The Curious Case Of A Very Sensitive PIR Light | Voltlog #315

This is a portable PIR activated LED light, it ships with some double sided adhesive backing and it’s pretty convenient to use around the house or when going camping I quite like it. It works with 4 AAA batteries and personally I use this inside a wardrobe to help me find stuff. If positioned correctly it turns on as soon as I open the wardrobe door. Because I like it so much I decided to order another one to place in a different closet for the same purpose. I don’t know if I ordered from the same seller, probably not, I just went on Aliexpress, did a quick search and ordered another one.

And here it is, after a long wait it finally arrived, at first sight they look identical, apart from a minor difference in the LED output color but that’s to be expected because whatever they can find at the market that particular day right?  But in practice I also noticed something different, the new one is much more sensitive in picking up movement, to the point where it turns on even if it’s behind a closet wall and I walk past by, or even behind a wall. I know it doesn’t make much sense, because these are supposed to be infrared sensors so they can’t pass through walls. But it must be bouncing the IR rays off the walls and it’s so sensitive that it is picking up those reflections, I would have no other explanation for this but if you do, let me know in the comments.

Voltlog #263 – InTheMail

Welcome to a new InTheMail, the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time. We’re going to start with this big jar of flux paste. This is commonly referred to as “yellow paste”, the branding I believe is NT but if you search for yellow paste you will find it in various sizes. Banggood sells it in 150 gram jar and it has a good price of $4 with free shipping. I’ve seen other people use this stuff with good results so I decided to give it a try. I’m not sure if there are any fakes to this particular brand, but the ones from banggood seem to be the genuine stuff.

The consistency is that of a paste so I don’t think it would be easy to put this inside a syringe and use it that way. This works better if you pick it up with a toothpick or some tweezers. This is not rosin based or so they advertise, and it’s supposed to be a neutral PH,with low corrosion to your pcb and components. You will probably see me use this in a future video, until then, there will be a link in the description so you can order one.

Voltlog #226 – InTheMail

Welcome to a new InTheMail, the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time. We’re gonna start with this set of tweezers from Vetus. A few months ago I was considering buying some more expensive electronics tweezers but the good ones are really expensive when you include shipping as well so in the end I decided to give these a try. I’ve had Vetus tweezers in the past and some were good some were bad. This time I asked multiple sellers on Aliexpress if the tweezers are original Vetus or not, some responded and promised their goods are original. Coincidentally or not those who said their products are original also had higher prices. In my experience with suppliers, they never lie about the origins of a product if you directly ask them so I tend to believe that what I have here are genuine Vetus tweezers