Patriot Deployed for Now

The Patriot survived the day and night on the patio, and was running this afternoon. i decided to deploy it to its operating location away from the patio. However, I didn’t dare to shut it down and restart it, only to find it not starting. So I moved it while running, set it down, and it has been running since.

They tell you to turn the machine off and let it cool before moving it. But this is undesirable for many reasons, chief of which is that the igniters have to cycle as the trap is restarted. These devices are just horribly unreliable, and now I have no spares. I had just replaced the igniter, and I didn’t want to cycle it, and I didn’t want to have to come back, possibly repeatedly, to make sure the trap was running. Plus, I had become adept at moving a running trap over the years.

The disadvantage is that the trap restart has not been tested. There is something wrong with this trap. It is only marginally working. The consequence is that I don’t know when the trap will fail again. Tomorrow? Next week? Next month? The next time it fails, it will be time to figure out why the tire pump pressure reading is so high, and why this uses less gas than the Defender and catches fewer mosquitos. Could the combustion chamber really be so clogged? It will be time to open it up and take a look.

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