Ants In Controller Boxes

David_AVD

Grandpa Elf
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Jun 12, 2010
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Victoria Point (Brisbane)
Over the past few days, we've had quite a lot of rain. Yesterday I was replacing a small DC controller that had gotten wet when the wind blew the cover open (I must not have clicked it closed). While doing that I opened up a nearby DC distribution box and was greeted by several thousand small ants!

I sprayed the outside of the box and inside of the lid with Raid fast acting insect spray. That killed about 50% of them and the rest went nuts moving all the eggs around. I didn't want to directly spray the circuit board.

After a lot of the remaining ants fled I unclipped the DIN mount DC converter and fuse distro board, all the while shaking ants from my hands. The DIN mount tray for the distro board was disassembled and an old paint brush used to cleaned all of the ants from it. They'd stashed eggs everywhere! Luckily the DC converter is a sealed unit.

After spraying the rest of the box (now empty), the last of the dead ants were brushed out. Reassembly only took a few minutes due to the DIN rail mount system I use. The other CG-1000 box I use is on the light pole, but there were zero ants in there. I sprayed it as a deterrent anyway.

Next my attention turned to the CG-1500 mounted up in the footpath tree. Last year I'd seen a few ants near it, but never any inside the box. Well, this time there were thousands of them covering the whole inside of the box including the PCBs. I slammed the lid closed and sprayed the outside of the box. It was literately raining ants and ant eggs so I had to get off the ladder real fast!

Once the "ant rain" had reduced to a drizzle, I opened the box again and sprayed the inside of the lid. This box has a lot more inside so I didn't want to pull all the modules out. This time I left the lid open while the remaining ants all fled the scene. About 30 mins later they seemed to be all gone excepts for a few stragglers. Another spray of Raid around the enclosure exterior was done after closing it up. I'll wait to take it all apart for a full check and clean until the season is done, unless I have issues before then.

TLDR Version:
Have you had issues with ants getting into your controller boxes? How did you deal with them?
 

OzAz

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Dec 29, 2015
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Newcastle
Yep, last year. One box thats mounted on a cross beam above garage! Really small ones, fortunately not a lot of them. Similar to you, sprayed and dusted with a paint brush. Cleaned the board with a safe electronic component cleaner. My biggest worry was if they'd gotten into the power supply, but it didn't look like they had.

Yeah, I check all my boxes at the end of the season and check occasionally for ant trails.

You've got me worried now, might open all my boxes on the weekend and check.
 

BRW

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Nov 12, 2020
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36
Location
Austin, TX USA
I.m too new to have this problem, but we have lots of problems here with ants in the air conditioning compressor units. They are attracted to the electric service for some reason and get into the contactors. Dead ants are apparently not a good conductor so your AC goes out. You learn to fix it yourself and prevent it or go broke with service calls.

I don't know if you have the same issues down under, but spraying around the units works well. And sprinkling boric acid powder in the units helps. I wouldn't powder the equipment, but putting some in the bottom might help.

Now that you've had a problem, you might also seal the holes with tape or duct putty and run some tape around the opening. Though by spraying you might have solved the problem for the duration your show is up.

Good luck!
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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Dec 27, 2010
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Eaglehawk
First question . What's rain?
Many years ago I had issues with some ants and other creepy crawlies getting in via a few tiny holes so I was spraying surface spray on any openings. I haven't had any ingress for years so I haven't worried about it.
 

Rickras85

Apprentice elf
Joined
Dec 29, 2015
Messages
58
Location
Brisbane
During setup they took the opportunity to climb the timber posts my boxes are on in less then 24 hours. Ant sand and granules in the bottom of the box plus spray cleared them out. I just use the 3 month trigger pack from Bunnings and spray all the vent openings as a deterrent. Working a treat currently.
 

Dez

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Dec 16, 2014
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Toowoomba QLD
I have had success with spraying the outsides of boxes with a long lasting surface spray and then leaving a 600ml plastic drink bottle beside the box with the following mixture inside:

1 cup white sugar
1/3 cup of borax
1 cup of hot water
Dissolve together and put the lid on and make a few small holes around the top portion of the plastic bottle.

Ants are attracted to the mixture and within a few days you should have a black mass of dead ants inside the bottle. This mixture should be good to leave out for a month or more.
 
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