DIY underbody kit tutorial

[PeanutM&MsRgood4u]

Tools: Saw, Drill (1/16), Soldering iron

Materials: Wire (18 ga. speaker wire), LEDs, Resistor (value depends on # of LEDs, and voltages), 3/4" I.D. or larger clear vinyl tubing, Circut board, solder, electrical tape, anything else I forgot.


Begin by cutting the circut board width to fit in the tube

Draw a line lengthwise right down the middle of the board.

Draw a line lengthwise 1/8" off on both sides of the center line.

Draw lines widthwise every 1/4" down the board.

Drill holes at the intersecting lines (not including the center line) so that all the holes are 1/4" from each other.

Mark one side of the board with a + so you know which side will be positive and which will be negative. Usually the long post on an LED is the + one.

Your posts should be just long enough that you dont need wire but it makes the next steps easier.

Seperate the speaker wire into 2 seperate wires.

Strip the insulation from one end all the way back to the last hole.

Superglue the stripped end of the wires on the outside of the first holes and lay the speaker wire next to the holes all the way down. Super glueing where needed to hold the wire straight and to your board.

Thread the + post on your first LED through the first + hole, and the other post through the hole just to the side.

On the underside of the board bend the posts so they lay parallel and on top of their wires, then solder them to their respective wires.

Continue down the board until you get to the last LED.

Now use a resistor calculator like the one at: http://www.rc-cam.com/led_info.htm to figure out the resistor you'll need. Then solder the resistor inline on the + side of your circut board. Also: http://wolfstone.halloweenhost.com/H...ngLEDEyes.html is a great place to learn about LEDs, however they use series circuits and we are making a Parallel circuit. The advantage being if one light burns out it won't ruin the whole strip (think christmas lights, The nice expensive ones that glow even with only 1 bulb)

After that just slide the boad into your tube and seal up the ends if it needs to be water tight (hot glue, electrical tape, duct tape, whatever...) Or if its just gonna be interrior then it shouldn't matter unless your car gets real cold, or wet on the inside in the winter. Connect your positive to the + side of your circuit, and the - to your car's ground.

All sorts of glowing goodness!!!!

**Note** This is a D.C. circuit, so batteries, ect... ok, Wall outlet VERY bad! Gawd help you should you plug this into your wall. Also do not let anything conductive bridge one side to the other, that is called a short circuit, if this happens you'll blow up and probably die. I take no responsibility for how, when, or where any of the knowledge contained in this tutorial is used by anyone. If your break a law its your fault not mine, if you kill yourself, get electrocuted, or destroy your car, you should have thought about that before you even got out the soldering iron.

After all this if your still confused, or unsure, continue to send me ludicrously large sums of money on a regualr basis (1-7 times a week) and I'll make something for you.

[PeanutM&MsRgood4u]

P.S. if the circuit board I used looks kinda funky, its cause it PVC pipe.....

[s14tilo]

Originally Posted by PeanutM&MsRgood4u

I take no responsibility for how, when, or where any of the knowledge contained in this tutorial is used by anyone. If your break a law its your fault not mine, if you kill yourself, get electrocuted, or destroy your car, you should have thought about that before you even got out the soldering iron.After all this if your still confused, or unsure, continue to send me ludicrously large sums of money on a regualr basis (1-7 times a week) and I'll make something for you.

God help anyone who tries this with no experience, that could be a HUGE mess....or fatality.
Does this look good, is it durable?

[PeanutM&MsRgood4u]

@ s14tilo: Well, I can't really say if its durable or not because right after I built it I canabalized the LEDs and made a second one. I made it longer, and drilled the holes the exact width apart that the LED posts were. Then I folded the posts over and soldered one LED to the next that way there was no fussing with the wire. It took probably half the time to make a bar twice as long. Then after it was all soldered up I ran a line of hot glue all the way along the solder lines so that it wont short. I affixed a 9v battery with a small switch. I took it out shooting with a friend and it made finding brass on the ground much easier. Plus once it got dark we used it to light the targets. 50' reflected off the target and it was still bright enough to easily see. In fact it lasted longer than we did, after 4 hours of shooting 30-06 my arm was sore and we decided to pack it in, it was still as bright the second I turned it on. If anyone does decide to do this feel free to ask any questions.

[CBFryman]

Peanuts....use the quote feature... ive noticed in many of your posts you do this:

@ (insert s/n here): _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


if you look in the lower right hand corner of all posts there is a 'Reply W/ Quote' link...it will take you to a page that looks much like the Advanced reply page only diff is it will have every thing that person said in that post in little [(inset s/n here) /QUOTE] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [/quote] things.

other than that nice tutorial. maybe some rice heads will try this out and never have soldered before and end up burning their cars, lol. no but seriously. its probably twice as cheap to make your own as well. and you can make your own as long as you want it to be.

[PeanutM&MsRgood4u]

Originally Posted by CBFryman

Peanuts....use the quote feature... ive noticed in many of your posts you do this:

Yeah Old habits die hard, I know HOW to quote its just different from what im used to. The thing that I really like about this is cheap LEDs are notorius for having a couple that fail on their own in a package of 100. So if you buy 100, your really buying 90, cause 10 will fail after like 5 hours or something. This way, if you build it yourself you can fix it yourself as well. Plus Cold Cathode, and Neon are expensive as hell, and theoretically you could probably light your whole car underbody with no more than 3 or 4 9V batteries (not for TOO long) if you wanted to, I'd like to see someones C.C. or neon kit do the same.

[CBFryman]

actually using this for brake lights would be a good idea. ceritanly not DOT approved, but hey. and LED's that do last past a few hours will last many many times the life of your average incandecent bulb. plus a bunch of little dots looks better than one light shining through tinted plastic.
something that would be cool is to get you a bunch of Blue, Green, Red, and White LED's and have them soldered in clusters of 4, each cluster having its own focusing lense. then you could solder up your own controll module and have swirls of w/e color you wanted. thats alot of work though.

[PeanutM&MsRgood4u]

Originally Posted by CBFryman

actually using this for brake lights would be a good idea. ceritanly not DOT approved, but hey. and LED's that do last past a few hours will last many many times the life of your average incandecent bulb. plus a bunch of little dots looks better than one light shining through tinted plastic.

actually LED tail lights isn't a new idea, plus it is DOT approved, http://www.classicmustang.com/LED%20...dit_C1_web.jpg

something that would be cool is to get you a bunch of Blue, Green, Red, and White LED's and have them soldered in clusters of 4, each cluster having its own focusing lense. then you could solder up your own controll module and have swirls of w/e color you wanted. thats alot of work though.

You kinda just described how they make those "Jumbo-Trons" at stadiums and what-not. Tiny Blue, Red, Yellow, and White LEDs cramed into a tiny square, repeated over a large area, viewed from a distance makes a pretty good large sized TV screen.

[CBFryman]

yellow? that isnt a primary color when it comes to light. Remember ROY G BIV. Red Green and Violet are primary colors, problem is violet is hard to produce with out UV radiation etc, so usually a deep blue (indigo) is considered the final primary color of the visible light spectrum because it works nearly as well as violet shades.
anyway, ya. i was thinking of that, i heard something like that in the Las Vegas International airport. they basically made the ceiling one huge TV.
however, i did not know LED's where DOT approved. SUV's, Trucks, and some cars have a brake light bar across the back. but it is clealy stated in the florida Driving hand book it is not to be considered the working mechanical brake apparatis. I havent seen LED's used in the actual tail lights come from the factory, and usually hwen your see LED replacement bulbs it says "Not DOT Approved, for off road and show use ONLY!" i always thought that was stupid beause LED's can also be made to be more intence/brighter than your average light bulb.
they say you learn something new every day.

[PeanutM&MsRgood4u]

[quote=CBFryman]yellow? that isnt a primary color when it comes to light. Remember ROY G BIV. Red Green and Violet are primary colors, problem is violet is hard to produce with out UV radiation etc, so usually a deep blue (indigo) is considered the final primary color of the visible light spectrum because it works nearly as well as violet shades.QUOTE]

Green? I dont know about light but if you look at paint Yellow + Blue = green (Works with zip-loc bag seal too ) Other than that I know most graphic artists work with CMYK, or Cyan Magenta Yellow and Black. However My "Jumbo-Tron" story was mearly relayed info from a Popular Mechanics magazine so it entirly possible that it was dumbed down in the first place so you atleast get the idea. Anyways maybe is just the Seattle area where I live but ALL the Metro busses and mass transit systems here have Led light assemblies for tail lights. Im 99% sure I have seen in real life regular cars with similar tail lights driving down the road.

[CBFryman]

yes green is a primary color of light. Light is a funny Thing. You can combine Ammounts of a certian wave length you have to combine amplitudes of certian shades (different wave lenghts) of green to make other colors. Red, Green, and Blue (indigo).
Pigment is Red Blue and Yellow or shades there of. but ya, you got the idea. most people call me a dumbass when i say yellow isnt a primary color...