Crossy

Well, yesterday was the last day that our village had an ATM ???? SCB determined that it was not economical to maintain the service. It can't have been due to lack of use; it was always empty on a Sunday afternoon. The nearest ATM is now 2km away, even the nearest 7-Eleven doesn't have one, much to my surprise. Of course, the village "commerce" operates on a cash basis although more and more places are showing QR payment codes. My wife is very much old-school and doesn't want to use QR, the maid is terrified of any technology although she does have a mobile phone (she won't use our front-loading washer), looks like we're back to my giving Madam her housekeeping in cash. Anyone else seeing this trend?

Does this mean I can't simply poke my SCB ATM card in to deposit?

I don't often have to deposit cash but on the occasions that I do the nearest SCB CDM is a brisk (ruddy hot) walk away. Meanwhile, there's a Bangkok Bank machine in the office lobby. Anyone tried using a "foreign" CDM??

It's not something I've ever tried, so you may be able to do it, I'm not sure I'd take the risk. Which border crossing (it may matter)? @BritTim are you able to confirm/deny if the border chaps will do the transfer?

Immigration don't transfer visas; they just transfer your current permission to stay (and use up 2 pages doing it!). So, if your visa is multi-entry you need to carry both passports when you travel ???? Either way you need to visit immigration when you get your new PP before you can travel on it. Since time is short, I would be tempted to travel on your existing PP unless you can guarantee being able to get to immigration between your new PP arriving and you needing to travel.

Our numbers for June, overall generation of 1,200kWh most acceptable, saving about 6,600 Baht according to the PEA calculator ???? Usage from PEA of 345kWh is because we have family over from the UK who like their bedrooms at UK temperatures. The poor solar stands no chance ???? They go home on Friday 2nd June ????

The way we've done it is to set our router WAN to a specific IP address in the same subnet as the ToT (in our case) router's LAN ports. Our router WAN is 192.168.11.2 the ToT LAN router is 192.168.11.254 Plug our router WAN into one of the LAN ports of Mr ToT. At this point you should be able to access the internet from the LAN side of your router (on the default 192.168.1.xxx subnet). Then on the ToT (3BB) router put your router's WAN address in the DMZ. Although it has a double-NAT it does allow access from outside like bridge-mode would. It's not ideal but as needs must.

Most offices are 30 days, which ought to be long enough to get your ducks in a row. ????

Yes, no problem.

Poked around a bit, the Blue / Purple lines are Visa + MasterCard. So, Yellow will be too.

There should only be one N-E connection on a supply. Sketch out what you intend doing and we can critique.

My understanding is it will be Visa and Mastercard, but one never can tell with these things. It will allegedly be working on Saturday so you could try it ????

It would be very interesting to know how you got "caught" by MEA.

Rabbit. Your MRT-plus card currently only works on the blue and purple lines. The option of using your contactless credit card is "coming soon" and will be the closest thing Bangkok has ever had to an integrated, "one-card for all travel", system.

Free rides for at least a month ???? If you have a Rabbit card just tap and ride in the usual way. If you don't you will need to get a ticket from the ticket office (the machines will not "sell" zero Baht tickets). EDIT This is not an invitation to rant. But if anyone has any issues with the system (particularly ticketing as that's my baby) please feel free to post here. I'll try to ensure the right people hear about it.

I don't like joints in earths, especially if they will be concealed, you don't know it's failed until you die! The way I would do it is select one CU as the "main CU" (the one at which the supply arrives would be favourite) and use the earth bar in that one as a Main Earth Terminal (MET). A wire from each CU to the MET, then one wire from there to the rod. All the electrical suppliers have earth bars available so you could put one of those in a box and use it as the MET. How are you arranging your MEN (N-E) link?

The actual shipping total was the same but without the worry of extra at this end. So, for example: - Original shipping cost $200 but with duty / VAT to pay on delivery. DDP shipping cost $210 but with nothing to pay on delivery. I'm just happy not to have unpredictable charges when the kit lands on my doormat. Exactly how they manage this with Thai customs is in the "here be dragons" category, I'm assuming some kind of bulk-clearance arrangement.

Last time I got some stuff DDP/Thailand Special Line was about the same total shipping price, just a little slower and nothing to pay at this end.

Yeah, I still avoid touching the bare copper even when I know it's dead!

I'd rather use a neon or a known good non-contact tester, I've had too many buzzes in my life ????

This would trip an RCD / RCBO, nothing to worry about, your circuit is still dead. But go and buy that neon and a cheap multimeter.

As an absolute minimum go and spend 50 Baht on a neon screwdriver, trying to work on 'lectrics here "blind" is definitely risky. "Proving dead" is an incredibly difficult thing to guarantee absolutely, too many (even pros) have died when a dead circuit wasn't!!! Test first on a known live circuit, then your "dead" circuit. Always assume any wire is live (even the "neutral" or "earth"), even if the main breaker is off. You wouldn't be the first to find their shower is till "on" coz the sparks tapped into the incoming supply! Get a local sparks to do the job for you.

Have you asked about Thailand Special Line or DDP (Delivery Duty Paid)??

Whenever we've bought A/C from a major national box shifter (always the same branch) the invoice from the store showed exactly what was included as part of the installation. How much cable, pipe, pipe cover etc. I'm pretty sure it always detailed just how much extra lengths cost too (I'll have to go digging for that). Taking the old unit out, recovering the gas etc. was billed even if we kept the old unit (ok we've only had one unit taken out). EDIT From the website of one of the major places. A pretty extensive list of "extras" and 4m of pipe etc. is pretty minimal.