Crossy

A couple in their 60s were sitting at the breakfast table when the wife announced that she had just watched her first porn video. “That’s ... interesting. I hope you enjoyed it.” her husband replied. “Yes,” she continued, “I was so young then!”

The problem is, without a bit more detail selecting the correct customs code is impossible. Duty could be anything (literally) from zero to >50% of CIF value plus 7% VAT on the total.

Use simplyduty.com it's safe and (reasonably) accurate, but art can be an "interesting" subject for duty. What are you hoping to import?? And from where?

I made one of the sleeve type thingies from a length of 1" PVC pipe, works well enough that I never got round to buying the proper thing ????

Google Translate is your friend (not that the article makes masses of sense even in Thai).

Ah. The buses are a law unto themselves. Take cash! Just this week I saw an article showing that they were going off down yet another (IMHO dead-end) route. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02H5zzXhxeaSiM1g3W3wRQGxZPPDtjMpVegvi7bgQwpto1DB1gBtxALKLzcJtiMz6fl&id=326789607435947 Someone will be lining their pockets; it won't be me! As a (foreign) consultant I have two three jobs:- To be ignored. To be blamed when it goes pear shaped because I was ignored. To take the money for fixing it when it's gone wrong due to the above!! TiT.

Good luck with that. TiT. Trust me, we've been trying since before I came to Thailand in 2004! We came within an ace of Rabbit working on the MRT. "Commercial issues" (politics) stopped that and really screwed up my plans for the Purple Line as I had assumed it would go ahead. The original version of Mangmoom was government sponsored. Zero uptake from the operators (costs to implement). The MRTA are trying to push for EMV on all lines, the problem is that the BTS core system isn't under MRTA. There have been other attempts at some form of standardisation too. Part of the issue is that the authorities (BMA, MRTA, OTP) really don't have any teeth (and really don't talk to one another either) unlike the LTA in Singapore. I was nearly ejected from an early meeting of the Mangmoom design team for saying "we have a limited budget, why don't we buy or buy in to Rabbit which is an already working and accepted system". Meanwhile SPAD in K.L. bought the already operational Touch-n-Go system and are doing just fine.

It's the bit that goes on the incoming wire, it usually comes with the unit. It can look like this (clamp or split-core) which doesn't need you to disconnect the wire. Or this which needs you to disconnect to feed through the hole.

Yes. Live for preference and best accuracy.

If it has a current maximum less than your main breaker it will certainly do the job. It needs to go on the incoming supply, it should go on the L for best accuracy (it will work on the neutral but may miss some diverted neutral current that's going via the ground rod in a TNC-S system). Of course it needs a clamp-type current transformer that can just clip over the wire otherwise you will be messing about with disconnected live wires.

Coming "soon" it's in the planning stage at present, the government are pushing hard (and calling it Mangmoom 4.0) but of course BTS don't want to pay for it. Accepting EMV is a potential digital security nightmare because you have to link exit and entry to the same card and it's not permitted to store real card numbers.

All still pretty static at 109cm below "Worry". All ok for us but pretty bad for the villagers who are still flooded.

I suppose it makes a change from the cops just shooting her.

I have no doubt there will be VAT but duty "should" be zero on solar inverters. I've never really worked out how customs are supposed to handle replacements for defective items.

The A/C is going to be the killer. Do you have an idea how many BTU it is? 425 units over a month is about 14 units a day, so an average load of just over 1kW. A 12,000 BTU A/C would use that if it's working hard. EDIT To answer the actual question, yes meters do go faulty and yes, they can read high. MEA/PEA will install a check-meter if you ask but if they find no fault they will bill you for doing it. EDIT 2 I note you say "apartment", does this mean you get the bill from your landlord rather than directly from the authority?

Currently BTS only sell the One Day tourist pass. The system is perfectly capable of selling others but they are not enabled. You can however swap Rabbit Points for trips https://rewards.rabbit.co.th/redeem_detail/bts-free-3-trips-for-adult-rabbit-card?locale=en I'm checking what the MRT sell, they've been messing about recently. Of course it's all about the $$$. EDIT MRT (Purple Line only) Passes. Note that the selling period has been extended with no currently defined end date. Still not sure about the Blue Line.

The replacement unit is on the way via DHL ????

The "shipping cost" on the item description is for one off. Buying several together will should will often might net you a cost lower than say 4 times the one-off price. As above, test by going to check-out. Buying another item later will be charged at the one-off rate.

I cheated and got the Thai chap who got me the last ones to search for them

"Support" used to reply promptly but the last few times there's been no response, try service[at]sofarsolar.com

Yeah, the fact that Sofar were:- a. Contactable, b. Tried to help and c. Are shipping a replacement unit takes them up my list of favourite suppliers.

Luckily it's the export model, the China version is still going strong. It's still under warranty so it's being replaced. These things happen, it's annoying but not the end of the world, not yet anyway.

Our 5kW Sofar HYD5000 hybrid inverter is just over a year old and has generally performed as expected. Over the past few months we've been getting the occasional "unrecoverBusOVP" error (bus over-voltage), it would go weeks with none and then do it two or three times in a day. The problem is that in order to recover you have to power down the inverter, wait a minute or so, then power up. Not an issue if I'm home but a bind (and lost generation) if I'm not. I tried telling it that it lived in a 230V country (Australia) in case the country parameters changed the bus voltage limits, no real difference. So I contacted Sofar Service by email and got a very nice lady "Sherry". She monitored the inverter over the net and determined that, as a first step, the firmware should be updated from the existing V2.5 to the latest V3.51. At this point things started to go awry ???? Sherry attempted to do an OTA (Over The Air) update, unfortunately this failed and left the inverter in a non-working state "Software Error" ???? She then sent me the firmware with instructions on how to do the update locally. Pretty simple, load the files on to a micro-SD card, insert in the inverter and push a few buttons. After a false start with a duff SD card the firmware update started. And then stopped! After 30 minutes of inaction I asked her how long it should take, "not 30 minutes" was the response, "turn it off and try again". So I did, but the beast refused to do anything other than put on the LCD backlight ???? A couple of re-tries and back to Sherry. She tried to contact it over the net "Can you hear me Major Tom?". So, in less than 24 hours we've gone from a working inverter with an annoying quirk to a 45,000 Baht brick hanging on the wall. Bu99er! Sofar inverters have a 5 year warranty. If there's no local repair facility it's an exchange warranty, they ship you a refurb or new unit and you ship the dead one back. At least they're not asking to ship the dead unit back first! So a new unit will be on its way soon (2 weeks delivery apparently). I'm not sure if I will end up paying for shipping the dead one back but I'm pretty sure I will end up paying duty/VAT on the replacement unit. Until it arrives, we are running at 60% of our total solar capacity (this is why I often recommend using two smaller units rather than one big one be it inverters or aircons). What to take away from this, not much other than the fact that any firmware update, be it your phone, router or inverter does stand the chance of bricking the unit, go in with eyes open!

As others have noted, the inverter will do what you program it to do (some are rather more programmable than others). One point, most (maybe all now) hybrids no longer actually "switch" to grid power, they use the grid to top up what's coming from the solar in which event the batteries neither charge nor discharge.