A Gigantic Bug Zapper Racket

thingiverse

Tired of tiny bug zapping rackets (and annoyed by large numbers of tiny mosquitos?) Our answer is to build a bigger electrified racket and kill swarms of mosquitos at a time. This project makes an electrified screen for killing mosquitos. The screen is constructed from laser-cut acrylic and plywood and reinforced by fiberglass rods. The frame is 35 cm×74 cm with a 30.5 cm×61 cm opening. this opening is spanned by a row of spring-steel 1.1 mm diameter wires. These wires are spaced 3 mm apart. They are divided into two sets of alternate wires, one of which is held at the reference voltage and the other of which is held at 1.4 kV above the reference. What you'll need: A laser cutter to cut the plastic and wood 0.25" plastic sheets, 12"x24" The net frame that touches the wires must be plastic because at 1.4 kV damp plywood conducts 0.25" plywood (cheaper than plastic) 1mm diameter spring steel (20 yards) to make the parallel zapping wires copper wire to connect even wires and odd wires solder the electronic innards of a normal bug-zapping racket Uncovered millinery wire can be purchased from Hats by Leko (http://www.hatsupply.com/wire.htm) for $19.99 per 30 yd roll or Judith M Millinery (https://www.judithm.com/products/spring-steel-wire-stainless-60yd) for $30 per 60 yd roll. This video shows a standard bug zapping racket killing 100s of mosquitos in a minute: https://youtu.be/YyEk6h-TKqk How much better can you do with a big racket?