Published byuser1 on 2009-09-28 Category: Hardware Mods/Addons | Page Views: 1,342
I’m thinking of turning my Xbox into a media centre, it isn’t used much any more so it might as well become useful (or die trying).
I don’t have a mod chip, I don’t want to take the Xbox to bits (and I’m too tight to pay someone else to do it) so my remaining option is to ’soft mod’ it.
Let the games begin…
Building a USB Cable for the Xbox
First off, we need to copy some files from a PC onto a USB stick and then transfer them to the Xbox. To do this we need to make a cable capable of attaching standard USB devices to Microsoft’s proprietary version of the USB interface.
Assemble the following items:
1) Second hand Xbox controller (£4.99 – Gamestation)
2) A copy of Splinter Cell (we’ll need that later) (99p – Gamestation)
3) USB extension cable (A couple of quid)
4) Cornish Pasty (75p – Cooplands Bakers)
Start eating the pasty.
xbox usb cable
1. Now take a pair of scissors and cut the Xbox controller cable at a point close to the controller unit.
2. While continuing to eat the pasty, cut the USB extension cable. Bear in mind that you should keep the total length of your final cable to less than 5 metres (probably less than 3 given my dodgy soldering skills).
3. Finish the pasty.
4. After stripping the wires back, note the configuration. We don’t need the yellow wire, the straggly bits of tin foil or wire thread inside the cables so we can cut these back. Fortunately joining the cables together is quite simple. Connect black to black, green to green, white to white and red to red.
5. With a dab of solder carefully link the cables together. Do one at a time and take your time. If like me you’re a soldering newbie, check out the advice here. It’s worth following.
6. Now marvel at my rubbish soldering! Note the yellow wire left over. Chop it off and ensure that you trim the silver foil and mesh back ( you don’t want them connecting together, it may cause a short).
7. Finally, get some insulating tape and carefully insulate each wire from its neighbour, finishing up by covering the whole lot in a protective wad of tape.
8. And that’s that. You now have an Xbox USB cable. It can be used to attach a USB Keyboard and mouse or storage device to the Xbox via the controller port. If you need to attach more than one USB component to your Xbox I’m led to believe that a USB hub would work (which would save you the hassle of making another cable of course!).
I’ll touch upon installing the softmod in another post. I’m not going to go into great detail (hey, you’ve got to have some fun finding stuff out) if nothing else other than some of it seems ‘quasi legal’ to me. Keep your eyes peeled if you’re interested though and feel free to drop me an email or a comment if you want any help.
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