Consumer waste devkits

ALL the ones that ive seen ARE expensive on that site how did you get one so cheap?

 

Hmm, I might get one, so all you guys did was contact
obook@yahoo.com
sent them the link and what you wanted, they purchase it and you pay them?

Sounds pretty cool.

 

I am surprised that they have so many available - interesting that some of them have the broken ports, but if everything else works properly, this is an awesome deal....get a few for parts!

 

Those prices are not in us dollaRS HAHAH. They are in yuan. Do a conversion. I recomend using yobuy.com.

 

i will have to sell some stuff and get one of these kits or if some could help me when i got some money.?

 

change of heart

 

I want one of these, but not sure if I am willing to risk it.

 

Could someone help me also if i got the money together?

 

Well, I received mine today! It came with a USB controller from Gamestop, an English powerbrick, and composite/component cables.

I thought that I was going to get a crappier XDK because I bought a cheaper package, but it turned out to be an Opus from June 2008!

Just a question, though. How can you identify if a 360 is European or American? I don't want to plug it in until I know whether or not I need a stepdown converter.

 

Ok i finaly got my dev from china. So far so good.

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/7241/002ld.jpg

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/5530/003fwg.jpg

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/3277/004ch.jpg

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/8270/005wcj.jpg

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/6575/007oa.jpg

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/7247/006soq.jpg
​

Mod edit.
Your pics were way to big so I made them links instead.

 

I would not worry about a stepdown converter,just use a retail PSU but make your you have one that works,the psu for xenon will work for any 360.
If anything this should help.
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y64/faranheit/Xbox360_Model_Guide.jpg


Also shanegillespie2,please resize your pics or just link them.

 

Thanks for the help! I'll pick up a power brick soon.

Here's a brief description of my console for those who still want to order one.

Revision: Opus

Date of Manufacture: 6-16-2008

Cosmetic condition: 7/10 (it has two to three light scratches and a ding on one edge, but otherwise is in perfect shape)

Came with: A generic Gamestop controller, a PAL powerbrick (so please specify your region), and official 360 component/composite cables.

Pictures:
http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/389/img0143j.jpg
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/3407/img0150am.jpg

 

Im seriously considering giving one of these a go http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=7284716666
i know there broken and from what i can gather the wireless controller boards are dead but i can fix that....but the other problems have me stumped, can it be fixed? if so ill drop £15 on one :lol:

 

just a few quick questions for those in the know.... the really cheap xdk's have got smashed ports (power,av,ethernet etc) now wouldnt they be real easy to replace? i mean ive got 2 junk xenons somewhere so it would be a straight swap right?

The only real problem i can see are the cut lines for the hd/sidecar....or am i just missing the point entirely?

 

I think the real point is to get a cheap one ?

 

You would be spending £15 on the xbox and then like $80 for the shipping. About the ports, i dont know how hard it is to replace, but if i were you i would try and take off the AV port on your broken xenon and then try and put it back on. Just a thought. About the Sidecar/hdd port, i think they rip they up so they can cut the wires, so i would assume they are intact but who knows for sure

 

How long before Microsoft get wind of these and stop it?

 

Theres lots of xdk kits here http://s.taobao.com/search?q=xbox+3...d=s5-e&search_type=item&atype=&filterFineness=
even recovery discs.

 

I've been following this thread for a while, and felt I should interject with a word of caution.

I hate to say it, but it's highly likely that more than a few of you will get some unpleasant surprises upon receiving kits from those kinds of sellers/services.

I'm a xbox-obsessed North American currently living in China with my (Chinese) Wife. So believe me when I say, the whole China/Devkit thing isn't new to me.

Kits destined for recycling here number in the thousands, if not tens of thousands. As part of the Government's importing/recycling regulations, the units purposely have to be damaged -- primarily by mangling the video/network/power ports -- as a means to deter grey market resale. Obviously a lot of these find their way back into the market through the importers/recyclers themselves, or other resellers that buy from them.

Essentially every kit being sold from China was dead/damaged and has been resurrected by having its ports replaced from other dead XDKs or retails, often with half-assed RRoD fixes/additional fans glued in/heatsinks swapped. The trouble is, they're typically only repaired to the minimum point of being able to boot, and not actually to last more than a few days or weeks, but long enough to reach a buyer as not DOA. The bulk of kits being sold are old (even Beta) Xenon's, Zephyr's, and more rarely, Falcons. Jaspers are few and far between. That's not to say they can't be gotten, you just really have to know the tricks and the right people/places to seek them out.

I've been immersed in Chinese culture for more than a decade, so by no means do I say this as a form of racial stereotyping or anything of the sort, but rather a truth through observation and experience of the way things really are here. Scamming and corner-cutting are just a natural part of they way business is done here. It's all about money here. Accumulating it by any means necessary, and at the expense of other people is commonplace -- not only of their own people, but of foreigners especially. The language barrier, the location, and the laws give them a good buffer zone to accomplishing this.

Sellers on Taobao, like most of the other similar online sites/services here, are notorious for telling you whatever you want to hear, just to make the sale. Typically, it ranges from playing dumb with "I don't know" answers, to purposely leaving out critical information, and oftentimes, flat-out lies. Each step along the way wants their cut of the $ (i.e. yoybuy).

9/10 of these cheaper kits end up needing a re-flow or re-balling after anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, tacking on another $50-$75-$100+ to your original cost.

Some other common tactics are the bait-and-switch -- promising you a specific one, and they end up sending something different, case switches (sticker dates not matching up with which motherboard revision is really inside -- this happens most frequently), photos online that don't match up to what they actually have (a la eBay -- where sellers just re-use other seller's photos).

Bottom line, whatever you're exepecting -- expect less. With the cheap kits, expect to pay out more after a short time for repair/reflow/reballing

In the past, we'd gotten burned a few times from Taobao and other sites/sellers, but quickly learned our lesson. More importantly, we also learned the tricks to really getting at the good stuff.

We now do a large amount of buying & selling online, so we're used to dealing with these types of sellers on a daily basis. We not only have the distinct advantage of fluency in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese, but also the experience in knowing the right questions to ask and the right ways to press sellers for the real details instead of the "I don't know"'s and bent truths.

If it seems too good to be true, it likely originates from China. ;-)

-MD

P.S. Group/bulk purchases generally don't work (in a cheap way) because they're required to not only be shipped from a registered exporter, but must also go through a registered importer on the receiving end. A seller may agree to discount the price on a large order, but you'll still be paying for shipping to each individual address of the recipients in the group. Also be advised that in the case of bulk orders, it's possible for sellers here to fake a legitimate export, take your money, ship it out to a residential/(non-import) commercial address and leave you to deal with Customs in your home country not releasing the items to you because it didn't go through an importer as required. We learned this one the hard way too. :banghead:

 

Well I've already ordered one... It was a slighty more expensive one at 290 yuan but it shouldn't have the ports ripped clean off... Just smashed so u can't hook the av/power up.

Ive already desoldered the av port from one of my xenon's...which didn't go to plan cos it's not one solid block..the pins easily come out of the port which meant me rebuilding the av block, only took me three hours