Pill Bottle Lamp

Inspired by the recent MacGuyver Challenge in Readymade magazine (www.readymademag.com), I made this lamp out of pill bottles, LEDs, and my old windshield wipers. It can hang on the wall or sit on the floor or a table.

So, start poppin' those pills until you have six bottles, preferably the jumbo ones . . . .

Step 1 Wiring

Drill two parallel rows of six 1/16" holes each in each cap, about a quarter to a half inch apart. Fit the leads from the LEDs through the holes and dab them into place with a little hot glue on the outside surface of the cap. Make sure all the leads in one row are positive and all the leads in the other are negative. For a primer on LEDs, check out Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED

Wire the leads together in a parallel circuit, i.e. two wires as the "sides" and the resistors as the "rungs" in a ladder-like formation. This distributes equal voltage to all the LEDs, as well as continuing to function even when one of the LEDs is burned out. I used speaker wire with a translucent coating that lets the copper color show, which plays well with the orange bottles.

Last, I wired it to a 6V transformer, formerly of an Aiwa discman. This steps down the house's current enough to keep the bulbs from burning out.

Comments

[Grey_Wolfe]

This is pretty neat. I give it extra points for the random factor. "Oh look, a lamp. Let's check that out. Wait, what? Windshield wipers?" lol

[geeklord]

I made one of these with a single LED and a reflector on the top and the bottom.

[eskape_velocity]

Cool 'Ible, but the link is wrong. It's www.readymade.com

[robbtoberfest]

This would be really fun with blue Mentholatum bottles.

[chelly]

cool! people need to add more instructables for pill bottles.

[SarahMichelle]

They look like Plastic Bottles.

[luisrobles]

Plastic bottles or glass??

[riku-riku-chan]

too bad i get my prescriptions at target... their bottles are shaped differently....... it looks great!

[mynameisjonas]

this is great! 5/5 stars.