An old oil furnace ignition coil might work too.

 

An old oil furnace ignition coil might work too.

Might be too high of voltage. 10 KV tends to strike and hold a pretty good arc.

 

Might be too high of voltage. 10 KV tends to strike and hold a pretty good arc.

The oil furnace igniters I've played with could strike ~3/8" or more. And are smaller than a neon sign transformer.

 

The oil furnace igniters I've played with could strike ~3/8" or more. And are smaller than a neon sign transformer.

The 2500 - 4000 volt NST's are pretty small so are you talking about a newer solid state furnace ignition modules?

 

There are ways to make the more complicated circuits work but why bother? All you want to do is kill bugs as reliably as possible for as little work and money as possible.

There's killing bugs - and then there's obliterating them.

A chopper transformer running higher than the audio range can be rigged to produce a hot arc when a bug bridges the gap - but you have to watch out for burning embers falling from the wire grille.

A slow repetition rate capacitor discharge rig with an auto coil would allow the bugs to settle on the wire grille and then blow them to smithereens with a fat blue spark.

Many commercial designs use a capacitor/diode multiplier in one form or another. One I've seen had an auto transformer as the fluorescent ballast, the extra section of winding fed the multiplier.

You can make the multiplier as sturdy as you like - once I built one with rectifier/reservoirs from scrap monitors - I was too scared to discharge it, so I left it on a high shelf and waited for leakage to do the job for me.

 

but you have to watch out for burning embers falling from the wire grille.

That's been a problem here a few times. Occasionally there will be so many bugs accumulated so fast they all light up causing a bug zapper fire which can lead to the whole plastic bug zapper body burning up and causing a grass fire underneath it. . My brother has had it happen at least twice I am aware of I have had it happen once.

 

Should work fine assuming 2500 volts is high enough for your zapper. Many of the larger better-built ones can run up in the 3000 - 4000 range.

I say buy it and give it a test! I would think that 2500 volts should be enough to strike an arc through a bug.

Wish I knew what old zapper transformer output was. How far should this one arc? If it's too much it'll be arcing all time.

 

When I get the time I will put the one in post #9 together out of interest, this has the advantage of Triac level control.
What is the size of mesh and distance apart on a commercial one?
Max.

 

When I get the time I will put the one in post #9 together out of interest, this has the advantage of Triac level control.
What is the size of mesh and distance apart on a commercial one?
Max.

Mesh wire diameter is .045", distance between grids is .5-.6"
Never got email of your question. Got others but not this one. Anything I need to click here to get emails? Do I need to click "other options" to make sure the "watch thread" and "receive emails" is checked each time?
Thanx!

 

The 2500 - 4000 volt NST's are pretty small so are you talking about a newer solid state furnace ignition modules?

What's NST?

 

What's NST?

NST = Neon Sign Transformer

 

NST = Neon Sign Transformer

Any thoughts on this? https://smile.amazon.com/SainSmart-...&sr=1-4&keywords=high+voltage+transformer#Ask
I recognize the flyback, what does the other piece do?
Then there's these https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product...ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Y6K2FWNK8HHR02HVXDHW#Ask
Thoughts on them?

 

Those are both DC output aren't they? Thought a 'zapper' needed AC or at least pulsed DC.

 

Those are both DC output aren't they? Thought a 'zapper' needed AC or at least pulsed DC.

An iron cored transformer has to be AC, a ferrite cored transformer is more like pulsed DC. A diode/capacitor multiplier won't work if you feed it DC, its output is more or less DC - but with a fair bit of ripple if you use textbook example capacitor values.

Most bug zappers I've seen boost the voltage with a transformer and use only 2 or 3 stages of multiplier - as a point of reference/comparison; most therapeutic air ionisers use a multiplier all the way from the mains up......

 

 

At top is capacitor that is on/in the zapper HV lead to inner grid, next two are the unit it's on(one got in twice somehow) and the last is a similar unit which uses no capacitor. The capacitor does nothing when the VOM leads are reversed which tells me it's open. I've never dealt with HV capacitors, only 110-220 VAC ones for electric motors. Are these checked same way?
I "googled" the numbers on it and got nothing. How do you find these to buy?

 

At top is capacitor that is on/in the zapper HV lead to inner grid, next two are the unit it's on(one got in twice somehow) and the last is a similar unit which uses no capacitor. The capacitor does nothing when the VOM leads are reversed which tells me it's open. I've never dealt with HV capacitors, only 110-220 VAC ones for electric motors. Are these checked same way?
I "googled" the numbers on it and got nothing. How do you find these to buy?

HELLO!! Anybody home? Y'all didn't die or get bad sick on me did you?

 

HELLO!! Anybody home? Y'all didn't die or get bad sick on me did you?

No we didn't.

We all went out and got jobs at 1/4 that of minimum wage (some just begged for change on street corners. Other collected aluminum cans from road ditches. I mastered free energy and overunity in that time.) and have since bought multiple high quality bug zappers with that money we made since this thread started.

 

No we didn't.

We all went out and got jobs at 1/4 that of minimum wage (some just begged for change on street corners. Other collected aluminum cans from road ditches. I mastered free energy and overunity in that time.) and have since bought multiple high quality bug zappers with that money we made since this thread started.

Yeah, I did that stuff years ago, I'm into fixing old stuff now.

 

Yeah, I did that stuff years ago, I'm into fixing old stuff now.

The tube didn't last long in the bug zapper I bought - I've bought replacement tubes from several sources with no better results. The ballast circuit could've been better - so I grafted in the PCB from a suitably rated CFL - still no better.

The latest idea is to rebuild it with LEDs - bought a string of blue LED garden lights and stripped it down for the LEDs - but that "round tuit" is getting ever more elusive.

Having got into the habit of putting insect screens on the windows - fixing the zapper wasn't a big priority.