A black 360 is nothing new... Yet, I decided to put mine up for anyone that's interested. I used Krylon Fusion Flat Black paint. I first tried the Dupli-Color fabric and vinyl dye, but I wasn't happy with the result on my pelican faceplate. So, I reused the button from the pelican faceplate and covered it with krylon and put it with the OEM faceplate that I also painted with krylon (worked great!).



I'm not a fan of the amount of chrome on the 360, so I decided to tone it down a bit. I used some sand paper to make all the chrome look like brushed steel, but because the xbox360 and the eject symbol on the dvd tray are deeper than the surface this remained chrome and untouched, I love the look of it now. The eject symbol and "XBOX 360" are still chrome, but the rest is brushed steel looking.








I looked at several other SATA mods for the 360, but I didn't want to spend the money on 2 SATA extension brackets (or a dual one) and I wanted to be able to reach the SATA connection without taking off a panel on the 360. So, I put it under the HD. As you can see the cable is plugged into a SATA extension port - this is a standard SATA extension PCI bracket minus the PCI bracket - the holes perfectly aligned with the screws to put it in (http://microcenter.com/byos/byos_single_product_results.phtml?product_id=250030). Oh and when the black OEM cable is in this port it is completely flush.







I hooked up the short black SATA connector to the motherboard and made enough space in the case (cut quite a bit of metal) for this cable to go to the SATA extension port which I hung right behind the DVD drive. And then I cut a hole in the top/side panel that holds the HD. Now you can just pop out the harddrive bam you have access to the DVD drive and you cannot see it from outside the case.

(images will be posted soon)

Nice setup. Your 360 looks fine to me and definitely matches your setup. Is that a 24 inch dell?

yea 2407fpw (A04) - was rather annoying to get that revision, but this way it supports true 1080P with 1:1 scaling.

360 looks awesome man!

as for the monitor

I've been REALLY on the fence of getting one for a long time now... and I'm thinking of throwing my next paycheck into getting one. How is it for console gaming, right now I move my 360 back and fourth from my shitty old T.V. and the TV in my family room for the 1080p... but there is no internet in the family room and i don't really want to go wireless. I was going to just upgrade my desktop monitor and have my 360 on the VGA input for the Dell, and the PC in the DVI. This seems like a really good option for me. So the A04 revision does support 1080p for the 360? why not the A05 ? Also, do you feel like this monitor is big enough for playing 2 player on, and playing from a good 10 - 15 feet away?

Thanks a lot, and again, LOVE the brushed steel look! very creative!

I really like the black paint man. Very good job, plus the bezel is a new kick to the black consoles.

A04 is the newest revision, A05 is only out for the previous 24 inch (2405). The reason I said that it can handle true 1080p is that the earlier revisions of the 2407 (A01, A02, A03 - I've had them all - thank god for unlimited RMA's with 3 year warranties ) could not scale the image correctly when the image was near native resolution, it would just resort to fill and block the scaling options. Thus 1600x1200 and 1920x1080 would stretch to 1920x1200 regardless of what you did. Now all of the new 2407fpw's they're selling are the new A04 and if you don't get the A04 you can get a legit RMA on the basis that the scaling is broken for 1600x1200 and 1920x1080 (1080p). I currently have VGA for the 360 and DVI for the PC, works great, but hopefully they'll insert the VGA level correction for PC color levels with this patch this week .

In my dorm I had my 2407fpw hooked up on one side of the room with a futon on the other (dorm rooms are small, approx 10-15 feet away ;-) ) and it worked great. So yea I think 10-15 is possible, but I do think that's the furthest you can go from it to play.

Oh and BTW, you can easily use it as a TV too. I know a few people got HD tuners and hooked them up to 2407's via component with 720p. It won't look as pretty as a real TV, but pretty close. The only problem would be audio input, but I have Z680's so optical SPDIF for the xbox, 5.1 standard input for the PC, and coax SPDIF for a tuner I'm buying this summer (my college has free HD TV (QAM) on their cable network in the apt's and dorms)


Thanks, it was the quickest mod I've ever done. Took me about 5 minutes.

Oh P.S., for those people that claimed the fabric & vinyl dye was better because it "kept the texture" on the case... I completely disagree, the chemical reaction completely alters the texture of the plastic, you can easily feel the difference. It can still look good though, but it's very important you do light layers.

That crome mod is pretty sweet! I might just do it to my Elite!




-CollinstheClown

Looks great man!

I like what you did with your custom sata setup. I was planning on getting the Xeno Top Gear soon but I think I will do this instead. Thanks for the great idea.

Thanks!

Just watch out when you do the HHD cover on the HD - it's very very thin. I would just try it with a lower grit first and see if that looks good enough, and if not go up to a higher grit, just make sure not to sand too often. You can always use a synthetic replacement to steel wool (with the carbide stuff in it).

That looks great. You ex-chrome parts look like the guide button on the controllers now.

welcome to the black-360 club, looks good

i cant belive how good that came out from just sanding it
it really looks like brushed steel

what grit sand paper did you use ???

200 grit for the chrome on the dvd, eject button and chrome around the HD. 600 grit for on top of the HD (the HDD tag). You can use any sandpaper you want, the thing is you want to scratch the surface without taking too much of the surface off. A better solution would be the synthetic steel wool, but I didn't have any around.

Your 360 looks sweet!
I especially like the third picture.

krylon fusion eh. how many cans did it take? you should paint the ends and the hd, the color of it and the black doesnt look good.

Just one, but it was empty after .

Personally I think it'd look a little too black if I painted the ends as well - plus they kind of match the rest of my set up. But it could look pretty cool if you did. Maybe do less of a matte finish then, satin maybe?

i have red on my ring of light so i was thinking of painting the ends and hd red. not like a fire engine red but a lighter shade of red.

looks great mate

how much is a can of the stuff? where can i get it from?

5-8 dollars?

Most stores carry it - but make sure it's krylon "fusion" if you dont want to use primer

Very creative set up. Btw, these are excellent pictures.

200? jesus.

you have to scratch it, not sand it

Case looks awesome. I was thinking of doing something very similar to this. My only question is did you have to sand the case at all? If so what grit did you use?

Great job, I love the brushed steel look on the chrome parts

Whoa your 360 looks well good, damn you brushed steel, you've given me another idea!

Absolutely beautiful.

now that its summer and im free to do what i want, i want to try and do this. just a few question. did you do anything to prep the case for painting, like sanding, or usng primer, or did you just paint it. also did you do multiple coats or just 1? also you know they engraved xbox 360logo on the case, how did you make sure the paint didnt build up and 'flood' it.

finaly where, in the uk, can i buy the paint, the sanding paper, and screws for the xclamp rpelacement online. thanks