Bug Zapper Counts And Serenades Its Victims

Not many creatures are as universally despised as mosquitoes; whether it’s the harmless kind that, at worst, makes you miss winter; or the more serious ones that can be a real threat to your health. A satisfying way to deal with them is to send them off with a bang using one of those racket-shaped high voltage metal mesh bug zappers. lmu34 saw big potential for some additional gamification here; and decided to equip his zapper with a kill counter and matching sound effects.

The initial thought was that there has to be a way to detect when a mosquito hits the mesh, and use that to trigger further events — in lmu34’s case play a sound file and increment a counter. After taking the zapper apart and doing a bit of research; he put theory into practice using a Digispark Pro board containing an ATtiny167; the DFPlayer module for playing a set of WAV files; and an ambitious four digit 7-segment display to keep track of the “score”. A new 3d-printed cover provided enough space to house all the components, including a charging circuit as he swapped the original two AAA batteries with a rechargeable one, which gave a bit more power for the display.

Read more: Bug Zapper Counts And Serenades Its Victims