The inside of the mothbox has also been improved in version 4.0

There is only one laser cut mainboard, and it fits more securely inside the box.

There are 11 laser cut pieces you will assemble with electronics parts.

• Main board
• 4 clips attach to main board (2 wide 2 thin)
• 6 camera glare blocker circles

Camera Glare Blocker

The function of the camera glare blocker is to set the camera a little bit in front of the super bright lights so that they don’t cause a glare that interferes with the image quality.

Assemble Camera Lens Glare Blocker

Take your six circles and stack them on top of each other.

There is a small arrow with a dot at the top of each camera glare blocker circle. All the arrows should be lined up on top of each other.

Place two zip ties through the side holes of the small glare blocker circles to connect all 6 circles together.

Finally, using two M2 screws, you can attach the Camera into place. You can use 4 screws if you really want, but 2 is sufficient.

Attach Camera Glare Blocker to Mainboard

Using the two holes directly to the side of the vertical center holes at the top and bottom, secure the Camera Glare Blocker to the mainboard.

The Camera Glare Blocker needs to be lined up correctly with the main board. You can use the small arrow to line it up with the mainboard. And the arrow also points to the Mothbox Logo.

Ringlights

These two circular lights function to evenly illuminate the target area to get high quality images of the moths. We use these ring lights which are originally sold as inexpensive illuminators for microscopes. They are some of the cheapest and highest density bright LEDs we can find, and work well for taking photos of our moths.

More Built-in Redundancy Each mothbox ideally uses two ring lights to illuminate the target. If necessary, though, (for instance if one light breaks in the field and you have no other options) one ring light can be used and placed directly around the Camera Glare Blocker.

It’s best to use 2 ringlights of the exact same brand, as some can be slightly brighter or differently colored than others leading to uneveness in image quality.

Disassemble Ring Lights

We need to disassemble the ring lights before we can add them to our mothbox. This is so we can make them smaller and controllable.

Basically you want to remove all the plastic to turn your ring light from the product on the left, to the bare ring with two wires sticking out of it pictured on the right.

For most of the ring lights you just need to figure out how to pop the plastic container off. Usually there are a couple small screws you can use to disconnect the plastic. Some have a hidden screw that can be found underneath a sticker.

Peel back the sticker and then unscrew the screw.

The front cover of the ring light should easily pop off now.

Some ringlights will now have all the electronics free. Some may still have some internal screws left connecting the circuit boards to the plastic. Unscrew them and remove it.

Now use some kind of thin tool (e.g. a spudger) or flat screwdriver to pry off the front plastic cover of the ring light.

Identify the Power Source

Some lights have a barrel jack and others have a USB cable. Either way they will lead to a red and black wire. Snip them off so you still have plenty of wire connected to the LEDs. Remove all the electronics from the plastic.

Snip Control Knob Electronics Off

From the current version onward, we no longer need to keep the voltage control knob. That’s because we are using our own 12V regulator. This makes wiring much easier .

You basically just want to end up with the ring of LEDs with a red and black wire sticking out of them.

Older versions of the Mothbox kept the control knob on the ring lights. So if you see images with those knobs still in tact, don’t worry about it.

Connect Ringlight

First Side

Feed the wires of the ringlight through the hole and position it flat against the mainboard.

Add zipties in these two locations to secure it.

One rightlight should be finished and attached like this!

Second Side

Place the second ring light with the wires towards the big open gap

You can zip its wires in place to stop them from getting tangled in things and help protect them

Add zipties through these two holes

After your ringlights have been physically connected in place, just let their wires dangle out the backside. We will connect them in the next step, wiring

Connect the Raspberry Pi

It sits in the corner of the mainboard. The connection points for the raspberry pi all have a tiny extra hole right next to them. This helps you locate the exact holes for the Raspberry Pi.

We will only connect 3 of the holes of the Raspberry Pi, because one is hidden behind the ringlight. (If you wish to connect the 4th hole, make sure to use a plastic bolt.)

Add three of the spacers on top of the Pi’s holes like this.

Screw them in from the other side

Connect the RTC battery

Make sure to plug the battery into the Pi5’s little battery slot. This battery keeps the clock accurate even if the pi loses power.

Trim Your Zip ties

Now is a good time to trim up the ends of the zip ties you have sticking around

You want to make sure no zip tie parts are sticking out too far where they will get in the way of the camera glare blocker when the internals are loaded into the box.

Connect the camera cable to the Raspberry Pi

Connect the ribbon cable to the Raspberry Pi. If you are using a Pi5,** make sure to connect to the first slot labeled “Cam0”**

Attach Relay hat to Pi

You will now connect the sockets on the relay hat to all the shiny metal pins sticking out of the Pi. First move the camera ribbon cable to the side of the bolt sticking out of the Pi.

Place the relay hat on top of the Pi. Line up the GPIO pins, and press softly down.

Be careful to not pinch the ribbon cable going to the camera

Tape the RTC battery on top of the relays

This is just to keep it out of the way. and to stop it from getting tangled.

Attach a piece of double sided tape to the little battery. Then stick it on top of the relay. Make sure the battery and the wires are not blocking the screw holes or entrance to the battery.

In this image, it kinda looks like there are too many fingers.

Don’t block the screw holes on top of the relay.

Connect the Battery

Unscrew these three screws from the bottom of your Battery

Save the screws for the next step.

Make sure to press down firmly when unscrewing the screws so you do not strip the heads.

Now screw the screws back in, connecting the battery to the mainboard. You don’t need to screw it in too tight or you might strip the internals of the battery. Just tighten them so the battery is firmly connected.

Add the Clips to Mainboard

Now you can attach all the little plastic standoff clips to the edges of the mainboard. These hold the mothbox electronics firmly in place, with the camera and lights in the correct positions inside the plastic box.

If your mainboard still has protective plastic, you might need to peel it off from the mainboard before attaching the clips. Sometimes the protective plastic makes the acrylic sheets too thick for the clips.

There are 2 LARGE clips and 2 SMALL clips

The locations of the LARGE clips have RED arrows. BLUE arrows point to SMALL clips.

Internals Constructed!

Next you just need to wire all your electronics together!