Chinese NIR pad: Initial measurements

any additional feedbacks about these pads?

it is so unfortunate that very rarely they specify the irradiance… so I still don’t know with pad I should purchase

I think I found a good pad, at least the features seem what we are looking for:

https://it.alie xpress.com/item … ayAdapt=glo2ita

My flexible NIR pad has absorbed quite a lot of lube in the last year, and got dropped on the floor, and needs a thorough cleaning.

I’m going to let it sit a while in a bucket with some laundry detergent. There shouldn’t be anything inside the sewn-together shell other than LEDs, wires, and solder joints. I expect it will still work once it dries out.

It’s too dirty to use now, so if I kill it I haven’t lost anything.

I discovered that the power cord on the NIR pad (which also has the buttons and display for the controller) plugged into the LED module with a micro-USB plug. Then I found out the wrapper and the elastic bandage were both separate pieces held onto the LED module with Velcro.

After disassembling the pad, I wiped some lube off the LED module and dropped the rest in a bucket of laundry soap. I only got about half of the lube out - the shea butter component is apparently mostly immune to laundry soap - but the pieces are washed and drying now. I’ll try dishwashing liquid next time.

quick question: how hot should it get at the maximum power, in direct contact with the skin?

the one I got I can barely feel any heat… and I was wondering if it might be defective or not

"Near Infrared" is basically red light; so red you can’t see it. "Far Infrared" is heat.

Your Near Infrared pad uses NIR LEDs that aren’t 100% efficient; they get warm in use. If they were perfect they would not radiate any heat at all.

I have two NIR pads and an NIR panel. The pads get warm to the touch. The panel, which is full of thumb-sized LEDs and plugs directly into an AC wall socket, gets uncomfortably hot.

are you saying that the fact they are not producing much heat could actually be a positive thing? :D

Anyway thank you Andy, very useful information. Then maybe I will wait before returning it

Heat is an unwanted byproduct, like the heat from an incandescent light bulb.

Whether you’re actually getting 850 or 660nm infrared light, who knows. You need an infrared lumininance measuring device to tell, and those run around US$150.