The trapping season is getting along, and the now ancient Defender is still catching tons of those nasty mosquitos. That Biogents attractant seems to really do the trick, especially with Asian tiger mosquitos. I also have been using the Octenal that I bought online from someone in the Ukraine; the combination seems to do the trick. Of note this year is I absolutely could not get the MegaDefeby beads - Mosquito Magnet
Just a quick follow up... I tried the home-made attractant that was supposed to mimic Lurex-3 (link in my previous post), but after a week had a significant slowdown in the number of mosquitos trapped, and zero Asian tigers. I switched to the Biogents attractant- though a bit more expensive than Lurex3, it works well. Not only that, but the Asian Tigers made up more than half of the trapped bby beads - Mosquito Magnet
Is this thread still getting visits?!?! Has anyone tried using an Arduino to improve their Mosquito Magnet? My ten year old Mega Defender has been up and running for six weeks now, and in the last week has been catching mosquitos like crazy; partly due to very wet weather, and partly (mostly?) because I found a very good replacement to the discontinued Lurex3 attractant and just startingby beads - Mosquito Magnet
Just an update. My primary Mega Defender “locked up” a week ago; the OLED display was on but it stopped cycling through the data, and the propane was on 24/7. The time was not indexing. The Defender was still running, but always on; it is likely that if it locked up while in Sleep Mode, that wouldn't have been true. When brought down to the workbench and the blue USB cable was plugged iby beads - Mosquito Magnet
The first version of the Mega Defender was pulled out of the basement last weekend. With zero maintenance (did not open it up), I uploaded version 20A of the Arduino software which included slightly earlier start times and very slightly changed OLED display outputs, and plugged it in outdoors. To my great satisfaction, the Mega Defender fired up right away! After a week of operating, I shut iby beads - Mosquito Magnet
I chose the Mega because I wasn't sure how many peripherals would be added, and the size of the code when this all started. Plus, I had a few Megas laying around from another project. I nixed the automatic adjustments for daily changes in sunrise and sunset as extraneous, since the runs times were just a wag anyway, which shortened the code. The trimmed version (no Bluetooth, etc) may very wby beads - Mosquito Magnet
The four Mega defenders have been put into semi-warm storage (basement and garage) for the winter. The two I keep up and running in my yard did a very good job knocking back the swarms, in what was a very bad year for mosquitoes in northern Virginia. The very latest code is below, which includes the power outage logic that worked great. I also doubled the font size for temperature and "by beads - Mosquito Magnet
I just finished reading through all the details of the Liberty engineering effort. Holy cow!!! Probably as much real engineering as the original coding and electronics design at the OEM. With the Defenders relegated to the history bin, and only an occasional one popping up on eBay, when my current stash of four Defenders starts to fade, switching to the latest model will be the next big leap.by beads - Mosquito Magnet
The 2020 mosquito season is wrapping up. There have been three Mega Defenders running now nearly continuously for two months, so six light-offs per day, almost without issues. Almost, because I have had two of the 12 V power supplies fail, entirely due to water incursion. We have had an extremely wet summer, with very heavy rainfalls. Those Amazon power supplies don’t come water-proofed. To mby beads - Mosquito Magnet
Since going to the "monster" MOSFETs, they don't get warm at all. I bought them on Amazon: 55v 110A MOSFET The power supply (also on Amazon) is key. When I did a "buy it again" for the next build Amazon sent a smaller 5A version, which seems to have trouble during the ignition cycle with the fan, igniter and valve all being powered along with the Mega. Everythingby beads - Mosquito Magnet
To answer the igniter question- since going with the dimmer function (PWM), I haven't had any issues at all with the igniter. In fact, in the rebuilt Defender I am currently running in my backyard I tested and used the original igniter that is at least 8 years old, and it has been lighting twice a day for 6 weeks at least. The igniter last year must have worked at least 120 times- a far cryby beads - Mosquito Magnet
Seems like a fairly complicated way to generate both heat and the C02...unless you have easy access to a large c02 cylinder or other large scale source. Otherwise,, that's essentially all the MM does with propane. The nice thing about the propane is how easy it is to get refills (any Wal Mart, Home Depot, etc) has Blue Rhino or Amerigas that takes minutes to swap. The power to drive the heby beads - Mosquito Magnet
MEGA DEFENDER REV1 It's 2020 and the new mosquito season is upon us, though the well below average temps in the mid-Atlantic have delayed the need to restart the Mega Defender until now. At the end of last year I acquired two vintage, non-working Defenders through eBay for $180, and decided to re-build an entire system. The original system from last year will go to work for a friend nearby beads - Mosquito Magnet
Contact form message received from Beads (originally posted to forum by dev): Hello! I'm getting ready to fire up the Mega Defender from last year- this will be the true test of the survivability of the Arduino Mega design. The number one complaint of the Mosquito Magnet remains a failure to light-off after year one, even after a decade of production. I have a Defender board thatby beads - Mosquito Magnet
OK- something did come up. Actually, a few things. My wife did not like the “blaring” OLED display that was visible from the kitchen eating area most of the time, so it was time to implement a feature that I had thought about earlier: integrating an HC-05 Bluetooth module (HERE at Amazon for $9) so that the status of the Mega Defender could be checked from almost anywhere in the house using anyby beads - Mosquito Magnet
This is - to me at least- the wrap up of this project. The sunrise/sunset calculations worked pretty well, but after adding tons of variables and running into issues with BCD (Binary Coded Decimal) conversion, it became obvious that the summer- when the Magnet is running, has small variations in sunset and sunrise time. Since the wide window on the run times at sunrise and sunset is arbitrary toby beads - Mosquito Magnet
That is some serious work! The WiFi capability is really cool. I tossed my original Defender control board (mostly out of pure frustration!)...but looking at the images you posted, do you know why there is such a massive capacitor on the board? The big heat sink on the one MOSFET must be for the igniter, based on how how the one on the Mega got. Good stuff!by beads - Mosquito Magnet
Here’s the Arduino Mega wiring diagram. I doubled checked things, but there could still be errors. There are still tons of ports available for other sensors, and the memory usage is 22% for dynamic memory, and only 10% for program storage. The DHT11 sensor is still there- I like having the humidity recording- who knows when that data may be useful. The DHT11 has zero input on the function ofby beads - Mosquito Magnet
Sorry for the delay- I’ve been out of the country and unable to write updates. Right before I left for vacation, the Mega Defender stopped working- the OLED screen went blank. Troubleshooting revealed that the igniter MOSFET had failed closed- leaving the igniter on for a couple hours, at which point the female portion of the 5.5mm power adapter actually melted. In an earlier post, I hadby beads - Mosquito Magnet
Here is some cool data from the fan speed tests and the igniter sequencing. During the low fan speed lightoff, the initial temp rise was faster (see second chart), but then it did not increase like the higher fan speeds. The fan speed has some interesting results: the dTemp clearly varies directly with fan speed. In that fan speed run (V13), the fan decreased in power by 10 units of 255 about eby beads - Mosquito Magnet
I have been running a bunch of tests using the amazing power of the Arduino to command all kinds of combinations of fan speed, cool down times, and ignition sequences. Is anyone proficient on the circuit diagram tools that would want to tackle the schematic? I downloaded Fritzing, but there’s a decent learning curve to it… The Real Time Clock feature works really well. The propane tank sby beads - Mosquito Magnet
OK- here's the latest code. The "VOID Loop()" is now really small, since all the data output and sensor reads are in separate methods. The first IF statement in the main loop identifies the SLEEPING mode; when the propane valve is closed and only the fan runs. The code as-is is set to go to sleep between 4:00 AM and 3:00 PM. The first time the hour is outside the designated slby beads - Mosquito Magnet
Woohoo! First things first- the new code seems to be working like a champ. My Computer Science major son got on me for not using more methods and streamlining the code, so version 12 is a much better piece of code overall. The reason the OLED “froze” last try was that I completely forgot to include that new method inside the main loop; it worked for IGNITION and SHUTDOWN, but not TRAPPING.by beads - Mosquito Magnet
It is worth addressing the risk of explosion, since that is obviously a concern. The likelihood of a catastrophic failure of the mosquito magnet burner section in worst case conditions is virtually zero, based on some simple math. Also, given how prone the original sensors and control system are to failures, the company could not produce a product that had any measurable risk of explosion. Therby beads - Mosquito Magnet
Dev has a lot more experience with the Defender/Liberty than I do, that's for sure. I understand the safety issues for general consumers, but DIYers have a *reasonable* appreciation for risk mitigation. I personally spent years as a Navy Test Pilot and Test Pilot Instructor- they beat ORM (Operational Risk Management) into our thick pilot skulls repeatedly! That said- the actual flame fromby beads - Mosquito Magnet
This forum proved to me that the Mosquito Magnet was one of those great ideas that people really want to work better...I wonder if they are monitoring these threads! The physical design is really good, too bad they went super cheap for the control system. To answer the questions: There are three temp sensors. Two are really nice temp DS18B20s, one mounted on the hot section, the other in a holby beads - Mosquito Magnet
Dang, I didn't think the SD data file attached to my last post, so I deleted references to it. In the attached iteration, the lightoff delta temp "dTemp" is set to 11.1 deg F (I added the decimal when I was screwing with the crummy DHT11 sensors that only output integers.) The loop# in trapping has since been updated; it indexes by one now; the Arduino now only sends the data to tby beads - Mosquito Magnet
The Arduino runs on a version of C++; the IDE can be downloaded to a laptop or PC, then when the code is written and compiled, it is "squirted" to the Arduino Mega via the USB. That big blue USB cable hanging out serves two purposes: it allows me to update the code (this was definitely a work in progress), and there is also a serial mode that "prints" variables and states to tby beads - Mosquito Magnet
I submitted a request for an account, but beyond the "click to get registered" email, nothing has come in. (see below) To answer the quick questions...the recorded data is fantastic at troubleshooting- that's how I found out the thermistor was bad and therefore completely skipped it. You are correct- I have one temp sensor on the hot section, and an identical one exposed to extby beads - Mosquito Magnet
Hi I recently discovered your great posts on the Mosquito Magnet Defender (my model). The Defender catches lots of mosquitoes, when it runs properly. When it failed to start this year, I gutted my Defender and replaced the board with an Arduino Mega, using three MOSFETs to control the fan, ingnitor and valve. Also added were two temp sensors and a DHT11 temp/humidity sensor. For data, I instby beads - Mosquito Magnet