DIY 5 Gallon Pail Mosquito Trap Build

now my daughter made this for me isn't that cool thanks for joining us this is our homemade five gallon pail mosquito trap let's build one together to get started let's talk about what we're going to need this is three five gallon pails the style you can get at almost any home improvement store i'm going to use white blue and white because i think it'll make it easier for you to follow along in the video as we build it together on top we've got a regular snap-on style pale lid we need just one nothing special nothing fancy just the style that snaps on the lid in addition to that we're going to want a black light this is an incandescent bulb it happens to be 60 watts we don't want an led bulb because we want this to emit a little bit of heat in addition to that ultraviolet light it's going to produce we've got ourselves a really inexpensive extension cord we're going to use the cord for the lamp face that holds the light we've got a lamp face which is a white plastic lamp base the light bulb screws into it and this is what you're going to see in the ceiling of most basements almost any hardware store is going to carry screen door mesh or the type of mesh you're going to see in the windows around your house this happens to be aluminum i like the aluminum over the fiberglass because i think it lasts longer and it's easier to work with they cut it off a roll at the store so you can get just what you need the most important piece of this project is going to be a 9-inch high-velocity fan now i bought this from walmart and i bought this one specifically because if you didn't know it it fits exactly inside of one of those pails now these pails being your standard five gallon buckets cost me about two dollars a piece the lid was about a dollar eighty so all together i've got about eight dollars the lamp costs us about four dollars it's a 60 watt ge incandescent black light to emit those ultraviolet rays we're gonna want to attract mosquitoes our extension cord was under two dollars six foot sixteen gauge the cheapest thing i could find we're just gonna clip the head off of it anyways this lamp base cost me about two dollars it's a keyless ceiling lamp holder if you have a basement and you've got lights on the ceiling if it's unfinished it's probably gonna look like that the mesh cost me about six dollars and being the aluminum it was a little bit more expensive than the fiberglass equivalent i prefer the aluminum because it's easier for me to work with and our fan costs us about 16 from walmart 9-inch high-velocity fan what's important is that we get this fan specifically because the diameter of its cage fits exactly inside of our pail everything i have sitting on the table here cost me about 38 which we're going to use some hot glue and a couple of screws but in general conservatively this project should cost you about 40 dollars now we're going to break our project down into three parts represented by the three pails that we're going to use in the construction of the mosquito trap the top the middle and the bottom let's get started with the top starting with our top pail we're going to take the lid off and set it aside we've drawn a line that goes all the way around the pail four inches down from the bottom of this ridge we're going to cut that off first [Music] leaving us with just the top of the pail as you can see it was all we've also drawn four different columns as we're going to call it which we're going to leave on the pail what we'll want to do is remove four windows from this top bucket four inches down six and a half inches wide each of the columns that we want to leave are two inches wide [Music] [Music] this leaves us with our top tail essentially having four legs that we're going to use to support it on top of the middle pail as you can see i've also drawn a dotted line one inch up from the bottom on each of the legs that's going to help us position it later as we go ahead and mount it onto the middle pail next we're going to get our lamp base ready we're going to take our extension cord we're going to pull it out snip the head off and wire it in the lamp base [Music] when you clip the head off the extension cord you're left with two wires strip those wires twist them and we're going to mount these right to the underside of the lamp base [Music] with our lamp face wired up i like to cut a little divot out of the edge of it to allow the wires to pass when we mount it to the top [Music] now we've got a way for our wires to pass through the lamp base [Music] now for our pale lid we're going to go ahead and mount our lamp base to the underside in order to do that we're gonna have to drill two holes three and a half inches apart [Music] now i'm gonna mount this using some three quarter inch long eight thirty seconds bolts that i had in the shop in order to do that i'm going to pass the bolts from the top of the lid through to the underside bolting the lamp base into place [Music] now i like to use a little hot glue to keep things from vibrating apart i like to apply a little hot glue to the top side to keep water from getting through to our lamp [Music] we'll let that cool our lamp base has cooled off the hot glue is holding the nuts in place and it's keeping water from being able to get through the top side we're going to go ahead and assemble it to our other top pail this is going to snap into place and now completed we've got a lamp base mounted to the inside of our top pail the top pail has four legs as you can see and we're going to eventually mount this to the middle pail let's move on to that next now the first step for our middle pail is we're going to want to remove the handle it's nice to not damage it because we might want an extra later on in the project [Music] they can be a bit tricky set this aside and save it for later the next thing about the middle pail is we're going to want to go ahead and strike a line two inches down from the top of this ridge that line being two inches down we're going to cut all the way around the pail middle pail is really a short section and this is going to house our fan so let's get that out next now we don't need the base for the fan nor do we need the front guard so we're going to disassemble it what's important is i want to save the two screws that hold the fan to its base we're going to use these two screws to hold it into our pail the rest of the screws that hold the front of the guard on we can dispose of [Music] now i'm going to remove the front of the guard [Music] now it's important that we don't damage the fan blades these are made of aluminum and they're relatively delicate normally they're protected by the guard which we don't need [Music] now grabbing our pail you're going to notice [Music] there's two holes where the handle was mounted we're going to utilize those two holes as our location to mount the fan what we need to do first though is drill a hole all the way through the bucket so we can put the fastener through the bucket now i used a 1 8 inch drill bit because these fasteners are pretty tiny in order to be able to install the fasteners we're going to have to pass them through the outer plastic so that they stop on the pail [Music] now our fan is going to rest right inside of this bucket it's the right diameter so that it fits snugly in the pail now taking a look inside the bucket you can see our fastener coming through the hole we just drilled now the fan fits relatively snugly in here and you can see the mounting bracket we need to connect that screw to it's a little tricky you just got to line them up and then tighten the screws down [Music] now with both of those screws tightened down the fan is relatively well mounted it still has a little bit of wiggle so i'm going to use a dab of hot glue on each side to go ahead and secure it now i want to take a quick second to point out that this is where the fan control is the switch is currently on off and we can move it to high medium and low simply by turning the selector now with your fan installed in the middle pail and your top assembly completed it's time to make the two together if you recall me talking about a one inch tall line that we had placed on the legs of the top pail now is the time to use it we're simply going to go ahead and install our top tail into the middle pail with all of the legs on the inside now the height of that line is exactly where we want to position the top tail now there's a whole lot of ways you can mount these legs between the two pails you can use screws you can use bolts i wouldn't recommend glue but what i'm going to use today are popper bits why because they're cheap i have them and they're easy for me to use there's no particular orientation that this has to be assembled to although it is convenient when your cords come out the back in the same location [Music] now with that being completed our top is mounted to our middle pail the light is inside and the fan is mounted and this is now one unit that does not come apart this will be installed in our bottom panel which is up next now i want to review the bottom pail's layout as it seems like it's the most complicated but it's actually not we're going to cut three windows out of the pail and they're all the same size and they're all equally spaced they're nine inches wide by ten and a quarter inches tall the bottom of that opening is one and a half inches from the bottom of the pail and they butt up against the top right up there underneath that ledge the supports that'll be left when we're done are two inches wide three openings three supports on the bottom we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna cut a circle out we're gonna leave one inch of material all the way around the outer edge [Music] now as you can see i like to use a step bit to get a starter hole and i like to use it to cut a nice round edge in the corner of each window i'm cutting out it allows me to stick the jigsaw in the hole and cut through the pattern without having to start and dive the blade in it also creates a nice radius on the corner of the cuts [Music] [Music] so with that being said three windows all cut through the tail and the bottom cut out as well it's time to get to our mesh now to lay out our mesh i like to keep things simple we know the dimensions of the holes that we cut in the size of the pail and we could use those dimensions to cut the mesh as well we could also lay it out with a ruler cut the squares i prefer to just use the pieces i cut out as a pattern leaving about a half of an inch all the way around when i trace it it works really well for the bottom too [Music] now an approximate size is just fine remember we want the mesh to overlap on the pail so we have something to glue to so it's kind of rough cuts doesn't have to be perfect and if you have a little bit of extra it's okay you could always trim it off if you really got too much there's also a lot of ways to cut this stuff i'm going to go a little overkill using some tin snips why because i like to save the scissors and not ruin them with the aluminum mesh and the tin snips work pretty well i have them why not use them [Music] now the edges of this stuff can be pokey so be careful it is aluminum wire after all it's not too bad but you want to use caution anytime you're working with metal now we're going to go ahead and we're going to glue this into our pail now we're going to go ahead and we're going to glue the mesh on the bottom first the pieces of mesh should just fall right in as you can see we have an overlap all the way around i'm going to use the hot glue right around the edge and hot glue being what it is it's going to melt and get through the mesh and it's going to hold it to the pail after i'm done with the bottom i'm going to work my way around the edges of one panel then the next and then the last one [Music] [Music] now it's important to hold it while the hot glue dries the mesh likes to move a little bit especially with the curl it has for being in a roll if you don't let certain areas cool off before you try to finish gluing it for one usually you run out of hot glue and two it'll pull apart [Music] now with the glue cooling off this bottom piece of mesh has been secured all the way around the edge now rather than sit around and wait for glue to cool off i'm going to go ahead and do one panel and i'll show you what it looks like [Music] all right with our mesh securely glued throughout the entirety of our bottom pail the pot and pail is almost complete we just have to work on the handle so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and remove this white plastic piece sometimes it's easier to crunch it sometimes it's easier to cut it kind of depends on who makes your pail all right with the handle removed i'm going to go ahead and nip this right in the middle i've got a pair of heavy lineman's pliers that have essentially a nipper on the inside we're just going to go ahead and snip this right in the middle with our two handle pieces now having been cut we're going to go ahead and we're going to straighten these out as best we can we want to leave this little divot that we have in the bottom and we want to leave the kink in the straight piece on top we just need to make the middle portion as flat as possible [Music] [Music] now with these two straight we're ready to go ahead and turn them into latches in order to do that we're going to need the head unit now because every head unit in every pail is going to be a little bit different after all it's your project not mine we have to custom size our latches to fit the assembly [Music] what we want to do is line up the holes in our lower pail the holes for the handles with the actual handle on our head unit push them together snugly and now we've got the proper orientation to turn our handle into a latch and because each assembly is a little bit different we're going to want to go ahead and hold up our latch and our handle from the head unit we're going to want to mark where we need to bend the latch if you snug your assembly together you should be able to mark exactly the height of this upper pale handle we want to mark just above it and we're going to bend our latch forward to fold over the handle we'll do this for both sides [Music] [Music] if you held this on the table you'd notice that the little twist at the end that locks into the pail can stick upwards off the table we want to bend our latch in that same direction these two should be virtually parallel once we've bent the latch into place it helps to have a good heavy pair of pliers to do this because you're bending metal after all now i like to bend it just a little bit past center so it actually comes down at a slight angle and that allows me to go ahead and bend it back just a smidge to make it lock over center when we lock to the other handle when all is said and done we've got our tab that locks into the pail facing up off the table and we've got our latch protruding up almost parallel and then we've twisted it off to the side so we can work it through with ease we'll repeat this for the other one [Music] now these can take some tweaking and it takes a couple tries sometimes to get it just right the reason why we said it's a good idea to hold on to that extra handle from earlier is because you may not get it on the first time and sometimes after you bend it a few times it'll break don't worry grab that other handle cut it in half and give it another shot now with our latches bent we're going to go ahead and install them in the bottom and as you can see the geometry allows it to be just a little bit snug so we're going to hold up our upper handle and we're going to snap it in place it's gonna lock it same thing for the other side slide it past lock it in place we've got an assembled unit about it you've got your top middle bottom pail all assembled together with the latches the only thing we have left to do is to install our light bulb reach in twist it into the lamp base and all we have to do is plug it in if you've made it this far you've got a homemade mosquito trap now if you're like me and it's pretty obvious that this whole thing is not your forte filming yourself talking to the back of a camera you've got a regular day type job but you find inspiration and watching other people build their projects and you also find inspiration in sharing your own please hit like and subscribe it would be much much appreciated i forgot to mention if you've got a really big mosquito problem stay tuned we're working on a really big solution i've decided to introduce you to all of the animals that have interrupted me while trying to film this likes to wait until you've collected your thoughts and have been successfully recording for a few minutes then she lets out a couple quacks right at the end [Music] this is willy the rooster when willie went to rooster school he failed the part where they taught him to cock-a-doodle-doo only in the morning he likes the cock-a-doodle-doo all the time he can hear it all the time [Music] this is pepe the kitten pepe thinks that all camera tripods are toys he likes to try to climb them he likes to knock cameras over luna are you scared of the mosquito trap it's not for trapping puppies there's nothing to be worried about [Music] this is how you hold an iphone into a tripod if you don't have any of that fancy camera equipment and this is how you take over your wife's mud room so that the sound isn't as echoey you start hanging blankets to try to make the film a little bit better fancy fancy i know

Channel: Building Stuff Is Fun

Views: 557,797

Rating: 4.9127893 out of 5

Keywords: mosquito, bugs, insect, diy, homemade, home, made, trap, 5 gallon, pail, uv, zapper, dynatrap™, dyna trap, best mosquito trap, mosquito killer lamp, mosquito killer machine, how to, dengue, malaria

Id: B8AbO3pOhjc

Length: 27min 23sec (1643 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/TheKG87]

The problem with this and store bought traps alike is that without a CO2 source (or a water infusion trap), you are going to catch mostly other bugs. You are much more interesting than a uv light to them.