http://home.earthlink.net/~quijibo35/images/XBOX%2035/

I'll try not to get into too much detail as it would be redundant with many other XBOX installs.

The mount itself is made of aluminum sheetmetal. For the record, the diamond plating was used as I had this laying around the house and it would be too tedious and pricey to go find blank aluminum sheetmetal in the size I would need. I built it by making a cardboard version first and then using it as a template. The bends were made using a sheetmetal bender(which my dad conveniently has). The Screws that hold the XBOX together are holding the mount to the XBOX itself. The wireless controller units are held to the side of the mounts using velcro tape. A more permanent mount could have been done, but would block access to the screws holding the mount to the chassis. The wiring in the rear of the XBOX barely clear the brace. Actually, I had to remove the cover and bend the tab and hammer it flat otherwise the front of the XBOX would sit slightly higher than the rear due to clearance.

The inverter and navbox location leaves plenty of room for the spare tire. To the right of the inverter, you'll notice a relay used to power on the inverter. You will notice that the inverter powers on like an amp with a remote lead, but the signal from the Bose amp gradually powers on to 12V+ rather than being more of an on-off switch. Unfortunately, the inverter I used has some protection circuitry that triggerred often using this type of signal. The relay is powered by this signal, and provides the instant 12V+ signal I needed to keep the inverter happy.

If you look at the rear of the XBOX, you'll notice an extra wire. This is actually a remote turn on lead similar to the one described on XBOX-Scene.com. It uses a 3.5mm phono jack that allows me to remove it simply if I need to remove the XBOX. It grounds the chassis of the XBOX to the car and the second lead connects to the turn on device. so it serves a dual purpose of grounding it and allowing me to simply ground the switch wire to the car to turn on the XBOX. Now this is done by a small no-nag device(you'll notice a small white tube in the pics of the wiring) that Daniel from Generator Labs built for me(Thanks Daniel!). It has a 3 second delay to allow the inverter to power on fully, and provides about a half second momentary signal so the Xecuter Chip boots in the correct mode. I will try to add a chime switch later in case I need to shut it down remotely and/or restart it remotely without stopping the car. But the chimes I found so far all use about a 4 second signal which is too long for the Xecuter chip. Not that important though as the XBOX boots as soon as I start the car automatically.

You'll also notice a SWI-X installed. It does work with the DVD Dongle. I mounted the IR LED in the trunk lid lining. I was initially going to mount it flush with the lining(which looked clean and made it hard to spot) but it had issues getting the signal to the dongle. As a solution, I found the little housing piece you see there. It turned out to be a very clean solution. It's actually a piece that holds a cheesy ricer compass(Said Type-S or something on it which I removed with acetone) that I found at pep boys. I took it apart and removed the compass. Not a very cost effective solution at $6.00 for the compass, but I'm happy with the result. You can see where I stuck the SWI-X. Access there is relatively easy and allowed me to get the LED to reach where I mounted it. I will note that the SWI-X was easy to program but they should tell you the up/down steering controls produce the same signal as the up/down seek control.

The wiring itself was fairly straight forward. The PAC-NIS I used for sound is under the radio and can actually be accessed by removing the bezel around the shifter. This saved me a lot of work as one of my ground signals provided a constant ground instead of a switched one. The wiring for the PAC and the navbox run u the middle under the rear seat and up the driver's side of the car. The power for the inverter is run up the passenger side of the car from the battery. I was amazed at how much room there is for wiring in the chassis.

You'll notice a small terminal strip as well. I did this as there were a lot of components that needed to be driven on the same signals. From my experiences, simply using wire connectors on them made it hard and messy to add or remove components later. This isn't necessary of course, but made it easy when I realized I needed to add the relay for the inverter. I only needed to remove one wire from this and add another in it's place and I didn't need to splice into or cut and reconnect anything.

In the future, I will see about adding a door chime device for remote turn on/off, add a switch to ground for video so the Nav screen can play video while I listen to the stock stereo while a passenger can play with the XBOX. I'll add a wireless headset for this as well so they can still listen to the XBOX. I also want to add a larger screen on the bottom of the trunk lid so I can play from behind the car as well.

As a word of caution, if anyone else wants to mount their XBOX where I did, I will say, it limits what you can put into the trunk. The opening will be compromised to some extent. If you use your trunk a lot, I would not consider this location. My trunk usually stays fairly empty other than a few items I use to spot clean the car if needed. The net seems to take up more space than I need so I'll probably try and install a smaller net on one of the sides at a later time.

 

nice install.

 

you mod your xbox? i saw it has usb ports and a screen...

 

Yeah, it uses an Xecuter 3 chip with Xecuter's control panel. It's a replacement piece they sell that combines their proswitch and LCD mod into one clean piece. It also has a window for a upcoming IR mod. Not sure if that will be able to replace the DVD dongle, but if it does, that will eliminate the dongle fromt he front of the XBOX. I'm using a 320 GB Western Digital HD to store my games and movies. I will store all the music I have as well, but I still have to get around to that. I'm using the EVOX Dash for now, but will likely switch to XBMC as my primary dash once I learn to use it better.

I will say the LCD display on the front panel is almost useless since #1, it's in the trunk, and #2, it's just plain hard to see the text on it. I may try and add one onto the ash tray as a secondary display if I get motivated enough. Though, I doubt I will ever get to it. Running off of the NAV screen is as much as I really need.

 

Ckwik thanks for the pictures I been lookin for pics of a xbox install for the longest.! BTW excellent install. Just a few questions..
1. How did you go about powering on the inverter?
2. How is the picture quatily ne lines or noise on the screen?
3. What are the 4 wires going the bose amp for?

Thanks

 

The inverter is powered much like an amp. It uses a power line from the battery with a remote turn on from the bose amp through a SPDT Relay.

The video quality is great through the Navbox. With the XBOX grounded to the car, there is no noise or lines.

The only wire I tapped into from the Bose Amp is the turn on lead. The other 3 wires on the terminal strip are the ground, the turn on device for the box and the lead to switch the video to the XBOX through the Navbox.

 

Ckwick.. what relay did you use for turning on the inverter? how much did you get it for and where?...

I have the xbox modded with the door bell so I will be turning it on via the door bell once i have the power to it via the inverter. My only prob is turning on the inverter.. Can i just splice it into like a cig lighter 12+ lead and leave the power button on the inverter "on" all the time.. and whne the car starts the inverter will auto power on? Then all i have to do is press the door bell button and turn on the xbox?

 

It's a standard Single Pole Double Throw Relay(SPDT). The one I have is made by Bosch. Pretty much any stereo shop should have them. They are about $5.00 each. Check the ratin on the cig lighter to make sure it is designed to handle the load of an XBOX/Inverter. Keep in mind that most cig lighters have a noisy signal and may result in poor results. My recommendation would be to run it's own wiring to the inverter or if you are planning to add an amp later, perhaps run wiring sufficient enough to handle the inverter and whatever amps you may use. Lastly, make sure the inverter you get is designed to be able to allow you to leave the switch in the "on" position. Some inverters use a push button switch that needs to be turned on each time the unit sees power. And if you do wire straight from the battery, I'd be reluctant to run the main power straight through the relay. I'd probably open the inverter and find the leads that go up to the on/off switch and wire a relay inline or in place of the switch and use a switched source to switch the relay on and off. This way you do not compromise the power delivery through the relay. I'd have to double check the rating of the relay, but it's possible under high load, it may be a point of resistance in the circuit. Not to mention I've seen these relays fail before and I'd personally rather see it fail to turn on the inverter than to fail to provide enough current for the inverter to run.

 

Cwick.. check ur Pm .. i sent u a message about this issue. .. thanks!

 

CKWIK,


Wut resolution are you running on the nav LCD from xbox? is ti 480i, 480p, 720p, or 1080i?

Where / what kind of cables did you get for the RCA, and the RGB + S to extend from trunk to the dash?

Did you run the wires throught the side molding on passenger side?

How did you run power from battery to inside car to trunk to inverter?

Thanks

 

Hey Cwick . .hows the xbox system comming?? U using it alot?? everythign runnign ok?? keep us posted.. thansk!!

 

was the nav box wire install to head unit easy? where there good instructions?

 

The XBox works great. I do have to pull it out to add music and make XBMC the main dash. I do use it quite a bit. I'm sure I will get over it to some extent and use it mostly for music. The GF likes to play Halo2 on it while I drive. Still need to do the wireless headset, but that is on the backburner right now.

Mayzar: the wiring itself is pretty simple. The grueling part is disassembling the Dash to access the wires behind the nav's DVD-ROM unit and to install the PAC-NIS behind the stereo. It's nothing difficult, but it takes a lot of time to do as there are a lot of pieces that need to be removed.

 

CKwick... I have both XBMC and XBPM... i was only able to create playlist in XBMP not in XBMC.. I have alot of music videos on box.. adn wanted to use XBMC to make like a playlist of the videos.. do u how to make playlist on XBMC?

Alos how are u powering the xbox? Btw thanks for the idea bout the SPDT realy.. i tired it out works great!!! speaking of the SPDT i just need to use Thick wires for the 12+ from the batt and then the 12+ that goes to the inverter right?? the rest can be just small wires?

Thanks for all your help.

 

oh Nevermind ur usign the remote turn on.. .. just read it.. !... Are u using wireless controllers?? IF so how are they with the reception and all. ?