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Ed.Kloonk:
So I went to change a 'newer' sensor which has been turning the carport into a disco during the night. 18 months old. It's been totally respun. Just about the only part that is interchangeable is the AC connector block.  |O

How I found out, I thought I'd cheat and swap the back casing to avoid having to deal with fitting those outside springs. Opened it up and Houston, we have a problem.

They have changed the board shape, removed the fuse, used a bridge rectifier instead of all those little diodes everywhere, less chips and the plastic mount for the tri-sensor is different and the red LED is missing.

Boards and housings are incompatible because of a added rib where the fuse used to be and the pots have been moved so the knob stems dont line up.  >:(

Image 1 left board is older one with old caps replaced.
Image 2 boards are flipped.
Image 3 New board has different sensor mount but I think the sensors themselves might be the same.

WizardTim:
Thanks for the follow up and I'm glad to hear the repair worked for you.

Very interesting to see just how much they've managed to cost cut it by, I'm quite impressive they've managed to go from 3 separate PIR ICs to just a single one and they ditched IC5 which I think is an unmarked MCU. But that new PCB feels rather weird, it's almost like they gave a different company one of the old PCBs and told them to recreate it for as little BOM cost as possible as none of the layout or artwork is re-used, even looks like a different PCB EDA but the design is clearly a clone. Also strange they re-did the mold for the plastic sensor standoff, has to be a completely new manufacturer. The external appearance of the 'premium' MATelec FMS-12080 is identical to my ROBUS unit, while the MS-50000 'economy' version is quite different, amusingly the 'economy' MS-50000 is only $10 cheaper than my ROBUS while the 'premium' FMS-12080 is TWICE the price?!

The blue AC PSU cap is probably still the failure mode in the new economy design so hopefully it's still an easy fix.

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