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16Jun/106

Ugh… Taiwanese Components…

PLEASE be careful when you buy cheap and nasty electronic components from eBay... This is a public service announcement.

Check the photos below and tell me what's wrong:

DSC04285

DSC04294

Yes, that's right, the legs are different on both items (the Anode and Cathode are REVERSED)... they came from the same packet and I, prior to using macro on my camera, thought they were a lot more similar than they actually are. Either way, you have been warned.

This all came about whilst wiring up these sensors and receiving zero readings.... bastards....

Comments (6) Trackbacks (0)
  1. Yow. I’ve bought a lot of cheap bulk LEDs from Taiwan, and never encountered this. How awful!

  2. Could you drop the Ebaylink to the dealer?

  3. That’s pretty scary! I’m always getting them in bulk from China, now I know I need to check them out before installing! Thanks for the heads up!

  4. Got my stuff:
    http://upload.flyerman.org/sensor.jpg
    not actually what i expected =(
    After some mails the seller understoof what i want and offered me to take the stuff back and also pay the shipment. No idea if i would get the right stuff then, so i declined and will keep them.
    I will grind off the top and hope that enough light will still pass thru the plastic. Actually it should also work like an average filter ;]
    By the way: Really nice code for signal processing of these sensors. Will reuse it =)

    • Ugh, they are in the standard LED housing… Try one first, make it nice and flat, and see if it helps at all. I imagine you’ll want them flat either way so that they are flush with the tracks.

      If it does reduce the sensitivity then it just means you need to increase the light available to them :) Just throw a few IR LED ‘Spotlights’ around the place… No one will know they’re there if you conceal them in the scenery.

      And please do use any code you find useful here, also get back to me if you have any issues with the code!


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