Xbox Modding

Since my friend Craig got an Xbox, I have been helping him mod it. I seem to be the undisputed king of Dremel around here, and my tool collection is pretty comprehensive. So, in went a Xecuter 2.1 Lite modchip, amd a whole world of possibilities appeared for this harmless looking console. It now plays videos, mp3s and picture slide shows from any machine in the house over the network. You can store files on its 10Gb internal disk and it has a built in FTP server for this purpose.

Clear Jewel

Next was the jewel. Once the bottom torx screws have been removed (hidden under the feet and the stickers) the top of the case can be removed. Then we removed the upper heatshield and I cut away some of the plastic under the center of the jewel, using a burr on my trusty dremel. With care, cut a circle out from under the center of the jewel, about the size of a penny, taking a little out at a time. Stop once you see white or green in the cut as this is the underside of the jewel.

Using a hot air gun (hair dryer on steroids) the glue under the jewel is loosened and then the jewel can be pushed off through the hole created. Take care to not overheat the jewel and cause damage in this step. The hot air gun i used was a professional one whic gets up to 500degC at the element and caused the b of Xbox to go a little dull. You have been Warned.

Once the jewel pops off, clean the adhesive off the back and you are left with the green underside. An orbital sander was used to remove the green paint from the underside of the jewel quickly. You could use sandpaper and elbow grease, but if I can find a noisy power tool to do a job what the hey, use it. Placing the orbital upside down in a vice and using a fine sandpaper the jewel could be placed on the moving bed and this takes the paint of easily. Just wear gloves and keep a good hold of the jewel. Then the jewel is polished using finer grades of wet and dry until no real effect can be seen in continuing. I used 600 and 1200 grit, using the 1200 grit dry first and then soaked in water and a little detergent like fairly liquid. At this point, the jewel can be painted in any color and refitted - or you can get it clearer still. The final stage i used was a bottle of brasso liquid and a soft lint free cloth (yellow duster :-). Took about half an hour to get the jewel really clear. Now its time to enlarge the hole underneath the jewel before refitting it

The dremel came out again, and the hole in the top of the case is enlarged until only enough plastic remains to support the jewel. This was done using a burr to cut the plastic until there was a little plastic left, around 1 to 1.5mm and then tidied up using a small grinding stone. This gives us a clear view into the innards of the xbox which is nice.

Our new site is , and it well worth a look if you want to mod your xbox. Full tutorial on the cathode installation is available there as well.

Craig's Xbox now has a cold cathode illuminated jewel, Red power and Modchip LED's, power switch in the controller and a glowing green xbox logo on the controller. Mine is still stock, but its on the list of things to mod.....