Custom RC Car Neon Lights

Introduction:

This is a super cool RC mod that I made to a Baja Bandit car. It has blinking color changing LEDs on the underside and head and tail lights. It's also a lot of fun to drive at night! Obviously, since you guys probably can't have the exact same materials as me, it's pretty customizable, but that's what makes it fun! In the materials step, I also have a custom wire spool holder that I made another Instructable for. You can find it here. Thanks for reading and have fun!

Materials

First of all, you'll need an RC car. You also need some LEDs of your choice (I used 4x 3 volt white ones and 8x 3.2 volt RGBs) , the corresponding resistors, two 3 volt battery cases, a switch, a hot glue gun, some wire, and a soldering iron.

You can buy the white LEDs here

And the RGBs here.

Attaching the Hardware

First, glue the two battery holders side by side on the car like so and solder the middle wires together. Then hot glue two white LEDs to each bumper, two RGBs to the front and rear of the main chassis, and two on each side of the middle as shown.

The PCB and Wiring

Since most LEDs are different and require different resistors, you're pretty much on your own with the circuit, but I made two different parallel circuits, one for the head and tail lights and one for the RGBs. Nevertheless, you still need to cut lengths of wire a bit longer than the distance between the PCB and the LEDs. Then, with the circuits soldered, put in the battery wires (make sure they have a switch) and wire the LEDs to the PCB, making sure that positives and negatives are correct.

Also, here's a link to an awesome LED calculator site: http://ledcalculator.net

Optional Glow Paint

You can also create a super cool glow in the dark paint job with glow in the dark fabric paint. I used Tulip glow in the dark dimensional paint, which creates a textured effect too. Basically, trace all the significant lines on the car body, charge it up with light, and glow away. However, it is mostly for looks when the neon is not on since the LEDs outshine the glow. I also traced the creases on my transmitter, which adds another really cool effect and makes it visible in the dark. See my full Instructable on this here.

Conclusion

And that's pretty much it. It's a pretty easy project if you have the materials, but it completely tricks out your RC car. I've gotten so many compliments on how cool it looks, so have fun with it and read my other Instructables. Comment and vote too!