Electronics > Repair
LIDL bug zapper not working
soldar:
In LIDL I bought a mosquito zapper Livarno Home 4055334784306. Which did not work when I got home and plugged it in. The box does not say where it was made but it is all designed to give the impression that it is a German product. If you examine the product you have no doubt that it was not made in Germany.
I always keep all my purchase receipts but, as my luck would have it I had lost this one and so at LIDL they would not accept the return without the receipt. Oh well, it was only 10 EUR.
I might attempt to repair it but it might not be worth it.
The light does not work and the zapper does not work either. It flickers a bit and then dies. I seem to remember from the past that they have some kind of capacitor charge pump that raises the voltage for both the lamp and the zapper.
I have not reverse engineered the schematic yet which makes me think this could be a project for BigClive but I have never been able to get in touch with him. If anyone knows how please let me know.
For now I am going to put it aside and I think probably the only thing worth doing is to measure capacitors and test other components. Probably not worth spending much time on this. And if it is the lamp that is bad then better forget it.
GGMM:
hello,
What type of bulb is this?
Looking at the picture, it looks like the filament does not touch the other pin. Have you tested with the ohmmeter?
Solution if you lost the ticket:
Buy a second one and make the guarantee work for the first. Then resell the second on site ads.
it's " Systeme D"as we say... LOL
cdt
themadhippy:
--- Quote ---ooking at the picture, it looks like the filament does not touch the other pin
--- End quote ---
possibly its the starter for the florry uv tube
Gyro:
Yes, that's the glow starter for the florescent UV tube. When power is applied, you get a glow discharge in the starter which heats the curved bi-metal strip (not filament), this then bends to touch the other electrode. This completes the circuit through the heaters in the ends of the florescent tube. When the starter cools and opens again, it breaks the heater circuit and the tube hopefully fires (with a discharge voltage drop lower than the glow voltage of the starter.
If the tube doesn't fire then the process repeats, leading to the characteristic florescent tube starting flicker (which has all but disappeared with the advent of electronic ballasts).
P.S. Yes, my guess would be a capacitor lost value or tired tube (or one of the paralleled resistors o/c).
soldar:
LIDL would have exchanged it but they were sold out and they would not return the cash I paid.
The glow starter is not of the regular type of glow starter which works in conjunction with an inductance. There is no inductance here and I believe that glow bulb serves a different purpose.
The UV tube has a note saying it is not replaceable and the cables are crimped on. I guess I could disconnect it and test it with a conventional magnetic ballast. I might do it when I decide to dig into this. I think there is a good chance the tube is bad in which case it is better to dump the device.
I think I will just test the caps and other components in the simplest way possible and end there.
Only if I feel very inspired will I reverse engineer the schematic just out of curiosity. I remember I did it years ago for a similar device and it was quite simple with a simple charge pump providing HV for the tube and for the zapper.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version