After getting the Defender up and running then failing on Thursday, restarting, and failing again Friday morning, after repositioning the NodeMCU and restarting, by mid-day it had caught about 10 or so mosquitos, not too bad. These mosquitos convinced me it was time to start the Patriot, and perhaps get cracking on the Liberty conversion.
At the end of last season, the Patriot was suffering some failures during a run. Normally, a failing trap fails to start, but stopping in mid-tank was rare. I tested the pressure last year with the auto tire pump, and it was high. I decided to test again and clean it if necessary before deployment.
My test pump, a Viair P70 purchased in 2015, had suffered after being used to keep a ring-type above ground pool ring inflated. After two seasons, the ring had become brittle, and had several large tears, and several small leaks, which I had patched, and was able to inflate, with a slow leak. This required the shop vac to be applied every day, and after a few times when the plastic bag covering to the vacuum blew aside and let the rain in, the vacuum bearings started making a screaming noise, adding to the experience. When I was not perfectly diligent, a few times during the cool of the night, the ring deflated to the point where a cascade of about 1000 gallons of water escaped over a partial collapse on the pool’s low side. I dreaded waking to see this out the window or on the pool cam in the morning.
So I took the Defender software and adapted it to a pool ring inflater. This required a 12 volt battery, pump, trickle charger, 5 volt auto adapter, a solid state relay, and a pressure sensor, plus additional temperature and humidity sensors connected to a NodeMCU on an interconnect breadboard. The pressure sensor had to measure very low relative pressures absolutely. I made on using two paint mixing sticks and a 100 g strain gauge. The ends of the sticks were taped to the ring about 30″ apart, and the ring pushing against the strain gauge deflected it enough to measure. The previous and now backup visual measure was provided by leaning the pool skimmer handle at about 45° against the ring. If it sank less that 1/4 handle width, the ring was ok. Full scale was about 2-3 rings sunk into the ring. Water would flow soon after.
The system worked beautifully. However, as time passed, additional leaks developed, one or two every few days. Unless these were identified and repaired, the system would be pumping so much that the energy removed from the battery could not be replenished by the trickle charger in time for the next inflation, and the system would enter a downward spiral eventually ending in failure and excessive battery discharge, and the lost 1000 gallons.
The first pump, $10 from Harbor Freight, was quite small, and took several minutes to reinflate the pool ring. This wore out right away, and I had “repaired” the pump once or twice before (the pump piston seal if overheated looses its flexibility and does not seal effectively). So I use my “good” pump, the Viair P70, and it was very effective, until it too started failing, with the same issue. After a few repairs, trying various things like silicone grease to improve the seal, which was a disaster, the pump would last only a few days before not pushing any more air, or worse, leaking air from the pool ring. I tried to purchase a new piston seal, but was informed by the Viair rep that the pump was obsolete, no parts were in stock, and I would be better off buying a new pump. This was very disturbing news, as I hate planned obsolescence.
Back to the Patriot. I had ordered two pumps with analog meters and no digital on/off to replace the Viair. That in itself was a problem, since the replacement pump for the automobile has a digital set point, and requires toggling the on/off switch to activate the pump, which prevents turning the pump on by applying power (as in the inflater), and also prevents its use to measure the Mosquito Magnet valve orifice conductivity as inversely proportional to the pressure with a given pump output.
Anyway, the working-for-now Viair pump showed 102 psi, pump A, 89-86 psi, and pump B 83 psi. This was much higher than the Defender good nozzle pressures in the mid 30s, so the trap had to come apart. This was easy because the case screws were removed last year when the trap started failing. The Patriot nozzle is held in by a single Philips bolt, although three screws must be removed to raise the assemble above the case bottom to remove the nozzle.
The nozzle had no markings, and the orifice consisted of a single hole in the center of the head. This hole is about 0.010″ in diameter, or about a #87 drill bit size. I don’t have this size, but a #30 wire wrap wire fits perfectly. I could see some black material in the orifice, and holding the nozzle up to the light, it looked blocked, so I tried to use the wire wrap wire to dig it out. This caused the wire to break and lodge in the hole. A variety of stiff, sharp objects later, the blockage was gone, and the hole clean looking. Hooking it up to the pump showed pressures on 80 psi for the Viair, and 60 psi for pump A (pump B was disqualified for its clunky digital pressure gauge). This is still higher than a Defender, but the hole blew air perfectly, and I reassembled, and started the trap. The trap worked! I put in an octenol cartridge and left it running.
When checked today, both traps are running and catching mosquitos, even though we have not noticed mosquitos in the evenings. The mosquitos in the Patriot seem particularly agitated, angry even, don’t let one escape! No explanation for this other than perhaps the more spacious Patriot basket with its clear top prompts the mosquitos to fly up into the hard plastic.
So begins the 2021 mosquito season.