Has anyone put together a solar powered bug light @ there pond? I think there is an advertiser here with bug lights and I am thinking maybe solar powered Maybe? Harbor freight offers a small solar powered panels kit, surly it would power a bug light, Anyone?

I would like to also add one of those underwater green lights under or around the pier, using solar, so has anyone attempted this? I thought it would be cool to watch the lmb feed @ night under the pier and those green lights work great for that. I see some of this @ some local lakes.

Thanks

Tracy

Tracy,

Have you seen the pond bug zappers that are like string weed wackers? It's just a light to attract the bugs with a spinning string in front of the light. You suspend it over the pond and it wacks the bugs and drops them into the pond as fish snacks instead of incinerating them like the grid type bug wackers. I suspect the string type would require a lot less power.

Lowes sells a solar lite that puts out a lot of lite that can be put on a pier and attract bugs that will drop into the water . $39 around here

a couple of times I have seen @ ponds what looked like a basketball back board with a light @ the top of the board (painted white). Bugs would hit the back board and fall in the water. I really don't want all that but a light with a weed wacker or fan would work for me. Simple and easy, such a thing out there?

Pat, sounds good but need a fan or something to kill them where they fall into the water ??

if you have not seen the underwater green lights, it is really something to see around and under ones doc. I have seen them @ piers while bass fishing @ night on Lake Fork. we saw some really nice bass swimming around the area that was lit up.
Bill, I have not seen those, but now I am thinking a small elec motor, like used on RC racing cars would use little energy and I might be able to add a string to the shaft of the moter and that would turn it really fast.

Tracy

Check this thread out for the string type. Bojo light...

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=29929

Thanks Bill, I see where canyoncreek had no response to his questions back in Feb. So I will ask, anyone seen or herd about solar powered bug light? I also need to ck into those underwater green lights, anyone know where or if they can go with a small solar powered system?

Thanks

Tracy

I see in that old thread that Liquidsquid posted he made a solar version. I know he's still around the forum. Maybe he will see this thread or you might want to PM him.

Edit: My bad. I just re-read Squid's post and he said somebody needs to make a solar version. NOT that he did!

I don't think you would need to whack the bugs just have the lite close to the water and they will fall in and git et. June bugs especially don't fly well and crash in

I have never seen "June bugs" (the big green ones) fly at night. Only the "May beetles" (brown and smaller than "June bugs") fly at night, at least around here. I also have one of the solar spotlights over the water, but not many insects fly unless the night temp is above 60 degrees. I need to start walking the footpath over there after dark and watch the next warm night.

I started it, then I got stupid busy at work. Hmmm, may be time to peck at it a little more.

Harvesting solar energy into mechanical action will take some smarts and decent battery management, it wont be cheap.

The idea is to store energy during the day to light UV LEDs during the night. Possibly time it for ideal insect times depending on output required. Then wait for the insects to come in, and then only periodically start up the "bug trimmer". The fun would be to see if I can detect the quantity of bugs, and fire the trimmer up only when there is enough bugs to make it worthwhile.

I actually have another idea for measuring pond water temperature, the entire column, then reporting it wirelessly. Also not cheap, but we have transmitters/receivers on the ISM band (915MHz) capable of 3 miles with very little average energy consumption.

I thought of doing this. Put two solar lights on a fence post out in the water...light just above. I figure with how many bugs find my pool, this would attract them over/into the pond.

I've thought of this often. My pool used to drown hundreds of bugs every day. Imagine how many a pond, being many times the surface area, plus actually producing bugs that hatch from it, wind up as fish food with no extra effort to bring that about. I'll bet the number eaten as emerging nymphs is just incredible in most ponds.

I'm still working on ideas for this. I'm thinking of using a large PVC pipe as the stand pipe, mount in ground right at edge of pond. Then have another smaller pipe inside that can rotate, and 90degree off that towards the pond with a long arm. The long arm then can be rotated out over the pond, or can be rotated back to the bank for servicing the light. Still working on design.

As for the light itself, I'm going to buy one of those metal clamp work lights. I'm going to use a tiny LED light bulb that uses the standard screw in base to provide light. I'm thinking of using the GE brand stick light bulbs as they are very small and compact. I'll go with standard white light but can experiment with coloring the bulb green, yellow, even blue with a marker or even food dye to see if the fish care about color.

If anyone knows if a certain color light is better for fish, let me know.

Then I bought a tiny AC motor, 3000 rpm and will mount that just below the light. That way the whole thing will be one A/C plug. I do have to figure out a way to make the housing more water proof as it will be out in the rain. I may mount it in a tote or something.

There are several options for A/C motors (hobby motors, but I found small replacement fan motors I think used in ceiling fans? There are even 2 speed fan motors or buy one of those walmart $8 small clip on fans and 'harvest' the motor out of there

If it works out I'll post pictures.

I thought of doing it all DC as DC LEDs are easy to get and already in various colors, also DC motors are far more plentiful in that small size. I could use a A/C to 12vDC wall wart converter too, but since my housing already came for an A/C bulb off the shelf I thought I go with A/C bulbs and an a/c motor.

You put a lot of thought into that canyoncreek. I just planned to wade out with a fence post and fence post driver...pound the fence post into the bottom of my small pond and put this pair of lights on it.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013DLY5R6/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_FlpkxbV430CW7

I figure the bugs are getting in my pool without being wacked, so they will get in the the pond without being wacked (but it is a neat concept).

Sean

Boburk,
I'm completely fine with your way, simpler is ALWAYS better. Can you mount and share your results? How high above the water and how will you orient the lights compared to the post?

There will probably be some 'magic' distance above the water where the bugs are more likely to hit the water and stick rather than flitting out the light and flying away?

If I can get by without the fan motor and flail to knock them in I'm all for it.

I would also ask you to experiment with light color. I see from reviews on amazon that these are more the cool white light, no Kelvin scale rating is listed. That may work great, or you may have to color the lens or add a colored filter to get different hues.

The 2 intensity switch option will be handy to extend your run time if you don't need full power at night.

I do like the idea of not running an a/c cord out over the water

I have had a pair of these lights in my yard since Octoberish last year. I think I have them on the brighter setting. They are pointed toward the doors to give us some light if we are out late and forget to leave a light on.

On heavily overcast days they are noticably dimmer at night. I don't know how late into the night they stay on. I figured even if just a few hours, that would be a few hours of bugs for my fish (if they work to attract bugs).

I will report back if I ever get around to doing it. Plan was to put them about a foot above full pool. As water level changes, I guess I would get to test out different heights. Never really thought about different colors attracting different amounts of bugs. Planned to point them down into the water.

Sean

When I was younger I did quite a bit of night fishing, mostly walleye and lake trout. When I was very young, my father put two Coleman lanterns together on a long pipe that hung out over the boat. In my late teens I made underwater lights out of GE H2 automotive bulbs. Epoxy the base of the bulb and the terminations to the wire in a pvc cap. Put the bulb under water first, ( otherwise the hot bulb explodes when it hits the water) then hook alligator clips to a fully charged deep cycle 12v battery. This would run a light on each side of the boat all night long. Hang the light down just far enough to reflect off the bottom of the boat. This attracted many thousands of bugs, but more importantly, bait. By the thousands. Sometimes in 120' of water the finder read 2' because of the mass of bait. Works best on a new moon, the moon is tough competition, dark nights were always best. My best walleye night was 78, but we always caught at least a couple dozen. Shining a bright light by shore can attract tons of bait also. I may try this on my fatheads this summer some evening. V shaped netting, then close the open end when full of bait. This is the tactic the bait guys used to use to collect alewives to sell from the Fingerlakes . Not sure this is legal anymore with all the modern rules about collecting bait, I doubt it still is. Some nights, even out over very deep water, we would catch huge perch and crappie suspended about 12 feet down just under the bait. Great way to kill time while waiting for a bite from the big targets.

I have some schematics together, but it going to be a bit grander than a bug whacker.

Basic design is a solar charger of about 25W in full sun, to charge a basic lead-acid battery, preferably one that can handle deep cycle (I wont supply, but you can use a ATV battery or whatever is handy). That is the main power house for the unit with a peak solar power tracking controller and lead-acid battery manager.

It will have a small micro-controller with a Bluetooth LE module so you can connect to it via your cell phone and manage it to set light timings, bug whack rates, etc. The board itself will have an LED driver for a series of blue/violet LEDs so that they can be angled in an array to be seen by the bugs from a distance to draw them in. It will also have one or more higher-power LED drivers for dock and/or underwater lighting. Also a thermometer or two for reporting air temperature and water temperature back to your phone.

The challenge is the power management for the 25W source power. Obviously you cannot leave everything running at 100% all the time, so the unit has to understand the capacity of charge available, and what can run and when. Stuff I get to do at the day job all the time, so it should be fun!

The last challenge will be the enclosure and mechanical design. That may require a little crowd funding if there is interest.

I figure if I design it for something reasonable that I would use regularly (especially the dock lighting and underwater lighting) then there should be a small but reasonable market out there to at least break even.

Please continue with your work, I would love to have a system like u describe, underwater green lighting to be used when we r at the pier and the same with the bug lights.

Tracy

I also would be interested in your solar system lighting & bug zapper for my pond dock. Look forward to seeing what you come up with.