deathbox - back from the dead

denis6902

New member
Hello everyone,

First of all, i would like to mention that it is a honour to me, to be able to post my project here. I believe that this will be one of my firsts posts in here.

To begin with, i believe that it is fair enough to say a little bit about me, who i am and what i do, then i will tell you all about the project and so on.

My name is Denis Hildebrand, i was born in Brazil 1984. I came to UK in 2004 to do a volunteer work with special needs in a small community in Carmarthenshire (Wales). I had recently left high school and i was really puzzled on what to do next, so i though that going abroad for a year would help my head organise the thoughts. I stayed in Wales for almost for more then 12 months because i really liked the job and the people who around me. After that i had to go back home as my VISA expired and the home office does not give you more then 14 days to leave the country :eyes:

When back @ home i was still puzzled and still did not know what to study. So i decided to come back to UK, but to Aberdeen in Scotland, where this community movement (CAMPHILL) started back in 1939, in Scotland by Dr. Karl Koenig. I wanted to go to Aberdeen, because i apart of been a volunteer, i could also study B.A. in Curative Education which is a course provided by the University of Aberdeen. I always knew i liked crafts a lot, so i thought i go take the B.A.C.E. course and i could specialise in crafts, so i could be a craft teacher for special need children. During my volunteering in Wales, i done lots of crafts like woodwork, and mainly green woodwork which i taught the children. I really like to be involved in crafts, and for me there is no better feeling then being busy building something with my own hands.

I have been here in Aberdeen since january 2006, doing my volunteer work and studying at the same time. Not easy when i have to work everyday from 7am to 9pm with only saturdays off. Apart of working with very challenging children throughout the whole day, i spend most of my "free-time" (I have no free-time :duh doing lots of other things, like airbrushing skateboards to soldering stuff onto my xbox for example.

Since a year ago i have been quite unhappy with myself and with my own life, and i did not know why. After several talks with my personal tutor, i decided that i want to study industrial design and that i will leave UK in july 2009. After taking this decision my life change from water to wine, everything started to make more sense.

I love designing things on photoshop and recently i have been having a go on sketchup. I have never studied or been taught anything related to computers, i have always used my own interest and motivation in the subject to learn it myself. Goodness, if i really think deep about everything i learned by myself i would have to make a huge list, nevermind. My point is that Internet can be an mazing tool, if you know how to use it. Actually HOW TO is very often typed on my google search

The amount of information you can learn is endless, and i do spend a lot of hours reading project logs, latest hardware and technology reviews, and so on. I really like to be able to be a free student, so i can research about what i am interested or what i need to learn. Recently i have been very busy reading about electronics, how they work, what is what, how to wire leds, in parallel or in series for example.

Now that you all know a little more about me, time to move on to the project log. :stickpoke

End of 2008 i came across a mod made by thexboxexpert and i was fascinated on how this guy managed to watercool the xbox 100% internally, and as all 360's are so hot, i though ...i am going to do that on my xbox as well. Since i had just build my watercooled pc i though that watercooling the xbox would be quite nice. However i wanted to make a complete internal watercooling as it looks much nicer then having an external kit.

After endless searches about xbox modding, in the search for that small rad which i could find nowhere, i decided to talk straight to the source, and i contacted GlobalWin via emails so i could get hold of this radiator. Yes i got two of them!!!!!

Well...having the radiators does not solve the problem itself, i still had to do a lot, i mean really a lot of reading on watercooled 360's, until the day i though:

"Why not make a mod for modders?"

I really don't like the Lian-li replacement case, and it is very ugly and expensive, sorry i think i just hate it a lot. So i thought again:

"I can make a much better case for less the this ugly replacement thingy"

Then i downloaded sketchup and started to try to build something, but as i never got told how to use it, it was not really working, so off i go to google: How to .... / youtube can be handy sometimes too, the problem is that there is too much none-sense in youtube, but still helpful.

Since beginning of April i started to sketch the xbox mobo from scratch, i really sweated a lot, hard work when you are not 100% aware of all features of the program. Takes days to make something that can be made in 5 min. After making the mobo i started the case but then i realised it was all wrong, it was all in inches and i was taking notes in millimetres, you see what happens if not careful

After being so mad with myself i deleted the .skp file and started from scratch again, but different and better, as i got a brand new digital calliper which costed me almost all my pocket money. Yes pocket money, as i said before i am a volunteer and i get pocket money every month, yes i know it sucks but there is nothing i can do, i am always happy when my 160 comes in the beginning of the month :clap:. So with this brand new calliper which enables me to measure stuff with only 0.01mm error and sketchup set for mm instead of inches i started everything from zero.

I have been in holidays since the 3rd of april and i have slept very little since then. There has been several day which i went throughout the night in sketchup until 3pm no stop. I have done this 4 times already, working on the project with all my love, and when the children are back i will not have the time to finish that, so i have to get this design finish soon so i can go to BUILDING TIME!!! :coffee: can't wait!

I actually wanted to have started this log long ago, but i have been really busy and now things are only beginning to get even more busy, as i have to contact manufactures for sponsorships and partnerships. Can you help?

The 3D design is almost complete, at the moment i am trying to see how the water loop will fit best in the space, and one of my bad points is that i have to have everything perfect, so every single detail needs to be PERFECT. I suffer a lot from trying to do everything perfect, but at least the project is coming out nicey!!!!!!!!!

I did not want to publish any images for now but this whole post would not make much of a sense without some pics, so here are some screenshots of the the case design.

FOR THE WIN:

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Hope you all enjoy, happy modding!

Denis Hildebrand - Bringing your xbox back to life!

Sponsors:



Big thanks to Andreas Karner and everyone from Coolink for supplying a set of fans 80x80x10mm from the GFX Chilla kit
 
time for more pictures!

Coolink fans: these fans are really quiet and they pull A LOT of air!

Fan size: 2x 80x80x10mm

Rotational Speed: (+/- 10%) 2000 rpm

Acoustical Noise : 18 dB(A)

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Laing 18w pump mod:

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GlobalWin mini radiator:

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Man, i am so sorry, so much to say that i forgot a lot from it.

Meanwhile the process of making a nice watercooling enclosure i decided to contact a friend of mine, Shing from http://www.shingart.com/ to help me to style the hole thing. Shing is a very good artist who does a lot of street art, and he is really good at putting the right colour at the right place.

So Shing came one day with few sketches of how the enclosure should look like, and i have just scanned the gold, so here it is!

Of course i went along with the orange design, i have something with orange, i dont know what it is, but i like it a lot. The design on the panels will be cnc engraved, hoppefuly as it will be quite some job to engrave it all by hand when the orders begin to come.

Thanks to all for the support!

Happy modding!

Denis Hildebrand

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stress level are quite high atm, specially with my whole rig going to rma now!

Still need to measure the motherboard tray holes in sketchup, but my working pc, doesnt take it. stressssssssssssss ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

soldering is not working, lots of packing and sorting out things to sell before i go back home, bit-tech got block from ISP, and others.

it all seems to be collapsing now, but i will keep it up! Even my oakley shades has come apart, JESUS HELP! lol

but all i can say for now is that in two weeks the cnc will be available! cant wait to start chopping some mdf because its being quite hard to get hold of some sponsors for rads, barbs and perspex, difficult without them.
 
hold tight as cnc in uni will be available for use soon :) Last years are having finals, so workshop at the uni is packet!
 
can't imagine how excited i am, going to workshop this friday to check the cnc, just to make sure i get the right bits for it.
 
I think that would fit the xbox 1, definetely not into the 360 case though. Unless you have good soldering skills to get the capacitors out of your way. If you hold tight to it you may be able to use it for you new deathbox case though :)
 
my estimatives for the cost of the case for now are around £75, but im still looking for some partnership for the project, atm i have only few contacts. With more partners for the project i would be able to improve the original design for a v2 which would be even slimmer. Right now, i am trying to get some contact in HK for supplying longer hdd and dvd cables for better positioning of the part internally because my rig has gone to rma duo to mobo faults. The 3D model was 98% finished which is really annoying because cnc will be less needed now and soon its time for chop-chop!

Philosophising:

One thing i keep asking myself: Why would MS create such a good gaming console with its incomparable network community, neat selection of games, entertainment and etc., if its design is so filthy, cheap and pathetic?

The more you spend some time working with it, the more you become aware of MS's poor attention to the detail. Sometimes you see unbelievable things. Take the NOISY dvd drives as an example: Looking at its external physical characteristics and comparing to a very old dvd drive and it is the same thing. MS probably gets them for a 5 dolleta, why do we, end users pay so much for these cheap parts? It's really frustrating. It would be nice to upgrade the dvd player. I wish they would be merciful to start using slimline blu-ray dvd drives for next generations.

XBOX Live:

One of my dreams is to make a free xbox live community. Can you imagine having a usb stick that boots up right in the server's list? Dream and enthusiasm is abundant but i haven't got any skill in software design. :(

Tell me what do you think about the xbox 360, lets here more from you guys as well? Share your experiences, whatever if think you can share about it.
 
name='zak4994' said:
Any updates?

lol man, no updates at all. dunno if u are also following up shing's build in but-tech, the cnc in uni has broken down just after doing cuple of panels of his build, and now it will be changed after july only. I was really hoping to use the cnc machine to cut the things i made in sketchup, but it doesnt look like i will be able to continue from here.

My room is a mess full of boxes everywhere, im leaving uk in 3 weeks, and i have absolutely no time to push this buid ofr now. I will have to set fire to it once im setled back at home i guess.

Its kind of sad because i wanted to see it coming up, even on mdf would have been a great step forward!

Im also struggling to find sponsors for wc and acrilic for the build, and we all know how difficult it is to keep a build going without them, and if you are a volunteer, like on my case, the issue is way bigger.

But i havent given up on it, and i am hoping to find some local partners to continue the project.

hoping u feeling better zak.

cheerios everyone!
 
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