Crossy

Meanwhile our puyai-baan is talking about removing the sandbag barrier on the road by the end of October ...

Do you have drawings / sketches of what you want to do? Again, location is important, building costs vary vastly across the country. How big is the land you want to fill, depth of fill needed? Again, costs vary vastly. I'm going to assume that "American style" does not include it being of timber (termite food) construction.

Our place cost 4.5M without the A/C etc. Northern BKK (land not included). Lots of teak = $$$. Just the teak barge-boards cost 250k ???? https://aseannow.com/topic/481794-housebuilding-thread/ Madam built this for the family in steel and Shera board, cost <1M, Pha-Chi (Ayutthaya), again land not included.

What size are you thinking of, style, level of finish needed, (important) location??

That heater does look a bit odd, but it's certainly not earth return on one element. Just how the 3 incoming phases map to what appears to be 4 elements in a star arrangement is unknown. It will certainly need a 3-phase RCBO which could be 3 or 4 wire (if it has a neutral just connect to the neutral bar so the Test button works). I'm still not convinced that a 3-phase heater is actually needed, particularly on such a massive supply. EDIT A quick scan of the available plug-on accessories doesn't reveal a 3-phase RCBO, which surprises me somewhat.

I would certainly avoid any boards the need "special" devices. The Schneider/Square-D boards, although not DIN mount, have the advantage of being readily available and being able to accept both 3-phase and single-phase MCBs and RCBOs in any position. There are other manufacturers of plug-in MCB/RCBOs that fit too. I wouldn't go with Schneider surge protection (it's crazy $$$), definitely add a small DIN box and use the lower cost option. It may also be worth considering using sub-boards rather than packing everything into one central board. Of course, that depends upon the layout of the property, but any place that needs a >60kW supply is going to be pretty substantial. It may also be worth looking at your hot water plans, is one big heater or several smaller (single-phase) heaters more practical? Also, if you really need a massive heater (the biggest single-phase unit I've seen is 8kW) then do look at gas heaters, they are low cost and really blast the heat without killing your power supply.

Sadly, it's behind a paywall so we cannot permit.

1. The current ratings of your board are per-phase. Do note that the actual rating of the main incoming MCCB will be determined by the size of the supply being provided by MEA/PEA. 2. I would wire the heater in 4mm2 on a 32A 3-phase breaker. A 20A is just a bit close when the heater is running at full power. 3. There isn't any "leftover current", what you will end up with is one element running at full power with two others running in series at about 25% full power each. 4. I would always buy branded MCCB/MCB for the main supply, similarly for your RCD/RCBOs. SPDs tend to be expensive from the brand names and you don't necessarily get value for money. 5. Main breaker will be 3-pole, you don't usually switch the neutral on a 3-phase install. 6. It's called TNC-S (MEN) as the neutral is grounded on every 3rd pole as well as by the rod on your property. It's a standard install here.

This is the relevant illustration from AS3000 (2018), note that the mains neutral is NOT switched by the transfer device (but the aux supply neutral IS switched). Since Thailand has a very similar TNC-S (MEN) system to Oz I may have to modify the design. Thanks for the heads-up @bluejets. I shall have to locate the relevant UK document.

Don't call me Shirley!!

And with that I'm going to close this thread.

Two is hardly "many" visas. Even trolls count "one, two, many, lots" https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Troll

But that doesn't matter right now!!

Ditto ^^^ It sounds absolutely ghastly!

You have to click the "send" button on the page that says they will send you a code. Check your Spam folder if you don't see the code. Then fill in the code and click "verify code". Caught me the first time. EDIT

Nah, it's gravel, we like the au-naturelle grass-up-the-middle jungle style, it matches the rest of the garden. Once it's dried out a bit, we'll dump another couple of truck loads on to freshen it up ????

Meanwhile, the general level around Bangkok is dropping, slowly but it is dropping. This morning's high at Pak Kret. We now have mud, lots of mud, and rather less water although there are high tides due later this week. Also, many of Madam's koi have been captured and returned to their pond.

Watch the validity of your Tourist Visa. You must use it before the "Enter Before" date on the visa sticker or it becomes invalid.

The river level is definitely dropping here in northern BKK, slowly, but it is dropping. We now have lots of mud rather than lots of water! Of course, there are high tides later this week!!

So long as they are DC rated for the total string voltage and correctly wired they are 100% fine in your combiner box. Many include individual fuses for each parallel string and use an MCB as an overall isolator.

Could this be the place, run by Kevin O'Connor https://www.carkolor.com/home ???? Location, phone etc. on the "Visit Us" page.

I would just use simple mild steel strip from your local steel chap. It comes in 6m lengths but most places will cut it for you. Drill your holes then clean and degrease before prime and paint or, as above, get it powder coated. Unless it's out in the weather corrosion won't be an issue.

If you want backup power then your original idea will do the trick. If your inverter has no grid connection at all then using an ATS as you describe is the way to go, installing an ATS does not require any approval from PEA etc. and if done correctly you can never (try to) power the grid from your inverter. Many "off grid" inverters do have a mains input so they can charge the batteries or power the load from the mains if there's no sun and the batteries are dead. These units cannot export. To the outside world they look like a battery charger, again perfectly legal to install. There is an advantage with going this way as the inverter itself provides the ATS facility. On grid-tie inverters. I've never come across a domestic grid-tie inverter that does not implement island-protection to prevent back-feeding into a dead grid. It's easy enough to verify that your unit behaves as expected. Connect your inverter (with panels of course) to an outlet via a power strip and plug a small lamp into another outlet on the power strip. Pull the plug from the wall outlet. The lamp should extinguish. Easy ????

Always a point of concern. All commercial single-phase ATSs are 2-pole and switch the neutral. Three-phase is another animal altogether, an open neutral on a live system is very bad news. EDIT This is from the manual of a commercial ATS system. The incoming supply is TNC-S with MEN, standard Thai installation, the N-E bond is at the mains incoming breaker. So, when on mains there's no issue. The genset has no N-E link, it's a baby (6kVA) beast. So, on genset we have an IT (floating) system, it actually wouldn't be a major job to add a N-E link at the genset and make it TT. Adding that to my list, although it's been operating for 10 years wired as IT. The inverter is possibly more, er, "interesting". The mains inlet comes directly from the incoming mains supply (after our under/over voltage device) so in normal operation the neutral is bonded. When in EPS mode it's unclear what it does with the outgoing neutral so I'm assuming it to makes an IT supply. The inverter is a transformerless, high-frequency type so I'm loathe to start adding earths anywhere that's not specifically intended to be grounded. From the inverter manual, I see an RCD on the EPS output so there should be a neutral ground somewhere. I just did a test with my patented RCD tester (2W lamp on test probes). Running on mains. RCD trips when lamp connected L-E = PASS. Running on inverter (incoming mains isolator open meaning incoming N-E bond is still in place). RCD trips when lamp connected L-E = PASS. So, whilst I'm not totally sure how the inverter handles the N when in EPS mode, I do know that any RCD protection connected to that output functions as expected.