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Muhendis

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Everything posted by Muhendis

  1. I have often wondered about these modified wagons. The ones with extra long bits on the back and the ones made wider near the top. They must be carrying extra weight greater than is permitted. At the weigh bridge "Over weight? That'l be 5,000 baht sir".
  2. Don't forget the electronic tags from a few years ago
  3. In UK second hand car showrooms, all second hand cars have the price displayed on the windscreen so you can easily see if it is affordable. Why don't they do this here in Thailand?
  4. For further reading and because I'm way too lazy to write so many words, have a look at this. https://www.alternative-energy-tutorials.com/photovoltaics/photovoltaic-panel.html
  5. Simply put. A solar cell is made from a reasonably pure silicone sheet. Each cell is "doped" in a vacuum during manufacture with different gases which will modify the silicone into 'N' type on one side and 'P' type on the other. Thus an NP junction is formed similar to a diode. It is this junction which is termed 'P' type that has a forward bias of ≈0.5 to 0.6v. However the solar cell is sensitive to light and it's this sensitivity which gives us the ≈0.5 to 0.6v when light shines on it. This is the open circuit voltage with no current flowing. There are panels on the market now which have a higher junction voltage of ≈0.63v and also a better temp. co. The silicon diode has a junction which, although made the same way, is slightly different and designed to carry a specific amount of current in one direction. There are many different types of silicon diode the small ones (1Amp 'ish) will have a forward voltage drop of about 0.7v. Larger beasties can be ads much as 1.1v. This is why schottky diodes are better for higher currents because their Vfwd is considerably less than a bog standard 1Amp 1N4007 for example. As an aside, transistor radios used to be made with not silicon but germanium transistors. The OC45 comes to mind. If one were to scrape the paint off 'em they would make excellent light sensors but at a fraction of the price of purpose made devices. After a while the plastic encapsulation was made opaque which put a stop to that cheap trickery.
  6. I find it a bit disconcerting that all we ever seem to hear about is the tourist industry in Thailand. I believe that is 20% of the economy. It would be interesting to know what the other 80% is earning for Thailand and a few success stories to go with it.
  7. All solar panels that I know of have diodes in their junction boxes on the back. These are bypass diodes. They are there so that if a string of three panels has a failure of one cell on e.g. the middle panel, there is a current path through this diode to allow the remaining panels to continue functioning after a fashion. the solar panel itself is little more than a whopping great big diode. This is why, on the face of it, you don't need blocking diodes. But solar panels are not designed to be blocking diodes and so additional protection of diodes in the combiner box is considered to be necessary.
  8. I have never heard of any that don't have blocking diodes. Why would anyone build a combiner box without diodes? Mine has 25A Schottky bridge rectifiers cunningly connected to accept two inputs each.
  9. There are things called combiner boxes which allow safe connection of multiple, parallel strings. These boxes also have lightning protection and fuses for each string. Otherwise it can be regarded as a junction box. The output goes to the solar input of the inverter. If you do this using the combiner box there is no need to worry about different outputs from each string as they are effectively isolated from each other. The output from the combiner box will be a balance of the panels best outputs and none will be dragged down by it's less capable pals.
  10. Full article here........ https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1941251/great-wall-of-china-crowds-viral-tiktok This is a tic toc image recently taken, of the great wall of China. Coming to a phuket near you soon.
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  11. And why not? This is Thile-land after all.
  12. Those figures look a bit low to me. I demand a recount.
  13. Don't those trucks have a handbrake? The poor woman must have been scared out of her wits
  14. If the picture of the beach scene accompanying this report is what tourism is about, I will stay here in Isaan. Sorry for the plight of hotels but I won't be booking.
  15. The owner of the global convenience store chain 7-Eleven has received an offer from a Canadian rival to buy the company, in what could be Japan’s biggest ever foreign takeover. https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/19/owner-of-7-eleven-stores-receives-buyout-offer-from-canadian-rival I thought 7-11 was an American company. We live and learn.
  16. I doubt if Trump will ever be listed as one of the best but apparently he has been granted the privilege of the rudest according to the late Queen in her memoirs.
  17. Now I can understand why 7-11 is being taken over. I wonder if that delightfully useful shop is partially owned by a Thai family............
  18. Suddenly, all those shops who signed up to the scheme have lost their guaranteed customers and all those eligible for the 10k handout are left wondering why they only got 9k plus an IOU for 1k. How does this scheme help the Thai economy? In my opinion it will be a disaster for Thailand.
  19. Free drinks all round if you ring the bell.
  20. South Korea is a good place for dog schnitzel, or stew....................
  21. Training dogs is easy. Training humans is a lot more tricky.
  22. That might not be advisable since the food may now be contaminated.............
  23. Ooooh! Ouch. They may be the next incumbents on Capitol hill. Given a choice of either, I think I would still prefer Goofy over Donald Duck though. Having said that I would not wish either on the American electorate.
  24. Depends how well you cook them first. All toxins dissipate after ten minutes boiling.
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