Uploaded January 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago

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A kinda always-on dusk to dawn night light with motion sensor…
↓↓↓ Complete description, time index and links below ↓↓↓

That night light was annoying me for a while now. It’s supposed to be motion activated from dusk to dawn – and it was for over ten years. But now it’s just emitting a very faint glow all the time.

Since it served me well for a very long time, I decided to give it a proper farewell with a teardown video. That was a good decision, because its innards turned out to be quite complex, nicely made (not in China) and interesting.

00:00 Intro – an always kinda on automatic night light
01:40 Teardown – some drilling, some screwing, some problems
05:50 PCB details – capacitive dropper, PIR sensor, quad op-amp
10:33 Failure analysis – probably an aged electrolytic capacitor
11:59 Wrap-up – astoundingly complex, not made in China

Teardowns youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwq-2MnM58FJPg01ooMBgy_CxDxAem0my
Flicker Free LED on Mains AC (A Low Current 2mA LED That Is) youtu.be/3FhrQPaZsU0

#nightlight #pirsensor #teardown #disassembly #disassembling #robertssmorgasbord