As mentioned before, I am running a modified Mosquito Magnet Defender controller board. It started up for the season at the end of May, fortunately without incident (it survived the winter). For the first 2 weeks, it didn’t catch any mosquitos, but, instead, there were hundreds of tiny flies (no-see ums) in the basket. These pests bite and are a real nuisance. However, they bite and are gone (perhaps to bite again), and there is very little one can do about it. The bite irritation does not last very long, and is not nearly so irritating (or dangerous?) as a mosquito bite, not to mention the mosquito’s anxiety producing high pitched tone, that, when it stops, means you have less than a second to find and kill it before it bites you.
The third week, before the Defender ran out of gas, it caught 375 mosquitos. I changed the basket and tank. There were between 30 to 50 times that many no-see ums as well. The basket was a sticky mess, making it hard to count the critters.
The trap did not start. I tried 3 times, but no luck. The MQTT telemetry showed no temperature rise during the ignition cycle. Normally, the temperature rises slightly (from the hot igniter) then, after about 60 seconds, it rises to its running temperature of about 90°C above ambient from the combustion. No rise indicated that the igniter was not working. I took off the case top cover, removed the igniter, restarted the trap, and, sure enough, the igniter did not glow. Fortunately, I have 2 spare igniters, so I removed the igniter, measured it, compared it to a new igniter out of the box, and they both measured 1-1.5 ohms. I installed the new igniter anyway, and the trap started and is still running perfectly.
I am having a difficult time troubleshooting this problem. The old igniter measures “good, ” which could indicate an oxidized connector issue. I would like to see if the old igniter will glow if I connect it to 12 volts, but I don’t have a 12 volt supply that can provide enough current (12 amps) to power the igniter, other than my auto battery, but I have been resisting hooking the igniter to it. Something about outdoors, away from a workbench, the inconvenience of it all. Instead, I ordered a small 5 Amp*Hour battery for another project, and will use this to check the igniter outside of a trap. I think I’m just getting lazy, just procrastinating.
The project using the Arduino (on the forum) saves propane by running the trap during the dawn and dusk hours, while the Mosquito Magnet traps run 24/7. Starting the trap twice a day uses 21 x 2 or 42 times the number of cycles on the igniter, which starts the propane combustion when you start the trap. My igniters have not been very reliable, I have had to replace them repeatedly. The Arduino project has been running through them fairly rapidly. I suggested a soft start for the igniter, which the developer adopted, and we will see how that works out. I will consider adding this to the Defender NodeMCU project as well, if it turns out that it improves reliability.
I took a fresh read through the detailed directions on building the NodeMCU controller add-on. They are daunting! Two sections on “Don’t Do it,” then step by step instructions on troubleshooting and fixing the original controller (which, if fixed, obviates the urgent need for the add-on), followed by step by step instructions for procuring, programming, testing, installing, testing, and using the add-on. Wait, there’s more! Next come large System Requirements and Software Design Description sections. These add a lot of formal sounding jargon before the wiki page finally ends. As I said, daunting.
I mention this because I am running a new version of the software system that simplifies construction, improves performance, and can be further enhanced. This new version will require rewriting the detailed directions, but I am unsure how to proceed. Please leave feedback on the forum for suggestions of rewriting the documentation to make it more accessible.