LED light vs. attracting insects

Some days ago I was playing with my RovyVon Aurora A8U, turned OFF all the lights in the room, and lit up the UV light. Suddenly, a mosquito that I couldn’t catch before appeared in front of the UV light. Then I turned ON the white light and it hide again. Then, again with UV, I could catch it because it got attracted more than with the white light.

Maybe this is the reason why the “”mosquito cacthers”:https://www.google.com/search?q=mosquito+catcher&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWnNSyrqrkAhVQxhoKHU7rDxUQ_AUIESgB&biw=1280&bih=679” have purple/blue lights, no?

About RED light, some time ago I went to see bats at the evening in a explained visit by some bat expert. I asked the lady what kind of light didn’t affect them while they are eating and flying around and she said that RED light doesn’t affect them negatively. Hence, I also supposed, as you now mentioned, that it wouldn’t affect mosquitos that much, otherwise it would also affect the bats hunting a activity. (BTW, in that night in instantly regretted I hadn’t take my Odepro KL52 with RED dropin to see some bats hunting :smiley: )

Interesting!! In my parents home, in a small village, we have big and small hornets around at night. Outside the house we have a CW lamp that serves to “attract” them so that they don’t enter the house. But now I realize they may get “irritated” more than attracted.

Thanks for the information shared :+1:

Often, if you go to the right retail store, the associates will mention something along the lines of “LED bulbs tend not to attract insects” as an informal sales pitch - the manufacturers certainly never state this.
Anecdotally, I use a 5000K 1600 lumen porch lamp, and the bug attraction is far lower than the previous bulb (a warmer CFL bulb, not sure if ~800 or ~1200 lumens). There are still some bugs, but it seems to be limited varieties… The warmer-white LED bulbs, in my experience, attract even fewer bugs, but I like having a big harsh daylight porch lamp.

Most of the lights I use and build are in the 4000k range. I can tell you that they sure do attract bugs! When I go to the garden after dark and turn on a light, not even bright, I am immediately surrounded by all kinds in a cloud. I have not tested it any further, but have been meaning to before winter gets here.

We use Yellow lights round the house and on deck to keep flying objects away
It works.

I’ll put a piece of yellow tape over one of my lights tomorrow and try it.
I know the alternating 5mtr White (Yellow every third) 12v strip lights attract a lot less midgies etc than neighbours All white ones at fishing camp.

Naw, that was already common knowledge after the Headlamp Wars. Some swore by CW for visibility, others WW to not get swarmed. Me, I’d take WW anyday to not attract bugs. Bad enough I’m like sugar to them…

And don’t forget that all “white” LEDs have something of a Blue Peak. Only the warmest-white LEDs where the phosphor just blankets the chip will blue be absorbed well.

So 2200K would be even better than 2700K. Red even better than them all (zero blue content).

Glad I got the FW3A XP-L Hi 7A 3000K. Sounds like some non-scientific experiments will be run one of these warm nights. And maybe a red flashlight like we used aboard ships for night vision, but updated, is a good idea. Any suggestions for a good one? Thanks.

Just use a E21A 2000K 9080 headlamp. You get as close to zero blue wavelength as possible yet with excellent ultra high CRI color rendering. Insects will not notice the light but you will see everything in high fidelity (once your eyes are adjusted to the color temp)

The WK30 is all the rage nowadays, and for good reason. Red on its brightest setting is pretty bright.

Dedicated red lights include the HS-801, and can commonly be had in red and green (go for the red). Throwier, though.

A while back someone wanted a light made to attract bugs specifically. Here’s the thread. IIRC, it was said that bugs are mostly attracted to the blue spectrum. Like Lightbringer said above, you need to remember that ALL white lights are going to have some blue spectrum light in them. If you truly want to avoid attracting bugs, you need to emit zero blue light. Green, Amber, and Red LEDs should be fine for that. A lot of LED “bug lights” (the ones made to NOT attract bugs) use amber LEDs exclusively.

There are also “hunting” lights with the choice of red or green emitters. You can find “hunting” versions of the C8 and the Brinyte B158 zoomie for sale this way.

That’s what the ’801 is generally used for, given its deep-dish reflector. Pushes the spill way out in front vs a shallower reflector.

I got a few of ’em, ’though in green. Sold as “hog lights”.

Apparently the Hog Invasion has people going out in droves gunning ’em down before they take over.

Talk about going “hog wild”…

It’s hardly like they tend to show it on TV. Most of us that are hunting them down here are doing it to protect our land and property from the damage they do. It’s not droves of us out there with AR15s with a bunch of lights and lasers attached to the barrel like I’ve seen major medias report it as.

Most of the issues we have had have been out of staters trespassing because they heard they can go anywhere and do anything to chase hogs down here.

Never saw any of that on teevee. :slight_smile:

But yeah, I’ve seen pix of what damage they can do, digging up things, knocking down fences, etc.

And they’ll kill ya dead if you turn your back on ’em.

Think I’d want a minigun if I went anywhere in Hawg Country…

A hollow point .22 works just fine. Most of the time after the first shot they all scatter, heck a lot of times they scatter before that first shot. I grew up hunting them long before the epidemic (at least 20-25 years). All I’ve ever used was a .22 mag 6 shooter if we are using dogs (don’t 99% of the time as I don’t believe in it). If I’m still hunting em I’ll use a marlin 336 in 30-30. No need for anything full auto as I live in timber country and you rarely get a 2nd clear shot. I’m also not one of the idiots that will wound an animal to let it run off and die. Most of the horror stories you see deals with a cornered animal or you get between a sow and her piglet. Any animal does the same thing in those cases.

heck yeah. best super warm emitter :smiley:

I didn’t notice this before, but “close to zero blue” and “ultra high CRI” are mutually exclusive. :wink:

No, it depends entirely in the color temperature. At <=2000K there is basically no blue content in the light. You can check this by measuring the cri and spectrum of a candle (see here).

Normally the lower the CCT, the less blue light there is. However, this is not always the case. I’ve measured 3000K lights with more blue light than 4000K. Even lights of the same temperature can have very different amount of blue lights. From my anecdotal data, high cri lights of the same CCT emit less blue wavelengths because less blue light gets through the thicker phosphor without being converted to other wavelengths. The E21A 2000K measures less than all other similarly warm light sources I’ve measured. It contains less blue wavelength than a Phillips 2400K incandescent bulb that I measured. Though a candle light might contain a bit less blue than the E21A 2000K.

High CRI sunlight is not only high in Blue it is also high in Green. Sunlight tint is Above BBL that is based on Incan.

High CRI incandescent is much lower in blue and also lower in green than sunlight. Incan tint is ON the BBL

on this graphic, thanks to maukka, we can see the 3 blue dots above the BBL, that represent sunlight, and the one blue dot on the BBL, far right, for incandescent CCT and Tint. Both incandescent and Sunlight are 100 CRI, but Sunlight is bluer and greener… see what I mean?

both sunlight and incandescent are High CRI, but they are totally different Kelvin Color Temperature, sun being bluer, and have totally different Tint, sun being greener

its much easier to fall asleep after exposure to incandescent, than after exposure to sunlight, due to suppression effect of blue light on melatonin

and yes, yellow and red lights do not attract bugs the way blue light does, but a moth will still fly into a candle flame :wink: