Led Lolly Yellow Lolly

On 23/03/2018 at 12:52 PM, kamalabob2 said:

Do NOT put fiber in the same run as electric. 

Are you aware of any specific rule that forbids this? As long as the fibre is fully dielectric (and there is no drop wire running with it) I don't see a problem with it. Obviously LAN cable should not be run with electrics - but dielectric fibre, not a problem AFAIK.

The conduit is HDPE indeed and there is a colour code, but I've never been able to establish which country Thailand is following on the conduit colour codes. I just use red for electrics and blue for water. I just stick optical fibre in whatever I have available, sod the colour code. The cost of the conduit is relative to the supplier. I buy kilometres of the stuff, it's negligible to the cost of digging up the ground to replace cable if you can't pull new cable in. Just today I pulled 250 metres of 35mm 4 core NYY into 62 mm conduit, darn nearly broke my back, I should have got the next size up of conduit. I ended up tying the rope to a golf car and hitting the gas to pull the cable in.

21 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

May he survive and have learned a lesson.

 

Can't agree with this. I'd rather see Darwin take control here before he kills someone's kids.

My views aren't always popular but I don't hug trees,  I like drunk boy racers dead.

10 hours ago, darksidedog said:

The most tragic thing about the awful toll on the roads here is that nothing constructive ever seems to get done to improve it. One shudders to think how many more lives will be lost and people maimed before there is an improvement. This should be the Nations number one concern.

My wife takes the kids to school in the morning. I pick them up in the afternoon. I'm a hotel manager and I tend to work very late, unsociable hours go with the territory. However, I just can't sleep until I hear the car come back from the morning school run. Everything I love is in that metal box travelling at speed along one of the most dangerous roads in the most dangerous country in the world for road accidents (Libya doesn't count). Frankly I really have to wonder why I live with this.

I'm sorry I can't offer advice on agents as I never used one, but if you're interested in my advice here's mine. Agents are parasites. IMO people tend to over-analyse what is required and worry too much. All you need to know is that you should be honest. If the applicant is a brain surgeon, write 'brain surgeon' on the application. If the applicant is a bar slag, write 'bar slag' on the application. The British government is not in the business of judgementalism. Even an estate agent can get a visa. I'll wager that after the UK leaves the EU, even Belgians will still be granted visas. All they care about is the immigration rules being observed.

FYI my Thai wife and stepdaughter are British citizens. I did all the form filling myself, from entry clearance to ILR to citizenship, never got any help from anyone or anything. It's not that hard. Agents are scum.

Good luck.

No, the MEN link is intentionally left out. As I said, this is a TT system. 

52 minutes ago, sinbin said:

Therefore it's an 'foreigner' ID card. Not a 'Thai ID' card.

I suppose you call your Thai driver's license a foreigner license too. 

45 minutes ago, sinbin said:

Which really is stupid as you cannot get the card unless you have permission to stay. Doh.

Pink ID is also issued to stateless people. This is where forum posters like yourself are getting confused. 

26 minutes ago, Rc2702 said:

I got that card on a tourist visa.

Bv11shyt

The same misconceptions keep coming up here. Regarding the restriction on movement, what is written on the back of the card is that the card cannot be used outside the district it was issued UNLESS the holder has permission to stay i.e. a valid visa and extension, in which case the restriction on movement doesn't apply. This is very clearly stated, albeit in Thai. I suspect posters here are getting their girlfriends to translate and only getting the 'you can't travel' part.

The pink ID card IS a Thai ID card. It's an ID card issued by Thai government i.e. a Thai ID card. What is stated on the card is that holding it doesn't confer Thai national status to the holder, only resident alien status. Another 'girlfriend' translation gaffe on this I suspect.

I really think if people don't really know what they're talking about they should just shut their cake hole.

Could an Admin please check my mod powers, they don't seem to be working.

I'm closing this thread as being off topic.

Thread closed!

Regarding TM30 provision, we have to provide that via immigration's online portal for all foreigners. In high season it represents a major administrative overhead. HOWEVER, you do not need a TM30 for your home address if you are on the house book for that address (the house book, blue or yellow, is issued to the house, not you, it's not 'your' book), so as far as immigration are concerned it's not required if you stay at a hotel either, just like Thai people on a Tabien Baan are not required to submit a TM30 when they stay at a hotel. The system is ridiculous, but not that ridiculous, hence the acceptance of an Alien Card (unavailable without a Tabien Baan). Of course, no two immigration offices are the same, YMMV. Call.

There are a lot of douches out there, Thai and farang, that think this pink ID puts you on the same level as stateless persons from Burma etc etc and you're not allowed to travel. It's a complete nonsense. It's a different category of card, valid for ten years, and certainly there is no requirement to stay in the same province. Nonsense written everywhere.

All Thais are required to carry Thai ID card from age 15, I thought this was common knowledge, and you want to debate this with me? Yes, you get the pink ID with a Yellow Tabien Baan, blue ID card if your Thai and on a Blue Tabien Baan, this should be intuitively obvious. I can't remember the time limit for getting it but it is stipulated you are supposed to apply for it within a certain number of days in either case.

Regarding driver's license as ID, the problem with DL is you can literally make up an address to get one. There are minimal checks, you can even be living in a hotel. Even with a letter from immigration, you are a visitor. A driver's license is practically worthless as ID in the case of foreigners. A resident Alien card however is beyond the reach of anyone without a Tabien Baan, and with this (your permanent address in Thailand) comes much more gravity. It is on this basis I accept an Alien Card, but reject Driver's License.

17 hours ago, akirasan said:

They just like making noise.  It's not strictly a Thai thing, Filipinos are the same.  

It's a man thing. I have no explanation for it, but our gardeners do it with their goddamn brush cutters, revving the goddamn 2 stroke engines every second, it's one of the few things here that really gets under my skin. I hate the sound of brush cutters. I hate even more the sound of brush cutters having their throttle twitched. Have you ever tried to enjoy a cup of tea with someone revving a brush cutter nearby? Good grief! The women don't do it. Solution, order the women to cut the grass. They maintain a steady engine speed when using brush cutters. Significantly less annoying. I'm an expert on this matter.

Contrary to popular myth, a Thai driver's license is not a substitute for your passport. It's a driver's license. It's states your entitlement to drive. It does not represent any evidence of your lawful presence in Thailand. It just says you can drive.

The pink ID card is a different matter. There's a lot of crap on here about it. There is a translation gaffe, where everyone thinks it states it's not an ID card. What they mean is it doesn't mean you're Thai. It IS a form of national identification however. It is a resident alien card. Perversely it actually hindered my Work Permit renewal. The staff at the Ministry of Labour seemed to be using it as some kind of training exercise. I should have left it at home!

I'm a hotel manager and I instruct my staff to accept it as identification, which is what I believe we're allowed to do, it has your permanent address. I also stay in a lot of hotels myself and my own pink ID card has ALWAYS been accepted for check in, but then I never stay in no-star $#!t holes where the staff are only trained to smile. If anyone has substantial evidence to the contrary I'm happy to listen, but I'm not interested to argue with some pompous twerp that can't see the value of something you're legally obliged to get anyway if you're on a Tabien Baan.

There are no English tests to pass if you are the child of a Briton. You are British from birth, immediately, automatically, no matter what. This is all available to read in the British Nationality Act.

It's not theory, it's law.

For underground cabling you'll need NYY cable (copper, as aluminium is not allowed underground due to PEA rules) and I've never seen NYY cable available in Watsadu et al so you'll be hunting down an independent local supplier. The best advice on this will probably come from your local PEA office, not Somchai the village spark. If your electrician tells you THW cable is fine underground, my advice is to find another electrician. It's going to cost you money, so do it right. Multicore NYY is available for three phase supply but my calculations tell me it's nearly always more cost effective to run four single core cables in the case of NYY. There are lots of brands available but I personally won't touch anything unless it's from the Bangkok Cable Company. They're the only supplier I've found whose cables consistently meet or exceed the stated conductor size. If you strip the plastic off the conductor of, say, a 2.5 mm cable from BKK Cable and some cheap ass brand, roll them between two fingers, you can FEEL one conductor is smaller than the other, no need for a micrometer!

On 7/1/2017 at 6:08 AM, wayned said:

Once installed PEA would own the transformer and would be responsible for all maintenance costs.

That's nearly always the case but not always. Many people are indeed shocked to find they paid for the TX only to find they own nothing. However, we presently have four transformers, all on our land. My sister in law went to great lengths to make sure we truly owned our transformers, considering the vast sums we spent on them. Sometimes the PEA forget we own them though and replace expulsion fuses for free LOL.

If you do go down the ownership route though, you have to really up your game and know what you're doing. We had some problems with householders on our land installing ADSL and fibre lines on our power poles without our permission, they just can't seem to get it into their heads that the PEA don't own the poles. I promptly come along and rip them down, I take a zero tolerance approach due to the potential for serious and very costly damage to our systems in the event of a fault (with this in mind, you might opt for the PEA to own). I took the following picture of our biggest TX and send it to the local 3bb office explaining to them if they didn't move their wires and install them MY WAY I would pull them down and they can see me in court. A stiff breeze could blow their drop wires onto my 22,000 Volt side. See attached picture below.

I also own a set of hot sticks so I can isolate the transformers as needed. I have exactly the same epoxyglass model certified for use by PEA linesmen. They cost the thick end of 20,000 Baht. This is NOT something you want to be screwing around with if you haven't got big balls and you don't know what you're doing. Even hot sticks rated for 100 KV will kill you dead if they have even a thin film of dust or moisture on them, they require careful maintenance to ensure total non-conductivity. Owning transformers sounds nice, but comes with costs. Just pointing all this out to anyone thinking of taking this route.

To the OP, I note only one light is illuminated on your 3 phases. This could mean the bulbs are popped, or you are only wired to one phase. It's common to find a house in Thailand with a three phase board somewhere downstream with the three phases bridged to just one incoming phase. You can safely twiddle the voltmeter knob to see if any voltage registers on the other phases. The house I'm working on right now is just such an example. I've uploaded a little video I took in the roof of this 25 year old building. Of note is the way the electrician (cough) wired the neutral to the roof structure, probably in some attempt to create an ufer ground. Completely ineffective of course and it was causing a newly fitted RCBO to trip endlessly. Lord only knows what these people are thinking of. The only way forward in situations like this is to completely abandon the electricals and start over. It's not what people want to hear, but it is what it is, if I take on a project it's my way or no way. In my experience, the vast majority of Thai houses are in this condition.

Never underestimate the capacity of Thai electricians to create a hazardous situation:

On 24/08/2017 at 8:30 AM, Crossy said:

+1 ^^^

 

Personally, I would go DIN anyway, probably slightly more expensive, but infinitely customisable.

 

MegaHome recently opened a branch a short distance from me and I was delighted to find they stock Siemens RCBOs. I'm a bit perplexed at the reversal of Live and Neutral on them, I guess this is the versatility of the DIN system though, the incomer and mini breakers would just be arranged from right to left instead of left to right. I'm presently constructing another 18 buildings that I'll be wiring myself later in the year. I'd previously been using the Schneider plug in system on earlier builds but I've been unhappy with the reliability of Schneider RCBOs.

My family and I just moved into a new house, which I wired in a hurry to get it operational. I used ABB RCD with a separate overcurrent protector. This is wired in TT configuration. I know I get zero out of ten for neatness, but as I said I did this in a real hurry and with cable scraps. I'm still pulled between ABB and Siemens for the new builds, maybe you have some experience with reliability and can comment. I'm leaning towards Siemens. . .

On 22/08/2017 at 7:58 PM, bankruatsteve said:

Edit:  Almost all new build homes in Thailand will have ground.  Thai/Farang/whatever.

The problem with this is the people installing the rods just don't understand what they're doing, farang or otherwise. In 16 years here I've never seen a good job done of grounding, be it badly sized ground conductors, lack of corrosion protection, ground rods that are too short, multiple ground rods used in a way that could cause dangerous touch voltages between grounded surfaces, ground rods buried in concrete so inspection is impossible etc etc, the list could go on forever. If you can't see it and inspect it, it should be assumed it's non-functional or non-existent.

On 22/08/2017 at 4:35 PM, Crossy said:

Our aim is to get our OP safe quickly at reasonable cost without necessarily ripping out the entire system, if he's renting he doesn't want to spend pots. Any and all assistance beyond "employ a competent electrician" is more than welcome.

I've seen some truly horrific wiring jobs here. The house we just moved out of originally had an electric shower wired DIRECTLY to the three phase cables on the PEA side, by means of a splice with insulation tape (no breaker of any kind, no means of isolation). Frightening. I don't need to explain this to you of course, you know the deal, but like you I'm quite sincere that I want to help people get their house electrically safe. I mulled the idea of suggesting a list of local 'experts' that forum members could call upon to go take a gander at their electrical system for the price of a chin wag and a beer. The problem is I personally am not really interested in getting involved face to face with other forum members. Every time I see a topic like this though, I just want to go and scream, "This is what you need to do!" 

On 03/03/2017 at 3:24 PM, bankruatsteve said:

FYI:  An "ELCB" is same thing as "RCD".  "RCBO" is RCD + MCB.

 

I hate to be the horse's ass here but I'm a self confessed pedant. They are not the same thing. An ELCB detects actual earth leakage directly and MUST therefore have an earth connection to function as intended. An RCD/RCBO detects imbalance between Live and Neutral and assumes this to be an earth leakage, and will therefore operate even without a CPC. . . and in Thailand, the advantage of the latter should be obvious.

It's worth noting at this point the plethora of poor information online relating to Thailand. One of the hardest things for a newbie to come to terms with is the volume of duff information being posted online about all aspects of life here. I can't tell you how many times I've seen cut and paste posts on various online resources, that claim to be the 'definitive' resource on Thailand. Most of the information is at best misleading, at worst downright malevolent. There are even websites out there that mislead you into believing they are 'official' resources, when in fact they are operated by a Trevor or a Dave from a bedsit in Leeds.

This also goes beyond the river of garbage about Thailand posted online. I lost count how many times I was lectured by some pompous jerk that I can't have a work permit because I have no degree. In fact there is no such law that I am aware of, maybe some industry specific limitation. But, I have a work permit sitting on my desk to the left of me, and I have no degree. What I do have are in demand skills and Thai family, which changes everything.

The take away from this is that the only resource you need is the written law, and the most up to date version of it. One day central government will get to grips with their $%^&ed up civil service. Until such time, get busy establishing the legal position of you and yours.