Change the color of your Xbox 360 ring of light from dull green to any mix of colors you can imagine. Having a modified ring of light is a beautiful and fun mod to create, and will impress any guests who view your Xbox 360.
This guide requires being comfortable with soldering, and the disassembly of your Xbox 360. The LEDs used are very small (about the size of a few grains of salt) and though this instructable does not require absolutely steady hands, it does demand patience. You will be operating on a $300 piece of hardware, and though it is highly unlikely you will break your Xbox 360, is it possible to irreparably damage the LED solder points on your wireless board making that light inoperable.
*** I claim no liability for any damages or injuries that occur while following these instructions. Attempting this mod will void your Xbox 360s warranty, and you can sustain injury through the use of lead-based solder inhalation and an extremely hot soldering iron. ***
This guide requires being comfortable with soldering, and the disassembly of your Xbox 360. The LEDs used are very small (about the size of a few grains of salt) and though this instructable does not require absolutely steady hands, it does demand patience. You will be operating on a $300 piece of hardware, and though it is highly unlikely you will break your Xbox 360, is it possible to irreparably damage the LED solder points on your wireless board making that light inoperable.
*** I claim no liability for any damages or injuries that occur while following these instructions. Attempting this mod will void your Xbox 360s warranty, and you can sustain injury through the use of lead-based solder inhalation and an extremely hot soldering iron. ***
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Signing UpStep 1: Parts Needed
This is a listing of the parts required to accomplish this case mod. This is a simple list of easily accessible parts.
Soldering Iron ($10) - These can be purchased at many hobby stores, I used a 15 watt model from Radioshack.
Solder ($4) - I recommend Silver Rosin Core Solder, the silver helps create a strong joint and the rosin eases the flow of solder between components. A smaller diameter works better for this project (.020 - .026).
Copper Soldering Braid ($3) - Used to remove excess solder. This is necessary for cleaning the terminals where the old LEDs were on the wireless board. You put it over the excess solder, apply your soldering iron to the braid, and the excess is absorbed into the braid.
Tweezers ($3) - These are absolutely necessary to do this project. They will hold the SMD LEDs, align them in the proper direction, and make it possible to solder the LED without it blowing away or tipping over. Purchase the flattest tweezer tips you can, if they are round the LED will just shoot off.
Xbox 360 Wireless Board (Cost of an Xbox 360) - Comes with any Xbox 360, contains the Player 1-4 LEDs, power LED, and wireless antenna.
Support/Holder - I used a thumbtack box, you can use whatever object suits your needs. A suitable holder should be about 1-2 inches off of the ground, and be able to keep your wireless board flat and immobile. Other objects can be small bowels, cups - whatever your can find.
0603 SMD LEDs (~$ 0.30 per LED) - Choose whatever colors you wish, I selected a different color for each LED to match my controllers. No matter how careful or skilled you are, you will waste/lose many LEDs so be sure to purchase extras. The brighter the LEDs the better, the difference between a 150mcd brightness $0.22 and a 500mcd $0.37 LED is worth the extra cost.
***Purchasing 0603 SMD LEDs***
It can be hard to purchase individual quantities of these LEDs at low prices. My favorite retailer is Unique LEDs. They have a very wide selection of difficult to find LEDs at excellent prices.
Having your Xbox 360 vertically or horizontally oriented makes a difference. When turned vertical the four player LEDs are rotated one to the left, keep this in mind if you want to modify your controller LEDs as well, as they use the same SMD 0603 LEDs and the orientation can become mismatched.
For the specific LEDs I purchased, each color is:
800mcd White - Power Button
500mcd Red - Player 1
380mcd Blue - Player 2
130mcd Amber (Yellow) - Player 3
200mcd Pure Green - Player 4
Soldering Iron ($10) - These can be purchased at many hobby stores, I used a 15 watt model from Radioshack.
Solder ($4) - I recommend Silver Rosin Core Solder, the silver helps create a strong joint and the rosin eases the flow of solder between components. A smaller diameter works better for this project (.020 - .026).
Copper Soldering Braid ($3) - Used to remove excess solder. This is necessary for cleaning the terminals where the old LEDs were on the wireless board. You put it over the excess solder, apply your soldering iron to the braid, and the excess is absorbed into the braid.
Tweezers ($3) - These are absolutely necessary to do this project. They will hold the SMD LEDs, align them in the proper direction, and make it possible to solder the LED without it blowing away or tipping over. Purchase the flattest tweezer tips you can, if they are round the LED will just shoot off.
Xbox 360 Wireless Board (Cost of an Xbox 360) - Comes with any Xbox 360, contains the Player 1-4 LEDs, power LED, and wireless antenna.
Support/Holder - I used a thumbtack box, you can use whatever object suits your needs. A suitable holder should be about 1-2 inches off of the ground, and be able to keep your wireless board flat and immobile. Other objects can be small bowels, cups - whatever your can find.
0603 SMD LEDs (~$ 0.30 per LED) - Choose whatever colors you wish, I selected a different color for each LED to match my controllers. No matter how careful or skilled you are, you will waste/lose many LEDs so be sure to purchase extras. The brighter the LEDs the better, the difference between a 150mcd brightness $0.22 and a 500mcd $0.37 LED is worth the extra cost.
***Purchasing 0603 SMD LEDs***
It can be hard to purchase individual quantities of these LEDs at low prices. My favorite retailer is Unique LEDs. They have a very wide selection of difficult to find LEDs at excellent prices.
Having your Xbox 360 vertically or horizontally oriented makes a difference. When turned vertical the four player LEDs are rotated one to the left, keep this in mind if you want to modify your controller LEDs as well, as they use the same SMD 0603 LEDs and the orientation can become mismatched.
For the specific LEDs I purchased, each color is:
800mcd White - Power Button
500mcd Red - Player 1
380mcd Blue - Player 2
130mcd Amber (Yellow) - Player 3
200mcd Pure Green - Player 4
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I fixed an old RROD xBox I had in my closet for my daughter and changed the LEDs to pink. It's so awesome!
The RROD will not show if it happens again unfortunately. You could always solder another LED from the + to the red - but that would be tedious work.
Thanks a lot for the great tutorial.
As far as other colour choices, it was pretty much Amber/Green, Blue/Red, or the original Green/Red.
Thanks again!
\
the other \ are the original leds but they were red coool???!?!?!?!?!?!
/
it works and all but makes me wonder what made it do that........
Antennas don't have to be a pole/stick, they can be any shape of metal. Like on the iPhone, there are multiple antennas, including the metal ring that goes around the rim of the case, and the little metal circle circle inside the headphone jack.
The metal plate is just a thin piece of aluminum that sends and recevies signals sent from the little black chip on the right.
The silver component or gray box you have been referring to hovers the PCB and its stubs. It has a small film of aluminum which is a Ferromagnetic material. These materials contain iron and can manipulate electromagnetic waves being introduced into the material. So its purpose is to produce a much larger flux density in the signal waves that are sent by a controller.
The small stub antennas require a flux density great enough to induce voltage at each point. This allows smaller signals to be sent by the controller, which means less power usage and batteries last longer on your controller.
i ended up using the square board as a PCB for a electronics project, had the surface been rougher it wouldve been a lot easier to solder to..
# Dual inverter
# Compatible with Sound control module
# Tube diameter: 3.0mm
# Tube length: 300mm/100mm
# Input voltage of inverter: 12v
# Output voltage of inverter: 680v
# Current draw: 5.0mAv
# Brightness: 28,000~30,000 cd/m?
# Lifetime: 30,000 hours
# Current draw: 5.0mAv
# Brightness: 28,000~30,000 cd/m?
# Lifetime: 30,000 hours
Will they draw too much power and heat things up? I have an old core system and i'm worried about heat.
Also, to calculate power consumption, do i use input or output voltage? One is tiny amount of power, the other is huge... i asume input, but better safe than sorry.
For calculating power, you use watts. Volts * Amps = Watts. This on e is kind of weird actually, because they are trying to use marketing languageto make it sound like it's really complicated and has a ton of numbers that matter.
Let's just try both equations.
12v * 0.005 A = .06 Watts, hmmm, that is just too low to sound accurate.
680v * 0.005 A = 3.4 Watts, now that sounds like a good number.
Actually, despite all those numbers they threw in there, they are basically lying or omitting the current draw of the inverter - there is absolutely no way the inverter is drawing 5mA. When you boost the voltage, it comes at the cost of amperage, and vice versa. You can't take in 5mA, then transform (as in transformer) the voltage 56 times over, and still be drawing 5mA.
I hope that little electricity lesson helps.
What? No, you want the Xbox to stand horizontally like this _ not like this |. Making it vertical blocks the main ventilation port on the bottom/right side of the Xbox. Watch my video on ventilation for the Xbox to really see how to keep it from overheating.
If you're really paranoid about overheating, go purchase some Talismoon Whisper fans, they move twice the volume with half the noise. Or if you're desperate, you can always solder a 12v fan mod to make your system sound like a jet taking off, with the result of 45C GPU temps.
I'm rambling here, sorry for the short novel.
As far as Microsoft banning for fan mods, nobody knows the full methodology they use for issuing bans. We know it is done delayed (except JTAG keyvaults which are instant, but can take up to 45 minutes to detect), and also done in waves. We know it is possible for MS to measure the voltage, as well as your temperature sensors. As far as Microsoft banning users for a fan mod, I've never heard of such a thing on any Xbox-modding forums or IRC channels I stay on. DVD flashes and JTAG mods yes, fan mods, unlikely. MS wants to stop piracy and hacks on Xbox Live, not kids playing with their fans or changing the LEDs on the RF board.
Now for a GPU malfunctioning because it is too cold, lol. Air cooling alone will only take the chip down to room temperature, and if you know anything about overclocking, while they end up destroying chips because of the high clock rates, they still run just fine at -200C (Though really, CPU and JPU junction temps are meant for running between 1-99C). Lowering the GPU to 10C (which is not possible without water-cooling or a freezing house) will not cause it to malfunction. Most 360 GPUs idle at around 45-55C.
Since you are fixed on installing a fan in your 360 to cool it down, you might as well go all the way. First off, you don't install your extra 90mm fan on the side, you install it on the plate panel of the 360, blowing air sideways (from a vertical position). That requires making your DVD drive external though. Or you can purchase a 160mm or 200mm fan, and cut a massive hole in the side of your 360 and mount it on top. Looks horrible, but no worse than a 90mm sticking on the side; all cooling problems are solved.
200mm @
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=727087
You can also buy custom heatsinks on the Scenyx Buy/Sell/Trade forums.
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=723225
I will also put a filter on the fan to decrease the amount of dust being blown in.
This will improve airflow and make the Xbox last longer in my mind. I like your idea of putting a large fan on the top, you are correct in possibly having to move the DVD drive, that shouldn't be a problem, it only requires a SATA cable and I will have to somehow find/make a cable for power to the DVD drive. Do you mind if I use your idea? I don't want to steal it and look like a copycat/soul-and-idea-stealer.
I'll either use the fan idea on the top, or I will put a large Xbox logo there instead and have plexiglass shining through along with green CCFL's. What would be great is putting one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835200055 but possibly a little smaller (maybe 120mm) and with green LED's UNDER the Xbox logo (which will have wider slits in it than the regular Xbox logo.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Iron-Man-Xbox-360/
just watch the vid and its the blinking leds around the middle light
Both the controller and RoL access their electricity from a 3v line, no resistors are needed. The power is drawn from silver square terminals that the LEDs are soldered to. The Xbox 360 controllers use the same SMD (Surface Mounted Device) LEDS that this guide uses, so the match is fine. For the RoL, Microsoft uses bi-color (red and green) right-angle SMD LEDs that are hard to obtain. Nonetheless, 0603 SMD LEDs still work as replacements. The LED size is 0603, and they are just as small. If you have any further questions, feel free to leave a comment.
so the way i see it, when and if you have the rrod, no leds would light up?
i have soldered 0603's before, i never knew that there was a symbol on the bottom pointing at the negative, i always just had a battery with multimeter leads connected to it to test them.
great job, i especially like the blue player led,it looks good with the white paint on the case.
5*s
There is a semi-solution though. Since the 360 has a common positive, and two negatives (green and red), you can bridge the red, green, and negative 0603 leads together. In normal operation, only the green lights will ever turn on, to mark powering up or controller numbers. In failed operation, like a RRoD, as long as no controllers are connected, it should display an error code, but the color won't be any different.
Hope that helps, and thanks for the thanks.
Also, Im going to paint all my xbox stuff black and chrome, and cut a window in the side and the disk drive and light it with leds and change the rings on the box and controllers, and I was wondering, Red or Blue?
As far as lights, I suggest red. I've had my system be lit with blue CCFLs, and blue LED lit controllers, and I am now more of a fan of red. The red is more calming, looks more bright and last longer in the controllers (blues tend to become dim when batteries hit 40%). So, simple suggestion: red. Good luck with your project, when you finish it, please post some pictures so I can see how it turns out, I would love to see your results, and any neat tricks you may have learned from the project.