Mosquito control: A simple optical method, a game changer

Published: Peer Review Journal.

Making mosquitoes stay away from your yard.

There is no known alternative solution for people to set up open, mosquito free islands for their day to day activities . . . . their animals too.

**For the benefit of new visitors **

Pseudo table of contents:

• Theory, videos and images Paper body Supplemental FFile
• Simple ̣method using RGB 5050 SMD (this)
• Even simpler using 5mm RGB through-hole (Page 3 post #32) LED
• Using off-the-shelves strip of 8 LED W2812 controller. (Page 2 post #29)
• Using off-the-shelves long LED strip. (Page 3 post #37)
• Dual purpose: The light bulb that repel mosquitoes.(Page 1 post #8, #9, #10, #11, #12)
• Mosquito trap and the protocol to prove if the trap or any trap works by design and not by chance. * (Page 1 post #14)*
• Cockroach control. (Page 2 post #27)
• Simple protocol a LAB tool to tell if a device repelling mosquitoes indeed. (Page 2 post #28)
• Mosquito larva control. (Page 2 post #26)
• Housefly control. (Page 2 post #23,#24, #25 )
• Agricultural pest control . (Page 3 post #39 and followed

Intellectual property: Public domain.

Material:
6 5050 RGB LED.
6 220 Ohm resisors.
1 Aurdino as module since the system only use 2 output.

Schematic: The attached file draws 1 RGB LED, you will use 6 in parallel.

Layout Configurations: Please see the second attached file:They are the insides and the finals that we distributed for humanitarian purpose.

Sketch:

#define RED_LED 4
#define BLUE_LED 5
// Per schematic the LEDs pins, set low to turn ON.
#define RED_ON digitalWrite(RED_LED,false)
#define RED_OFF digitalWrite(RED_LED,true)
#define BLUE_ON digitalWrite(BLUE_LED,false)
#define BLUE_OFF digitalWrite(BLUE_LED,true)

void setup() {
pinMode(RED_LED, OUTPUT);
RED_OFF;
pinMode(BLUE_LED, OUTPUT);
BLUE_OFF;
}
void loop() {
// optional testing procedures
while(1){
RED_ON;
delayMicroseconds(500);
RED_OFF;
delayMicroseconds(500);
BLUE_ON;
delayMicroseconds(500);
BLUE_OFF;
delayMicroseconds(500);
}
}

Usage: They are not intuitive, and difficult to use. Please follow the instruction carefully.

The keyword is 'shadow' and 'line of sight'. shadow is the place mosquitoes can hide out of line of sight and become a highway for them to into the object in the middle. Our observation show mosquitoes don't go further more than 3 feet under 'line of sight' area to get into the object.

The unit is ineffective within 2' right up front of the LED. Please don't test by put them next or near you. It doesn't work that way.

It works day and night.

For single unit:
Although we have to have provide guides for single unit usage, It's never been a recommendation. At least 2 one covers the shadow of the other.
Imagine that the unit has 90 degree shining angle, It must be place up high, to generously cover all around the footprint of the shadows of the subjects (at least 3' buffer). Then you are safe. - Don't worry about the effective radius which is very far 100's (only if the above conditions met.)

For multiple units:
We have use 4 unit at 4 corners for a 100 boy scout group. As long as shadow of one is cover by the other.

Make sure you are far enough for the light covers all around you: For single person the light should be at least 8' away, for a large group about 10 people it could be as far as 30' away, etc . . .

Sample Configuration.JPG2636×2228 1.8 MB

I am doing this for the benefit of the community. I will go extra and extra to help you regardless of your purpose with only 1 condition: They must be public, available to all.

Mosquitoes paper.pdf (159 KB)

To save you some times:

If you ever think of "set and forget" modules for your sites using solar power supply.
These are what we are using over the years.

1- 3W, 6V solar panel.
1- Phone charger power bank: USB input/output. Those with 3.8V 18650 battery.
1- Your light module. (We use cheap Holtek CPU)

Connections:
Output of the solar panel -> power bank input.
The light module draw the power from the power bank.

Result: It should have enough power to operate day & night. Plus some extra for cloudy days.

Warning: There is wild-west state on the rate of the solar panel and the battery. Here are some rules of thumb.

• The solar panel should have at least 150 cm x cm.

• After money and medication, Lithium-ion battery stands as the the third most counterfeited; high claims, low quality even you buy from the links in Walmart and Amazon. Some Chinese manufactures even have separate 'versions' for evaluation and for purchased shipping. Brand name battery may last you for several years.

Happy mosquito free.

Your link is broken.

Please try again. I just tested.
I had the same 'broken" sometimes.
Thanks

Or

I like to pay respect to the Research Square. - The pre-print host of the paper.

Please only use these links if you have problem with the link above. (It's in the google drive)

Paper body

Supplemental file

ephitran:
Please try again. I just tested.

Ugh. I'll do it.

I received a question asking about the use of 3 mm and 5 mm through-hole RGB LED.

It works. However our observations indicated a smaller effective angle. SMT LED claim of 120 degree viewing angle, for the purpose it's around 90. Through-hole? about 60. but, ... with through-hole we can bend to beam individual LED making them to support wider angle.

I like to use the threat to gradually transfer the knowledge accumulated over the years or perhaps decades to save you sometimes by not repeating our same past failures. Some may just an opinion on observations.

It's not programming issues I hope the moderator of the forum OK with it.

The first 'lesson'.

The devices use at least 2 colors, it's is not a specific 'color' that repels insects, but the environment.

• Yellow LED (warm white 3500 cctk) : It's ineffective sometimes during the day.
• Light blue (Cool white 8500 cctk) : It's ineffective about 1/2 hour at around dusk.

My best guess: It is the environment that nullify the flashing property of the devices. Daylight nullify yellow, dusk when the environment change from yellow to blue, at some point it's light blue ?.

If you are OK with it. (As we currently have) They are devices serving dual purposes: Repelling and illumination; a light bulb that repel mosquitoes by using warm white and cool white LED. By utilizing the block voltage (0.7 per simple diode) and forward voltage of the LEDs you may be able to use 60 Hz AC directly to drive back to back series of cool and warm white LED, using the combined block voltage as a mean to control the timing.

Unfortunately most people in the world have 50 Hz AC. We have thousands shipped for humanitarian purpose, they promised anything to get ones without intention to keep, some even express their suspicions of the imaginary motives. Although our tests show the 50 HZ worked, but users' opinions, their feedback that's counted.

Beside the above limitations, these forms they like the most.

We discarded thousands of flat COB to use Corn for better repelling quality - Please see attached picture
.

COB and Corn.jpg2152×1752 690 KB

Upon available times, my next posts will be:

• Live mosquito traps. In early days, the backyard provided enough samples for us to experiment.

• Simple protocol for us, (and you?) to tell if a programming logic or method repel or not.

COB and Corn.jpg2152×1752 690 KB

Based on feedback from users i think I need to revisit the issue of using them, again and possible again(s).

• No matter how hard you try to 'teach' them how to use they just hear for the time. Go home they do their own way, They think it is the light that repels mosquitoes.

• Human nature we think of ourselves first, common 'mistake' is to have the device right next to them. Actually they are sending invitations for them to come. Again it needs a 3' buffer.

NO--NO--NO.
The light doesn't repel mosquitoes. They just want to get away from 'that' blinking thing; the LED, even the case of the above dual purpose devices. For them, the lights only occupy a tiny part of their view, the rest are 'safe'. We need to outsmart them by preventing to come in the first place, not to chase them away which the device can not do.

It shines a room meaning enables us to 'see' thing, does not mean mosquitoes scare of the entire room, but only its front part.

Happy mosquito Free!

Something you smile at.

• From my neighbor: Eventually the devices repel geckos from his backyard- Their foods go away.

• From my wife's co-worker. His dog quits barking at night.

However.

• From my children's tennis coach: His dog barks whenever she ventures in and out the area. My explanation: When you repel mosquitoes from the front, where do they go? To the back of the light, mostly they are ambushing at around the border.

• The children from Africa: The bats don't come when they playing outside and at night .

Schematic and specification for the dual purpose device. The light bulb that repels mosquitoes.

(If the image does not show then see the attached.)
Note:

• LED are with 5730 COB footprint either 3.1V or 6.2V
• For 3.1V, its 'block voltage" is normally at 1.45 V means minimum voltage for the current to pass.
• The AC could be either 60 Hz and 50 Hz.
• The resistor could be 500, or 1k for protection against surge.
• There is no capacitor in the circuit. With capacitors the system may produce more stable light, somehow it's not serving the purpose.

The light bulb that repels mosquitoes.

How did we measure the timing of the above system.
[
A variable transformer comes into handy.

The system should b start to lo light at about 1/2 of the RMS

For example for 110 V light bulb at 60 Hz.

In millisecond.

1 cycle is 1000 /60 and 1 quadrant = 1000/(60*4) = 4.17 and the system start fully lit at 55 V then the light bulb has the following timings:

ABC:
Yellow ON; Delay 4.17;
Yellow OFF: Delay 4.17;
Blue ON; Delay 4.17;
Blue OFF; Delay 4.17;
goto ABC;

How to see if the light bulb indeed splits the lighting.

Have you phone camera ON to near the light bulb.

If it indeed splits the lighting (not mixing) then you will see on your phone bands of yellow, black, blue, black .... So on. such as:

Color Split.jpg2464×2552 689 KB

You can experiment yourselves on normal light bulb

Happy Mosquito Free

Color Split.jpg2464×2552 689 KB

I forgot an important feature of the mosquito repelling light bulb.

For outdoor: Year round there aren't insects hovering around the light.

Except: About 4 summer days, there are large number of beetle like died underneath, in a farm it could fill up a cereal bowl.

Mosquito trap made simple.

The following is the picture of the trap used in my lab.

Mosquito Trap.jpg2608×2592 932 KB

Let's look at the picture first.

Beside the housing from the front the components are.

• A programmed flashing LED (Red, blue 500 Hz)

• Its back has a blue LED.

• A white solid square plate:
  a- To block the insects from seeing the blade of the fan.
  b- To reflect the blue. Blue is selected for its capability to nullify the blue flashing property of the foreground LED.
  c- Its position and size is set to make sure mosquito 'seeing' before they are exposed to the light.

• Window screen.

• Fan. (80x80, 12V 0.35A component fan)

The picture show one foreground LED. Unless you have good reason, it should have have two or more. In early indoor/outdoor trials we used 6 and they were fine.
It may not worth the tedious job to use 1-LED configuration, it needs a small piece of fine mesh afflicted right on the surface of the LED. as illustrated in the below picture.

How does the trap work?

Normally traps involve setting attracting agents to draw the animal in order to catch or to kill. This breed of trap utilizes the repelling feature of the technology, upon entering the lit area mosquitoes will go to one of the nearest safe places, it could be a a shadow, or the back of the light which is the largest safe area. In their persisting efforts to get away they venture in in order to meet the light, to retreat until they come near to the place that appears to be safer, they are trapped. Normal traps work to lure the animal to come to it mostly from it front, while this breed traps them during their escaping effort mostly from its back. - Please see the comment at the ends.

The technology repels mosquitoes by simulations of the persistent present of other objects that also attract other predatory insects who thought the lights are their food sources: Beetles, crane flies and unknowns.

The state of the development.

This is not public but in-house 'products', they are only available to family, friends and dozens testers who asked to keep for their personal use.

Usage:

• For indoor application:

If you want to clear the room in the first place, a small disk of water is put about 2' (50cm) in front of the trap. Otherwise it's not necessary.

There ares some precautions and hints:

(a) It take sometimes for the trapped to get killed thus they will come out as soon as the power cut.
(b) Beside it need to be cleaned here and there it is maintenance free.
(c) The trap works best when it's in front of the walls that narrowing their safe territory.
(d) The trap is also a mosquito repelling device.
(e) There were suggested improvements of something such as vanes to prevent mosquitoes getting out due to power off, and mechanism to disassemble for cleaning purposes.

• For outdoor applications;

The main difference of indoor vs outdoor application are add-on efforts to serve little or no harm to beneficial insects The device requires 1/4 ich mesh to filter large predatory insects.

However there are strictly nocturnal Texan insects (we don't know the name), they come in number to feast on net trapped mosquitoes. Therefore, for live sample purpose, the net should be replaced by a fairly large chamber to give your mosquito means to avoid eaten. They have the size of a large fire ant, have wings but they are able to craw in and out as of a roach.

In normal operation the trap will get the most of the first 1,2 nights; and only few on the subsequent, perhaps the place get cleared out?

NOTE:
The trapping method were not the original purpose of the experiments but to measure the effectiveness of the light in front of the various backgrounds.
Many questions were arisen on the validity of the explanations. Sometimes they are just educated best reasons, inspiration? or from observation over the years. These are the settings that were developed after the facts.

Equipment for observation and testing purpose.

chamber.jpg3592×2104 1.46 MB

With the above chamber it allow developer to observe and testing with small sample, from as low as 1/2 dozen.

With a trap inside the chamber.

• The trap indeed caught 100% or close in an hour or two.
• The mosquitoes were caught on their way from the back of the trap to the front(observations).
• In the same chamber we use either CO2 or moisture as attracting stimulant. Moisture sources gave us better results; they came looking for food?.

We hope the posts give you some information to start with. The world and consumers always want the better. And collectively The community can do it.

Mosquito Trap.jpg2608×2592 932 KB

chamber.jpg3592×2104 1.46 MB

For immediate needs.
Or
if you want a quick experience with the technology.

In the above post we discus the dual purpose devices, the light bulbs that repel mosquitoes. Actually in early days we had 1 cool white light bulb and 1 warm white light bulb put next to each other as a set.

I am not going into details how to do but in general for only 'engineers' who know what they are doing and keep me out of any liability if accidents happened. We are dealing with live AC that can kill.

In general you can modify 2 light bulbs, 1 cool white and 1 warm white. They alternately response to the directions of the AC.

-- Normally there are 2 schemes to reduce the voltage for its power supply. The brand names are normal use transformer and the cheap one use capacitors.

-- In either case it has a diode bridge rectifier.

-- It is obligatory that the light bulbs can be open to be modified:

------For transformer style power supply all you need to do is to modify the full wave rectifier to have it becomes haft wave rectifier, one for forward current and the other for the reverse. It i important that all the capacitors removed. Although it has the protective resistor it does not hurt if you add some more 1/2 W 500 ohm???

----- For the capacitors scheme power supply. This is a little tricky. You do the same as the above. Plus you need to add a high power rated high value resistor. (1/2 W 2K ohm ?-- its hot---) You need some way to dissipate the heat too.

Usage:

Put it up very high, up high or at least 2 in the backyard.

You will know where it works where it doesn't to aim the devices accordingly.

So you and your friends can enjoy cool beers in the afternoon or for the ladies to enjoy sunbath.

Good luck!
and
happy mosquitoes free!

I love this topic !

I dont want the TRAP though...

But in all honesty could I use a strip of programmable led's and select a specific colour bandwidth from that ?
Oh and do you have anything for blackflies (Nothern Canada) which are evil little baskets of fun.

ballscrewbob:
But in all honesty could I use a strip of programmable led's and select a specific colour bandwidth from that ?

With your question i assume that you are one of the techies classes.
Yes.

We have done that a while back.

For frequency you can choose anywhere form 60 HZ to 500 HZ - in the lab 500 is the best however we have noway to tell the difference in life tests. We are very confident that the frequency range can be lower to 50 HZ but the people who promised me feedback (from other country just) just . . . forgot. One think we know for sure that if the any 'quadrant' longer than 11 milliseconds the devices become ineffective.

For color: You should use Red and Blue, they are at the 2 ends of the visible spectrum, to stand out from the background. Personally we think the random color schemes of R,G,B are better. However as human we see them as blinking devices, some users expressed their concern if devices have any affect on those with seizure. It was not our position to argue of the blinking of Christmas lights but go ahead to use red & blue instead.

Again. in the lab we can tell if one is better than the other, but in live test we just don't see those annoying mosquitoes around. Are they the same?

In our limit observations, some predatory insects show more attracting to certain color. It will be the job of the generations to come. We are too 'old' and too limited to explore.

BLACKFLIES:

I have to google to know what they are. I have no idea if i works. For sure the schemes are not effective on daylight insects: butterflies, bees, dragonflies, wasp, food flies, houseflies.....

Yes I need to take into account both mozzies AND blackflies.
Blackflies are not household flies btw.

They have overlapping times but the blackflies have a shorter time duration's (thankfully) and we have seen them force Moose out from thier normal habitat due to the bites as they seem to swarm (they dont but can often be seen in larger quantities than mozzies.

Maybe an alternating pattern could be used to repel both species ?

ballscrewbob:
Yes I need to take into account both mozzies AND blackflies.

The devices repel most nocturnal insects, fruit vegetables in my backyard reduce their yield to almost zero. Only with the one that have their bright white and afternoon blossoming flowers; they depend on nocturnal for pollination?

We have some limited success on houseflies it may need more twisting please give me some time. I have some physical and linguistic limitations to post. Then you can try both and work from there.

The common wisdom thought all insects are the same. Our observations do not support the notion. We can not tell until and after we try.