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Portable Xbox 360


StarchyPizza

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So today I was at a track meet and was quite bored because my portion of the meet was over. So i thought of bringing an xbox 360 along. But as we all know that wouldn't work without the neccesary supplies which was not available. So I thought of making it portable.

Here is my idea:

-Get a large brief case and secure the Xbox 360 inside

-Drill ventilation holes so it doesnt over heat

-Then mount a small LCD monitor inside and connect the xbox to it

but my only problem is power supply

Does anyone know what i could use to power it besides a generator or a small battery?

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Sounds like a cool idea...i think everything would work great, just the power supply would be a problem. You could get a small dc-dc power inverter, i have one rated for about 400w. So all of that would work of course if you wanted to carry around a car battery. Zimmer had the right idea, i think thats the only way to go. You could also use the 12v solar panel to maybe keep the batteries charged. As i dont own a 360, look at the power supply and see what it says for Volts most likely 120 Vac input then look at Amps=blah blah use Ohms law. V*I=P so just multiple the two and then you will know what kind of inverter "rating" you need, 350-400w should be plenty....hope everything works out

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see the only thing is i want it to be truley portable so no cars involved. like if i were stranded in a open field id be able to play if i brought it in the briefcase

Then i guess your best bet is to carry 1-4 car batteries (running them in parallel), depending on how long you want to play. Yes you could run it off just one car battery but i dont know how long that would last seeing as car batteries arn't really "deep cycle" batteries either. Also the solar panel would help but as to how much i also dont know.

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i sadly agree that u would need roughly about 3 to 400 watts to run the beast of a system that is xbox 360. There are power units that take old computer power supplys and it says that u at least need a unit running 200 watts concurrently *meaning all the time*... to put it into laymens turms portable or not that sucker is gana be a beast to carry around with you. The power supply alone would be enough to jump start another car out in a field if need be! The only logical thing i can think of is to buy a cupple deep cycle batteries and a decent solar cell and you would be well on your way. You also have to add on the power of the lcd screen you would be popping into the system as well + any extras like blower fans to keep the system cooled because I know if u dont keep it cool... u will RROD the system and have to return it unmodded to microshaft. It seems like alot to do but you wont get much play time out of a small "carry around" light weight battery... 15 min at best... even then ur pushing ur luck. i could see a series of cases that u could link together but its just a thought!

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I checked the power supply and it said 100-127 so it shouldnt be TOO much work. Line the back with solar cells some for the LCd and some for the xbox, then rip apart a back up battery and use only what you need. that might do you well for about an hour. and when youre done, plug it in and charge it back up.

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Right, someone with both an XBox 360 and a 'kill-a-watt' style power meter please connect it up and tell me how many watts the xbox consumes while playing a game, not while idling.

From there it will be a very simple matter to work out what kind of battery & inverter or direct DC supply will be needed for a given amount of game time. The watt rating on the power supply is not relevant here, we'd need actual consumption figures.

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Right, someone with both an XBox 360 and a 'kill-a-watt' style power meter please connect it up and tell me how many watts the xbox consumes while playing a game, not while idling.

From there it will be a very simple matter to work out what kind of battery & inverter or direct DC supply will be needed for a given amount of game time. The watt rating on the power supply is not relevant here, we'd need actual consumption figures.

I looked it up, while playing GoW the 360 used an average of 185.1W with the peak at 186.5 and the minimum at 176.54.

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I looked it up, while playing GoW the 360 used an average of 185.1W with the peak at 186.5 and the minimum at 176.54.

Then in the imaginary land of ideal physics, one could use a UPS to generate the mains electricity from batteries and run the xbox. The XBox would draw 185W but I dont know the power factor of it, that would need to be mearsured, but lets go worst case and call it .6 like some older computers. This would mean 308VA for the XBox.

Working out how long that will last for a UPS is tricky, but I found a table on the 'net that says a 1000VA UPS would drive that load for 45 minutes, and you would get best part of three hours from a 2.2KVA unit, however you do need two people to move those things.

The other way would be direct drive, I dont know the XBox PSU, but if the output is a simple 12v line then I'd suggest a direct DC line, just plug it into a bank of (parallel) car batteries. The current could need to be measured again though, as the wattage of 185 if the mains power, what it will draw at 12v is going to be different.

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Yeah i don't think a xbox 360 would be a good choice unless you have like one of the mini generators even then that's like stretching portable i think maybe something that does not use like a power house graphics system like a wii would be easily done but good luck if your try a 360 !!

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look for a low-power hard drive that would work with the 360. that will cut down on power use. also, the cooler you keep a graphics card, the less power it uses, so you might be able to pack it with ice packs or some liquid nitrogen (if you can get your hands on it) to cut power consumption.

the APC UPS's that I use can run a Dell xps 420 that has SLI graphics cards for about 40 minutes. The batteries are fairly small (about 6"x2"x4"), so you could hook a few of those up in a series and put in some resistors, and you should be able to power the 360 for a few hours

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look for a low-power hard drive that would work with the 360. that will cut down on power use. also, the cooler you keep a graphics card, the less power it uses, so you might be able to pack it with ice packs or some liquid nitrogen (if you can get your hands on it) to cut power consumption.

I hate to play the physics-geek here, but I have to call you out on the graphics card temperature/power consumption concept.

If the graphics card were built of superconductors and kept at a few Kelvin, then it there would be a measurable difference in the losses caused by thermal production due to conductor resistance, but were talking about measurable only to a physics geek with access to sensitive equipment here. Cooling a video card a few degrees Celsius will have no noticeable difference on the overall power consumption.

If the video card is cold then the entire rig will use less power as the fans will not be working as hard. A hot card will need more cooling and therefore more power, but it really does not take much current to spin a cooling fan. Also, I think the the power/cost/space consumed by hauling tanks of LN around could be put to better use by bringing an extra battery.

A similar argument can be made the the low power hard drive. Swapping a drive for a replacement that uses 50mW less at idle will do little when the main cpu is using ~60W.

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