Play anything from NES to Xbox with the Skittlespider A.T.S aka "The Contraption"

Step 7 Xbox

For the Xbox, I was able to separate all of the main parts like I did with the Playstation. This worked out very easily and was probably the easiest system to work with. (It surprised the heck out of me, I figured Microsoft would make taking this apart a difficult process) Not only was every main part separate, but most of the wires were about twice the length they needed to be.

Before you do anything regarding mounting the XBOX, go ahead and take the Gamecube out. I put mine in a Wal-Mart bag to keep the finished parts together, safe, and separate from the other systems. Then I put that bag in a safe place.

The first thing I did was to test and make sure that the system worked outside of its case. To avoid the static electricity of my carpet, I put everything onto a piece of cardboard.

The hardest part of putting this into the case was finding places for all of the parts. To make sure there was enough room, I put all of the other systems into place. Then I arranged the parts of the Xbox in a way that made sense. For some parts there was only one place it could go, because of space constraints. However, most parts were able to be put anywhere I wanted.

The main board went on the bottom of the monitor case. The bottom was a perforated metal plate. I had hoped to simply use the existing holes to mount the main board, but unfortunately they didn't line up. I could have tried to drill through the metal, probably made a mess of things, and broken my drill bits. But instead, I made some standoffs out of epoxy by molding it around the screws and pushing the motherboard onto the metal plate.

After the main board was secured and in place, I plugged in the cd drive and hard drive. Then the best way to attach the cd drive seemed to be to stick it to the back of the case and have it open through the side. The hard drive fit nicely underneath the cd drive. The hard drive also seemed to help support the cd drive. (Sorry for the repeated use of the word "drive" in this paragraph.)

All that was left at this point, was to find a spot for the power supply board, the power/eject buttons, and the controller ports. There was a nice flat surface at the bottom of the side panel right next to the main board. So I put the controller ports in a line down there. I put the power/eject buttons above those. There was some extra space on the side next to the NES, so I figured that would be a nice spot.

Then I went through the process of taking everything out of the case again. After that I cut some holes for the last time. These were the easiest cuts to make too. A rectangle for the disk drive, two holes for the buttons, and a series of small rectangles for the controller plugs.

I had one problem though. When I measured the distance for the power/eject buttons, I had them upside down. When I flipped them to be correct, the wires were facing the wrong way. I had to extend them by a few inches. I used an old ribbon cable from a broken stereo as the source of the wire extensions. Then I simply twisted the wires together and put electrical tape on to cover up the exposed copper. To be accurate, I only worked with one wire at a time. That way I did not accidentally cross any wires. I plugged everything in and re-tested it. Both buttons still work, so I did a good job.

Now you are finally almost ready to put everything inside of the monitor case!

IMPORTANT - Do not actually attach any parts yet! If you do, you will be getting everything all messy when you cut the holes for the other systems. You might even ruin the XBOX all together.