5 Minute Safety Light

I've always wanted a simple light that I could wear around my neck while working or walking at night. Flashlights can be too heavy or unwieldy and I could never get ahold of those head mounted lights to work very long. So with found parts and a few minutes of time, you can build this light.

By the way, I'm entering this into the LED contest so please vote for me!!

Here is the parts laid out. Not shown is the chain that I used to wear. In later versions, I used a zip tie to hold the chain and black spray paint to mask the pill bottle cap. Also note that the switch shown is not the one I ended up using. I used a SPST push button switch.

I used the soldering gun to melt a hole in the cap and threaded the switch into place while the plastic was still warm. I then trimmed and tinned the wires.

I soldered the positive side of the battery onto one of the wires. Lousy job I know...

I soldered the LED into position being careful to get the polarity correct. I can't stress this enough. If in doubt test on a spare battery then clip one of the leads shorter than the other and remember which is which.

Make sure everything fits into the bottle with the light as close to center and pointing down as possible. I wrapped the battery in electrical tape so that the possiblity of shorting out was reduced.

Now you can attach the chain, string or whatever to the bottle using either a rubber band or zip tie. I recommend using the zip tie, it'll look better. When I test it in my apartment, I can still see it at a distance of about 10 feet.