Xbox 360 Cold Cathode Lighting

Step 5 Placing CCFLs

Use electrical tape to bind up the excess wire you may have, and the picture below shows where the inverter and wire will sit.

Number One
The first CCFL will be located on the right side of the 360 (opposite where the DVD drive sits). Get a sharpie or other marker, and mark on the side of the steel chassis the white ends of the CCFL. Hot glue will go over the white plastic, as the glass tube itself can melt the hot glue and will fall off the case.

Place a large amount of hot glue onto your markings, and place the CCFL down into the blob, then apply glue on top as well, completely surrounding the white end with glue. The Xbox 360 should be on its side while the glue dries, once it is relatively solid you can move on.

Number Two (DVD Drive)
This is the most dangerous part of the install. The CCFL just barely fits in-between the leftmost legs of the DVD Drive, it is possible to crush the tube when reinserting the DVD drive. Seat the drive into the 360 as it would normally sit. From above, hold your CCFL over the gap and mark the ends. View the picture below for a better idea.

Like the first tube, glue the second CCFL to the side of the steel chassis with the DVD drive removed.

Comments

[AviatorFrosty]

hi just bought some UV cathodes for my xbox. i also bought a toggle switch with a Jet Fighter like Safety Cover. [Has three connections] What i wanna know is, can i somehow wire the cathodes to the switch so i can turn it on and off again? sorry if it's a noob question, tis just i don't know much about wiring switches :/ thanks for a great tut btw!

[QuackMasterDan]

I've never seen a blue one, looks awesome. As far as a switch, it is unbelievably simply. So there are always two wires, a positive and negative. Just pick a wire, cut, one end goes to one terminal, the second end to the other terminal. If you break the electricity on either the positive or negative wire, the circuit will be broken and power disconnected.

For the cold cathodes, you could take the red wire going to the 12v pin, cut it, one end to terminal 1, the other to terminal two.

With three connections, you can make it that both directions on the switch do something. This matters more for monitoring, so the third would be connected and say, "heya, the switch is disconnected/on", so don't worry about it.

Enjoy!

[AviatorFrosty]

Thanks Man, it works like a charm! If you want i'll upload some pics or something when it's finished...

[QuackMasterDan]

That would be great, I'd love to see how it turns out.

[SamK92595]

As far as i can tell, that is a light up switch, i have one of them, it is still a spst switch but the third one enables you to light up the top of the switch

[AviatorFrosty]

Oh ok thanks, i went with a different switch as the other one was way too bulky :/

[AviatorFrosty]

So.... took me ages :/

But it's finally done and here's some photos.

The picture is a geisha and was reverse-engraved on the plexi. The window was laser cut and i broke 2 cathodes..... >.

[ker-boom101]

I wish i had a laser cutter..... :'(
I have a dremel, but something about laser cutters...

[AviatorFrosty]

The RF Module LED's are Purple and the CCFLs are UV Purple, they make all the molex connectors, electrical tape and anything white glow, half of my room of a night is this amazing blueish purple color ;D

[QuackMasterDan]

That looks absolutely amazing, it puts my box to shame. I like the cuts on the DVD drive casing as well. I wish I had myself a laser cutter. Extremely well done!

[ZeroXL91]

Couldn't you just used double sided heat-resistant tape? Thats what I'm doing. This tut was great, I'll post a vid link on here If you want to see my modded xbox. 5/5 starsss! (Just change the method for cutting arcrylic off, the freezer one is better :P)

[QuackMasterDan]

Yeah, I suppose double-sided heat resistant tape might work. I don't have much experience with it, but the name "tape" I associate with not holding much weight for an extended time. I've only seen it used on small electronics, like holding down a wire in a laptop or a ribbon cable in a digital camera. I wouldn't like to shove my 360 into a backpack, take it on a plane, and find out the cold cathodes are bouncing around. I'll add in the freezer method.

[ZeroXL91]

Yeah, But it kinda acts like hot glue after awhile, gets sticky.

[SwampFox89]

Is there really not enough room in this section to leave the tube over the CCFL? I can see that the cubes need to be cut, but I would rathre not break anything else off that I don't really need to

[QuackMasterDan]

I don't believe its possible to install the 4" CCFL on the DVD drive side without removing the acrylic casing. On the opposite, blank side, you can likely even attach the tube with the cubes on. I always remove the acrylic entirely, once the system is assembled you never need to worry about them breaking.The only real risk of danger is once the DVD side CCFL has been glued in, and you are installing/removing the drive.