Low Wattage LED UV Lamps

[melbellingham]

Low Wattage LED UV Lamps:

Morning All,

I've just read Greg's post "Moths Are Resilient Creatures" and thought the following information might be of interest.

Last night (01/12/2016) with the forecast of a ‘relatively’ warm night, I put my trap out. From 5pm until 11pm I ran my usual 125W MV lamp.

I recorded 1 December Moth (Poecilocampa populi), 1 Winter Moth (Operophtera brumata) and 1 male Light-brown Apple-moth (Epiphyas postvittana).

The temperature recorded at 11pm was 7.2C, so I decided to try a low wattage LED lamp for the remainder of the night. I released the LBAM, but retained the other 2, just overnight, to avoid possible re-capture of the same moths.

The lamp I used was a 240V 5W UV LED, which I had recently purchased, but not yet tried. The lamp is fitted with an ES thread, so is a straight change with the MV lamp. It does not require a separate choke, but will run through the same MV control box if required. The lamp appears quite bright considering it is only 5W.

With this lamp I caught another December Moth and a male LBAM, but presume this was the moth I had released last night.

Not really a notable catch, but running a 5w lamp through the Winter might appeal to others, who think long nights with high wattage lamps are just a waste of money, with little reward, such as blank nights.

I have already had a couple of blank nights, 2 Winter Garden Moth Scheme nights for instance, and I’m sure I will have a few/many more, but on other selective nights, perhaps during mild spells, I intend to try the low wattage lamp again.

Similar low wattage lamps are also available to run off 12V but have different connections (MR16 for instance), so could be utilised in the field running off a battery. I have also purchased some of these, but not yet tried them as I need to alter a Skinner trap or make a bucket type trap.

Anyone interested could start here:

http://www.pwbelg.clara.net/mercury/led ... index.html

Mel.

[Greg]

Hi Mel,

Thanks for the info. I've been toying with the idea of looking into LED lights in traps for a while now. A few moth-ers I've been trapping with were using them and said they were as effective as Actinic and in some cases even MV's. The advantage is the portability as they can run for a considerable time on batteries, which would be very useful in the field.

Your post has prompted me to contact Paul Batty.

Cheers,
Greg

[melbellingham]

Hi Greg,

I’ve been looking at LED lamps for a while now, as like you I have seen other moth-ers using various setups. There are several different designs that you can find on the web, but for simplicity, the lamps sold by PB, seem to be ideal.

I bought, and recently received, some mains voltage lamps and 12V equipment, but until last night I hadn’t had an opportunity to try any of it.

The low voltage equipment I purchased consisted of an LED Quick Fit Kit which can be used with 3/4/5 W MR16 lamps (see images below). You would need a suitable funnel (18cm) which PB can supply, and a suitable box or container.

I used an old plastic tub 10” (250mm) dia. x 8” (200mm) high. Cut a hole for the funnel and can’t wait to try it. (GMS again tonight, so I will have to wait for the next mild night). It could possibly do with a bigger tub, but it is all down to portability and storage I suppose.

LED Quick Fit Kit

LED Quick Fit Kit 3W UV lamp powered by 12V Lithium Battery

The other equipment I bought was a Skinner bar with 3 MR16 connections. PB will make up different lead lengths, depending upon what you require.

These LED lamps are not waterproof, so some form of rain guard will be essential.

Mel.

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[melbellingham]

Morning All,

The following is just an update on the few attempts I have made recently with my new LED lamps. I hope it is easy to understand from the table below, but there is one item I need to explain.

On the night of 07/12/2016 I replaced the Robinson trap with a Skinner trap using a cross bar with 3 MR16 connections and used a combination of 12V battery powered LED lamps. Although the table shows that I used 8W UV LED, this consisted of 1 x 5W and 1 x 3 W in combination with a 3W green LED. I understand that this is similar to green actinic.

Comparisons between MV and LED catches

Winter is probably not the best time to test these new lamps, but at least I know they do attract moths, and I can’t wait to try them when there will be more moths flying.

Best Wishes to All for Christmas and a moth filled New Year.

Mel.

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[melbellingham]

Hi,

I’ve continued to use low wattage UV LEDs in the garden occasionally and these are my results so far this year. They might be of interest to anyone thinking about using LED lamps.

Mothing is still slow here, and it is still too early to come up with any conclusions, but already I get the impression that these LED lamps are reasonably attractive to micro-moths.

Or is it just that I’m not getting many Macro’s ?

Further Comparisons

Mel.

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[melbellingham]

Spurred on by Clive’s reply for further information about his results with LED lamps, I thought I would update my comparison lists, which might help, or then again……...

From the two lists above (I can’t find a way of making one long list, hence the reason for two) it will be seen that I have only made a few recent attempts with the LED lamps. More recently though, instead of using the MV for the early part of the night, finishing with the LED’s overnight, I tried running both setups simultaneously. It is probably a much better comparison. Both traps were sited in my garden, but not in line of sight.

My usual Robinson trap has a plastic rain guard, much the same as most traps, but plastic does not allow UV light to pass through it. With the conventional MV lamp, the shape of it will emit UV light 360 degrees around the garden. When I replace my MV lamp with an LED lamp, the UV light now becomes directional, and as it points upwards, the UV light emitted will be inhibited by the plastic rain guard.

Robinson trap with plastic rain guard

To compensate for this, I altered a Robinson trap, which now has a ‘Pyrex’ bowl as the rain guard. Although most types of glass will not allow UV light to pass through it, Pyrex bowls will.

Robinson trap with Pyrex bowl rain guard

When switched on, the directional spread from the LED light can be seen as a purple beam. Assuming that the UV light is emitted within the same beam, I therefore assumed that the UV light is missing from outside of that beam. The spread at a guess would be in the order of 15-20%.

In an attempt to increase the spread of UV light, I constructed a small Robinson trap, using a 4 lamp setup, with the lamps in the horizontal plane rather than the vertical.

Small Robinson trap with 4 x 3W LED setup

I placed the trap in the middle of my garden and walked round it, at a distance of about 3m. At all times I could see at least 2 lamps.

Although to date I have only used this trap in the field once so far, I did record a few moths. It was early in the year (Feb), on a trip to Llanymynech Rocks, Shropshire. I ran 3 traps, two 125W MV traps attracted a total of 3 macro moths of 3 species, and a 12W battery powered 4 lamp trap (4 x 3W LED) also attracted 3 moths (1 macro and 2 micro’s) of 2 species.

This setup was made for 4 lamps, but it will run with any number between 1 and 4, so if the trap is situated against a wall for example, only 2 or 3 lamps need be used.

I have since obtained a small lighting transformer (costing less than £5), which means I can now run the setup from mains in the garden, or generator when in the field.

Mel.

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[SteveMcBill]

Thanks Mel - an excellent and informative post. Again, I will look forward to seeing how your experiments with this new form of lighting develop and whether it is now time to switch from MV.

Thank you.
Steve

[CliveJ]

Fair catch last night at Maeshafn with 5W LED (as in Mel's quick fit post), so moths can definitely be caught this way. No idea how MV or a higher wattage actinic would have fared, but portability is good using a Tracer lithium ion battery - an indulgence, I know !

Spruce Carpet - 1
Nut-tree Tussock - 13
Sandy Carpet - 1
Early Thorn - 4
Purple thorn - 1
Brimstone Moth - 1
Scalloped Hazel - 7
Common Marbled Carpet - 1
Small Phoenix - 2
Engrailed - 1
White Ermine - 1
May Highflyer - 1
Barred Hook-tip - 1
Mottled Pug - 2

[SteveMcBill]

Further reading on the subject:

https://petermobbs.wordpress.com/2015/0 ... sing-leds/

http://www.tombio.uk/?q=mothtrap

Steve