While this is not fully finished I wanted to show the community what I’ve made. I only recently found this group but it helped tremendously. some of the animations I’ve borrowed from the code posted here and elsewhere. 90% code the code is using the FastLED library and I am converting the rest shortly. These are 2812s (218 pixels) running on a Mega. I had all kinds of issues with control and power. I have bucks converting 12v to 5v 10a max on each corner. Each wheel has a 2M connector wire. The Mega is under the dash and has a 3M datawire going to the first pixel with 2 single LEDs wired inline to act as repeaters to make things stable. The whole thing is controlled by a BT Android app I wrote before I found excellent examples here and around so I will be gutting it and rewriting it at some point. Anyway I was just so excited to get it working I had to share… thank you all for all the help!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQtVYCSEonk
Wow! Looks great!
What’s the physical assembly and mounting of the leds under the vehicle? Are they enclosed at all? And how are they attached?
Super project!
I used some L shaped extruded aluminum. Basically I zip tied the strips to the aluminum and added waterproof connectors on each end. Then bolted those aluminum strips to the car on the side and rear. The front, however, was all plastic so I had to get creative. Thank you zip ties! Anyway the LEDs were already waterproof and the L Channel provides a wall of protection and directs the light straight down. It’s protected enough that major rocks and debris will be deflected but I I fear that good hard lick could rip a strip loose if you were to bottom out on a speed bump hard enough.
Looks great, how about trying a @Mark_Kriegsman fire2012 trail from the front wheels, but watch you dont go past 88 MPH!
fire behind the wheels !!! great idea!!! I am so on this!
is this for sell? thanks!
No not going to be selling… this was a project I did because my son said he wanted underglow… and well being a maker I tend to take things as far as I can.
hi would you mind sharing the code for this your bluetooth app looks awsome
I will after I clean it up… right now as programmer I’d be embarrassed to show it.
haha, you did a great job there, please keep me updated! cheers.
I’m fascinated to know what jurisdiction that’s street legal in 
Not Massachusetts, for sure.
Sadly!
In Texas… you cannot have visible bulbs but you can have glow as long as it’s
- not in motion
- not red, blue, white or amber
- does flash to simulate an emergency vehicle.
So basically this is for show while parked mostly… after talking to my local PD they basically said don’t be obnoxious with it and we don’t care. Most local PD will ignore it from what I’ve researched but if you are doing something suspicious it’s an automatic reason to pull you over. It’s akin to no front license plate in TX.
Nice project and car! That Android app examples sound interesting. Can you post some links please?
Sure not mine but I plan to use revise my app using some of this … http://funkboxing.com/wordpress/?p=2154
ive been wanting to do this for a long time i i love the idea and i love cars and lights so ive done regular analog underglow but not this yet. what did you use? 30 per meter?
although im trying to mix mine with a raspberry pi and a touch screen inside along with the bluetooth app
30 per meter yes… I think more would be difficult to power consistently.