Yet another glorious piece of mass produced landfill for exploration.
The listing claims:-
Catches mosquitos - The biting ones are actually attracted to warm CO2.
300,00 hour LED life - That's very unlikely even at 11mA.
Colour pink - actual colour blue. (BOO!)
Claims photocatalyst action - doesn't have photocatalyst action.
2.5W power consumption - actual power 1.4W.
I'm not sure where the claims of photocatalytic action came from, but many similar products use those buzzwords to imply that the UV stimulation of titanium dioxide causes a photocatalytic reaction with air impurities, releasing CO2 to lure biting insects.
This unit is just another of the common fly traps that use LEDs to lure flies in a dark room and then theoretically trap them by sucking them into a cage. It might work for some flies, but I have a lack of flies here to test it.
On a plus note the case and components do have potential for reuse.
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It's a large plastic toadstool, but not any old toadstool. This one uses ultraviolet type, light to lure insects in before decapitating them and tossing their lifeless corpses into this collection area. Let me just pop this off. It's got a fan.

It's got leds, it's not very sophisticated and then it's got this collection grade at the bottom. Now let me just pop this back on and show you the power rating excuse, the grubby pink power bank. I've been logging with a sharpie the capacity each time i charge this, and it's interesting that over the time that i've been testing it roughly every full charge and discharge cycle, it's uh, it drops 15 milliamps capacity. This is normal for lithium cells.

They normally lose capacity. So this thing starts off around about 300 milliamps before dropping down to about 275 milliamps, which means that 5 volts the power consumption, is approximately 1.4 watts. I shall unplug it now. There we go so the principle is simple: it's this 5 volt fan it's! These leds are, i think, they're they could be ultraviolet-ish, but they look very blue and the idea is that the insects are attracted and then uh.

They get pulled down by the fan and then there's this multiple mesh thing with this first layer and then this other layer, i'm not sure why they've got this particular bit. Is it oh? I know what it is it's so they can. If you turn it off. The flies can't theoretically get out again because they'll fly up towards light, but they'll actually fall down there.

Okay right, i've worked out um right. Let's take the cover off this, it's worth mentioning that they claim it uh attracts mosquitoes. In reality, it's only going to attract things that are attracted to light and only in a very dark room. Uh the problematic mosquitoes, the ones that bite you are generally looking for heat and carbon dioxide.

I think so they're not really going to be so affected by this, but this will remove things like fruit flies. I guess so. We have a little circuit board here. Let's do some tests.

Let me just screw it back on here. I should mention this was supposed to be pink. I'm slightly disappointed the listing which uh i was lured in by the big pink toadstool. The listing is just five pounds 99 shipped in the uk by a whole meal.

That seems really low, because i would have thought romeo would be charging around about three pounds or more just to ship something like this, but it came from a supplier called little dash master and uh. I was expecting the pink one it came through blue. It doesn't really matter, it is what it is they make. Lots of strange claims, like the leds, are supposed to last 300 000 hours.

That's not going to happen, oh, let's test that. Let's check how much current it's drawing across the leds, so i can see that the leds are wired as six in parallel with just one resistor, which looks like a is that a 22 ohm resistor, i think it is 22 ohm, it's a very orangey red if It is, it might be 33 ohm done. Let's test this resist r, it's 22 ohm right. What let's measure the voltage across it nope leave that turned on that would be helpful.
The voltage being dropped across the resistor is 1.5 volts. That's slower than i was expecting. I was expecting close to two volts: what's that across the leds: okay. 3.2.

Volts. Okay, so we can work out from that. We've got the 22 ohms and we've got the 1.5 volts. We can work out the current through the leds, so i equals the voltage 1.5 volts being dropped divided by the value of the resistor, which is 22 ohms, equals 68 milliamps divided by the six leds, because they're all in parallel, roughly 11 milliamps each.

That's that's not bad, it's not really grilling them, which is quite good. This means it's not going to be super bright. I shall put my meter out the way. Let's pop the circuit board off, there are eight holes, but the circuit board only has a position for six leds and j6 led okay.

Oh, let's work out the dissipation of that resistor as well see if it's going to get hot uh to work that out, it was about uh. It was um 1.5 volts divided by the 22 ohm resistors gave the current, which is 0.068 amps, 68 milliamps times the 1.5 volts being dropped. It's only 100 milliwatts, that's half the rating. That resistor is less than half the rating.

That's very good! Okay! I know why. They've got those holes there, so it can actually go around any way round because there's only one screw hole. That's quite neat, maybe there's a version that does have eight leds um anything else worth looking at, so the supply cable comes in here it ducks up inside this pillar comes up here. It's this uh brown and blue wire.

The blue goes to the switch and gets switched, then you've got the it powers, the leds and then the red and black, for the fan go down there again and to the fan. That's just the ones that are attached to this dc. Brushless model dc802505 sl, 5. Volts 250 milliamps made in china as most stuff is really the the cost is such that of the whole thing that uh, it's almost like.

That's worth it just the fan itself, though it might not be good quality, it might just be a cheap generic thing, but that is it. The the large plastic illuminated fly attracting toadstool thing very strange, um, it's stylish. If you like that sort of thing, i suppose it'd make an interesting ornament. It has hackability.

I do find it quite odd that the leds just face down the way there and shine onto the surface, and they also seem to have a slight diffusion in them and they have that ultraviolity. Look which does tie up with the fact. They've got a fairly high forward voltage that they may be this near ultraviolet, but it seems to be stimulating a bit of light output from the actual the resin itself, giving it that washed out bluey look, but i don't think they're. Actually, pure blue leds they've got that i think they'd be brighter.
They do have that ultraviolet. Look to them interesting. It's quite well made for what it is, don't know if it works, because i i don't really have many flies here to try that one, but it was certainly worth getting and taking the just to see what was inside it.

15 thoughts on “Fly chopping electric toadstool”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Alun Jones says:

    I suspect they are UV LEDs. Often cheap resins fluoresce blue, when exposed to UV. It's odd how they've used blue for the positive. I can see that confusing some people, who'll connect it backwards, which might damage it.

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Arno nümuss says:

    The cheap 5mm UV leds don't become brighter above 10mA anyway.
    They change colour though to a more visible blue and less UV.
    I'd guess that means they overheat already.
    So 10mA are a wise choice.

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Graham Smith says:

    Excellent I want one, I will need some fly's though. will it bring in spiders and choppy choppy. Bet it kills moths. I was lured in by the big pink toadstool 😜 and it seem the big pink calculator.

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars F U C K joe biden says:

    I live in the swamp trust me mosquitoes are attracted to light that's why they make yellow light bulbs because the mosquitoes can't see it as well and they are attracted to ultraviolet light most of all

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Mikeg1 .1 says:

    The LED's are just purple.
    I tested ones like these on an optical spectrometer and none of the radiation was in the UV.
    You can buy actual UVA, UVB and UVC LED's for $5-$10 a piece.

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars russell harris says:

    looks like it could easily get turned into a slug trap if its rubbish at catching flies. bit of beer in the bottom and your good to go. You could get rid of the mosquitos with this also. the mosquitos would be attracted to the CO2 from the beer. bonus points if the fan is still running to fling them into the puddle and drown

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Blondie SL says:

    I'm also a lover of the color Pink as is my husband.

    I'm not a fan of darker blues, but the light blues, I'm good with.
    I also like warm colors, like Orange, Yellow and colors in that area.

    I really don't like grey, darker shades of blues and the like.

    Warm colors for this boy!

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Richard Mellish says:

    How reliable are multiple LEDs in parallel? If they're anything like ordinary diodes, if one gets slightly warmer it will take more of the current and get warmer still.

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Mark Harris says:

    I think my late mother had a lettuce spinner that looked like something similar. These take me back to being a chef in the 70s listening to moths being fried as you did service on an open grill. When the tray got it’s annual emptying it was a sight to behold.

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars exaMAB says:

    Given that it's a cheap fan mounted horizontally, I'm expecting the bearings to fail way before the LEDs anyway. It also has a good chance of making more an more noise before failing.

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars SnowChains says:

    Was very disappointed Clive didn't give a entomological disassembly demonstration of it in use to prove it actually works. We need to see if this tat actually lives up to its Hype!

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars SlapDash Maker says:

    I had one of these and KNEW prior to getting it, it wouldn't work for mosquitoes (which is what the one I got was touted for), but my boss insisted on getting it. It never got a single mosquito, but did get a lot of innocent moths.

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Mike Cummings says:

    I expected an element with a boost voltage transformer like proper insectocutors with the blue tubes, basically this won't kill flies unless they get chopped up in the fan, the odd one might, might be good to use as a child's night light once the fan is removed, sadly I can't see it performing well as an insect killer though.

  14. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Gav C says:

    It reminds me of the toad stool of death from a few years ago…. Live at mains voltage with an easy access removable top…. Perfect for small children’s bedrooms lol 😂

  15. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars rowgli says:

    More seriously… Might be interesting to replace some of the 'UV' LEDs with IR ones, to broaden the appeal to insects? It's a nice idea in principle, very tempted 😉

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