I know I can get led underbody kits just about anywhere for much less hassle and wasted time, but has anyone here ever made their own led tubes? Any help or even a point in the right direction would be great.

 

To make an underbody kit as a single pattern (all on) and single color with LEDs would be relatively simple. You would just need the LEDs, a board to mount them on, a few reistors, wires and of course the tubes and mounting material.

However, making a patternized or multi-color kit would require a "brain" in which you would have to create and that would make things much more difficult. Buying an underbody kit with those fatures is so much easier.

I recommend oznium.com. They are cheap, friendly and ship extremely fast. I havent' met one person that has had problems with them. And, if you get something broken, they replace it quickly too. No hassle, No wasted time.

 

I have made my own LED strips. Its a pain in the rear! Lots of soldering. After I soldered up my own strips for my grab handles, Oznium came out with flexable LED strips. Oh well.

What exactly are you trying to do?

 

For a brain for the custom lighting and pattern stuff you would want it to be controlled by a microcontroller, which requires some programming experience, a little electronics engineering, and a lotta math (for the different patterns, etc). I agree with everyone you should probably just stick to a kit, though if you are adventurous and would like to start learning about microcontrollers, check out "BASIC Stamps" on the web. They are very easy to use (compared to other products) MC's for project and classroom type stuff.