Soldering small

I *thought* mosquitoes could sense infrared but my quick read of wiki didn't mention it. A general google search finds a lot of add copy selling things mentioning mosquitoes and IR but that sure isn't authoritative. ;)

Remember waking up one night on a back packing trip with my dog to the sounds of most of the Michigan air force (mosquitoes) circling around my little back pack tent. They found us some how. We were not emitting light.

What type of bugs are you hoping won't be attracted?

Wes

mention it. A

mosquitoes and IR

They found

Maybe CO2. I the UK midges are quite prevalent in Scotland, while not mozzies, they bite and are known to home in on CO2 sources, such as humans and other animals, very effectively. Maybe also how you smell, an ex girlfriend could be bitten repeatedly in the night and I might get one bite if I was unfortunate and I was next to her.

mention it. A

mosquitoes and IR

They found

They can sense infrared and CO2. You didn't have a chance.

I noticed that they swarmed around a hot dirt bike engine but not the exhaust or me.

jsw

Skeeters.

How about a skinny pencil? Wood with (conductive) graphite center, easily pointed or whittled, inexpensive.

They're more than amply conductive for static dissipation. I used to arc-weld thermocouples using a lab bench supply and a couple of pencil leads. No goggles or mask, just squint. The OSHA lady would have me hung by the thumbs today, but this was many years ago.

Update: The circuit oscillated. I've built several regulators like this, none of which oscillated, but this one did even though I could not get a SPICE sim of that circuit to oscillate. Usual remedies at the bench didn't work.

I finally decided that perhaps that particular opamp was wonky and it might be best to start over. Clanged the can with it, built the circuit again using a different opamp in a SOT23-5 package: TS1871ILT from ST rather than LM358 also from ST. Easy to stick wires on that wee speck, or maybe I'm just getting better at it. I only had 50 of those, now 49 left but hey, it's time to be enjoying my treasure.

This instantiation of the same dirt-simple design worked exactly as expected, within 1%. I used 5% resistors, but sometimes things turn out better than expected. It's now in a plastic tube filled with potting goo and curing in the oven, becoming a weatherproof bulge in the cord. That cookie will be done about lunchtime tomorrow, ready to go to the lake in late May or early June.

They rarely bother me, from the time I switched to artifical sweetners.

Then again, some work can be done with a syringe full of soldering mixture and a toaster oven... and you don't even need to align the parts all that carefully.