[Drew S.]

First of all sorry i didnt get this done when i said i would i had to make a last minute trip to colorado.

So before you start here is what u need to sucessfully build these

soldering iron
solder
wire cutters
wire strippers
3\8 or bigger acrylic rod.
drill or preferably a drill press
6mm drill bit
cut off saw
hot glue gun
as many l.e.d's as you plan on using
lots of speaker wire.


Alright now on to the tutorial. there wont be any pictures until saturday or sunday when i get back from colorado so feel free to pm me if u dont understand something.
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Step 1: calculations

To, build a effective light bar that will last you have to do one of 2 things either use resitors or wire the l.e.ds so that they will readily accept 12v power. i will be covering the second way and easier way.

for white, blue, green l.e.ds you have to wire them ininline sets of four meaning four are connected as a circuit and them those four are connected to their respective lead (+) & (-) in parrelel. For red l.e.d's they have to be in sets of 6. this is because of the voltage that the l.e.ds are native to green whit and blue are 3.2 and red is around 2.0.

Now on to the actual calculations that need to be made. First you need to decide on the length u want the light bar to be. for the sake of this tutorial were going to say you decided 22 inches. next you need to note whitch color your using so that u plug in the appropiate numbers into the equation. once u have decided the color all u need to do i figure out how far u need to space them apart to reach the required number of l.e.ds for them to be in sets of 4 or 6 for red.

since i will be using green i know that the closest multiple of 4 is 20 so i know i can fit either 20 l.e.d's at a inch spacing or 40 at a half inch spacing(overkill)
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Step 2: Prepping the acrylic

A) the rod is generally sold in 6 foots lengths at around $.40 a foot so you will need to cut it down to the lenth that is needed for your particular light bar. i chose to do this with a simple miter saw and it worked very well for me.(remember to compensate for blade width when measuring

B) use a tape measure and mark out were each hole for the l.e.d's will be drilled. after ward go through and measure out the center of the bar and use a punch (lightly) to make a spot to drill.

C) clamp the bar to the surface you are working on and begin drilling the holes only going as deep as is required to fit the l.e.d's into the holes. (about half way)
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Step 3: placing the l.e.d's

A) now take your l.e.d's out of there packaging but DONT CUT ANY LEADS off or you will be in for a crazy headache.

b) Now take the leds and place them in the hole. place the long stem lead (+) side facing to the left or whichever way u will remember.

c) now very carefully take the hot glue gun and glue the leds in place making sure all of theirs leads are in the proper polarity to complete a circuit.
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Step 4:Building the circuitry

a) now u need to go through with the wire cutters and cut each of the leads so that it will have a small overlap with the next one in line.

b) now take and fold the lead together in sets of four leaving the sets positive and negative leads standing up

c) Solder all ovelapping leads together

d) now take the speaker wire and cut abou 4 inch more then the lentgh of the bar off. and split the to lines (gold&silver)

e) take the gold line and run it from one positive lead of the sets of four to the next all the way to the end of the bar leaving a open line at en (solder at each joint)

F) repeat the previos step but with silver wire and negative leads.
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Step 5: testing

i used a car batter charger to test my bars as it produce the same olts and amps as my battery and can be set on the work bench. simply hook the appropiate lead to the appropiate clips and turn it on to see if they work. if they do then there ready to be put on the car whitch i will cover in a later tutorial.

any quetion pm me or reply here i may have missed something so if i did just point it out and ill add it

[Drew S.]

here is some pictures of what i did with bars

[PacificMustang01]

Sweet How-To!

I'd love to hear how you attached them to the car. I love the look of having lights on the floor. I've been working on that for my car, so my blue LEDs go on when you open door. Do yours do that? If so, where did you wire into? Only place i could find the + wire from the door light system was in the passanger side front winshield piller. Had to pull off the plastic cover and tap in a wire there, then run it down into dash. Not to hard, however.

[Drew S.]

mine justy come on when i turn them on at the switch cause i was being lazy the dday i installed them....

[svtkidd23]

yeah u wire them into ur dome light..! so when door opens the leds kick on....

and wire a toggle to run them on constant power so the dome light doesnt have to be on!!

cody was here

[Drew S.]

^ exactly how its done!

[svtkidd23]

i ate my oatmeal this mornin i got smarts!

[PacificMustang01]

I've got them wired to the dome light +. I had thought about putting the floor lights on the toggle switch I have to control the accent LEDs I've installed in the map pockets. I just wasn't sure about wiring. Is this how I would do it? excuse the crude powerpoint wiring diagram.

[svtkidd23]

[Drew S.]

indeed that looks correct.

[PacificMustang01]

nice. I'll do it that way. I've found these cool LEDs at kragen that work directly on 12V supply. I like the how-to, however, because it teaches me how to use other LEDs and make them work on 12V system. Very cool. My knowledge of electronics is limited, yet I'm not a layman.

[Drew S.]

that and u can get the normal l.e.ds for less than $.10 each

[PacificMustang01]

Where do you get your LEDs? Can you pick them up at radio sh*t, i mean shack?

[black5.0]

Your grill looks crazy man good job i thought about put something like that by my intercooler.

[Drew S.]

radio shack l.e.d's are crap. they are always dim and generally bun out i get mine from ledshoppe.com for about 10 cents each and they are really good quality

[PacificMustang01]

Thanks DrewS! I'll check them out. So, are they a good company to order from? Good customer service and all?

[Drew S.]

truthfully i cant comment on there customer service reps and such cause ive never had to deal with anyone. nothing has ever come in wrong or shipped late