Overpowering a Doppler Radar unit.

I acquired one of the Parallax radar motion detectors to experiment with. Then I decided to buy the cheap Chinese units, lacking the backboard, and I developed the backboard myself (saves about $28.00). That works fine, and I've got range out to about 15 feet.

But it occurs to me that many transmitters will transmit higher power if they can be supplied a higher power supply voltage. If I could get away with that, I might be able to get a little more range. I am curious as to whether or not anyone out there has successfully overpowered one of these, and if so, at what voltage. I could find out myself, but that's called destructive testing, which I'd rather avoid.

Thanks in advance for any insights.

John Doner

As an update, I ended up improving my filtering circuit for this unit, and it now reliably detects motion at 25 - 30 feet. I couldn't get the Parallax unit to detect at that distance, so it can be better, and much less expensive ,to build your own filtering/amplification circuit. and mate it with the $6 Chinese units.

Hi John,

Interesting work!

Can you point to the supplier of the units you are using, and also some details / photo of how you built your units?

Thanks!