Another 360 Mod

M

mattym

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 21, 2007
Messages
94
Ok so thats a working title for the time being.

As some of you may or may not know the Xbox 360 has some nasty problems with the way Microsoft attaches the heat sinks to the CPU and GPU in the unit and this leads to the dreaded "Red Ring of Death" or lesser know E74 error (Single red light). There are however several methods to fixing this the x-clamp replacement being my favorite. I've used the method to fix 3 of my friends units.

Now going through the process of taking these things apart countless times has made me realize how easy it would be to do some modding and colorizing. Now, i plan on taking a different approach to this than some of those in the past. I want to use some of this stuff:

LQD_Purple.jpg


Rit Color Dye. Some people have had success using this in the past to dye their controllers to a new color. I however plan on taking it not one but two steps further.

One I want to use it on both the controller and the main console body. From what ive seen the console body has had nominal results in the past. I hope to improve upon this.
Secondly I want to do a multi color mod. More specifically multi shade. Doing this isnt easy but I happen to know a method that should get me the desired results. I will address this later.

So for starters and proof of concept I am going to work on a controller. Depending on the results I get, I will either make an attempt on the console itself or call the project a wash.

Here are the parts that will be getting colored. The front and back shell along with the white buttons of the controller. The second pic shows the pars I wont be messing with ie. circuit board, thumb sticks, and the other buttons (a,b,x,y).
P1010008.JPG

P1010009.JPG


Here is the design i have planned.
xbox360controllerwhite.jpg


Im going with purple cause its associated with my fraternities colors. And a camo type pattern both cause it is cool and easy.

I plan on getting this done sometime tomorrow.
If this is in the wrong section let me know, but ive seem plenty of 360 mods posted here in the past.
 
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Sounds interesting, can't wait to see how it turns out :)
 
Thanks for the interest, and believe it or not the color scheme was very complicated.

It was mostly me putting down the pattern i saw in my head. Then it became so much more.
Each color end where it does for a specific reason. I tried to keep areas that had words or letters molded into the plastic as one color, not for any specific reason other than im a bit OCD.

I am making a few minor changes to the design which I will post later or add to this reply.
Right now im about to head out and get the supplies I will need. I hope to get underway with the dyeing later today, but it may have to wait till tomorrow.

Anyway, here it is with a few minor revisions.
xbox360controllerwhitev2.jpg
 
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Ok just got back from my supply run. Got all of what I need together, pictured below.
I got the liquid dye as it seems to yeild better results than the powder does with the 360 controller. An old coffee tin will serve as my dyeing vat. Some string, mixing stick, and rubber gloves to help make this a little easier and less messy.

Also in the plastic bag is the last tool I'll need to make this work. But I will reveal what that is and how it plays into my plans later.

If any of you are wondering, yes this is the same red tool table from my "Alien Autopsy" build. I'll post more pics of the area I'll be working in later when I get home.
I plan to get the first part of this experiment done either very late tonight or sometime tomorrow afternoon.

P1010001.JPG
 
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*notes that 'dying' and 'dyeing' are two entirely different things*

Good luck dyeing the parts :D
 
yeah, ive been posting these from my iphone in my down times, it likes to change words to whatever the hell it wants.
 
mattym said:
yeah, ive been posting these from my iphone in my down times, it likes to change words to whatever the hell it wants.
Click to expand...
It's rebelling against having to be involved with a Microsoft product.

I really like the color scheme, I can't wait to see how this turns out! Looking forward to it.
 
So quick update. So far major failure, then again im being harsh on myself.

My method to get the parts i wanted to stay white and then the parts i wanted to remain a lesser shade of purple was to use hot glue to cover them. This is an idea i got from watching a friend color his lacrosse stick head. It worked out real well. For me not so much.

Im not completely giving up yet, and tomorrow ill post the pics of what i did and how it ended up. Ill also go over what went well what went wrong and what I plan to do next.
 
Can't wait to see the pics. I'd love to see how the dye itself turned out. I've got a white controller, and some black rit dye and would love to make it straight black.

I dyed my psu cables with great success. It worked best when the dye/water mixture was heated on the stove to just under boiling.
 
Ill post the pics up later. Black should be a decent attempt. Just make sure to use a good amount of dye so you get a full black to it.

One of the problems with using dyes on these controllers is that is makes all the imperfections show up. Even the ones there from the mold at M$. Honestly, i wouldnt recommend it.
Im afraid you would end up with a more or less dark gray controller with dark black lines where all the imperfections are.

Next time im gonna stick with a spray on vinyl dye/pint
 
No pics yet? Even if it didn't come out that great, it would be nice to see how well it did or didn't work.
 
what if sanding was done after the first coat to smooth out any imperfections?
 
Yeah sorry I didnt get these up sooner. I have been occupied with other things.

First off here is the last picture of it clean, and with all the parts that were to receive color assembled.
clean.JPG


Here are some pics of it with the glue on before dyeing it.
gluefront.JPG

glueback.JPG


Here is a pic from the process.
dye.JPG


This is what it looked like after.
crap.JPG

As you can see I have pulled off some of the glue already. The glue did its job in keeping the dye off those parts that I didnt want it on.

Here it is with most of the glue off, but still lots of bits left behind.
evenlesscrap.JPG


Here it is after several hours of cleaning the glue off, It is clean and back in one piece and continues to work.
done1.JPG


I did plan to take it through the next stage, but doing the glue and having to remove it again is not something I would look forward to.

Sanding it in the first place may have been helpful in making the glue get less stuck, or may have made it worst, so im not sure how much that would have helped. Also the dye came out very uneven, but this could be due to the fact that I was dealing with all sorts of other problems during the process.

Im still not done with this project, im looking into other ideas at the moment.
 
Have you looking into buying the liquid mask that is used for painting RC car bodies? Same idea, but it should give you much sharper cutoff lines. You can cover a larger area than you need, then trim the mask to the correct shape with an X-acto knife.
 
Just from my experiences with Rit dye and plastics, I've found it to have much better (amazing) results when you boil the plastic with the dye. Go to Walmart and buy a pot that will inevitably be destoryed - er, at least useless to cooking. Boil the dye as instructed then submerge and simmer the plastic pieces as well. Of course with a 360 controller your going to need a properly sized pot and enough dye. I found stiring them every few minutes also helps a great deal to get nice even coverage allowing the dye to seep into the pores.

You'll need to get creative to apply your particular sceme, but thought I'd share.
 
00PS said:
Just from my experiences with Rit dye and plastics, I've found it to have much better (amazing) results when you boil the plastic with the dye. Go to Walmart and buy a pot that will inevitably be destoryed - er, at least useless to cooking. Boil the dye as instructed then submerge and simmer the plastic pieces as well. Of course with a 360 controller your going to need a properly sized pot and enough dye. I found stiring them every few minutes also helps a great deal to get nice even coverage allowing the dye to seep into the pores.

You'll need to get creative to apply your particular sceme, but thought I'd share.
Click to expand...

this sounds like a great idea. judging from the pics though, he does need a better way to mask. the problem is the controllers are not smooth, so he might be inclined to completely sand the controller down first then mask it off somehow...
 
Also, it looks like you probably should of done just the white spots and the dark spots. Then tape off the white spots and dunk again for the overall color, hopefully getting the dark spots even darker with the second pass.
 
@J-Will
That was the original plan but im looking into a complete new method now.

@OOPS
I looked into that and it seems that a lot of people destroyed the controller with boiling water.
They arent strong enough plastic to hold up to the heat.
 
mattym said:
@OOPS
I looked into that and it seems that a lot of people destroyed the controller with boiling water.
They arent strong enough plastic to hold up to the heat.
Click to expand...

If you keep the plastics moving instead of resting on the bottom of the pot I'm sure it will be fine. Most plastic at 100ºC isn't going to damage anything, like wise I'm sure sitting on the bottom of a much hotter metal surface would. If anything, the real goal is to keep th plastic warm/hot; boil the rit dye first, then turn down the heat and drop in the controller. Let it simmer a while and stir slowly. I've never done a 360 controller before, but I've done a mouse, headset, RC helicopter & car parts with success.
 
@OOPS
Yeah, from what i read, they say anything more then 4 seconds at a time at those temps will cause warping with these 360 controllers.
 
I followed the one on xbox scene. But no one there did the double or triple color set up.

if you post there a lot and have permission to link to another website. you can go ahead and link to my post if you want. but only on xbox scene cause i did get some good pointers from there.
 
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