has some simple instructions.
May 8, 2009. 5:33 PMthetech101 says:
Oh, and you can buy some lithium ion batteries online (some sites have AA sized batteries that run up to 6 W apiece) and make your own rechargable batteries. If you made the case big enough, you could play for hours on end.
May 13, 2009. 6:17 PMthetech101 says:
Give me a second and I'll look it up.
May 13, 2009. 6:45 PMthetech101 says:
OK, some quick searching on google found that an XBox 360 under maxed out conditions uses about 200 W per hour and a 17" LCD (the size Ben used) used about 40 or 50 watts per hour. So that's 250 watts per hour. (Please note that my laptop battery is only a 100 watt battery). You could up the size of the case to use a 20 inch LCD. It would consume more (up to 300 watts per hour) but since Ben was able to shoehorn it all into a case the size of a 17" LCD tv, you would have a lot of room for batteries. A standard 20 inch LCD is 19 by 15 (or pretty close). You would have an extra 94 cubic inches. The best battery I could find holds about 9 W and takes up 1.85 cubic inches. So you could fit up to 51 batteries. That type of pack could hold about 450 watts. This would give you about 1.5 hours of play time. It would be quite large, but well worth it. Note: I over rated the power usage to give you real world expectations. If all you do it watch DVD's with it, it would last nearly twice as long.
May 15, 2009. 4:04 PMthetech101 says:
Actually the part about the batteries isn't true. If I remember correctly, Ben had trouble fitting it all into his 17" sized laptop. You'll likely need at least a 16". You could just make it deeper than Ben's (he wanted to keep it as deep as the original xbox 360, but you may not want to limit yourself that way).
May 16, 2009. 6:18 AMthetech101 says:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Space-Saving-Computer-Monitor-and-Folding-Desk-Ide/

Check out this Instructable. I plan on following this one myself.

BTW, The xbox hack is a very good idea. I plan on doing the same thing but with a PS2 slim because it's much cheaper than the 360 and I own one already, so I have the games for it. Good luck getting the xbox.
Apr 8, 2009. 9:48 AMKasaron says:
The battery would be the raging issue. You may want to consider either a very large suitcase, a second battery pack, or having it so that it can connect to a external power source. Running that processor and the disk drives takes a good chunk of energy.
Apr 15, 2009. 1:40 AMjotism says:
if u use mommory units instead of an HDD then put the battery in the hdd hole.
Apr 16, 2009. 5:10 PMKasaron says:
Lithium ion batteries are the most reliable at this moment, but nickel cadmium have a better charge. problem is they hate being charged, and they lose power over their lifetime

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