HOW TO MAKE A QUICK ACCESS LPT CABLE A removable LPT cable I found this method on another site and did this myself and found it very useful so I decided to make a tutorial. What you will end up with is a port on your xbox that you can plug a cable you will make into your xbox that has the LPT male on one end to plug into your computer. Materials Cat5/Cat5e cable (at least 2 feet)($0.65 at Monoprice) 25-Position Male Solder D-Sub Connector ($1.99 at Radio Shack) 25-Position D-Sub Connector Hood (metalized or not) ($3.09 at Radio Shack) Cat5 Two Cable Male Coupler ($5.99 at Radio Shack) (5x) 100K ohm 1/2W Resistors ($0.99 each at Radio Shack) 1N914/4148 Switching Diode ($1.49 at Radio Shack) Soldering Iron ($7.99 at Radio Shack) Solder ($3.49 at Radio Shack) Procedure First you need to open up your console which you can see how to here (p.s. you don't need the tool though it helps). Step 1: Preparing the Cable The next thing you need to do is prepare the Cat5 cable. Cut the ends of the cable off so that there is the connector at the end and about a foot of cable on both sides. Then you can dispose of the connector-less middle wire that is left. Resized to 59% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge On one of the pieces of the cable strip about 1.5-2 inches of the shielding off and about an inch of the 8 wires inside. On the other piece of cable strip the shielding all the way off up to the connector. Resized to 59% (was 1023 x 767) - Click image to enlarge Step 2: Soldering to the Board Next you need to use this picture (the part with the motherboard, not the part in the foreground with the black thing with holes) Resized to 59% (was 1018 x 759) - Click image to enlarge to solder one wire from the part of the cable that was stripped all the way to the connector to each of the points on the motherboard. You will only be using 7 out of the 8 so cut the 8th one off or leave it alone. Cut the cables as short as they can be but keep them long enough so that the connector can touch the area of the metal casing with the holes (towards the back of the holes). The cable should have some solid colored wires and striped wires in it but it does not matter which color wire you solder to which colored point as long as you match it up later. The orange dot though has an exception. Instead of soldering the wire right to the point you need to put the switching diode in between them. You solder the end of the diode that has the thick black line closest to it right into the board, and the other end onto the wire (sorry about the picture my camera wouldn't focus, you can kinda see the diode so I circled it). Resized to 59% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge When you are done all the wire it will look like this: Resized to 59% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge Step 3: Cutting the Hole in the Metal Then what you need to do is cut a square hold in the metal case so that the Cat5 two cable coupler can just pit through where the holes are near the back left of the case. Resized to 59% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge Step 4: Gluing the Coupler in Place Then you need to stick the Cat5 Two Cable Male Coupler so that just a little bit is sticking out the of the metal case and then use an adhesive (like hot glue) to hold it in place Resized to 94% (was 640 x 480) - Click image to enlarge Then plug the connector on the cable you just soldered into the coupler. Step 5: Soldering to the D-Sub Plug Now you need to prepare the other side. You need to solder the wires on the other end of the cable to the D-Sub Connector. You do this in two steps. First look a this picture again, but this time focus on the foreground with the black thing with holes. Resized to 59% (was 1018 x 759) - Click image to enlarge You are going to solder a 100ohm resistor onto the D-Sub plug (doesn't matter which way their facing unlike the switching diode) onto the pins that are represented by the purple, teal, yellow, blue, and red dots on the picture (pins 1, 2, 14, 16, and 17). Then you are going to solder the 7 wires from the other piece of the cat5 cable you cut to the D-Sub plug (5 of the wires will go onto the other ends of the resistors and 2 will go strait to the D-sub because there are no resistors on their pins). This is where it gets a little tricky (and important). You need to make sure you match up the right wires with the right pins (based on how you wired to the board). For example, lets say one of the wires in your cable is brown and one is black. If you soldered the brown wire to the yellow point on the board in the picture, then you would solder the brown wire on this end of the cable to the yellow point on the D-Sub plug in the picture. If you soldered the black wire to the purple point on the board in the picture, then you would solder the black wire on this end of the cable to the purple point on the D-Sub plug in the picture. Get it? Solder all seven wires to the D-Sub cable in the correct spots and you'll end up with this: Resized to 59% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge Step 6: Cutting the hole in the Plastic The next step is to cut out another square hole large enough for the Cat5 two cable coupler to fit through, but this time in the plastic side to the case where the hard drive goes on. Resized to 59% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge Step 7: Finishing Up Now just close your console back up and make sure that everything fits around the coupler. Then you just put the D-sub Hood on your D-sub plug to cover up the wires by putting the two halves around the plug with the little screw things it comes with and then screwing the larger screws down into the holes. And your done! You now have yourself an easy quick access way to access your nand. While your using the console your hard drive (if you have one) covers up the port and when you need to access it just take the hard drive off and plug the cable into the port and the other end into the computer! If you haven't already, follow up with the JTAG wires and your on your way to countless times of fun.
