Gadget Freak

Last week we wrote about the PicoCube, a PC housed inside the shell of an old Nintendo GAMECUBE. I liked the concept, it looked far more funky than most PCs on the market today, it was far more practical in its size and was a really original project.

With that I thought I'd seen enough game console modding, so went off to write about the new R2D2 projector from Nikko. However, in doing so I came across one more, which was just far too tempting!

The man responsible for it is Wisconsin resident Benjamin Heckendorn, or Ben Heck for short, and is quite a 'legend' in console modding circles.

When someone asks him to build a portable version of Microsoft's market leading Xbox 360, a seemingly impossible task given the machine's size, you get the feeling that he might be able to pull it off.

The whole project took Ben a little over 3 months to complete, which involved some drastic re-shuffling of the consoles innards.

One particular problem arose from the Xbox 360's standard bulk heat sinks, fine for use in a stand alone games console but a nightmare inside a portable unit. Ben combated this with a stroke of genius installing his own custom designed water cooling system, where distilled water is pumped around the unit cooling the mother board and re-designed heat sinks.

Myself, I'd be a little sceptical; mixing water and electronics is never a good idea, however in doing so Ben has managed to avoid the use of multiple fans, which would have taken up valuable space inside the unit's already cramped chassis.

The system couldn't be truly portable if it didn't have its own display, so Ben solved that by installing a 15" Westinghouse widescreen monitor into his own machined aluminium casing. Although not a full HD monitor, the native resolution of the screen matched that of the 360's default internal render (720p).

On first impressions the Xbox 360 portable really does look like an average laptop PC (although at 2.8inches and a nudge over 6 kilos it's a bit bulky!). Ben Heck has done a fantastic job with the machines styling and even included a keyboard into the laptop's chassis.

It has to be conceded that the laptop isn't totally portable as it still requires the Xbox's power cable, however Ben has still managed to modify the monitor's power supply and that of the water pump so that it is all drawn through the one 'super power plug'.

The machine is undoubtedly a huge achievement, as anyone who knows just how big and heavy and Xbox 360 is will appreciate. What's more, after finishing this one Ben tried again with the Xbox constantly trying to improve his design.

His latest project uses an Xbox 360 Elite which managed to include a 120GB HDD, built in camera, and HDMI-to-DVI video connection. Who knows maybe one day he'll build one with its own built in power source, then you'd have a machine Microsoft themselves would be hard-pushed not to market.

Thanks go to Ben Heck for the Laptop, its design and all its info and the pictures.

Tom Wilson

Pictures can be found http://benheck.com/xbox-360-laptop-original. There's also a video of the Xbox 360 laptop running with the enclosure plates removed.