Electronic Bug Zapper
Owen Jones | April 3, 2010The indoor bug killer is the best way of ridding the space around you of insects, especially the flying ones like mosquitoes. The hand held insect killer evaporates any insect from a mosquito to a gnat instantaneously on contact with a nice, loud, electrical ‘zap’!
However, this does not mean to say that the hand held bug killer cannot be operated outside, as long as it is not too wet. It should be treated like any other high voltage electrical equipment. Keep the indoor bug zapper dry and please do not use it while you are standing in water!
Models vary greatly, but there are basically only two types of electric bug killer: the battery operated bug zapper and the rechargeable electric bug killer. Both are equally effective at killing insects and work on the same principle.
The electric bug killer looks like a ‘kids’ tennis racquet, but with three sets of ‘strings’, which are in fact wires. The innermost grid of wires becomes live at the push of a button while the other two networks, one on either side, are earths.
When an insect is trapped between the wires of the indoor insect killer, it creates a short, which vaporizes it instantaneously with a loud crack. The indoor bug zapper will kill other insects too, but they tend to fry rather than explode.
I have been using the rechargeable kind for five years and am extremely happy with the hand held bug killer. In fact, the electric bug zapper has come a long way in the last few years. A fully charged electric insect killer is strong enough to last for several hundred swipes and will hold it’s charge, when unused, for weeks without any significant discharge.
The battery recharge pack will take intensive use for the best part of a year, although its ability to hold a charge for a few weeks slowly diminishes after six or seven months.
The latest indoor bug killer I’ve had has a main on/off switch, an LED that comes on when it is activated (the brightness of this light also gives an indication of the battery’s strength) and a light that comes on when it is plugged in on recharge.
The instructions on the wrapper say that it should be (re)charged for about sixteen hours. I usually put mine on charge over night once or twice every week or two, although the electric insect zapper shows a large increase in performance with only a couple of hours recharging.
The latest version I’ve seen also comes with a powerful beam called a ‘headlamp’. I have found this very useful when out in the garden, but I’m not sure whether it’s meant to attract the flies in the dark so that you can zap them if you’re bored. You know, like an anglerfish.
I’ve used the headlamp on my electric bug zapper for that too, but the beam uses a lot of battery power. All in all, the hand held bug killer is a big asset to any outdoor event. The hand held bug zapper is useful to ‘clean out’ your bedroom before retiring; it’s unbeatable for evening mosquitoes and it will clear a lunch table of wasps too.
Have you ever used an indoor bug zapper? If not, or if you want to get an electronic insect killer, please click one of the hyperlinks to our website or blog. This article, Electronic Bug Zapper has free reprint rights.
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