Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[bkenobi]

I have several MS16A's outside that have been working reasonably well for a few years.  One of them stopped working a few weeks back (presumably needs a new set of batteries).  I haven't gotten to it yet, but when I looked at it closely yesterday I noticed that the screen has a vertical crack.  Since this motion sensor is on the south side of the house, it gets driving rain directly on it this time of year.  I'm going to have to check to see if the electronics are still viable or if they have become corroded by water penetration.  If it's just a dead battery and everything still functions, does anyone have a recommendation for repairing the screen?  I could just put a bead of silicon on and assume it will survive but any other thoughts are welcome.

I would actually prefer to change to a different type of motion sensor, but since there are no wired models that transmit X10 available, I'm kinda stuck with either weatherizing the another MS16A or building another wired setup like I did for my garage (Heathco motion sensor + Relay + Power Flash).

[bkenobi]

I cracked open the motion sensor and found a minimal amount of battery corrosion just on the battery.  After cleaning it up and drying things out, I added silicon to the cracked screen and around the edges.  I put everything back and installed Lithium AAA's this time.  It appears that things are good now, so apparently these motion sensors can see through silicon to some degree.

[Brian H]

Thanks for the update.
I am glad it is working again. Though it may now have a distorted view. 

[bkenobi]

After having the "repaired" MS16A installed for a week or so, I'm seeing issues.  My activity log shows that periodically I get a motion storm where the module detects motion for minutes at a time when nothing is in front of it other than grass.  It sends an ON command every 5 seconds non-stop until it decides there's nothing there.

I opened the module back up and noticed that there's a bit of corrosion on some components, but nothing that looks critical (the logic chips).  But, the IR module case is one of the corroded components.  I suppose the corrosion could cause variation of voltage potentially, so maybe I just have to replace it.