Chris Pirazzi

1 hour ago, Chris Pirazzi said:

 

I was trying to find Power Battery but I can only locate one in Bangkok's Pantip Plaza ( newpowerbattery.com ), not Chiang Mai's Pantip Plaza.  Did you happen to get a number for Power Battery in Chiang Mai's Pantip Plaza?

 

Thanks

 

Oh never mind I think I found it, though their website says floor 3 it seems to be floor 2 next to the escalator:

 DELETED

1 hour ago, CMKiwi said:

Chris,

 

   I had no luck in either Computer Plaza nor Icon IT.....however Pantip Plaza 2nd floor at a place called Power Battery do have an adaptor 19v 9.5A but unsure on the wattage.  Was quoted a price of 1990baht.

 

  Don't know if that's good or bad....

I was trying to find Power Battery but I can only locate one in Bangkok's Pantip Plaza ( newpowerbattery.com ), not Chiang Mai's Pantip Plaza.  Did you happen to get a number for Power Battery in Chiang Mai's Pantip Plaza?

Thanks

1 hour ago, Dellboy218 said:

Why not go to an MSI service centre.  Contact SVOA Chiang Mai

(053) 224680-2

 

Yup I will try them but as I mentioned in the OP they are closed till Tuesday at the earliest.  Thanks.

1 hour ago, CMKiwi said:

Chris,

 

   I had no luck in either Computer Plaza nor Icon IT.....however Pantip Plaza 2nd floor at a place called Power Battery do have an adaptor 19v 9.5A but unsure on the wattage.  Was quoted a price of 1990baht.

 

  Don't know if that's good or bad....

Wow, thanks a lot for checking!   Yes if it is 19V 9.5A then that is already good (the wattage is equal to voltage times amperage).

I will check with Power Battery!

Sigh, the power supply just went out for my MSI GT60 laptop, rendering it useless.  Bad timing too with the holiday on the 5th. 

Plus I am up in Pai so hoping to confirm stock by phone before I make the painful trip down.

Any best guesses who might have a power supply in stock and how to find their phone number? 

Most likely would be a shop focusing on high-end and/or gaming laptops that need a lot of power.

The official MSI rep in Thailand is SVOA on Mahidol road, but they are closed till Tuesday.

The power supply is a giant one, both electrically and physically.  It is a 19V 9.5A 180W power supply ("Delta Electronics Part Number ADP-180HB B" just like this one:DELETED

Here is one Computer Plaza shop I found which I will try, but I suspect they don't carry accessories in stock:DELETED

I found a lot of 19V laptop power supplies on Lazada but nothing even close to 180W.

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

Some thoughts from my friend that may help others debugging pressure tank problems:

The purpose of the pressure tank is to give the system some hysteresis.
Water is not compressible, so with no air in the system, you would have the pump turning
on/off continuously because the difference between the high pressure pump shut-off and
the low-pressure pump turn-on would be less than a cup of water (the pipes probably expand
a wee bit).

But with the pressure tank, the high pressure water can go into the tank and is stored there.
When you use enough water that the pressure in the system goes down below the turn-on
threshold, it turns on.

So... you want to MAXIMIZE the amount of water in the tank when the system pressure is
between the two pressure values. I believe you want the pressure tank to be set to just
under the low-pressure value (turn-on pressure).

If the pressure is set too low (like your first tank) then the tank is almost full at the high
pressure setting and then still kinda full at the low pressure setting. So a bunch of wasted
volume in there.

If the pressure tank is set too high, then you also have wasted volume because it doesn't
start filling the tank until you are already above the turn-on pressure.

Interesting: just tried a controlled experiment with the 2 cylinders. With only a low-flow shower on in both cases, I let the pump run.

With the new cylinder rated at a "charged pressure" of 0.16 MPa = 1.6 bar == 23PSI, the pump ran 7 or 8 times per minute.

With the old cylinder from the spare pump in the shed (not the one from the current pump, which is surely burst) rated at a "charged pressure" of 0.08 MPa = 0.8 bar == 11.6PSI, the pump ran 15 times per minute.

Which is exactly the opposite of what we would expect. We would expect the pump to run less (perhaps half as) often with half the PSI nitrogen cylinder charge, since there would be more (maybe twice the amount of) water in the cylinder when the pump reached its OFF pressure and thus more "buffer" for the pump.

Hmm.

Maybe the difference is there because the old cylinder is partially deflated or even has a hole in it, in which case the rated number means nothing. I did notice a fair amount of water dribble out when I removed the old cylinder, though gently poking a chopstick in the old cylinder, it clearly has a significant chunk of rubber there in place (unlike the burst one from the current pump, where the chopstick touches nothing no matter how much you shove it in there). And not as much water dribbled out of the old cylinder as dribbled out of the burst one from the current pump, though I was only using the old cylinder for about 6 hours before this test so it may not have had time to become totally water-logged yet.

So it seems it was worthwhile getting the 0.16 MPa = 1.6 bar == 23PSI cylinder, even if we are seeing double the rate of pump motor running that we could have if we had a properly specced 0.08 MPa = 0.8 bar == 11.6PSI cylinder.

Some progress today.

Today I finally found all the needed parts at hardware stores and spent a few hours gluing PVC pipe (had to remove basically all the existing fittings because of the way they were glued) with a new pressure meter and a new valve nearby the pump to let water go at various flow rates for testing and pump discharging. The new valve can be turned on and off independently while totally shutting off the supply to all the bungalows. The meter was very critical for knowing what is actually going on in the pump. The nearby valve allowed me to make easy and meaningful tests and measurements without the uncertainty of whether anyone in the bungalows (which are very far away) happened to have taps on at that moment.

While gluing the PVC pipes, I also opened all the compartments of the pump that I had tools for. First thing I noticed was that the pump's built-in backflow check valve and its mysterious "Life-Extending Pressure Stablilized Unit" (which sits at the intersection of the motor output, the pressure switch, the pressure bladder cylinder, and the output) were totally full of fine, sticky mud (similar to what I found under the hopper cap before). So I spent a while getting all that mud out. I haven't been able to open the motor to look for mud on the impeller blades because I don't have the hex ratchet set needed for that.

Then I put everything together and ran the system with the test valve open just a little (to simulate one shower being on) and looked at the pressure meter. The pump was turning ON around 1.4 kg/cm² (supposed to be 2.0 kg/cm² == 28.4 PSI) and turning off lower than 2.0 kg/cm² (supposed to be 2.6 kg/cm² == 40 PSI).

Ever since the Thai "plumber" turned the pressure switch adjustment screw and declared "victory" (plus many other random people turning the screw before him), we had no idea what the pump was actually doing. Now with the new pressure gauge I was at least able to adjust the pump into near the correct range by adjusting the famous screw on the pressure switch. The closest I could get was 2.0 kg/cm² to 2.8 kg/cm² (though the pressure gauge instantly drops from 2.8 kg/cm² to 2.6 kg/cm² the instant the motor stops, so maybe it's spot-on; not sure if the "before" or "after" reading is the correct one to use).

Also with the pressure gauge we can now see that the original pressure switch (which I have not changed at any point in this whole process) is at least working in the sense of turning on and off at consistent pressures, another thing we could not determine before. Many times pump problems are because the switch turns on and off randomly because its contacts are dirty/melted, but now we know that is not the problem with our pump.

Clearing out all that mud from the insides of the pump may have helped. It seems like after I reassembled everything, the pump motor runs less often (that is, the "duty cycle" percentage of time the pump motor was running as a percentage of each complete on/off cycle seemed to go down) and the pressure bladder cylinder seems more effective at holding the water pressure up to give the pump motor a break, as it is designed to do (the needle on the pressure gauge descends slowly and evenly from 2.8 kg/cm² to 2.0 kg/cm² before the pump motor starts up again). It's hard to be sure though, because before cleaning out the mud we did not have the pressure meter or the nearby isolated test valve for good comparison. But one part I cleaned out does connect the output to the pressure bladder cylinder.

One thing is for certain: the pressure bladder cylinder from our pump did burst (which probably explains why the problem started suddenly in April, right after Songkran), and that means the screw adjustment that the Thai "plumber" made during the 15 minutes he was here would have caused the pump to burn up very quickly, because the poor motor would have kept pushing and pushing with all its might even with only one tap open partway, getting hotter and hotter until its windings' insulation melted and it shorted out. And without the "plumber's" adjustment, the pump still turned on and off way too rapidly, which also greatly diminishes its life. It was critical to replace that cylinder either way.

I tested both the new pressure bladder cylinder that my friend just sent up from Chiang Mai (which was rated at a "charged pressure" of 0.16 MPa = 1.6 bar == 23PSI, twice that of the original pump) and also the pressure bladder cylinder from the old dead pump that was in the shed (with the correct "charged pressure" of 0.08 MPa = 0.8 bar == 11.6PSI). Both of them seem to work ok.

I haven't yet had time to do a good test to see if they make the pump behave differently. A mechanical engineer friend of mine suggested that since the 23PSI cylinder has twice the nitrogen charge yet is the same size, the tank will hold half as much water when the pump reaches the cut-off pressure, and so with the 23PSI cylinder the pump should run more often because there is less of a "buffer." I will try that out when I get time.

So we might not have needed the new cylinder but it is nice to have a working spare, albeit an expensive one.

Overall, at least for now the pump is close to performing as well as it did before this whole mess started in April.

First test of course will be to see if the pump keeps performing as well in the next few days and weeks. The mud that may have played a role in this incident does not come out of the supply tanks continuously, but rather comes in massive bursts when the folks here miss their regular schedule of opening the cleaning valves at the bottom of the tanks to let out the accumulated mud, and then something happens (like a storm) to set the water in the tanks in motion. So I don't think the pump will fill with mud again in the next few days. But we will see if there is some other problem with the pump that pops up soon.

Thanks to all of you and my engineer friend and others for useful advice, and I hope this thread helps lots of future ThaiVisa folks debug their water pump!

so the OFF pressure is a bit too low on the new switch. Maybe I can use the screw to make the new switch closer.

I will try to find a pressure gauge tomorrow too so I can tell what is really going on.

I examined the old pressure switch and the contacts are a tiny bit black, but not as much as seen in the picture from rawhod. I did notice that the Philips screw head on the top of the pressure switch is almost completely stripped from Thai geniuses "fixing" it

Ordered new pressure tank from CM for 1450B; will update in a few days when it arrives. Probably will replace the switch too since the switch is cheap.

FYI for others reading this thread, here is a ThaiVisa thread with some relevant info on pressure switches and one screw vs. 2 screws (though the OP has a different type of pump and a different symptom):

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/698917-water-pump-pressure-accumulator/page-2

Thanks again for your advice; I will certainly check out the pressure switch contacts and look for a name brand part.

Some new data:

With the pressure switch still ridiculously screwed down as earlier today, I turned on just one low-flow shower and verified that the pump (which runs continuously under this setting) becomes too hot to touch after only 5 seconds. I don't remember the pump ever getting this hot, though I'm not 100% sure I felt it when only one shower was running before.

Then I turned on another tap at the same time, and the pump cooled down considerably (even though it is still running continuously).

So this is consistent with the idea that cranking down on that screw is just going to burn out the pump quickly.

I have unscrewed the pressure switch spring screw so that the pump is back to giving us oscillating water pressure at the tap until we can figure this out.

Also, I took off the pressure cylinder from the pump and noted that the cylinder was very full of water (I should have thought to dump all the water into a jug and then compared that volume with the total cylinder volume; oh well) as well as having some coarse dirt (but no more than 5% of the volume of the cylinder). I gently stuck a blunt chopstick into the cylinder and I could not feel anything pushing back on the chopstick, implying that the rubber bladder is popped.

Also, I discovered that there was a 3-4 year old pump of exactly the same model in the shed so I tried its older cylinder on the new pump. I was very optimistic because the old cylinder had a thick, triangle-folded rubber thing just 1cm inside the hole of the cylinder: clearly there was SOME bladderish thing there.

Sadly, when trying the old cylinder on the new pump, the behavior was exactly the same: when running a single shower, different settings of the pressure switch spring would either make the pump oscillate (which is good) but make the water pressure also oscillate at the shower (which is bad), or would make the pump stay on and overheat. And I remember the old pump exhibited the same symptom 3-4 years ago, and the "plumber" at that time also cranked the screw down, and eventually the old pump burned out (hmmmmmmmm).

So, that data suggests that either the old cylinder is bad too (perhaps the rubber bladder is dried solid: when poking it with the chopstick, it won't budge, though I don't want to poke it too hard to puncture it), or perhaps the problem has nothing to do with the pressure cylinder.

However given the nature of the symptom (pump oscillates at low flow (which is good), but pressure also oscillates at the shower (which is bad)), it is hard to imagine any other component that is responsible. If it was the pressure switch that was bad, then either the pump would come on when no taps were open (which it doesn't) or the pump wouldn't switch on and off according to the spring tightness (but it does).

Thoughts?

p.s. if you are wondering why I don't just try replacing some parts anyway, there are three reasons. 1: I want to actually understand what is going on for my own edification and for next time this damn thing breaks, and 2: waste of money, and 3: I have to go on a horrific 4 hour bus to get any quality parts and that is really really really not pleasant so any thinking I can do to avoid 2 trips is worth a million bucks. I live in Pai, Mae Hong Son and although we have a LOT of tourists and ugly pink buildings and hardware stores here, what they stock in the hardware stores is incredibly limited. I will check if they have the cylinder and switch here but I doubt it (they usually only have the parts for the absolute cheapest pumps, and usually crappy copy parts that die in 2 weeks).

Hi,

Thanks for advice so far.

As far as the pressure cylinder, it does not have any valve: instead, the fine folks at Hitachi left behind a brass screw to prevent us from trying to re-fill it ourselves. For pix, see this scary Thai-style DIY post: http://2g.pantip.com/cafe/home/topic/R13107929/R13107929.html

And currently there is no filter between the supply tanks and pump so mud is possibly related (l already saw a fair amount of mud when removing the hopper cap).

The good news is that this morning, the landlord finally broke down and had a plumber come out.

The bad, but not surprising, news is that the plumber just came and did what EVERY Thai plumber does: remove the cover to the pressure switch and screw down the screw to increase pressure on the spring until the pump runs more smoothly, and leave in less than 15 minutes before any of us actually had a chance to test if his genius work was effective on the various taps and showers. In fact his "fix" did not work on my shower (it still pulsed annoyingly) but with a few more turns of the same screw, the shower seems to run smoothly now.

However it seems very unlikely to me that a "loose spring" as he called it is the real problem, especially since the problem began suddenly one day in April, not slowly getting worse and worse. I suspect he has just taken the pump's very limited pressure range caused by some other problem like the cylinder and moved that limited pressure range a bit higher, but there will still be problems.

What do folks think about making that one adjustment? Can this kind of adjustment break the pump in other ways (assuming there is still some other fault)?

I was a bit surprised to see only one screw under the pressure switch cap: I expected to see an adjustment for the pump-on low pressure and pump-off high pressure. Does the screw adjust only one of the pressures? Both pressures at a fixed interval? Does it adjust the ratio of pressures?

Does tightening the screw adjust the pump-on low pressure (or pump-off high pressure) up or down?

Before adjusting the screw at all, the pump only ran continuously when 3 taps were on simultaneously. After tightening a bit, 1 tap could run the pump continuously but the lower-flow shower still pulsed. After tightening the screw further, the low-flow shower could run continuously.

I'm a bit confused here as to what effect tightening the screw had: our pump motor only runs at one speed, so how could adjusting 1 screw make it run continuously into a low-flow shower head that is a tiny fraction of the flow the pump can produce, without breaking the pump? Are we now running the pump in a way that stresses the motor more than designed?

After the plumber's record speed trip and my further turning of the screw, the pulsing so far is gone but it appears that the overall pressure we get from taps is significantly less than what we had before the pump failed in April. Any ideas why?

I am trying to understand the basic principles of operation of the pressure switch so I can make a good guess about whether this adjustment is likely to do more harm than good.

Thanks again.

Hi,

The water pump at our place has worked fantastically for more than 3 years with even pressure to all 6 small bungalows regardless of how fully open the tap/shower is.

However, since April, something changed big time and now the pressure seen in every tap/shower pulsates wildly and the pump itself is short-cycling whenever any tap or shower is turned on. The only way to prevent short-cycling and get a steady water stream is to wastefully open 3 taps at once! The pump does not run when no taps are open. The issue is not leaky anything in the bungalows.

When the pump short-cycles it sounds like this, with the motor starting and stopping more than once per second: Click Here To Hear Sound

Depending on how open the tap is, the pump also likes to get in a mode where it cycles 2-3 times rapidly, then runs for about 2 seconds, then repeats, resulting in water that pulses annoyingly for 2 out of every 3 seconds.

For various reasons my landlord has been dragging her feet on this so I am trying to do some DIY diagnosis so that when I finally convince her to do something, it will likely be the right thing and we won't waste time and money.

None of the existing ThaiVisa.com threads on this topic:

• http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/857024-water-pressure-problem/
• http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/400983-question-for-those-with-mitsubishi-ep-series-home-water-pumps/
• http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/886828-water-pump-problems/
• http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/691360-pump-differences/
• http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/183722-problem-with-water-pump-hunting/

are directly relevant to my case because my pump is a Hitachi WM-P 280 GP which has a small accumulator bladder cylinder filled with nitrogen, meaning THERE IS NO SHRAEDER VALVE to re-pump up the lost air pressure, and THERE IS NO LARGE TANK (e.g. Hitachi WT-P series) to drain to re-establish the correct air/water mixture, only the small nitrogen-filled cylinder with a rubber bladder inside and no fill valve.

All the ThaiVisa threads above assume there is either a fill valve, or there is a large tank to drain (e.g. Hitachi WT-P series). We have neither.

Also, unlike many of the ThaiVisa threads, in my case the pump WORKED FINE for many years so this is not a case of having the wrong unit installation, where we needed to install a separate pressure tank from the beginning.

The pump is fed by 12 above-ground concrete-cylinder tanks that are adjacent to the pump (those concrete cylinders are kept full by another pump that is working fine). The water level in the supply tanks is about 2m above the pump.

So the pump is fed by water with a mild positive pressure and THERE IS NO PRIMING ISSUE. I have opened the hopper cap to verify that there are no air bubbles and that water flows freely through the pump when the pump power is off and I open the supply line a bit.

Before and during when I had the hopper cap open, I turned on a faucet in the nearest house and I closed the supply valve to the pump in order to let any small chambers in the pump "drain," just to see if it would make any difference, though I suspect this procedure does not apply to this type of pump but only applies to pumps like the Hitachi WT-P series that have a large tank below the pump. It made no difference anyway.

Please see attached photos for pump configuration.

The closest product for which I could find any marketing materials and manual online is the WM-P250GX2:

• WM-P250GX2 Brochure: http://www.hitachi-th.com/hitachi2014/?act=product_detail&id=11&model_id=9081〈=en
• WM-P250GX2 Manual: http://www.hitachi-th.com/hitachi2014/product/catalog/pdf/WP_WT-P_WM-P_GX2.pdf

Adding to the difficulty, as you can see from the attached pictures below and from the brochure and manual above, the WM-P 280 GP has some kind of special "Life-Extending Pressure Stablilized Unit" gadget right below the pressure switch that is supposed to deliver "constant water pressure," but as a side effect of this they insist in the manual that nobody should ever adjust controls (if any) on the pressure switch. Not sure if this is just job protection nonsense for Hitachi or if there is something legit about this unusual component that means normal solutions of turning the pressure switch adjustments won't work. Both are plausible.

Does anyone here really know what this "Life-Extending Pressure Stablilized Unit" gadget is and does, and what effect it has on diagnosing short-cycling and adjusting the pressure switch?

So, given this data, what are the logical steps for diagnosis?

• When opening the hopper cap I noticed a fair amount of mud, so I am willing to open more chambers to clean out mud but I am not sure which chambers are safe to open without destroying the pump and/or not being able to get the covers on again without special tools. Advice?
• I heard pressure switches often get clogged with grit and stop working. Does anyone know specifically how to access the pressure switch on this unit without damaging the unit (i.e. which screws, etc.; the manual does not have this information)?
  
• I know one possibility is that the pressure bladder cylinder has lost its nitrogen charge and/or the rubber in there has burst. Replacing the whole cylinder costs around 1200B plus a 4 hour trip to the nearest real town, so is there anyway I can be sure if this is the cause? Of course I could also do it Thai Style but I'd rather just throw a bunch of money into the trash.
  
• What else might be causing the short-cycling?

Thanks for all constructive responses.

The basturd drove right by me the other day. I was standing right at a stop on Thaphae Rd. It's obviously rigged for failure. The only other time I rode it in the last two weeks, the bus stopped in front of Siriphat Hospital, and a mom got on with two kids. The little girl did a high velocity vomit (looked like strawberry flute shek) all over the place. The bus stopped and they had to do a clean-up. No mas! I did see those other new busses to the airport earlier, and they seemed to be somewhat more frequent.

Man, you got some pretty bad luck!

Did you try to hail them in some way when they approached at Tha Pae? Because they are not used to actual passengers actually knowing about the service (especially Westerners), hailing is probably mandatory, even at stops. I just updated my site to point this out more explicitly. Also on my site I note that you have to hail with palms down, because the usual Western fingers-up waving gesture actually means "I'm not going on this bus" to most Thai bus drivers!

The pink/magenta "Kwan Wiang" bus people do seem to be a bit more with-it in terms of organization and PR. They are a private company apparently.

- Chris Pirazzi

I just did a major update to the Chiang Mai aircon bus information website:

http://slice-of-thai.com/cmbus/

• I rode the complete route B1 and B2 in both directions with a GPS unit to record the exact bus route and exact stop locations, updating the interactive maps on the website to include both stops and route. This will help people know where the bus stops are and it will also help folks who want to hail the bus between stops (some stops are very far between).
  
• Speaking of hailing the bus, the bus people told me that one ongoing problem they have is that Westerners who want to get on the bus often wave their hands fingers-up, which means "I'm not going to ride" in the Thai convention, causing many drivers to just pass them by, so I included a silly animated GIF on the website about to hail a bus Thai Style palms-down.
  
• I learned more about what the aircon bus stop signs are supposed to (but often don't) look like, updating that advice on the site.
  
• Corrected weekend schedule: there is no bus at noon
  
• Provided links to raw KML files for GPS map data for map nerds who would like to make their own maps/services

Enjoy!

http://slice-of-thai.com/cmbus/

Cool thanks. Fixed:

http://slice-of-thai.com/cmbus/

As if this is not all confusing enough, it turns out there is ANOTHER brand-new, local, fixed-price, fixed-route aircon bus service that just started in Chiang Mai.

It's called the "Kwan Wiang" bus

This service uses red-colored half buses (minibuses, NOT minivans, not pickup trucks).

It starts in Kwan Wiang village in Hang Dong, passes the airport and airport plaza, goes around the old city to Warorot Market, passes by Chiang Mai Gate via Wua Lai road and back to Kwan Wiang.

It is 20 B per person and supposedly operates every 10 minutes from 5:30am to 22:00pm

I just added a mention of the Kwan Wiang red bus, along with pictures of all vehicles, to help avoid confusing in our ever-expanding field of choices:

http://slice-of-thai.com/cmbus/

There is some discussion about the Kwan Wiang service on this ThaiVisa thread:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/907628-top-secret-routestimes-for-air-con-15-baht-local-bus-service/page-3#entry10672829

Thanks for the links, Tywais! The map and links you provided are for the same service whose announcement http://www.tnamcot.com/content/452850 I translated a few posts up.

Looks like the Kwan Wiang bus folks are quite a bit more with-it in terms of publishing a route and even having English and Chinese. Let's see how well they stick to it.

It's very cool that there seem to be more and more public transport options now.

I just added a mention of the Kwan Wiang red bus, along with pictures of all vehicles, to help avoid confusing in our ever-expanding field of choices:

http://slice-of-thai.com/cmbus/

http://www.tnamcot.com/content/452850

What's this about? Red Color bus in Chiang Mai?

HA! Yet another new bus. Doesn't seem to be included in the "Chaingmaibus" naming system.

It says:

รถเมล์ปรับอากาศ สาย ปอ.10 เป็นรถโดยสารขนาด 21 ที่นั่ง

21-seat aircon bus number ปอ.10 (po #10)

เส้นทางเริ่มต้นจากหมู่บ้านขวัญเวียง อำเภอหางดง

route starts in Kwan Wiang village in Hang Dong

เข้าไปยังรอบตัวเมืองเชียงใหม่

and goes around central Chiang Mai

ผ่านท่าอากาศยานนานาชาติเชียงใหม่

passing Chiang Mai Airport

ห้างสรรพสินค้า

Department store(s) (but they don't say which one(s) and it's not necessarily Airport Plaza)

เส้นทางรอบคูเมือง

Going around the old city (moat)

ตลาดวโรรส

Warorot market

ผ่านถนนช้างคลาน

Chang Klan road

ถนนศรีดอนไชย

Sri Don Chai road

ตลาดประตูเชียงใหม่

Chiang Mai Gate Market

ไปวนท่าอากาศยานนานาชาติเชียงใหม่

Chiang Mai Airport

และถนนสายเชียงใหม่-หางดง

Chiang Mai-Hang Dong road

กลับหมู่บ้านขวัญเวียง

then back to Kwan Wiang village (Hang Dong)

ตลอดเส้นทางคิดค่าบริการ 20 บาท

20 B for any trip

ส่วนนักเรียนนักศึกษาในเครื่องแบบและพระสงฆ์ ค่าบริการ 15 บาท

uniformed students and monks 15B

รถออกทุก 10 นาที

leaving every 10 minutes

เบื้องต้นมีรถให้บริการ 8 คัน

initially there are 8 buses

ให้บริการตั้งแต่เวลา 05.30 น. จนถึง 22.00 น.ทุกวัน

with daily service from 5:30am to 22:00pm

ทั้งนี้ เพื่อเป็นการอำนวยความสะดวกให้กับประชาชนและนักท่องเที่ยว ลดการใช้รถยนต์ส่วนตัว หวังลดปัญหาการจราจรติดขัด และลดมลพิษ หากประชาชนและนักท่องเที่ยวให้ความสนใจใช้บริการเพิ่มมากขึ้น ก็จะเพิ่มเที่ยวรถอีก โดยจะออกทุก 5 นาที.

... bla bla bla ... and if people and tourists show interest they will increase the frequency to every 5 minutes.

I don't think there is any English app, and I'm not even sure if the Thai app is working/useful.

For Airport to Chiang Mai Gate you can learn about aircon bus B2 here: http://slice-of-thai.com/cmbus/ and there's some advice about where/how to catch the bus there.

thanks,

Is it fixed price 15B??

And is the bus stop outside the airport's area??

Yes 15B. See the website for where to catch the bus at the airport. It's all there!

I don't think there is any English app, and I'm not even sure if the Thai app is working/useful.

For Airport to Chiang Mai Gate you can learn about aircon bus B2 here: http://slice-of-thai.com/cmbus/ and there's some advice about where/how to catch the bus there.

Thanks for the update Chris.

Call me sceptical, but it appears to me that they want it to fail. Or somebody wants it to fail.

Yes, agreed. Though I have no evidence, I cynically suspect the bus service is a football in some kind of local political turf war in which each contender is just trying to get budget or grow their empire and doesn't actually care whether the service is good or not.

Hi,

Here's a summary that might help reduce confusion about these different systems.

Even the NAME of the systems---"Chiangmaibus"---is a source of confusion.

There are at least two and possibly four types of vehicles offering fixed-route, fixed-price service in Chiang Mai, all under the banner of "Chiangmaibus"

• The aircon half-buses (aka minibuses, NOT minivans) described in the ThaiVisa thread http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/907628-top-secret-routestimes-for-air-con-15-baht-local-bus-service/ and whose up-to-date route and times are shown at at http://slice-of-thai.com/cmbus/ , currently consisting of route B1 (Arcade-Zoo) and B2 (Arcade-Airport). Many (not all) of these buses have chaingmaibus dot org (do not go here: viruses!) prominently printed on them, but at this time that website contains no information about the aircon buses (clearly they want it to someday though). The Thai-language Chiangmaibus Facebook Page also has a few mentions of the aircon bus service, but the Facebook page mostly talks about the next type of vehicle....
  
• A separate system of non-air-con pickup-truck red-taxis that have fixed routes and fixed prices. The routes are named with just numbers like 2, 6, or 12 and you can often find maps showing as many as 12 routes, although in a recent Facebook post it seems they might switch some/all of the red-taxi routes to a naming scheme starting wtih R (R1 R2 R3) also using the name "Chiang Mai City Hop." As with the aircon buses, red-taxi routes and times change randomly with no advance notice. These vehicles also have chiangmaibus dot org (do not go here: viruses!) printed on them and that website contains (probably outdated) info on the red-taxi routes. The Thai-language Chiangmaibus Facebook Page mostly discusses the red-taxis, including schedule and route changes. I do not know any current, authoritative source of routes and times for this service, but it seems the Facebook page might be the most current. The thread on ThaiVisa.com you are reading right now discusses these red-taxis (but don't be confused by the name of the thread: red-taxis are only part of "Chiangmaibus"). Then there is also the CMTRANSIT smartphone app (see below).
  
• A recent Facebook post mentions that the "Chiangmaibus" service also includes minivans (aka tourist "Shuttle buses") to Ban Tawai woodworking village. It seems reasonable to expect more minivan-based routes in the future.
  
• That same Facebook post also mentions new, "cute, green" tourist trams (รถราง), also under the "Chiangmaibus" logo, which will take tourists around the old city. Has anyone seen these?

Some folks have pointed out that some of the maps and fliers for various services above have the website http://www.cmcity.go.th printed on them. This is simply the website of the Chiang Mai Municipality (the têet-sà~baan) and is not transport-specific. I have not yet been able to find any route/time info about transport on this website, but if anyone does please let me know.

There is a smartphone app for Android and a smartphone app for iOS/iPhone/iPad called CMTRANSIT which is supposed to show you, in real-time, the position of every fixed-route red taxi on a real-time map. This is a very cool idea because it gives you much more confidence about whether the taxi will really come and slightly lessens your need to know the schedules (so it's a clever technological workaround for whatever intractable management problem plagues these transport systems). Currently this app does NOT show you the location of the aircon buses, minivans, or trams, but that seems to be a goal since all these forms of transport are co-branded. These apps seem to be the result of some kind of joint academic-government effort in Chiang Mai. BUT unfortunately many of the reviews indicate that the apps (or the data the apps depend on) is flaky and often the little red-taxis are just stuck on the map. So I am not sure how much use the app is. Does anyone use one of these apps regularly?