Jus a few shots of my handywork

[super white talismoon - before the removal of the grill]



[removal of grill w/stock fans to show off my lovely dremmel skills]



[same as above with the talismoon]



[front fan mod]



you cant see it too well in the pics but I started to polish the case... its coming good so far but needs alil more elbow grease to give it that "bling"

comments are welcome

thanks for lookin

Very nice, i like how you've dremeled off the grill, i just cut mine with scissors

You're the first person I've seen cut out that grill and not make it look like total ass. Props for that.

But why on earth are you putting that fan outside the case

where did you get white talismoon fans from?

i thought they only did red, green or blue.

thank you



a ) I figure the case is crowded enough, why stuff an 80mm under the hood to cram things up more (if you could even fit an 80mm in there)

b ) I liked the design of the thermaltake fan. If you notice it pulls in air from the sides as well as the top also it allows me to position the fan dirrectly over the heatsink

c ) I like the way it matches the case. I get function and form

plus... I kinda like the whole snorkel look



I bought the green one when they came out, got bored of it and recently changed the LED's to super white

I like your cut on the grill, i think im gonna do that to the case and mobo case

polishing the case? hopefully it looks good can't wait to see it!

thank you

patience is the key athough a steady hand doesnt hurt. Using a sharpie to mark off the portions I wanted to grind off helped alot

I dont think youre going to get the same shape with the plastic though due to the configuration of the holes and supports

I still havent cut mine yet... not sure if I wanna



yeah its a pain but its coming along...

I cant seem to get a good shot of it with the camera though, anyone have some suggestions?

i'm never a fan of external fans, but you are definitely doing a nice clean job on the case, and i love the polished shielding.....not sure why you're doing it, but it looks nice

clean

im not a big fan of the external mount fan
but you did a great job on cutting the shielding

cant wait to see it done

thanks for all the feedback guys, its greatly appreciated

I wanted to do something alil different with the front fan... I guess you could say I was thinking "outside the box"

to each his own

Looks good.

Does cutting out the grill really make that much of a difference?

dunno

I was bored and had my box apart awaiting my smd's to arrive so... out came the dremmel

it makes a little difference ... less restriction means faster air flow and more heat leaving the case faster
plus the way he cut it looks cool

If me and you have the same definition of polishing the case...I'm pumped. It looks awesome on the original xbox, and I hope its the same for the 360! and yes, beautiful dremel cuts.

Jus a few updates...

Front 50mm w/ divider and side holes covered



GPU divider



GPU cover



Reassembled and sealed up



Side shot



Finally got around to installing new ROL LED's



Im happy with the results... maybe ill actually get a chance to sit down and use the damn thing for a change

As always, comments are welcome

I like your ideal! Nice! I did something simular later when you gave me the advice that with the heatsink Im using on the GPU will not be getting enough air in. I have the top right fan there to bring in the are and planned to do the side ran thing. I've ducted taped the top,side and around the bottom so the heat has no other way out but through the back from the back fans and the botton through the laptop cooler. My question is to you is about the dividers? Is that to have the GPU and CPU have the fans pay more attentio to them?? I know you put the side fan to help circlate the air. So did you duct tape the left side vents also to help the cool air from the fans on the side guide the air so they can travel through the heatsink fins and out the back of the case?? If leaving the left side untaped dose it help though I know you may have ducted taped that side because the air from the right side would excape. Anyway these are only questions and not taking away from your great work. You helped me with the advice and gave me something to work with. Thank you and great job on your MOD. Also what did you use to cut a good circle out of the side?? what is the size of the fan used also?

LegendaryGamer

looking good, I never understand why people quote someones post when it has like 5 pictures in it, then we all have to keep scrolling and see the same thing twice...no point

I know it's probably not too important but what is cooling the area inside the red border? I would poke a few holes in the side duck tape to let the stale air out.





Just a suggestion.

Loving it and you used some of my advice! Good Job - Your 360 is thanking you for it!

Loving the Tender Loving Care your using! Keep up the good work and Keep us POSTED!

I loved the colors you chose for the RoL. Nice looking mode, though the external fan makes me think of the air intake on a hotrod car. XD

Theres nothing to cool, no stale air.

Cool air is forced in by the 80 and 50mm fans, over the cpu and gpu heatsinks and then out the back by means of the talismoons w/ air divider

If there was any warm or "stale" air it would escape from the holes in the top of the case

As for the holes on the left side of the case, I figure that most are covered by the HDD anyway so...

I havent taken any real temp measurements but im sure that what I have done will greatly help the cooling.

I orig had a prob with the 50mm being too loud (aprox34 db and 17 CFM) so I ordered an Evercool (<23 db and 9.59 CFM) which was much quieter then the Sunon although it didnt move as much air. I just ordered another Evercool which moves 12.38 CFM with a db of <30 so well see how that works out.

Once again, thanks for all your thoughts... keep em comin




"bad to the bone"

I honestly dont mind the fan on top... I actually like the way it looks and how it functions.

actually dude tha duct tape was a stupid idea casue all u doing is allow less air in the box and that is bad if u remove that duct tape it not going to let less air in the console u now it will only let more air in and a fraction of the air is less than no air at all

I doubt a 50/80mm active cooling setup will move less air then then holes in the side of the case. Look at it again. Air is forced in from the top (80mm) and side (50mm), over the cpu and gpu heatinks and then out the back.

I'm sure you're correct, the air will escape through the top vents. The only reason i mentioned it is because you seem to be going for maximum cooling. Duck tape over ventilation holes can only restrict airflow. It just seems obvious that removng it would make for better cooling.

did u sand the metal case vents, after u dremaled it?

looks nice so far

yes

i didn't mean it will move less air but more holes will just mean more air will flow through

Im trying the get as much cool air into the vicinity of the gpu heatsink as possible. I blocked off the right side so the cool air for the most part would be pushed towards the gpu side of the case.

If there is any warm air in the area that you circled then it should escape though the holes in the top of the case.

Id love to take temp readings for you guys but thats a project for another day.

As always, I welcome your criticism weather it be positive or negative.

My future upgrades include using AS5 for the heatsinks and adding thermal gap fillers for the ram under the gpu heatsink.

I want to thank everyone for their support

Sorry about that RDC... I figured that was gonna happen

Back to the topic at hand

Some of you think its ok to leave the right side blocked and some think I should remove a portion of the tape to let air escape.

I figured that the holes in the top of the case would be suffice for letting any warm air out

Maybe some others can chime in

Exactly, if you want to quote someone at least take the few seconds to remove the links to all the pics in the quote, unless it's from a few pages back and you have a certain question about something in said pic, it does make it a lot nicer to not have to scroll thru 2 or more of the same thing to get to something new.




No problem...and it did.

Having a little bit of air moving over those Transistors and Caps would be a good idea, since they do some of the regulating for the 360. Caps will certainly degrade faster if they're used when hotter, but without taking temp readings of it setup both ways it's really hard to say what kind of a difference you're looking at, maybe minimal, maybe something that needs some more attention.

Thread cleaned up some and keep at it grav1ty_718, the cage cutouts for the fans are indeed very nice. Do you plan on doing some design on the case vents? or just hacking it all out as well?

Which vents are you talking about?

the ones on the back of the plastic case, the underlined text in his post is a link.

basically cutting away some of the plastic to allow more air to flow through it.

lol I wondered why it was underlined... didnt even dawn on me that it was a link

Damn grim you really like pointing out my flaws eh? I thought thats what my gf was for

and wow... I really like that design

I wasnt going to but after seeing your work I just might

very nice cuts man lol jus too bad you wont really see them you should paint it

Call me crazy but I like white

Im thinking about bringing a dead 360 back to life from ebay... maybe ill put a window in and paint that one

Started work on the rear grill. Many thanks to RDC for the idea.



Still needs to be cleaned up a bit but its a start

WoW!!! The cuts are awesome, the plastic one too. How did you do this one? Dremel on this too? BTW. The externally mounted fan, you don't have dust around? It will be easier for me actually if I hook it up like this
Thanks! Waiting to hear from you about the plastic cover, will do like this my self if I have proper tools

Edited: Will I be able to cut the back plastic grill with a hot knife?

you aint crazy, you might consider painting it actual white instead of that dingy white it comes in.

e.g





rear grill looks great, like the design.

I second that, the rear grille looks very nice.

Back by popular demand is...

Side vents with yet another new 50mm - This one seems to be the perfect mix between cfm and noise.



I didnt like my 1st attempt at the front air divider so heres ver. 2




Finished and cleaned up the rear grill... All in all it didnt come too bad but im not happy with the results Theres not much material to work with and if you make a mistake or sand to much youre screwed. If you look close im sure you can see theres a few places where I did just that. I think im gonna pick up another shell and do it again... practice makes perfect right?



As for the tools I used - Dremmel, folded up sandpaper, exacto knife and a wooden nail file.



I Hope my work helps others and I greatly appreciate all your support

i liek the rear went looks siiiiick

I see what you mean with how thin some parts got, but really it doesn't look like a problem. As long as it didn't make it flimsy enough to snap off..
It looks AWESOME though. I think the modifications you made to the grill looks like it will work out better too.

by the looks of your 50mm i might get a 60 in there. instead of relocating the cap i wonder if it would fit on the side of the mobo. because the grey grills dont sit flush with the metal cage the little ribs do. i wonder if the fan would touch the grills.

Im alil confused about what you said... on the side of the mobo? what little ribs?

If you plan on using the same location as me then 50 is as big as youll be able to go height wise, 60 is just too big and relocating the cap is a must.

Bump! How the hell is this project going?

been finished for awhile

Good job. What are you using to divide the air flow between the gpu and cpu? Also, what is that you have covering over the GPU heatsink to help draw air better to the rear fan? I'm going to be doing my cooling mods soon and I'm not sure what I should use to divide the air flow between the gpu and cpu and what to cover the gpu heat sink with. I'm going to be putting in the Talismoon fan running at 12v and adding two fans to the front of the case. One will be mounted to the cpu heat sink and the other to the top of the case. Both running at 12v.

Both the divider and cover are made from old plastic DVD cases.