Shotgun Blast Lights Up Your Controller

February 4, 2011 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

[Jrfhoutx] makes gaming in the dark a bit easier with this backlight shotgun shell d-pad for an Xbox 360 controller. He’s building on another tutorial he posted showing how to use the brass base of a shotgun shell to replace the stock plastic direction pad. That hack uses most of the original plastic part, cutting it down a bit and capping it off with the shell base. But now he’s detailing the process used to add LEDs around the base. He picked surface mount 0603 packages which are first chained together, then held in place using hot glue. While you’re in there, give this rapid-fire mod a try as well.

Ben Heckendorn Gets His Own TV Show

September 17, 2010 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

That’s right, Benjamin J. Heckendorn (aka Ben Heck) has started churning out episodes of his own Internet TV show. We finally got around to watching the first episode and enjoyed it greatly. You’ll see him alter an Xbox 360 controller for a disabled gamer, making custom foot interfaces to take over the traditional role of your right hand. Also in the episode is part of a big build; making an Xbox 360 laptop out of the new slim model. We’re very interested in that overall build, but in this episode you only see him removing the components from the factory case. But we guess the promise of seeing the rest of the project is the hook to get you to watch the next episode.

Think that you haven’t heard of Ben Heck before? If you’ve been following Hackaday for a while you have. We’ve looked in on quite a few of his builds over the years, including his pinball machine, Xbox 360 portable, and his access controller.

Robot Laser Tag

September 15, 2010 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

[Shay] and his friend built some battling robots for a school project. Instead of destroying each other’s robots with saws or torches, they are playing laser tag. Each robot sports an eeePC, a laser pointer on a movable arm, and some photoresistors. The goal is to get your laser to hit the other robot’s photoresistor to lower its health towards a kill. A server keeps track of the bout, monitoring shot fired because you won’t find unlimited ammo in this game. As for piloting the rig, the netbook webcam is streamed to a control station with an Xbox 360 controller for motion, aiming, and firing. Check it out after the break.

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RC Car Taunts Man’s Best Friend

June 2, 2010 by Mike Szczys 18 Comments

[Arkos] gutted an RC car from his childhood and made it into a dog-taunting remote platform. An Arduino replaces the original circuitry with a Bluetooth module for connectivity. He uses an Xbox 360 controller and has added a small speaker to act as a siren. But for our money it’s the camera that makes this hack. It streams video back to a laptop and because it’s mounted on a couple of servos the left stick controls where the lens is looking. The next evolution should replace the Arduino for a standalone microcontroller but what he’s come up with as a first prototype is delightful. See Fido run in terror after the break.

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Warthog Laser Tag

April 12, 2010 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

The Warthog from Halo is one of the most beloved video game vehicles. [Tim Higgins] brings the fun to life with his laser tag Warthog game. It uses Barbie Power Wheels toys as a base and adds laser tag weaponry. Xbox 360 controllers are used but just like in Halo, you can’t control the gun and the vehicle at the same time. We’ve encountered [Tim’s] love for water-based amusement before and this did originally start out with a water cannon powered by a wind-shield washer reservoir.

Take a look at the videos after the break as well as his recent post for information about the hardware. His choices for controller circuitry are way overpowered, sourcing an Eee PC to do the heavy lifting. This is because the choices he made were for easy development and not economy of components. A PC has no problem connecting to Xbox 360 controllers, and the modular control boards mean no complicated circuit design or arduous soldering were necessary. In the end, this looks like a ton of fun and we give him bonus points for repainting the pretty pink plastic that comes standard with these models of children’s toys.

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GPU Cooling To Fix RRoD

March 22, 2010 by Mike Szczys 64 Comments

[Rbz] fixed his friend’s Red Ring of Death stricken Xbox 360 by improving the GPU cooling. Because an overheating GPU is a common cause of the failure, he first tried to replace the thermal compound for better heat conductivity between the chip and the heat sink. This helped a bit but within two hours the problem was back. Troubled by the heat discoloration on the bottom of the DVD drive, he removed it and screwed a cooling fan to the GPU heat sink. That did the trick, so he moved the drive to the outside of the case with the aid of a longer SATA cable. It’s not pretty, but it worked.

Xbox 360 Laptop More Laptop-y Than Ever

March 16, 2010 by Mike Szczys 30 Comments

[TheTwoJ] and his friend built a laptop-form-factor Xbox 360. Their extensively documented process was inspired by [Ben Heckendorn’s] work. The result is a brick when folded up but a good-looking (albeit loud with 8 fans) gaming rig. There’s everything you would expect; LCD screen, integrated WiFi, camera, optical drive, and a full keyboard. These poor saps seem to have spent a portion of their student loan on the build but we understand how easy it is to let your budget get out of hand. They’re trying to recoup through eBay auction.

Take a look at the walk through after the break. If you’ve got the spare dough, you can try your hand at this with our three part series on building an Xbox 360 laptop.

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