eBay-special UV LED insect zapper (Patreon)

Published:

2022-12-28 08:57:43

Imported:

2023-02

Content

Well I say "UV" but more sort of near-UV and not very high output. But I suppose an insect might wander in accidentally. The circuitry is pretty much what I expected for this unit, with a fairly spicy high voltage section (about 1.2kV).

I'm almost tempted to buy the fluorescent tube based version to see how they mounted the tubes to allow changing them safely, given that there's no bleed resistor on the high voltage side. (And the units switch is on the neutral.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-W3UQyuHVI

Files

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A look at the circuitry of a generic non-compliant eBay insect zapper. In hindsight I had already changed the original fuse in the plug, as it was a fake 13A fuse with no sand fill and one of the ends popped off when I took it out revealing that it had just been jammed on over the wire. At least the fuse was in circuit. The flex is probably the thinnest copper coated aluminium they could find, as is common with these products. The circuitry is fairly standard, and the LEDs are running at about 12mA so they should last OK even if they are not going to be too bright. LED power is about 0.8W so not really going to be great for attracting insects other than in a very dark room. In short - just basically what you'd expect of a grey import. Mid-play video-adverts are annoying in technical videos, so I don't enable them. If you appreciate that and enjoy my content then you can help support the channel with a contribution of a dollar or two a month on Patreon. That also lets you critique the (advert free) videos before they are released, gives a more direct means of communication with me and also gives access to the regular relaxed Patreon live streams. https://www.patreon.com/bigclive #ElectronicsCreators