007 RED

1 hour ago, kinyara said:

What 4 stamps did you need to transfer ? 

1) Extension of stay

2) Multiple re-entry permit

3) ?

4) ?

 

I'm just wondering if you need to transfer the original Non Immigrant "O" ( based on retirement in my case ) as well as the Active extension of stay.

Actually, there were 5 stamps which were spread over 2 pages as shown below.

OP... The answer to your question is yes. 

Between 2017 and 2018 Thai Customs at BKK installed 26 high power X-ray scanners to enable them to monitor all checked arrival baggage prior to the baggage being delivered to its respective collection belt.

A smaller number of similar machines has also been installed at Don Mueang, Samui, Chiang Mai and Phuket airports.

FYI.... Current airport X-ray scanners produce images in orange, blue and green. Each colour corresponds to a material category—orange means organic material (food, paper, marijuana), green is for medium-dense non-organic materials like plastic soda bottles, and blue means metals or hard plastics

The machines are AI programmed to identify items within the bag which are of particular interest to Customs.   Bags which have been identified as of possible interest are then automatically routed to a holding area and the x-ray images of the bag are then examined by a Customs Officer who can decide to release the bag or RF tag it so that it can be tracked when it is collected from the belt.  As the bag passes through the red or green exit the Customs Officer(s) are alerted by the RF tag which has been attached to the bag and the owner pulled over for a physical inspection.

@Tigerdim  Has your installer fitted and connected a CT (Current Transformer) device to the inverter which is connected to the supply line connected to your meter?

If not, then it may well be advisable to get one fitted plus a simple switch and the "Reflux Power" setting on your inverter set to 0 (zero).  The switch can be left open and this will allow any excess power to be fed back to the grid for reclaim later.  With the switch closed the inverter will stop sending power back to the grid - meter disc will not spin backwards.

Remember, if your system is grid tied, the last thing that you want is for the meter reader to see the disc spinning backwards.  (see my original comments in post #3 above). 

2 hours ago, Tigerdim said:

I noticed the country code on the inverters is set to 22. Should I change this to 40 (thailand PEA)?

It appears that the Sofar inverters are set to #22 "Europe General" as the default.  I changed my 2200TL-G3 to #41 "Thailand MEA" (although I live in a PEA area) during initial commissioning in October last year and the beast has been working well since then.

The only problem was the changing the settings.  The one push button, plus having to enter the password almost every step of the way, is a preverbal pain in the rear.

2 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Not much point as I am now generating more power than I can store.

By 1:30-2pm the battery is full and the inverter is stepping down the power to just what I am using. Then at 3pm the solar panels are in shadow and just produce 300-500w until 5pm when the light has gone.

OK, I see your logic. 

If I recall correctly, you have split your home circuit into two, one running the heavy load equipment (AC, fridge etc) and the other your lower power equipment (computer, HiFi, TV etc), with your inverter and batteries connected to the lower power circuit only.  Is there any way of you being able to 'dump' any excess power beck to the grid which can then be used by the higher power appliances?

On 3/20/2022 at 11:38 AM, BritManToo said:

Almost done ...... 9 panels about 3000w of solar, currently producing 1740w at 11:30am on a sunny day.

Hi @BritManToo,

Please don't take this personally, but I have to agree with @Eff1n2ret that the output from your 9 PVs is not very impressive.  According to your info, they were only producing 1740w when the sun would almost be at its highest point and, therefore, only producing about 58% of their potential output. 

I appreciate that you don't have your panels angled, but a 42% loss in efficiency is somewhat worrying as one would normally anticipate a maximum potential efficiency loss of around 25% due to heat, shading etc.  If I was in your 'shoes' I would be looking to try and figure out how to improve the PVs output efficiency.

My 4 x 415W half-cut monos are currently producing 1.23kW (at 13:02pm), which equates to approximately 74% output efficiency, and the system has produced 3.06 units this morning, as may be seen from the monitoring output graph below.

FYI... The big dip in output between approximately 10:30am and 12:30pm is due to me turning the NO EXPORT function on because my better half and I went shopping and we are expecting the local PEA to come any day soon to connect the new house opposite to the power pole which has our meter on it.  I've became a bit paranoid after my near brush with the meter reader coming early last month.

FYI.... On the 29th my system peaked at 1.43kW (at 12:19pm) and produced a record 9.16 units that day.  Again, I need to be careful that I regularly monitor the system to ensure I don't end up with a negative meter reading.

PS.... Good luck with your battery project.  I hope you get it sorted.

3 hours ago, Tigerdim said:

Also, I have been told that PEA no longer allows excess solar power to be sent back to the grid to reverse the meter. Is this correct?

As @BritManToo has indicated in his response above, it is highly likely that the installer has little, if any, experience of setting up a 3 phase system, hence his response to your concern.

I'm sorry but I'm not qualified to give advice regarding your 3 phase grid tied installation.  3 phase is way above my pay grade.  The man with the answers is @Crossy and no doubt he will be along shortly to provide you with some good pointers/advice.

Regarding your question above.  Yes you have been informed correctly.  It is deeply frowned upon by the local PEA (or MEA if you live in BKK) to connect your solar system in such a manner as to make the meter disc spin backwards. 

If they (PEA/MEA) discover the meter spinning backwards e.g. the meter reader sees it whirring backwards when he/she takes your reading, or you have negative meter reading e.g. the current reading reading is less than previous one, they will take action against you.  It is highly likely that they will replace your meter with a digital one which does not run backwards so you are no longer able to 'dump' excess electricity back to the grid.  They can also cut your supply off and instruct you to disconnect/remove the solar system.  They can also fine you for lost revenue.  So be warned.

It becomes imperative when running a grid tied system that has not been officially approved by the PEA/MEA that you are aware of the day(s) when the meter reader is most likely to visit and take steps to ensure that your system does not export on that day.  I have set my small scale solar system to automatically not export on the day before the meter reader is due to visit, but last month I nearly got caught out as he arrived a couple of days earlier than I predicted.  Have a look at my post "Saved by a Cloud"

Hope that you are able to resolve your new installation problem.

11 minutes ago, Crossy said:

My GTI menu is in Chinese so never bother looking at it (inverter is a mainland China only version).

Of course you could always have a bit of fun and use your mobile phone translator App ????

1 hour ago, Crossy said:

Which Sofar app are you using?

 

I have SmartClient which logs every 5 minutes or so, but it definitely misses short duration dips. The only thing you see in the log is that the inverter status is "Wait" whilst it sorts itself out.

 

They hybrid has a local log at the inverter, but I don't think the pure GTI has.

 

On my PC it's SOLARMAN Smart Web.... and on the mobile it's SOLARMAN Smart App.

Looking at the downloaded data, it appears that the monitoring system interrogates the inverter about every 15 minutes.  That said, sometimes it takes a reading every 5 or 10 minutes.   There does not appear to be any means of adjusting the timing via the apps.  I suspect there may be something in the inverter setting that may allow the default timing to be changed, but as it is at present I'm OK with as it gives me a reasonable over view of the system's performance.

According to the user manual, my GTI does have an "Event List" which it says will show the real time event records and history.  The only trouble (for me that is) is that the inverter is mounted high up under the apex of the car port roof. 

This means standing on a ladder and fiddling with the silly button to the right of the display screen - long press - short press and stupid 0001 password every step of the way.  I'm not sure if interrogating the inverter log up there will give me any more info than I can derive from the app.

I think that I will do a few more tests like I did this morning, over the next week or so,  just to reassure myself that the anti islanding protection is working when the grid power is cut off.  Better safe than sorry!

40 minutes ago, Crossy said:

Yup, looks like it's behaving as expected ????

 

I'm just a little concerned as to why the system log didn't register the grid power out yesterday morning (03/03/22). 

It was definitely a grid power out - fan stopped, TV turned off, water pump stopped and CCTV recorder/cameras went off.  As can be seen from the system's monitoring facility output graph below the power output dropped to zero at 09:18 yesterday (03/03/22).

I can't put this down to the old age thing (hopefully).  So a complete mystery for the time being ????.

Again, thanks for your support ????

@Crossy ; @Muhendis ; @BritManToo

FYI.... I did the test that you suggested e.g. turning off the grid supply to the GTI.  In my case, the car port has a separate isolator which is between the house consumer unit and the power points, lights, CCTV cameras and GTI within the car port area.

I checked my system's monitoring facility app and at approx. 07:35 it was showing that the system was producing 0.13kW.  I also connected my Avometer to one of the power points in the car port area, and as expected it read approximately 220V (AC).   

I then shut off the isolator (between house and car port) and instantly the Avometer dropped to zero volts AC.  The system's monitoring app also showed that the output power from the GTI was zero as may be seen in the graph below.  The System's Alert facility was showing fault code "GridUVP" which denotes that the "electric grid is abnormal".

On turning the isolator back on, the Avometer returned to 220V (AC) and the GTI went into its normal start up mode.  After a minute or so the system monitoring app showed that the system was outputting power again, as seen in the graph below.

Initial conclusion.... The anti islanding protection appears to be working correctly and therefore I can only think that either my eyes were deceiving me yesterday when I though that I saw the disc spinning backward or in fact the grid power had come back on whilst I was outside the house and the GTI had re-established power output.

Obviously I'm going to monitor the situation to ensure that if the grid does go off my system does not feed anything back into the grid.

Once again, many thanks for your advice/assistance.

14 minutes ago, Muhendis said:

My scary idea was with reference to the output of the inverter "house supply is properly connected only to the house" should have read "house supply from the inverter, is properly connected only to the house".

 

My mind is currently full of visa extension thoughts today so some of the information got missed out.

Many thanks.... Yes, I can confirm 100% that the GTI is connected directly to the house supply.  I've just done a test as suggested - results in next post.

Good luck with your extension.

2 minutes ago, Muhendis said:

One scary idea has occurred to me.

Are you certain that your house supply is properly connected only to the house and not to the utility supply?

Could you please expand for the dumb like me as l automatically assume that my house is connected to the utility - PEA. Thanks

@Muhendis & @Crossy

Many thanks both for your suggestions. I'll test the inverter later this morning once the sun comes up.

FYI.... I've looked at the inverter's log on the app and it does show a big output power drop, but not down to zero. Bearing in mind the monitoring facility only collects data every 15 minutes, so not sure if it's a problem or not.

Will let you know what happens when l do the test you suggest.

Once again, many thanks.

My very basic understanding of anti islanding protection is that in the event that the grid power supply is interrupted, the GTI should almost instantaneously detect the grid ‘drop out’ and stop producing power.  This being a safety feature to prevent someone working on the grid getting a shock and also to stop the inverter from ‘running away’ and burning itself out.

We are fairly lucky that we don’t get many power interruption, but this morning at about 09:30 the power went off – no water pump; fan; TV etc.  This being the first time this has happened since I installed my small scale GTI system some 5 months ago.

After about 5 minutes or so I decided to pop outside to have a look at the meter to check that the anti islanding protection had kicked in.  Low and behold the disc was spinning backwards at a fair rate of knots (good sunshine this morning).  I went to the car port and turned on the light switch (LEDs) and they came on.  I noted that the indicator light on the GTI was on (green) but I could not see the LED display message because the GTI is mounted high up.

As I returned to the house it was evident that the power had come back on.  I later got the ladder out and checked the LED display which read ‘Normal’ plus the power output reading (kW) at the time.  There were on error messages displayed.

From the GTI's installation manual, I understand that on power up the GTI automatically does a series of safety checks and if the any of the internal protection devices (including the anti islanding feature) are not functioning it would go into a ‘Fault’ state and show the respective error code in the LED display.

Obviously I’m concerned by seeing the meter disc spinning backwards.  What I don’t know is at the time I went to the meter was the grid power back on or was the grid power still off and the GTI feeding power back into the grid.

My question being, is there any simple way to test the anti islanding protection is functioning correctly?

Any advice/guidance would be much appreciated.

FYI…. My GTI is a Sofar 2200TL-G3

1 hour ago, Crossy said:

Yeah, the earliest our meter chap ever comes is the 16th (always February), the latest the 19th. So we are set to not export on those days every month.

 

If he comes before the 19th I can manually let the brake off.

 

We are lucky that he usually rolls up about 7AM before any significant generation has started, but ...

 

As I explained in my original post, from my past 2 years billing history I could see that the meter reader normally came on the 15^th of each month, with a few exceptions when he/she came a day earlier or later, possible due to holidays that month.  The billing data also showed that he/she tended to visit between 10:00 and 10:30.  So, to ‘play safe’ I programmed the automatic system 'No Export' to stop exporting on the 14^th through to the 16^th of each month inclusive. 

But, for some unknown reason last month he came at 13:10 on a Sunday (13th) which I would have thought was a non-working day for the PEA (except emergencies), and when the system was in 'Export' mode.  That was a real heart stopper.

As my small scale system seems to be doing better than I originally anticipated .e.g. producing more than 7 units a day, I've decided to re-programme the automatic 'No Export' facility to activate a day earlier than previously set, so now it should activate for 4 days, from the 13th to the 16th each month inclusive.  If he visits during the 'No Export' period I can use your little app to switch back to normal export mode if required.

After the scare last month with the meter reader arriving much earlier than expected, I decided to keep my 'No Export' facility engaged for a few days extra after his visit just in case he reported seeing the disc spinning backwards and someone came around to check.  Thankfully, there does not appear to have been any follow-up.  As described in my original post, his visit timing seems to have coincided with a big cloud shading the panels just as he arrived.  But the experience has served as a good lesson for me not to take for granted that the meter reader will always come on a particular day, so in future I will arrange for the 'No Export' facility to kick in earlier than originally programed.

Despite the slight hiatus, my small scale system (4 x 415W panels) still managed to generate 173 units during February.  We also used 42 units from our local PEA, just to keep them happy.

It will be seen from the system monitoring graph above that on a several occasions the system was generating 8 plus units a day which, if this was a regular occurrence, could potentially put me into a negative meter reading situation.  Another lesson learnt.  I'll have to monitor the system more closely and possibly throttle back (activate the 'No Export' facility) to ensure that this does not happen.

55 minutes ago, Pink7 said:

Yes + custom, but Seller told she was was ok to use $300 or so as sales price in the sales documents. Did you had some protection for lightening before your inverters?

 

Pink

A word of caution.... Customs are not stupid.  They are well aware that bulky goods coming from China regularly have declarations with low cost invoices attached.  All they, or their agent - in this case DHL - will do is look up the seller on the internet and see the normal selling price and charge you the relevant import duty and VAT plus a possible fine for false declaration.

FYI... Based upon your original figure of $1,360 the import duty based upon CIF (Cost + Insurance + Transport)  @ 30% = $408.  They then charge VAT '7% based upon original cost + duty ($1,360 + $408) = $123.  Your Import charge may well be around $531 or 16,461 THB.

The above is based upon figures derived from https://www.simplyduty.com/import-calculator/

PS.... The major couriers (which includes DHL, Fedex etc) have a vested interest in ensuring the correct import duty and VAT are collected ---- they get a % back.

Good luck.

When I considered installing a small scale grid tied solar system, I was well aware that any excess electricity produced by the system could be fed back into the grid and thus make the old style meter spin backwards, something that is frowned upon by the PEA ,and could result in problems if noticed by the meter reader during his/her monthly visit. 

Hence, when I installed my system I incorporated a @Crossy ‘No Export’ device which allows me to automatically prevent the inverter from exporting excess power to the grid on the day that the meter reader is due to visit.  The device is connected to an app on my mobile so I can change the setting or shut the export off if required in an 'emergency'.

From my past 2 years billing history I could see that the meter reader normally came on the 15^th of each month, with a few exceptions when he/she came a day earlier or later, possible due to holidays that month.  So, to ‘play safe’ I programmed the automatic system to stop exporting on the 14^th through to the 16^th of each month inclusive.  I also put an alert into my phone calendar on the 13th to remind me each month of the pending meter reader’s visit.

So, last Sunday morning (13^th) my phone alerted me to the fact that the meter reader was due in the next few days.  No problem I thought, Sundays is a none working day for the PEA (except for emergencies) and the automatic ‘No Export’ facility will ‘kick in’ on Monday to prevent any excess from being exported and the meter spinning backwards prior to the meter reader’s visit.

How wrong could I be?  Totally!

FYI.  Sunday 13^th was a ‘reasonable power production day’ with a fair amount of sunshine and intermittent clouds.

My better half and I were at home when shortly after lunch I heard a motorbike stop outside the house.  From our living room I was unable to see who it might be, so I switched the TV over to our CCTV and to my horror the meter reader was just getting off his bike and approaching the pole, which has 4 meters on it (one being ours).

There was no time to get to open the app on my phone to turn the No Export device on, so instead I grabbed the air con control unit which was close to hand and turned that on in the hope that the start up power would stop the disc from spinning backwards (if it was in fact spinning backwards) ????????????.

From the CCTV, I watched the meter reader print off the bills and post them into ours, and our neighbour’s, letter boxes and then get on his bike and drive off back down our little cul-du-sac.

To say my heart stopped, would be an understatement.  I had no was of knowing if the meter disc was spinning backwards, and if it was, did he notice it?  I watched the CCTV playback several times to see if the was any indication that he may have noticed the meter spinning backwards, and if it was did he take a video on his phone, but there was nothing other than him punching the numbers into his handheld device and then printing out the bills.

I then looked at my system’s monitoring facility to see if there was any indication of the meter likely to have been spinning forwards or backwards.  The graph below shows the system output on Sunday 13^th.

FYI..... The bill showed the meter was read at 13:10 hrs.   The system's monitoring facility makes a record every 15 minutes.

Looking at the above graph, at 12.55 hrs the system was producing 1.4kW, which no doubt would have had the disc spinning backwards like a ‘Whirling Dervish’ considering our minimal usage at that time e.g. fridge/freezer + fan + LED TV.  Then just prior to the meter reader arriving, the power output dropped dramatically to a mere 0.35kW at 13:10 hrs, possibly due to a nice big cloud passing overhead at the time. ????????????

I’m not counting my ‘chickens’ quite yet, as it’s still possible that the meter reader may have spot something untoward and reported it when he was at the depot on Monday.  I'm also mindful that if someone looks at our meter readings since the system was installed (4 months ago) they may notice the considerable reduction in units used.  So, for the next week or so I’m leaving the system in the ‘No Export’ mode just in case someone from the PEA comes around to inspect.  FYI.  The panels and GTI are not visible from the roadway.

Lesson well learnt.  I’ve modified the automatic ‘No Export’ facility to now stop exporting during the week of the meter reader’s visit.

On the upside, my small scale grid tied system has been working very well, in fact far better than I had originally planned.  Preinstall, our bills were on average about 1,000 THB/month and I had anticipated a 75% reduction.  The current bill was for the grand sum of just 150 THB, so turning off the export facility for a week when the meter reader visits may be a desirable thing to prevent going into a negative reading at some time in the future when we get some really good sunshine during a month..