For the last week, I have been trying to write a wiki article Mosquito Magnet Defender IOT Add-On Construction Details, which is now at 93 percent. The article was inspired by another DIY enthusiast who published his invention on the forum. This effort has been a major time sink, as I go deeper and deeper into programming and testing. This is not the same as catching mosquitos, or fixing my poor old Mosquito Magnet Defender, which suffers from so many ailments.
It is so difficult to write what is true. It is much easier to write what I think is true. The article contains directions for building an add-on to the Mosquito Magnet to support diagnostics and remote control. But do the directions work? Are they sufficient? I just followed the directions to install some firmware, and was disappointed to find that what I did last year no longer works this year. So now, new old directions, plus posting last year’s firmware to download on this site.
It is frequently said that the last few percent of a project is the hardest, and it looks like this project will be no exception.
While I was away on vacation, the trap ran out of gas. I forgot to load a full tank before I left, and didn’t think to ask the house sitter to check the tank. Instead, I was frustrated when checking the trap from afar, which was an unintended consequence, not to mention missing over 2 weeks of mosquitos.
I needed a means to report the propane level. This could be done by adding a weight sensor to the tank, or a pressure sensor to the propane line, which would display in the status report. The weight sensor would show the propane level decline steadily over time. A pressure sensor would show that the propane had run out, giving little or no warning. There would be a benefit in shutting the trap down when the fuel is low – there would be no more air let into the empty tank, and less or no need to bleed the tank on the next refill. So now to look for sensors.
Finally, my Defender exhibited the temperature decline from 120°C to 70°C yesterday. Something disrupted the combustion, and it rose a few degrees, then dropped below 70, which triggered a fault condition and trap shutoff. This rise occurred at about the same time I was checking the basket for live mosquitos. I remember unusual combustion sounds as I opened and closed the hatch. Perhaps this caused the problem yesterday. But then it happened a little while after I noticed it stopped and restarted it today, when it ran for just 15 minutes at 120°C then peaked at 122°C and dropped again. All of this associated with a rising case temperature reaching about 42°C. Last summer’s mystery has returned in full force. Except this year, everything has been replaced. Stay tuned.