Illuminate your wallet

(via LifeHacker)
Got a little spare time and a desire to better see your wallet’s contents at night?  It’s time to mod that sucker and put some night-lighting in.

I first got exposed to the glorious field of illuminating wallets when shooting Gear Live’s The Bleeding Edge ( http://www.bleedingedgetv.com/ ), a weekly video show. They had been sent the Walit ( http://www.lazyboneuk.com/store/pro240.html ), an electroluminescent glowing wallet, to review. I was excited at the idea – I had personally never thought of a glowing wallet and was eager to see how it worked.

I was, however, completely disappointed. The Walit was terrible. It was dim, the batteries took up too much space, and it had a flimsy clip to turn the light on and off.

. . .

led-wallet.jpg

Parts list:

  • A leather wallet
  • At least four small surface mount LEDs (Search eBay for “white smt leds” or salvage them from an old cell phone)
  • Two colors of thin, flexible wire (I used wire wrapping wire)
  • Two CR1616 watch batteries
  • A small amount of sheet brass, or something to make the battery holder out of :
  • A 1/8 watt 100k-ohm resistor (though anything betweek 10k and 1 megohm should work)
  • A generic PNP transistor
  • A small tactile snapdome button

Now go, mod, and come back with pictures.

[tags]Wallet mods, Light your wallet, Night-light for money[/tags]