Re: protective clothing for mosquitoes

What, never been to a flea circus ?

Tim Worstall

Get serious! Personally I wrap mayself completely in aluminum foil when deer hunting in warm weather. That way, no bugs can bite me and the deer cannot hear my thoughts ;) Frank

And, when the bears bite, the aluminum foil really hurts their fillings...

Nils

Archimedes Plutonium wrote: (snipped)

Stop and think for a moment of what powers this "ultimate summer suit"? A suit that is air conditioned. One idea that comes to mind is to lug around a battery but it would have to be a big battery.

Another idea would be like the swamp-coolers of Southwest desert where a fan pushes moist air into a hot dry room and the evaporation effect cools

the room. But this garment the moist air is provided by the sweat of the person and the clothes for that would be cotton. Here the only thing needed

is something to fan the air. If it is a hot yet windy day then the outside power source is not needed.

Another idea is a suit that can hold cold water. I used to do this alot in bygone years especially to the head in hot weather where I get a small towel and soak it in cold water and then put the towel inside my hat and about

Now I wonder if there is a chemical compound that can be sandwiched between

two of 4 layers of a material that as the heat inside rises causes a chemical reaction with another chemical in 2 other layers and cools the inside and somehow the original chemical returns to its original form. Sort of like a catalyst.

What is wanted finally is a suit which is worn in hot weather and air conditions the wearer but also is mosquito and most other insectproof.

I know someday in the future such a suit will be commonplace but it will come. And perhaps it needs several advances in other technologies before it becomes reality.

One possible clue or lead into making great progress would be to ask if there exists any animal whose body already has what can be called a air-conditioner and then scale it to human anatomy.

Archimedes Plutonium, a snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies

Dale Trynor wrote: I did try experimenting with the idea of using calcium chloride within a sealed chamber with water. The idea was because calcium chloride has such an affinity to draw water from the air that it would cause the water to evaporate rather rapidly in a vacuum and would produce a cooling effect on the water containing side. Note that the condensing water in the calcium chloride side will become warmer but this would be dumped into the surrounding air. The chloride could be recycled easily. I could not get it to work very well but perhaps I didn't try very hard.

If instead you were interested in something for winter heated suites, gloves etceteras. Note that nitinol is a shape memory alloy that returns to its original length with more force that used to expand it. It's been used in the movie industry etc., because of this however heating it to return it to its original length with batteries is not very efficient or practical. Note that they have remarkable power per volume such materials as compared to electric motors . I did have a neat idea for a nitinol motor that uses the heat from a platinum catalyst to run it and all the heat was used to heat water that would be circulated. The idea of the platinum is that one only needs mix air with methyl alcohol to instantly generate heat on the instant it hits the platinum powder that's also in contact with the nitinol wires and because the nitinol motor would not have been practical if run on batteries as a source of heat. The motor was to pump the heated water and drive the fans to move the alcohol saturated air. Sense heat is the main product motor efficiency was not really important, but avoiding the use energy of batteries for heating water is just practical. I had the plans for the experimental motor on my site that's now out of commission.

I did think that using them in prosthetics could also have been a good possibility, as they might outperform electric motors, be smaller, and because they use fuel would last longer even if they are substantially less energy efficient.

The idea also needed that gloves be made with a water circulation system molded in and or atached onto the back surface. Having circulating hot water would be remarkably invaluable where one must have dexterity and deal with low temperatures doing fine work such as electrical.

If you like to experiment I did one time try a neat sort of mosquito scooper that seamed to really lessen the mosquito populations hovering around me. Worked a bit like a small butterfly net except that it had a strip of fly paper down its middle. Scooping the buggers up with the device would collect them along its sticky strip. Might try an electrocuter next time when they get bad again if the batteries last long enough on a hand model.

Its biggest problem was the need for an easy method of replacement for strip of fly paper I used. Otherwise it really did help a lot as after clearing the area around me it takes time for more to arrive.

You got to get over that universe is a atom thing. See my site for an easily understandable explanation for how and what the universe really is.

Every year seems as though I battle this problem of wanting to work outside in

summer heat but having to fight off biting flies and mosquitoes not to mention

tick danger. Seems like such a long time ago in youth when I would just run around in cotton shorts and cotton t-shirt with never a care in the world for biting insects.

But now, when I go outside that is the primary thing on my mind other than get

some work done. Not to get any bites. So how to solve that problem.

When the weather is cool such as Spring and Autumn I usually wear some goretex or omnitech pants and raincoat where no insects can bite through. With gloves of either plastic or leather. I find these cheap packages of 12 pairs of thin rubber gloves a bargain.

But in the heat of summer the best I can manage is cotton shorts and cotton long sleeve shirt that is thin, and I soak the shorts and shirt with water and

I wear mosquito netting pants over the shorts and netting over the shirt. And of course gloves because mosquitoes like the hands. And the logic behind this outfit is that the cotton undergarments get soaked either with water from me applying water or soaked and drenched in my sweat after about an hour outdoors

and the cotton absorbs the moisture and then the breeze begins to cool the body.

Recap: the best I have found so far is cotton socks, cotton shorts, cotton long sleeve (all white) and cotton hat (baseball whatever). And then cover these with mosquito netting. As the cotton gets wet or drenched in sweat it cools the body.

Two problems. (1) sometimes the netting touches the cotton or skin and then a searching mosquito may penetrate. (2) if the mosquitoes are very bad I wear a netting jacket that has no openings and so visibility is reduced horribly.

This year the mosquitoes are very bad and I have been bitten already somewhere

between 10 and 20 times. In other years I will go through an entire summer and

have less than 5 bites all summer long.

I believe many improvements can be made for mosquito netting garments. And improvement such that the garments resist touching the skin. And another improvement for the face region so that visibility is not so much reduced.

If there was some way of combining the cotton shorts and shirt so as to keep the netting far enough away from the body for those persistant mosquitoes. Today I had the problem of stooping and bending over to cut some grass and pull some weeds and the netting hugged my shorts and allowing for persistant mosquitoes to sink their proboscis and so I could not do that task for any stretches of time.

Perhaps if a netted pants and jacket had some strips strategically sewn onto them that would act as a bumper to when the garments got to near to the skin.

And as for visibility, allow some attachment of glasses so that the only opening is for the glasses.

And I think the netting should remain nylon since it is impervious to moisture

and will keep its form. And they seem to make these netting fire resistant. Some are made out of polyester.

Archimedes Plutonium, a snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies

Archie,

Everything you say is perfectly sensible -- but probably a better strategy is protective clothing for humans.

I've had a terrible time finding protective socks that fit mosquitoes, and they have so damn many feet.

-dlj.