Xbox Laptop Project, Who cares that the 360 is more powerfull? Options

[ttsgeb]

Well, I recently came into a chunk of change and decided to start a project to build an xbox laptop...
I'm not at all known around these parts, seeing as this is my first post and whatnot, but I figured this would be a good place to cross-post my progress from ModRetro

The basic plan is to case mod an unmodded xbox into a 14 inch laptop form factor. My ultimate goal is to make the entire package around 1 inch thick.

Design Sketch that doesn't tell much:

My selection of screens to choose from in comparison to an xbox.

I'll likely use the Samsung screen on the bottom left... the one from a Dell, although the resolution is a bit overkill. I'm not using the 16:9 screen because I don't feel that enough xbox games are 16:9 to justify it when I could use it for other things.
Also the 4:3 screen gives me more space to work with.

Currently I'm waiting for a few xboxen to come in so that I can get to work. I don't want to cut up the xbox I have... It's purty and it's my first console.

So the plan:
Make the dvd drive top loading to seriously cut down on size.
Use a controller board from NJYTouch on ebay so I can use a laptop screen
Run those fancy Iceberg 4 coolers
Use a picoPSU for power, and have an external power brick, or build a custom regulator bank using TI switching regulators if I can be bothered to figure out how.
Relocate all those bulky capacitors so it doesn't have to be 2 inches thick to fit them.

The case will be a combination of the original xbox case and some like... 1/4inch ABS or styrene that I sit there and mill by hand with my dremmel.

Like I said, this is going to be cross-posted, and this isn't really a place I think to visit much, so If you see a lack of anything happening and actually care, PM me or something so that I can remember to update... Or just check ModRetro.
I'll also try to keep this first post updated as a dated work log all in one place so you don't have to potentially scroll through to see progress.


Man, I'm looking forward to this project.

Also, Holy cow, I joined over 4 years ago... I was wondering when I did that... I don't ever remember making this account.

This post has been edited by ttsgeb: Apr 16 2012, 02:43 AM

[ttsgeb]

Got a box in the mail today, made a bit of progress.

Nothing really revolutionary or anything, but progress nonetheless.

I played around with the disk drive a bit and chopped the case to bits.








Once I bother myself with getting the screen I'm actually going to use out of it's casing, I can really get to work on making this look nice.

So far it's just looking like a standard slimbox... and that's actually going to be about how it looks.

I need to do a lot of work to make this case look right though... and find some nice plastic to work with.

On a related note, does anyone know the current draw of a stock xbox on the 5V, 12V, and 3.3V lines so that I can play around with designing a regulator for this thing?

[ttsgeb]

Came up with a less ridiculous layout and ordered most of the parts I need today



Once this all comes in, the only part I'll still need to finish this is a solution to my power problem.

Basically, I need to be told/find out the power draw of a stock xbox for the 3.3V 5V and 12V lines so that I can either throw together a few regulators or buy a suitable picopsu for it.

Now to wait around some more so the plastic sheets I need to start really working on this case can come on in.

[jaroc]

Why not go with a 2.5" hard drive with bigger capacity?

[ttsgeb]

The basic plan is to case mod an unmodded xbox into a 14 inch laptop form factor.

Because I'm flippin' insane.

[shambles1980]

it wont be long till you say.. I need to do a vga mod.

[ttsgeb]

I'll only do that if I actually need to. I think I can get away with component video, so that's what I'll try first. All depends on what I can make my screen do.

If I need to, yes, I'll drop in a vga bios, but the idea is to leave the software side as stock as I can.

[ttsgeb]

Minor amount of progress today... did some some on my heatsink setup.

I'm hoping this will keep it cool enough.





I took the fans all the way apart to solder this together... because that's how I roll.




They aren't actually attached to the board yet, just setting on it... but man, this looks so much less intimidating without the stock heatsinks.

Mostly I've been too lazy to break out the desoldering iron AND the soldering iron at the same time...

Also I've been busy banging my head again the desk trying to figure out what I'm going to replace the PSU with... Seriously. I'm not feeling up to breaking an xbox trying things.

Will the xbox turn on if I just feed 3.3V to the POWOK line right off the bat, or does it have to send out the POWON signal and receive the 3.3V on POWOK as a response in order to boot?

This is a V1.6 xbox btw.

[Bandit5317]

They aren't actually attached to the board yet, just setting on it... but man, this looks so much less intimidating without the stock heatsinks.

Mostly I've been too lazy to break out the desoldering iron AND the soldering iron at the same time...

Also I've been busy banging my head again the desk trying to figure out what I'm going to replace the PSU with... Seriously. I'm not feeling up to breaking an xbox trying things.

Will the xbox turn on if I just feed 3.3V to the POWOK line right off the bat, or does it have to send out the POWON signal and receive the 3.3V on POWOK as a response in order to boot?

This is a V1.6 xbox btw.

I know it's kinda late now, but the v1.6 Xbox is the worst you could try to use for mods like this. Due to a missing hole in the motherboard, mounting an Iceberq 4 Pro on the GPU becomes very difficult (idk what smaller version you're using). Also, the PSU is going to be a big headache. The v1.6 Xbox needs both 3.3v and 5v standby rails. Since the 3.3v standby rail is just for the POWOK, you constantly send that to the motherboard, whether it's on or off. However, the big problem will be the amperage draw. I heard that one of those rails (probably the 5v standby) draws like 4 amps. The only ATX PSUs that can put out that many amps on the standby line are 1000+ Watts. No PicoPSU can handle it. I don't know why it draws so many amps on the standby line, but it explains why I've never seen anyone build an Xbox to ATX PSU adaptor. It can be done, but you'll have to at least build the circuit for that rail yourself if you want it to be small.

[ttsgeb]

I'm not scared to build my own power circuits. I just need to know what in the world I'm doing.

All I'm really worried about for doing it myself is coming up with a 100+ watt 5V DC supply.

I mean... 20-25A at 5V out of anything other than a PC PSU seems kinda hard to come across.

I say a 5V supply because using a 12V supply when it only needs like 1A at 12v seems kinda... dumb. It'd make much more sense to step up 5V to 12V @ 1A than to step down 12V to 5V @ 13.8A. A lot less waste that way. Even with a switching regulator, it's just A LOT more work than really needs to be done.

I'm also not too worried about mounting anything, because pending me doing a bit of research on conductivity, I plan on basically putting this all together with silicone "Liquid Nails" glue. It's easy to apply and doesn't turn to goop at high temperatures like hot glue does.

This post has been edited by ttsgeb: May 10 2012, 12:38 AM

[ploggy]

I see one of your choices for a screen was a dell laptop screen? How does one go about hooking up a laptop screen to the xbox. I was thinking about doing something similar but thought it wasn't possible. Thanks.

[ttsgeb]

http://www.ebay.com/sch/njytouch/m.html

They're actually all laptop screens, and I can use all of them as computer monitors.

If you want to pm me, I will give you even more info. If enough people care, I'll write up a tutorial and such.

This post has been edited by ttsgeb: May 13 2012, 06:51 AM

[ttsgeb]

So, I've been trying to figure out a better power situation then picopsu + converter...

I figure the majority of the xbox's power is on the 5V line, so why would I use a 12V supply to run it?

This is what I've come up with:

http://www.ti.com/product/ptn04050c

The 3.3v line is only used to tell the xbox to turn on, so it doesn't need a big beefy regulator, a small linear regulator would likely do the trick.

For the 12v line, I could use TI's ptn04050c, it would *barely* get the job done, though.
I would use another one to power the screen. If that doesn't work, I could figure out something else, I'm sure. NJYTouch says they need a 4A supply, but I highly doubt that from what I've seen.

I could then have that 12V output control the 5V line, and have the 5V line control the 3.3v linear regulator to tell the board to turn on.

SO... incomplete diagram of what I'm thinking:




That's the basic idea. If anyone sees a big glaring mistake in all of it, let me know.

This post has been edited by ttsgeb: Jun 1 2012, 09:01 PM

[ttsgeb]

Got some parts in the mail, made some progress.






Basically, I ordered some new capacitors for the board, seeing as technology has advanced a tad in the last decade. I installed them. The ones that were 1cm tall, I just put in upright, the other ones, I now had significant leads on them to be able to mount them on their sides.

The tallest part on the board now is a toroid that I'm not about to mess with, making the highest point 1 inch tall, and the second highest point 3/4 inches tall.
Since the board is going to be mounted upside down, I'll likely just have a hole cut out for the toroid to go through. Don't judge me.

I've also hard-wired the power cables in preparation for when I figure out how to find the parts I need for the damn power circuit.

This post has been edited by ttsgeb: Jun 21 2012, 01:09 AM

[ttsgeb]

In other news, I turned this on today. It turned on. I'm not surprised.
You know in case anyone was wondering if it still works, the answer is yes... to a degree... I have yet to test video output. Maybe next week.