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Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

preprints.org

81–90 of 262 posts

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#81
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started thinking about something similar last summer to deal with aggressive flies from a nearby farm. Perhaps it's possible to make something that's kinda safe for eyesight if you make it track and light up the fly/mosquito for e.g. 50 seconds instead of 0.5 seconds.

Did you try a fly trap jar yet? You hang it out behind a shed or garage, the lid has a little maze that they crawl into and then they can't find their way out. My parents always used https://www.bigstinkyflytrap.com/ . It definitely caught a lot of flies, which can be different than catching enough flies of course.

We had a small but persistent issue with flies hanging out by our garbage cans so I purchased one of these fly traps with bait.

It worked far too well.

Within a day it had attracted flies from a large surrounding area. The nearly filled jar of flies had a presence I can only describe as "Stephen King-esque" just buzzing with raw malevolence. If you think one large black fly can make quite the noise I invite you to listen to a 1000+ angry flies in a jar.

And while many were certainly capture - an equally abhorrent number were all over the cans and the side of the house. So a mixed experience.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#82
post #67

This work (I think) worked with the mosquitos 30cm away with a servo scanning Pi Camera (1080p) and a 1W laser. To work in the real world - cover a whole room or terrace - presumably a much higher resolution camera (or much faster scanning system) would be required. Even a 1W laser is dangerous to eyesight, if it was being fired at targets mingling with people. The system could be mounted on small drones that would p…

Good luck detecting a mosquito optically from a distance of several meters using a cheap camera and Raspberry Pi. Oh and you want to do from a moving drone. That will certainly make it work! Just look at the images in the article - the guy's best result was detecting a black speck appearing on a nearby white wall with some 60-70% reliability (based on his own numbers). So you would be missing a lot of mosquitoes - bu…

> BTW, this nonsense idea has been floated as a publicity stunt a few years ago [...] Here, it was even on National Geographic in 2010(!)

The paper cites even earlier stuff:

> For the first time, the idea of using a laser to protect against insects was expressed in the early 1980s by American astrophysicist Lowell Wood.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you try a fly trap jar yet? You hang it out behind a shed or garage, the lid has a little maze that they crawl into and then they can't find their way out. My parents always used https://www.bigstinkyflytrap.com/ . It definitely caught a lot of flies, which can be different than catching enough flies of course.

We had a small but persistent issue with flies hanging out by our garbage cans so I purchased one of these fly traps with bait. It worked far too well. Within a day it had attracted flies from a large surrounding area. The nearly filled jar of flies had a presence I can only describe as "Stephen King-esque" just buzzing with raw malevolence. If you think one large black fly can make quite the noise I invite you to li…

Ugh.

The method I devised to get rid of these large black flies from indoors:

Open a door and simply herd/walk them out by making yourself big. It's surprisingly easy - so much easier than trying to swat them. They seem to instinctively avoid things moving towards them, and because of that they're pretty easy to herd.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#85

I would gladly don protective eyewear before going to bed if it meant having a mosquito free night. I absolutely hate the little fuckers with a passion.

I find that the slight breeze created by a house fan is enough to throw the mosquitos in my room off. They find it extremely hard to fly in “turbulence.”

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#87

I just moved to a property near a pond that is severely infested with midge flies and mosquitos. The water is supposed to be treated by the HOA but they've neglected it for a while I guess. A solution like this wouldn't work due to the sheer volume of insects in the air at any given time (millions gathering around my block). I rigged up a door reed switch that turns on high power fans for 30 seconds when opened that…

Are you able to put some fish in the pond? They will eat the larva!

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#89
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started thinking about something similar last summer to deal with aggressive flies from a nearby farm. Perhaps it's possible to make something that's kinda safe for eyesight if you make it track and light up the fly/mosquito for e.g. 50 seconds instead of 0.5 seconds.

Did you try a fly trap jar yet? You hang it out behind a shed or garage, the lid has a little maze that they crawl into and then they can't find their way out. My parents always used https://www.bigstinkyflytrap.com/ . It definitely caught a lot of flies, which can be different than catching enough flies of course.

Also, a mason jar with about a half inch of sugar water as bait and a sheet of letter size paper rolled into a cone with the small aperture in the jar works pretty well.

Re: Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser

#90
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a small but persistent issue with flies hanging out by our garbage cans so I purchased one of these fly traps with bait. It worked far too well. Within a day it had attracted flies from a large surrounding area. The nearly filled jar of flies had a presence I can only describe as "Stephen King-esque" just buzzing with raw malevolence. If you think one large black fly can make quite the noise I invite you to li…

Ugh. The method I devised to get rid of these large black flies from indoors: Open a door and simply herd/walk them out by making yourself big. It's surprisingly easy - so much easier than trying to swat them. They seem to instinctively avoid things moving towards them, and because of that they're pretty easy to herd.

Target “shooting” with a canister vacuum provides a decent fun:efficiency ratio.
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