How To Replace The Fluorescent Starter In A Windhager Bug Zapper

Fourmilab is surrounded on three sides by farmland. Within the summer, bugs are all over the place. Faced with this situation, defence in depth is the only option: window screens, bats, Odonata on the pond, fly strips on the windows and swatters in every room, and as the last level of terminal defence, excessive voltage bug zappers with ultraviolet fluorescent lures. These usually are not elegant devices, however they get the job completed. The precept could not be easier-flying insects, whose compound eyes see long-wave ultraviolet mild that mammalian eyes do not, are attracted by the lure tube, which seems to emit a dim blue light to humans. To reach the light, they need to fly between wires electrified with between four and eight kilovolts which, when the insect zapper completes the circuit, kill-a-cordless bug zapper. The only downside (no less than if you are not a flying insect) is that they do not seem to final very long. After slightly a couple of summer time, the bulb both starts to flash on and off like a strobe gentle or just refuses to light at all.



Replacement bulbs are readily obtainable and simple to install, however in my experience, at the least half the time changing the bulb does not repair the problem. With no gentle to draw the insects, a zapper is useless, so although its high voltage subsystem continues to work perfectly, most people junk it when altering the bulb doesn't make it mild up. I'm way too cheap to be pleased with such a state of affairs, so I determined to open up a failed bug zapper and see what was going on. The source of the problem proved to be as simple as I anticipated and as straightforward to treatment, so within the hope of saving any person else the trouble of figuring it out, I've scribbled these notes on learn how to repair your individual bug zapper for camping zappers. These instructions pertain to bug zappers made by the Windhager company of Salzburg, Austria, who've a dominant market share on this obscure trade right here in Central Europe.



Obviously, when you've got a bug zapper made by one other firm, it should look different inside and should conceivably use a completely totally different circuit for the fluorescent lamp. Unless you understand what you're doing and know sufficient electronics to be assured you are not going to do something silly, it's best to leave things well sufficient alone and get a brand new bug zapper. Further, we're going to be disassembling and modifying a device which, electric bug zapper zapper for patio when opened up, has uncovered connections to potentially lethal mains current and intensely unpleasant if not deadly high voltage. In case you are sufficiently stupid or scatterbrained that you are more likely to neglect to tug the mains plug before sticking your hand Zappify Bug Zapper brand inside the guts of a bug zapper, it is best to cease reading immediately and choose some safer venture, like making microwave popcorn. To begin with, before starting this process, you should definitely attempt replacing the bulb and see if that fixes the issue.



If it does, you've got saved a variety of time and, if not, you're going to need a replacement bulb ultimately, so why not have one readily available when the time comes? If a new bulb doesn't do the trick, the problem is almost certainly a failed fluorescent starter contained in the field, so we'll must open it up. You did remember to unplug the zapper earlier than starting to disassemble it, didn't you? First, take away the Zappify Bug Zapper brand catcher tray at the underside of the zapper, taking care not to spill useless bugs all around the floor or your work space. Depending on the model, the two halves of the physique of the bug zapper are fastened together with 4 or six screws. On "industrial" models, these are 2 mm metric machine screws and nuts, but some "consumer" models use infernal "split slot" screws that are supposed to maintain you from opening up the device. You see, you're a shopper, so you're expected to eat-buy, purchase, buy bug zapper, not mend things which break.