here is a look at my finished monster 360
http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/x...s/SDC10441.jpg
http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/x...s/SDC10442.jpg
http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/x...s/SDC10440.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRbDuFx9N9k

lemme know what you all think!

thanks

I have a few suggestions:

1) If you are really serious and want to set up this small business right I would suggest registering your operation as a limited liability corporation (LLC). There are a few reasons for this, a big one being that having an LLC gives you some protection. If someone should ever sue you or something like that they can only go after the assets of the LLC, not your personal assets. It sounds ridiculous to think someone would ever sue you, but it could very well happen (someone claims your work on their Xbox caused a short, started a fire, and burned down their house). Especially if you are looking into doing the firmware modding and game backups (personal use or otherwise), you don't want to risk losing your house or car if Microsoft catches wind and decides to make an example. Right now you are small, but you could grow quickly, and forming an LLC from the start is a good idea. It doesn't cost much at all, and can be considered cheap insurance.

2) Keep good financial records of all your transactions; payments received, purchases for goods and materials, other misc. expenditures. This way when it comes time to do taxes you can claim the money you spent on the reballing machine and other equipment/materials as business expenses.

3) Register a domain name. Using the free website host and domain is an OK starting point, but doesn't seem very professional.

4) Brainstorm some ways to differentiate yourself from the competition. There are many people out there fixing Xbox's, you need to give the people a reason to choose you.

5) Branch out and diversify your offerings (e.g. someone mentioned fixing PS3's)

Good luck with your new venture!

Edit: Just checked out the website, good idea to mention the reballing machine, highlight that more (pictures showing equipment?) to further differentiate yourself from the competition and show you have invested in this operation. The only thing I would be a bit wary of as a customer is the 2 week warranty. To potential customers that doesn't show much confidence in your repairs. Usually I think 1-3 months is a pretty standard warranty for refurbished items, so you may want to consider that.

Good advice ^

Hey t-maxxracer32, What all needs to be done to run pirated games in my xbox? Does it affect live? And can you hook me up with games?

On my bro's original xbox he had a finicky little mod chip (if you bumped the xbox their was always the chance if the chip moving and effin evry thing up) installed to make pirated games work....The up side was,we had like 100 games.........and some times up to four on a disk:mdr:

Nice modded xbox. Looks good.

1. Do i need a lawyer or something to get this LLC? or who
would I talk to about it

2. I was thinking about getting myself a "real" business, but my dad steered me in another direction.. He has been a business man for the last 30 years and told me that untill I start making 15-20k a year I should not register myself and not claim anything..
I plan on keeping financial records, but I still havent made a decision whether im going to claim any of it or not.

3. In the futur if the business is doing well I will spend the extra money on a domain name, but the website is not for me to gain actual business... it is more so just for testimonials and a place to put all my work. Ebay, youtube, craigs list, and word of mouth will be my biggest business

4. I am trying to find my own style and technique when it comes to modding xbox 360s but I have never been terribly creative so I base all my ideas off other people then try and do my own thing.. after a few months I will get it down. Also, the way I differentiate myself from others like you said is this machine that I have bought.
Once it comes, I will take some pics of it like you said and post it up to my sight and my flyers that I have made.

5. after a few months once everything picks up and I have xbox 360s down I will look into PSP's Wii's and Ps3's but I want to master one technique before I go into another.

And you are right about the 2 week warranty.. since I do not have the machine I cannot say for sure how everything will work.. in theory the RROD should never come back with my service, but my problem is that people do ridiculous things to there 360. A freind of mine generally leaves his on all day all night.. I do not want to fix someones 360 and have them screw it up by doing things like that. I will probably raise the warranty to a month, but first I really need to see how the machine works.


I really appreciate you taking your time to look over everything. You are right with everything you said, and in time I think that I may be able to meet all of your ideas.

You need to mod the firmware on your DVD drive.

be sure you have a dual layer burner on your computer.

I would not recommend playing backup games on live just because microsoft can tell pretty easily.. you can stealth patch games that enables live play, but I dont trust that too much..

personally, If a game is good enough to play on live then you should just buy it. I only play COD online.

thanks man

It's always good to have a lawyer or two and a good accountant. If you want to do it yourself, go to your State's business website for locations where you can take all the paper work. You can also try Legal Zoom.

I have a question for you all..

I have my ebay account "paintballer1332" and the account has great feedback.. 100% at 174 ratings..

I started an account "360elitemodding" but when listed the first monster 360 I listed it under the wrong name.. so it is being sold under paintballer

how big of a deal would it be if i just continued the use for paintballer instead of starting all over?

I dont mind starting over and having a fresh name, but I believe that people will buy with confidence when they see my rating.

One problem I see is that if people look at my bidding history they will see that I buy broken 360s off ebay..

some wont like that I buy broken ones, fix them, then sell them..

let me know what you all think and I will put up my next sale on elitemodding

Id like to be my own accountant.. I was going to go to school for finance but figured engineering would be funner..

but I will look into a lawyer and legal zoom

thanks luciano

I tried to be my own accountant when I got started, but soon realized that it was very simple to make business mistakes that cost much more then just having an accountant doing what they know best. Who knows, this can grow to be big :whistle:. Reballing components can lead to refurbishing, then you might become a big Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) company. Some companies I know that only do reballing and refurbishing of electronic components are making big $$$$. Like I said, get the hang of it real good and then I'll send you some things for reballing. I just hope you feel comfortable with components that have a selling cost of over $5000 in some cases :lol:.

Ok....That mostly answers my question.....but what I was wondering is:

Can Microsoft tell I modded the firmware and ban me? cause I still wan to play real games on live. So basically my question is can I play both with out any issues from microsoft as long as I don't go in live with the pirated games? (I wasn't going to anyway....not that dumb)

And no I don't have a dual layer dvd burner on my pc. and I'm pretty sure I don't have the equipment to flash the firm ware.

Can you mod the firm ware for me? and can you get the games for me too? If I remember correctly My brother bought his games for $2 a disk.......

If i get big enough where my income gets confusing then I will hire a real accountant as I dont have the proper training and knowledge to do everything they do, but for now I will only be making 6-1000 a month (rough estimate)

Once i feel confortable doing this stuff I am sure that I will be confortable working with expensive components.

long as im getting paid for it:wink::yes:


pming you

One other thing that I kind of touched on before when talking about the LLC: be very careful about the firmware modding and "backup" games. In the past there were quite a few people that got huge fines and even jail time for selling modded original Xbox's that were loaded with pirated games. I'm not implying you do this or will offer it as a service, but you are obviously capable. From what I remember when I modded my original Xbox it's fine to put in a mod chip and flash it with a legal non-copywirghted firmware, but downloading/ripping games is where the legal issues lie. Even giving someone advice on how to pirate a game is a pretty grey area.

And for others, if you are going to ask for help, be a bit more discreet than "Tell me how I can get my Xbox to play pirated games".

Modding_out: Yes, I believe Microsoft can detect modded firmware/games and will ban your console from Xbox live permanently.

yea I do not sell backup games, but I do not believe that modding the firmware is illegal.. I could be wrong though. Ive seen many people selling their drives like this and have not seen anywhere that people are getting in trouble for it so I will just watch my back and keep on the lookout.

I only mod the firmware so people can play their backup games. I do not condone pirating the games.

thanks again for the advice

You'll get paid.

hey luciano clear your pm box

gotta question for ya

thanks

Send me an e-mail: brasuca2478@hotmail.com

lol get really good and maybe you can help refurb some of the MMM that are backlogged at CC ;)

BTW, do you have a recc for a replacement drive? A coworker of mine said his drive won't read anymore and was contemplating buying a broken one off ebay to get a new drive. Are there better ways to do this? He has a hitachi drive (so he says.)

Thanks

My point exactly. The possibilities for this sector is huge.

Help me out here guys......The way I under stand it is this machine t-maxxracer32 bought disassembles broken computer chips to their core parts then re-assembles them? what about replacing broken layers on them, not just the solder.

To do that, he would have to have the firmware of the drive flashed since the drive is married to the board with a serial code.

Then your SOL.

email sent

Im not sure what your asking here. what is a recc? or what does it stand for? i tried googling it but came up short.

fixing DVD drives is something that I am working on right now.. whether the drive is not reading the disk, showing the "open tray" error or just not opening... These drives are somewhat a mystery to me as there is not a whole lot of info on how to actually fix them. Stupid tricks that people come up with but they really are doing nothing to fix the problem.. just for some reason the drive decides to start working again.

If the drive just does not read anymore I would guess the laser is broken or some component inside the drive is failing.

I suggest he just get a drive off a broken xbox (hopefully the drive is not broken..)

again.. once i figure out these problems ill post it up



basically this machine lifts up certain chips off boards that cannot be done so with a regular solder gun. The chips I guess you could say are heat treated on the board.. meaning it is placed in a specific spot then heat is applied that melts the solder causing the chip to join up with the board.

Ill get a video of it in action once I figure it all myself.

The work that actually fixes the xbox (reballing) is done by hand and that is going to be the hardest part i believe. Lifting up the chip will be all of a matter of pressing a button... once i calibrate it and everything.. putting the chip back in place after the reballing will take about 30 seconds of precision placement then all I will need to do is press a button to get it melted back on.

this is all theory. Tomorrow when the machine comes the true test comes.

and as squee said.. you SOL if you need certain layers fixed inside a chip. I do not encode or write the chips.. I just fix the bad solder jobs.

Replied. Don't get upset for the straight forward answer. It's the same answer I give to all the places that sends me e-mail regarding reballing. One other suggestion, get a few scrap chips and train your butt off. Check ebay and local places that recycle electronic products.

In no means should I be criticizing you, as I am quite cheap also :lol:...

After listening to almost a hundred computer podcasts, sounds like GoDaddy is only about $10 bucks a year?

Quite cheap if you ask me, but me, I always change my mind so paying $10 a website I'm gonna end up ditching a few days later isn't the thing for me. :oops:

Really looking forward to your success-fullness of your business!

hm. I figured having your own domain name would be 25-30 a month..

Once i get better at HTML formatting and all that jazz I may make a sweet site that I pay for.

You can have a site hosted by godaddy for $4.99/mo. Check out their hosting plans on their site. I have been using them for my personal site for several years now and have been extremely happy.

what makes it so much better than webs.com other than a more professional look?

The equipment looks pretty sweet. I think that's your ace in the hole for getting business. Definitely show pics of your equipment at work with any ads. Start a Facebook page too... I think that would be huge to help the biz.

http://www.inmotionhosting.com/

That's another bargain for web hosting esp if you need more bandwidth. I know a couple guys using them. But for a simple site without a ton of pics or video etc, then about any $5 host will work, like go daddy. Go daddy does a good job making things simple and easy to purchase and manage all in one spot.

btw, I have an original XBOX that started giving me "damaged or dirty disk" errors, and has progressively gotten so bad that it's pretty much impossible to use. Used to be, that it would get an error a couple times, but eventually would read the disk... and it would play fine after that, until you restarted or changed games. Now I just gave up because I tried restarting over and over and it won't work. Even a brand new game won't work.

I thought maybe there's dust inside the DVD messing up the laser or something. But it's next to impossible to tear into it that far. Tried blowing air inside the drive but that didn't work. Any ideas? Replacement drives cost more than a used XBOX

thanks for the info on the site

Ive never messed with the original xbox, but I do have one sitting at my house broken. Not sure if the drive is working or not, but PM me if you want to try it out

Got the machine in today and I am quite pleased

other than a cracked software disk everything came in perfect condition and I got it all up and running with little problems

Here is a few pics of it all
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k9...2/SDC10450.jpg
My work station

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k9...2/SDC10452.jpg
The Jovy 7500 reflow station!

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k9...2/SDC10453.jpg
chip after I pulled it off and cleaned it

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k9...2/SDC10454.jpg
chip I pulled off and have yet to clean

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k9...2/SDC10460.jpg
the board after I pulled the chips off. It has not been cleaned yet

Damn! Look at all those shotty solder joints..
Now I know what you mean.

well,

it only looks that bad because when I pulled the chip off, the solder followed it causing the mountain of solder.

the chip on the left I played with a bit with my soldering iron so that is not exactly how it looked once I pulled the chip off, but the area on the right has not been tampered with since the chip was pulled off

Still, very dusty.
I would never leave my computer components that dusty.

I do a weekly, or sometimes monthly cleaning of all my computer, and computer areas.
Maybe that's why they last a long time :P
Or not..

Oh,

This is because this is an old school xbox and I could care less how clean it is because it is just a scrap board that I will be practicing on.

All the 360's I service get a thorough cleaning

Nice.

thanks luciano

Alright guys so how should I go about to "advertise" myself?

I have a youtube channel.. an ebay account.. website
I just posted an add to central PHX in craigs list

Should I go to other forums and throw my flyer up there?

A freind of mine said I should put the flyer up on some of my school boards, but I'm not sure how legal that is..


To be honest I have plenty of work cutout for me to do (7 360s waiting to be modded.. along with over 25 controllers), but I think that if I get requests for certain 360s it will help me broaden my skills and make me do things I would have never thought of doing.

anyways heres a console I finished up this morning
http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/x...es/GOWcase.jpg

All it needs is a 360 and it will be complete

also, some of you mentioned that I should put some pics of my "work area" to show buyers that I do have professional equipment

will these pics work? Honestly it may look cluttered but it has never looked better...
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k9...2/SDC10485.jpg
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k9...2/SDC10487.jpg
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k9...2/SDC10488.jpg

thanks

Is there a XBox 360 forum? That would probably be a good place to post something.

I can make a phone call (Hardly do that :lol:), but if they agree you would have to expand in record pace to keep up with demand. They might be interested in having a few custom made units.

As far as the workspace pix are concerned, I would make the pix look as if you have a professional workspace, and is not some guy working in his kitchen (even if he is.)

The last pic is better. What I would do is take a close up of a 360 board on the machine as if its about to be worked on. The last pic is about like that, but zoom in closer and clean up the board. Looks very dirty. An offset 3/4 view would be more pleasing.
Make sure you can't see a dirty worktable or random junk in the background or carpet or anything.

Something like this:
http://www.digitechems.com/digiteche...s/assembly.jpg

or this
http://www.febaelectronics.com/UserF...c_boards_6.jpg


Looks pro and more trustworthy. Make sure everything looks clean and the pics are well lit and not blurry.