Why LEDs make a better insect light trap

LED ILTs vs fluorescents

Flies and other flying insects are a threat to businesses that need contamination-free environments, such as those handling food or pharmaceuticals. They’re also a nuisance in customer-facing areas of organisations, including hotels and conference venues.

Every business needs an effective solution for removing flies that is suitable for their specific environments – whether that’s a large warehousing facility or a café. There is a range of factors for a business to consider when choosing an insect light trap (ILT).

While traditional ILTs may be effective at killing flies, LED ILTs have equally, if not better, efficacy and bring a host of other benefits, too.

Sustainability

Energy savings

As everyone who has LED bulbs in their home knows, LED bulbs have a significant energy saving over conventional light bulbs. This is also true for the conventional fluorescent bulbs used in ILTs.

A typical LED strip used in an ILT uses only 10 watts of power, compared to 60–90 watts for units with fluorescent tubes. In our own tests, we’ve found that a Lumnia ILT with Lumnia LED lamps can save up to 70% of power compared to equivalent traps with fluorescent tubes and the carbon footprint is reduced by 62%.

LED lamps can also have variable light output by reducing the power, allowing even more energy savings compared to fluorescent tubes. It’s the contrast in light output with the surroundings that is important for attracting flies, so, at night and in low light levels, the power and the output of the LED lamps can be reduced while still effectively attracting flies.

Lumnia units also have day and night modes to further reduce the consumption of power when they’re least needed, allowing businesses to save more and lower still their environmental footprint.

Longer life

The standard fluorescent tubes used in insect light traps only last for about one year before needing to be replaced. During that time, the output of UV light drops to only half of the original brightness.

LED lamps produce UV light for a minimum of three years and the brightness only drops to 70% of the original output. So not only do the LED lamps last three times that of fluorescent tubes, saving on replacement costs, they maintain a higher output of UV light over that period, thus staying effective for longer.

The UV output of LED lamps is about 80% greater than the conventional L3 fluorescent tubes used in ILTs. This means that even after three years of use the UV output of LEDs is equivalent to a new L3 fluorescent tube.

Safer

No hazardous chemicals

Fluorescent lamps require a number of hazardous chemicals in order to operate and, therefore, if mishandled, are a safety risk. They contain low-pressure mercury vapour – which generates the light when an electric current passes through it – and other gases such as argon, xenon, neon or krypton to control this process.

The inside of the glass tube is coated with a fluorescent substance made from various metallic and rare earth phosphor salts to convert the UV light produced by the mercury into the desired wavelengths. The lamp also has tungsten electrodes that are coated with barium, strontium and calcium oxides to improve their function.

An LED lamp, on the other hand, has a tiny semi conductor wafer encased in plastic. Several of these are placed on a plastic or metal strip to create a lamp that is used in an ILT. There are no hazardous chemicals that can escape into the environment in normal use.

No glass

A fluorescent tube consists of a fragile glass tube that contains the mercury vapour and the other components mentioned above. The glass tube can easily shatter if dropped or receives an impact, which would scatter glass and all the chemicals in the tube around the area where food is handled.

In an LED lamp, there is no glass that can shatter and no hazardous chemicals in a form that could be scattered in a food-handling area. In tests in which an LED ILT is dropped repeatedly, the lamps do not break, so they are perfectly safe for a food environment.

Attractiveness to flies

Lumnia: created by the experts in pest control

The Lumnia range is brought to you by Rentokil, the global leader in pest control. They understand that protecting the health of your employees and customers also protects your business reputation.They incorporate preventative and responsive strategies to help protect your business with a consistent, continuous pest-control programme. Give them a call today.