3D Printed Mosquito Gun

Mosquito's are the most annoying creatures. Waking up in the middle of the night and trying to swat it is very tedious. This instructable provides a solution to make the hunt a bit more fun by creating a mosquito gun. Additionally, the gun proves to be extra helpfull if the mosquito has chosen a place just out of reach of a normal swatter. The increased range is the end of the mosquito.

- A 3d printer
- Glue
- 3 Springs (or one long and one shorter spring)

(I use old springs from my ender 3 printer, with some custom design, any reasonably strong spring will do)

First the swatter will be designed.
Since you definitely do not want to miss your shot, and scare the mosquito away, the swatter should be reasonably large. The swatter designed here has a diameter of 10 cm.
Aside from this, since the swatter is launched by the power of the springs. We should be conservative with the launching speed. By creating a grid instead of an closed surface, the drag can be as low as possible. The gaps should however not be too large, or otherwise a mosquito could fit in between the gaps.
Additionally, the weight should be as low as possible. By choosing a height of 1mm, the weight of the current design is only 4 grams.

Note: The super-thin structure is very delicate. By spraying water on the print after it is done, it will pop off the printbed easier.

The bullet is added on top of the swatter, and should allow for the trigger mechanism to work properly. Due to printability, the swatter and bullet are printed seperately.

The design is very simple. The basis is a tube, with a hole of diameter 5mm. One one side a cone is added to attach the swatter.
On the other side a cone is added for the trigger mechanism to latch on to. To make sure the trigger does not release by itself, a basic shape -> ring is added.

Now for the actual gun, the basis of the design is a cylinder over which the bullet will glide. This cylinder has a diameter of 4mm and a length of 48 mm.

Since the springs will have the tendency to go after the bullet. We need something to attach them to the gun. In order to achieve this, a tiny block is added at the beginning of the barrel. This ankers the spring to the handle.

Added to the cylinder is the handle. The handle is a simple stretched out rectangle, but can be made a bit bigger to give it a better hold. You can adjust your own design to your hands for a perfect fit.

Then the trigger mechanism has to be designed. The springs are about 1.5 cm long when fully compressed. The trigger will be at that length, to obtain maximum usable power!

The trigger is made by adding a ring, with a diameter of 2cm, allowing for most fingers to fit in. A little notch is added at the 1.5cm mark, which will hold the bullet in position until the shot is fired. The ring is attached to the handle with a thin rectangle. By doing so, the flexibility of the PLA comes in really handy, and allows the trigger to be pulled slightly downwards.
Because the PLA by itself is not strong enough to push the trigger back in place, we can use another spring to push the trigger back. In order to do this, two cylinders with two spheres are added to the handle, which can fit a spring between them.
And with that, the trigger mechanism is finished.

Then for the assembly: Since I have two smaller springs, two are added together.
This is done by twisting one spring into the other. This is done so that once we attach one of the two to the gun, the other will also not come off when firing.
The attaching to the gun is done by pulling it over the notch of the barrel of the gun.

The other spring simply put between the two notches between the trigger and handle. It should push the trigger slightly upwards.

The bullet has to be attached to the smasher. This can simply be done by glueing the two together. Make sure the bullet is glued exactly in the middle to avoid instability. I prefer to use hot glue, since it dries very quickly, but other types of glue will suffice too.

And you're all done!

By sliding the bullet with smasher over the barrel, you push the springs back. If you see the trigger mechanism clicking, the shot is ready to be fired.
Take some practice shots to master the aiming, and the next time a mosquito comes out you will be able to hunt it down in seconds!

Note: The bullet does not yet fly stable all the time, I'll try to design a more reliable version.