Mosquito Swatter Bat Circuit

Swagatam Majumdar 3/13/2014 12:12:00 PM

Mosquitoes are a big menace to humankind and these are present in

every corner of the world. A cool way of avenging yourself could by
eliminating these "devils" through electrocution. A mosquito swatter bat is
designed just for this. Let's learn how to build its electronic circuitry. The
idea was requested by Mr. kathiravan d.

Mosquitoes are tiny in size but they come in big numbers, and no matter
how much we try to eliminate them, these micro pests keep growing with
their population.
Today you will find plenty of techniques available in the market that
provide us with the options of getting rid of these insects, some are in the
form of sprays, some are in the form of coils and mats that need to be
burned. Most of these variants are chemical based which either drive
away or kill pests due to their toxic nature.

Needless to say if these chemicals have the potentials of harming the

pests they would do the same to us in a smaller scale, but nevertheless in
the long run they could cause significant health hazards.

However there's an innovative method of killing mosquitoes by

electrocution which doesn't involve chemicals and also the procedures
are clean, without any mess.

Moreover the electrocuting equipment being in the form of a tennis racket

makes the swatting playful and provides an opportunity to avenge
ourselves from these pests.

The proposed mosquito swatter bat or mosquito zapper circuit can be

seen in the diagram given below, the functioning may be understood with
the following points:

The shown configuration employs a blocking oscillator concept as used in

joule thief circuits, wherein only a single transistor and a center tapped
transformer execute sustainable oscillation across the two winding of the
transformer.

R1 along with the preset and the C1 determine the frequency of

oscillation. R1 ensures that the transistor never comes within an unsafe
zone while adjusting the preset.

TR1 here is a small ferrite core transformer built using the smallest EE
type of ferrite core.

The winding inside the coil is calculated for working with 3V DC supply,
meaning the circuit becomes compatible with a 3V battery pack made by
putting a couple of AAA cells in series.

When power is applied to the circuit, the transistor and the center tapped
transformer instantly start oscillating at the specified high frequency. This
forces the battery current to pass across the TR1 winding in a push pull
manner.
The above switching generates a proportional induced high voltage
across the secondary winding of TR1.

As per the winding data, this voltage could be somewhere around 200V.
To further enhance and lift this voltage to a level which may become
suitable for generating a flying spark, a charge pump circuit involving a
Crockcroft-Walten ladder network is used at the output of TR1.

This network pulls the 200V from the transformer to about 600V.

This high voltage is rectified and applied across a bridge rectifier where
the voltage is appropriately rectified and stepped up by the 2uF/1KV
capacitor.

As long as the output terminals across the 2uF capacitor are held at some
specified distance, the stored high voltage energy inside the capacitor is
unable to discharge, and stays in a standby condition.
If the terminals are bought at a relatively closer distance (about a couple
of mm) the potential energy across the 2uF capacitor becomes capable
enough to break the air barrier and arc across the terminal gap in the
form of a flying spark.

Once this happens, the arcing momentarily stops, until the capacitor
charges fully to execute another spark, and the cycle keeps repeating as
long as the gap distance is kept within the saturable distance of the high
voltage.

When this circuit is applied as a mosquito swatter, the end terminals of

the 2uF capacitor are appropriately tied or connected across the internal
and the external bat mesh layers.
These metal mesh layers are woven and positioned tightly over a sturdy
plastic frame in such away that these are held apart at some distance.
This distance prevents the high voltage spark from arcing across the
meshes while the bat is in a stand by condition.

The moment the bat is swatted over a fly or a mosquito, the insect gets
bridged itself between the bat meshes and allows the high voltage to find
and easy conducting path through it.
This results in a crackling sound and a spark through the insect, killing it
instantly.

The circuit of the mosquito zapper explained here also includes an small
transformerless charger circuit which may be connected to mains for
charging the 3V rechargeable battery when the bat stops generating
sufficient arcing voltage while swatting the mosquitoes.

TR1 winding details can be found in the following image:

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