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FrozenGate by Avery

Eye safe laser to kill mosquitoes ?

I

isingkarim

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Hi

I worked on a project to try to shoot mosquitoes with a laser. It was made with :
- raspberry pi 3
- raspi cam
- 2 galvanometers to control the direction of the laser
- a fast relay to switch on/off the laser
- some electronics to control the galvanometers with the raspi (mcp4922)
- opencv to track the moving object
and the laser ...
(not sure it will be able to shoot any mosquito :-) )
I stopped this project because of the safety of the laser (too dangerous). But is it possible to find a real "eye safe" laser to kill mosquitoes ?
I saw similar projects saying they use "eye safe" lasers.

Cheers

Karim
 





I agree, not going to happen with any laser, whether at the "eye safe" wavelengths or not, if it is strong enough to burn a bug, it will burn your eyes too.
 
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I'd agree with that - if it was to shoot a mosquito it would probably have to have enough power to even cause minor skin burns, and definitely not be eye safe.

Safety would have to come from the system not hitting anything else, but i doubt even that will work out well. Even in an empty room, if it were to shoot a mosquito and the beam went through (or missed) you'd probably get little burn marks on the walls etc.
 
Well, there were some projects like this. But I would not believe it is safe. As stated above - if it kills a mosquito, it will kill your retina. And honestly, would you believe these machines to identify mosquito with precision at the moment, where laser cannot hurt anybody? Me not. :-D Maybe if you are wearing safety glasses during exposure or remotely switch it on in controlled enviroment - like window curtains closed, door closed and kill the mosquitos of in whole room and than switch the device off. This might actually work, but not when unprotected eyes are present in room when such a device operates.
 
Bug zappers which use high voltage would be better, or one of those propane powered units which attract mosquitoes and they then get stuck to adhesive, or pulled down into a chamber they can't get out of.
 
Yep, it does, I like the idea, but if a hazard to a bug, a hazard to our eyes too.
 
I saw one of these laser killers once on the net.
It was an enclosed chamber which drew bugs in
where they were zapped in a closed controlled
environment. I believe they used a small fan or
attractant in the "death chamber". Detection and
zapping in a small area seems easier.
HM
 
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...and if it is inside a box, what fun is it to use a laser? You can't even see it zapping them with light. If there was one bug on the planet you could completely eliminate, which one would you have go extinct? I hate mosquitoes, that would be the off the top of my head answer, but then I wonder what would that do to the rest of the bugs and animals which eat them? Would that cause a ecological problem within the circle?
 
Eliminating mosquitos from your house will not cause a big ecological problem. There are lots of animals that feed on them (like bats, spiders etc) but those catch most of them outside of homes. As it is we use things like bug sprays to kill the ones inside our houses, so that would probably not change very much.

As for completely eliminating them from existance: that might be a problem for some species that feed on them, but probably not a huge impact. Most species that eat mosquitos will also feed on other insects that don't pose a threath to humans.

But even if it meant that some species would go extinct it would probably be worth it - mosquito's (indirectly) kill more people than any other animal as it is.
 
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Benm said:
Eliminating mosquitos from your house will not cause a big ecological problem. There are lots of animals that feed on them (like bats, spiders etc) but those catch most of them outside of homes. As it is we use things like bug sprays to kill the ones inside our houses, so that would probably not change very much.

As for completely eliminating them from existance: that might be a problem for some species that feed on them, but probably not a huge impact. Most species that eat mosquitos will also feed on other insects that don't pose a threath to humans.

But even if it meant that some species would go extinct it would probably be worth it - mosquito's (indirectly) kill more people than any other animal as it is.
Click to expand...

Einstein said once that if bees disappeared we extinct in four years. Not sure about mosquitos, but the impact on ecosystem would be IMO huge. The key issue is to elliminate them in some areas where some diseases spread out. But there are other methods being used like genetically modified mosquitos inflirtated into population of wild ones. The point is to prevent their reproduction. Anyway insect in general is amazing, once it could be one of main sources of food for overpopulated mankind.
 
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