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Functionalistic fruit fly trap — image 1
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Functionalistic fruit fly trap

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A fruit fly trap designed principally with function in mind.

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Model information

Category
Kitchen
License
Creative Commons — Attribution

Usage

Should print well with almost any filament given a decent profile. 3 walls @ 0.4mm; 1mm top/bottom shell thickness. Transparent filament does work, but should not be preferred as it may mess with how light gets in.

Fruit juice/mashed fruit + vinegar + drop of dish soap = trap solution. A small piece of fruit may also be added. Note that some experimentation may be required if the flies don't really seem to be attracted all that much; I've found that incorporating mashed rotten fruit or its juices helps a lot, as well as a bit less vinegar - I think some sort of bacterial or yeast fermentation product may be a strong attractant.  

Fill up until the tips of spikes. Note that the bottom light ring is thin - if tilting heavily, check it holds back liquid with water first. At minimum, splash resistance is assured. All of my prints have been fully watertight so far. 

If the lid is on tightly, slightly twist it and pull up at the same time to remove it. Push down lightly to secure. It's normal for the lid to be a bit tight fresh off the print bed as it's designed to stay on well even as it wears in with use.

If you find this model useful, consider liking it or leaving a make/comment. I'd be happiest knowing it actually helped people. Also feel free to leave a comment if you encounter any issues; I'll try to respond fairly quickly.

Background

I've been using the FLYCATRAZ (https://makerworld.com/en/models/2901625-flycatraz-the-escape-proof-fruit-fly-trap) for some time now with pretty good success, but I also noticed some annoying quirks that I wanted to fix, namely:

  1. I think it restricts ambient light intake too much. From my research, fruit flies orient more based on contrast than light level - restricting light level to such a degree in my opinion just makes them less likely to enter due to their phototaxis, while it does little to actually confuse them.

  2. Flies sometimes just loiter around the outside of the container far away from the intake lid, then give up and fly away. Full cleanup thus takes longer. Same thing even on the intake lid - no holes on the funnel but just the outside means they don't like coming closer to the intake hole all that much.

  3. Flies aren't particularly adept at entering confined spaces, and I think the holes on the FLYCATRAZ are a bit small for them to comfortably enter from my experience.

  4. Better level indicator

  5. The walls are straight - if they were at an angle, flies taking off would be more likely to fly right into the bait solution.

Thus, this design was born. It's basically meant to remedy all of these, while also providing one additional, vile feature to further improve efficiency - a light ring just above the fluid; a false exit which leads to their demise once they land on it and try taking off or just bonk off of it

Note: Just to clarify, no hate towards the flycatraz designer. If you're reading this, I love what you made, it inspired me to do this in the first place. I just wanted to take it a step further ;)

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