This is a water bottle hacked to make a nice little LED light for the laptop, desk or wherever. It's an ongoing project that I started a while back and today I decided to enter it into the Water Bottle contest. This project is far from fully complete but it will give you a general idea of the possibilities it possesses. Feel free to build upon this idea and recycle!

Step 1: Materials

For this project you will need:

Smart water bottle since it's probably the smoothest bottle out there for our purposes
rubbing alcohol (optional)
Solid copper wire
LEDs-color of your choice
spray paint-colors are your choice
box large enough to hold bottle (optional)
bread board to hold LEDs in place

tools: exacto knife, soldering iron

Step 2: Cutting the Bottle

This is where the box comes in handy. Place your bottle inside of the box, poke the exacto knife through the box approximately where you want the bottle to be cut and spin the bottle.

Step 3: Paint Job

After cutting the bottle, you want to make sure it's dry and clean. Use the rubbing alcohol for best results. It wipes off any oil. Get your spray paint and paint!

Step 4: Lighting It Up.

Mark out your bread board to the size that fits the bottle neck and cut it out. I used a set of dikes to cut out the circle. Make sure it fits the bottle neck. Pick out the LEDs you intend to use. Lay them out on your board and solder them in. Since we all have a different intention for this project, I will leave the power supply and the LED arrangements up to you. I used this website for my particular needs: http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz It will give you the schematic and the arrangements after you fill in the details of your LEDs.

Next we will drive the solid copper wire through the bottle cap and solder onto the LEDs. Power it on to make sure it works then screw it back together.

Step 5: Final Thoughts

For right now I am using a battery to power on my light. However, I am planning on making few more of these and stringing them on a line across the ceiling. Like I said it's an ongoing project and I wanted to make the deadline for the Water Bottle contest.