thaisail

1 hour ago, fredob43 said:

Thank you for the information. Sorry to much of a bother. If you think anyone/I'm going to buy additives, then work out how much to put in then Guess/amount of fuel? it would take to fill the tank. Just not going to happen. I might save a 100bht on a full tank + time to set everything up. 

 

So much easier to just pull up tell the staff how much I want or fill the tank up and drive off. Life's to short to faff about trying to save a few pence.

 

If it was a hire car I would put the cheapest stuff in as long as it works. But having been recommended by Toyota to use Pre: in the 2.8lt that's what I will continue to do. Old adage if you cant afford to run a car you shouldn't buy one. 

As a diesel engineer, I can see the benefit of burning premium diesel once every 10 fill ups but using ordinary diesel in any diesel engine is just fine. Every 10,000 Km, Ford puts in a small bottle of injector cleaner in a full tank of what I thought was normal grade diesel. I found out later that in 2014, Thailand made all grades of diesel B7 including premium. I haven't had any issues burning normal grade of diesel so I think it is OK to use B7. However Premium also contains B7 so the difference is only the additive. In the long run, in my opinion if you put the injector cleaning chemical in your fuel tank once every 10,000 Km, you will be fine but keep in mind that Bio diesel made with palm oil in Europe is now banned mainly because of the rain forest deforestation. So the less you use of palm oil the better. Unfortunately the powers that be want you to support their palm oil industry and that is really sad for the human race. Going to B10 will be doing even more damage to the environment.

 

Remember that Premium diesel is a marketing issue, if they can squeeze some more money out of you at the PPT or Shell gas stations their stock price will go up! Remember that the dealer where you bought your car or truck will tell you to burn premium but my guess is that those same people that tell you that will buy ordinary diesel in their own cars. The best is to start looking at electric or hydrogen vehicles which is going to be imposed on everyone in the next 20 years anyway. Internal combustion engines have a very limited future just like the horse in the end of the 10th century!

11 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

Are you sure that that pressure is correct? 

1.5 bar is the pre-charge pressure that is shown in the photo of the pump in the original posting.

19 minutes ago, Susco said:

 

I assume you mean 100km. That would be a lot.

 

My 2010 Navara seems to have a better acceleration on B10, though that maybe just a false impression, and I don't see any decrease in mileage.

 

Navara is not really mileage friendly anyway, as I have since new used about 10 Liter per 100 km, but is faster than most other pickups

No I mean 3 liters per 1000 km or 0.3 liters per 100 km

On 10/23/2020 at 10:34 PM, guzzi850m2 said:

My wife called Ford ( WT 2013 2.2L) and asked, they said B10 okay.

 

If we want to use B20 we need to install an extra/special filter.

I will have to check again and ask about this special filter.

 

Currently running 1st tank-full of B10 and haven't noticed any differences in power.

We switched to B-10 on our 2011 Ford Ranger Wildtrak with a 2.5 liter engine. We saw no difference in power but we burn 3 liters more per 1000 km. We switched back to B7 now. As soon as we refill I will report if we got back our usual fuel economy of 8.5 liters per 100 km.

1 hour ago, sometimewoodworker said:

It is usually best to try using the pump as supplied before making any changes.

 

One reason is that without that step you have no idea if it would have functioned in your system without the change.

 

A 100% nitrogen fill is extremely unlikely to function in any different way from a 79% nitrogen fill.

 

it is perfectly possible (probable) that the pressure you have installed into the small tank is different from the design pressure. It is likely that a different pressure will cause the pump to function differently, that difference may be what you want, but equally it may not.

 

Your suggested design of an external pressure chamber is functional and has been used in other systems. The refilling with air should only need to be an annual maintenance task if it’s big enough.

I agree! I should have fitted the pump first before making any modifications. I will order an accurate pressure gauge on Lazada to check the pressure in the bladder on the accumulator and set them for 1.5 bar. But it won't matter too much when I get my 8 liter DIY pressure pressure chamber fitted. I also will order a pressure gauge to fit on the new pressure chamber which will let me know if the pressure switch is cutting in and out at the correct pressure. This pump is fitted with a check valve on the water inlet side which is slamming shut each time the pump stops. Perhaps this shock wave from  the check valve is causing the contacts in pressure switch right next to the check valve to chatter. If the switch burns up from all the arcing caused by the chattering, I will fit an external pressure switch to control the pump from a location about one meter from the pump.

18 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Sorry, I thought the pump was filling the tank. 

 

Are you sure it is the pump and not a leaky toilet or some-such?

 

You have two pump, why not try swapping them?

Both pumps are brand new. The accumulator is only 2 liters and the pump is 1 HP. It could be a bad bad pressure switch. I might try to swap them out and see what happens. I have decided in any case to build my own home made accumulator. I will take a 4 inch PVC pipe about one meter long and glue and round endcap on the top of the pipe. That pipe should hold about 8 liters of water. On the other end of the pipe, I will fit a reducer down to 1/2 inch and then fit a 1/2 inch Tee. On one side I will fit a 1/2 inch valve with a drain pipe and the other side a 1/2 inch valve and the connect to the pressure pipe on the discharge side of the pump. I will then fix with clamps to the concrete wall in a vertical position with the valves at the bottom and the round 4 inch end cap at the top. The idea is that the PVC pipe will have an air pocket that will compress the air when the pump is running and expand when the pressure drops. I know that eventually the pipe will get water logged as the compressed air will get absorbed by the water. But I will be able to hear when the pump starts to short cycle and when it does, I will close the water valve to the 1 meter tall accumulator and drain the water logged accumulator and then close the valve when the pipe is empty and then open the valve from the pump which will then start compressing the air again. I figure I can do this whole job for about 500 baht. 

14 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Install float switches

The float switches are already installed but they control the submersible pump that is in the 42 meter deep well. You can see the float switch in orange on top of the blue 1000 liter water tank. The small pump is the pump that provides water pressure to the house. That pump only turns on when someone opens a tap in the house. That is the pump that is short cycling when a tap is open. If there are three taps open the pump runs continuous and will stop when the three taps are closed.

4 hours ago, Crossy said:

We almost exclusively use PTT fuels, mainly because it's the closest station but additionally I get 12.5% cash-back when using my Citi Prestige Visa card.

 

Our old Ranger gets the regular B7 as it's not B10 qualified, the Mu-X gets B10 if the pump is free otherwise regular B7 (neither can use B20 or I'd be putting that in too). The jury is still out if there is any consumption / performance difference between the B7 and B10.

 

I've never really seen much point in the premium diesels as neither engine is exactly high-performance, I'm happy to clatter along at 100-110kph.

I have a 2011 Ford Ranger Wildtrac with a 2.5 liter engine. The Ford dealer in Phuket where we bought it told us not to use B10. But here in Chiang Khan, our only PTT does not have B7 except as premium so we switched to B10. So far we have had no problem except it looks like we have gone from 8.5 liters per 100 km to about 8.8 liters per 100 km. What year is your "old" Ford Ranger?

I bought two very cheap automatic water pressure pumps on Lazada and installed one on my 1000 liter water tank to the house water system. Before installing the pump, I assumed that the small accumulator was filled with air rather than nitrogen. So I took both to my local garage with the very nice nitrogen filling system with very high accuracy. I removed the schrader valves from both accumulators and emptied them completely thinking that it was air going out. The garage tried to fill them with the nice nitrogen filling system but perhaps because the accumulators were too small, the nice system didn't work. So the mechanic used the standard filling valve which had the first mark on the gauge at 2 bar so it was very inaccurate. So I brought them home and used my 12 volt air compressor with a gauge on it and filled them to 1.5 bar with air. In the end, it was a failure because the short cycling was there on start up. I did expect a bit of short cycling because the accumulator is only 2 liters. But now I want to add another large accumulator somewhere in the discharge line but I find the prices are very high. Even more than the pump which was only 930 baht each. 

 

I have considered making my own accumulator out of 4" Schedule 40 or Schedule 80 PVC pipe about one meter tall  with a schedule 80 endcap and just fit valves on it so that when it gets water logged, I can easily drain out the water. This should be about 8 liters capacity. I just don't know if I can find those kind of materials easily or cheaply.

Has any of you DIY guys found a cheap and easy solution so that I don't burn up my two new pumps?

 

It is only the beginning of January and after 14 years of living in Phuket, I moved to Chiang Khan! I never thought I would have to buy a heater in Thailand but now I finally realized that it gets cold up here!

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/1360w-220v-50hz-i631408056-s1208922876.html?spm=a2o4m.searchlist.list.71.666313732uwfLA&search=1

 

Does anyone recommend another space heater other than this one I found on Lazada this morning?

11° in Chiang Khan right now!

9 hours ago, walt1 said:

I also had to bring a non blood relative witness to the office and then later when the IO came to the house they also had to be there.

Can you tell me what province you were in when you needed to supply a witness? Did the IO come to your house before the marriage extension was issued? I have a witness who is an acquaintance of the Nai Ampur of my Ampur. He is Thai and no relation and he has been to my house but he has only lived here for one year.

I just made a one week trip to Phuket from Chiang Khan and while I was there, my employer asked me to meet his lawyer at immigration in Phuket Town. I already had a signed termination letter that was effective on March 1, 2021 so I wasn't too worried about it but when I got to immigration for the meeting, my company lawyer was making no progress with the immigration officer and I kept hearing the officer tell him in Thai that I had to deal with Loei immigration office for everything. I could see that things were not going well so I decided to take a chance and I showed my prior marriage visa from Savanahkept from 2016 in my old passport and the 4 other extensions over the last 3 years in my current passport. The first two were work visa with Thai wife but the last two were business visas that our incompetent company lawyer decided to change it to.  As soon as the immigration officer looked through the old passport and the new passport, he offered to provide me 60 day extension to visit my wife in Chiang Khan if I would go ahead and cancel my work permit that day and provide him three documents from my Thai wife and some photos.

 

1. Wife's ID card

2. Tambien Ban House book

3. Marriage Certificate

4. 1900 baht

5. One Photo and a bunch of forms to fill out

 

My wife in Chiang Khan took photos of these documents required with here smart phone and sent them to me on LINE. I then sent them to the photocopy lady downstairs at immigration to her LINE account. She then printed out the documents and took my photo with her smart phone and we returned to the immigration to show him what we had. He ran them over to the big boss who approved the extension as soon as we cancelled the work permit and showed him the document from the labor office.

 

The lawyer and I rushed over the labor office and got the forms and he filled out his part and sent me to my employer for the final signature. After lunch, we returned to the labor office and my work permit was cancelled. We then returned to immigration and submitted all the documents and forms and after 10 minutes I got my extension.Gary 60 day extension.pdf

 

I transferred 450,000 baht from my retirement account in the US to my Kasikorn savings account on December 14. So on February 12, I will have had that money in my account for 60 days. Since my extension is good until February 25, my plan was to go to the immigration office on Monday, February 15 and apply for the one year extension base on marriage and sufficient funds. Chiang Khan immigration has given me a letter in Thai language that lists all the required documents that must be submitted with my application for extension. 

 

From my wife's translation of attached document, I have typed the following:

 

1. Completed immigration forms

2. Two photos 4 cm x 6 cm

3.  Copy of every page of current passport with signature on each page

4.  Marriage Certificate Koror 2 with signature (issued by ampur less than 1 month before application for marriage extension)

5.  Marriage Certificate Koror 3 with signature

6.  Copy of ID card of wife

7.  Copy of Tambien Ban for wife

8.  Copy of Name Change certificated for wife

9.  Copy of ID card for daughter

10. Copy of Tambien Ban for daughter

11. Copy of Birth Certificate for daughter

12. Possibly document signed by embassy that there is no marriage prior to this marriage without a prior divorce document provided

13. TM30 completed by wife

14. Rental contract with landlord (Wife)?

15. Bank letter showing more than 400,000 baht deposited for minimum of 60 days

16. Bank book updated on day of application for extension

OR

17. Prove income of more than 40,000 baht per month for the entire year before application for extension

18. Tax letter from employer showing taxes paid on the minimum 40,000 baht of income

19. Bank statements from home country showing minimum 40,000 baht per month income for the entire year

 

20. Photos of family in front of the house residence

21. Map showing location of house and how to get there from local immigration office

21. Husband and wife must appear for marriage extension 

22. Bring all original documents and provide copies of each with signature

 

If I have forgotten something please remind me.

 

 

I just made a one week trip to Phuket from Chiang Khan and while I was there, my employer asked me to meet his lawyer at immigration in Phuket Town. I already had a signed termination letter that was effective on March 1, 2021 so I wasn't too worried about it but when I got to immigration for the meeting, my company lawyer was making no progress with the immigration officer and I kept hearing the officer tell him in Thai that I had to deal with Loei immigration office for everything. I could see that things were not going well so I decided to take a chance and I showed my prior marriage visa from Savanahkept from 2016 in my old passport and the 4 other extensions over the last 3 years in my current passport. The first two were work visa with Thai wife but the last two were business visas that our incompetent company lawyer decided to change it to.  As soon as the immigration officer looked through the old passport and the new passport, he offered to provide me 60 day extension to visit my wife in Chiang Khan if I would go ahead and cancel my work permit that day and provide him three documents from my Thai wife and some photos.

 

1. Wife's ID card

2. Tambien Ban House book

3. Marriage Certificate

4. 1900 baht

5. One Photo and a bunch of forms to fill out

 

My wife in Chiang Khan took photos of these documents required with here smart phone and sent them to me on LINE. I then sent them to the photocopy lady downstairs at immigration to her LINE account. She then printed out the documents and took my photo with her smart phone and we returned to the immigration to show him what we had. He ran them over to the big boss who approved the extension as soon as we cancelled the work permit and showed him the document from the labor office.

 

The lawyer and I rushed over the labor office and got the forms and he filled out his part and sent me to my employer for the final signature. After lunch, we returned to the labor office and my work permit was cancelled. We then returned to immigration and submitted all the documents and forms and after 10 minutes I got my extension.Gary 60 day extension.pdf

 

I transferred 450,000 baht from my retirement account in the US to my Kasikorn savings account on December 14. So on February 12, I will have had that money in my account for 60 days. Since my extension is good until February 25, my plan was to go to the immigration office on Monday, February 15 and apply for the one year extension base on marriage and sufficient funds. Chiang Khan immigration has given me a letter in Thai language that lists all the required documents that must be submitted with my application for extension. 

 

From my wife's translation of attached document, I have typed the following:

 

1. Completed immigration forms

2. Two photos 4 cm x 6 cm

3.  Copy of every page of current passport with signature on each page

4.  Marriage Certificate Koror 2 with signature (issued by ampur less than 1 month before application for marriage extension)

5.  Marriage Certificate Koror 3 with signature

6.  Copy of ID card of wife

7.  Copy of Tambien Ban for wife

8.  Copy of Name Change certificated for wife

9.  Copy of ID card for daughter

10. Copy of Tambien Ban for daughter

11. Copy of Birth Certificate for daughter

12. Possibly document signed by embassy that there is no marriage prior to this marriage without a prior divorce document provided

13. TM30 completed by wife

14. Rental contract with landlord (Wife)?

15. Bank letter showing more than 400,000 baht deposited for minimum of 60 days

16. Bank book updated on day of application for extension

OR

17. Prove income of more than 40,000 baht per month for the entire year before application for extension

18. Tax letter from employer showing taxes paid on the minimum 40,000 baht of income

19. Bank statements from home country showing minimum 40,000 baht per month income for the entire year

 

20. Photos of family in front of the house residence

21. Map showing location of house and how to get there from local immigration office

21. Husband and wife must appear for marriage extension 

22. Bring all original documents and provide copies of each with signature

 

If I have forgotten something please remind me.

 

 

Immigration list.pdf

I saw a recent list of jobs forbidden to foreigners. One of them was agriculture and fish farming. Well, I sometimes catch a fish in our pond for dinner so I guess that is allowed. However, I helped load some rice bags in my truck which have been stored for the future in our garage. I wanted to buy a net so that when it is time, I can run the net across the pond and collect the fish for market. Would this be risky for me to do? Should we hire some locals from the village for this job? I don't mind helping but don't want trouble with the labor department. I also have a few jobs to do like fitting some PVC pipes along the house to connect the new well to the storage tank and do other plumbing jobs to connect the new pump. I have also done all the PPR plastic pipe welding for the hot water system because our contractor was not familiar with this process and that was the only way I could get the pipe work completed. Everyone in the village saw me doing this job so I may be in trouble. 

 

I think that knowing that I might get deported, might make it easier for me to tell my Thai wife to hire a local to to the farm jobs since everyone in the village can see me from the road if I am working around the farm. Please let me know how serious this issue because I have been working as a marine engineer in Phuket for 3 years and just gave up my work permit after three years of employment. Now more or less retired in Chiang Khan on a marriage visa living in our new house just completed on the farm.

21 hours ago, Crossy said:

A quick and dirty response:-

 

500 units a month comes down to about 17 units a day, let's say 20 for round numbers. One "unit" is 1 kWh (kilowatt-hour).

 

Our panels make useful power for about 8 hours per day, but that's not all at full output of course.

 

Real life numbers (from our own installation) have the standard 300W-350W panels generating between 1 and 1.3 units each per day.

 

So for a simple calculation that's about 20 panels.

 

You'll need to store that energy for use at night. Let's assume you only use power at night so you need to store 20,000 Watt hours (Wh) of energy, that translates as about 420Ah of battery at 48V.

A LiFePO4 battery of that magnitude is going to cost you around 4.5 grand US$ (although prices are falling) and you'll need charge controllers and inverters too as well as your panels.

 

Still interested?

 

The above is the absolute minimum and takes no account of miserable dull days. For example we have 5.8kW of panels which can produce as much as 32kWh or as little as 6kWh in a day and of course, like buses and bananas, miserable days come in bunches.

 

If you actually have and retain a grid connection you can use that with a hybrid inverter to bridge over the dull days, otherwise you will need a lot more panels and batteries (say double) or a genset (use the genset to charge the batteries too so you don't have to run it all night).

 

It really depends what you want to do, go truly off-grid, mostly off-grid (but with a backup mains supply), or stay on-grid and offset your power consumption. The latter is what we do, the solar provides for 50-60% of our energy usage the rest coming from PEA as and when it's needed.

 

Do you intend going DIY (have a look at the Solar Car Port thread) or paying a solar contractor to do the job?

 

Thanks for your calculations. I have a steel roof with the perfect sun angle that is 16 meter long and 5 meters wide. The roof is already strong enough to handle the weight of the panels. How many panels could I realisictally fit on that roof? 

How many 1 kWh batteries are required for a house that has a single phase 15 (45) meter with consumption of around 500 units per month.

 

Can I assume that each unit is 1 kWh? I need to take into account the fact that there will only be 8 hours of electrical production per day from the solar panels.

 

I am just trying to find out what size solar plant I need to build to able to go off the grid.

 

I need to know how many solar panels to buy and how many batteries if I need to make it through the night.

39 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

Indeed, but that land doesn't belong to SRT, would have added zillions to the costs.

 

And it would have made the Red Extension to Thammarsat and beyond somewhat difficult.

I have booked a flight from Loei to DMK and 6 hours later from DMK to Phuket on Christmas Day. Flight arrives around 1pm and leaves at 6:20pm. Is there any way to use this new train to go Cha Chu Chak Market by train from Air Asia terminal and get back easily to catch my evening flight? I worry about getting stuck in a traffic jam on the road. 

31 minutes ago, gamb00ler said:

My wife and I just used an online Notary Public service based in Florida to complete a US real estate transaction (RE outside Florida).  The service was arranged by the escrow company.  My Thai wife also holds US citizenship and used her US passport to prove identity to the Notary Public via a video connection.  She could have just used her still valid US driver's license but couldn't find it quickly so we went with using the PP.  I used my US license.

 

We used a desktop computer with a webcam/microphone for the video connection.  Perhaps it could be accomplished with just a smartphone.  We had to hold our ID up to the camera for inspection.  The Notary said the entire video/audio would be recorded.

 

I don't know what the charge was for the service as the escrow company included it in their normal fee.

 

To use this service you will need:

- computing device with a camera and microphone

- solid internet connection

- US government issued ID or a currently valid passport (not sure if must be US issued)

- about 30 minutes for a RE transaction with several docs to be notarized

 

We never checked if there were any Thai laws applicable to this service.

 

My Thai wife was working in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands for 5 years from 2001 to 2005. She has a US social Securty card and even got her $1200 stimulus check. But she never applied for or received a green card and has only a Thai Passport and Thai ID card to identify herself. I am not sure that a Florida based notary will be able to identify her from her Thai Passport or Thai ID card. Do you think you could find out the name of the notary and the town in Florida? It will be free to call them and may avoid the long drive to Chiang Mai to go to the US consulate.

1 hour ago, EricTh said:

 

Which teacher have you decided to study with?

I don't know yet, Mod or Pear. But I was sent an assessment and I can't do any of it. So I am bit dejected right now!

1 hour ago, Formaleins said:

Interesting, probably best not to dig too deep or you might wake up dead or disappeared. From what I have read is that Bio Diesel does not have a high enough Cetane rating to burn cleanly, by no means an expert, so I could be completely wrong. any info appreciated and thanks for chipping in!

As far as I am concerned, all of this "Save the planet" stuff is a fools paradise, where do these people think the electric comes  from to recharge their cars? It is usually generated by coal/gas/oil fired power stations that then have to transmit the power over huge distances. who are they kidding, they are just passing off the guilt.

 

Think of all the land that could have produced food that has now been turned over to Bio Fuels...as you say, the burning down of forests to plant this cash crop.

 

Maybe time to look at cars that you stick a cow in the back and it runs on farts of methane!

I think that this environmental meltdown can be prevented everyone does like Crossy is doing and buy your own solar panels enough so that you can charge your electric car or Tesla pickup. Then put in a solar water heater like I am doing for my my house which doesn't use any electricity at all! We can all stop using pesticides on our crops and use natural methods to kill the weeds in our rice fields so that we stop poisoning ourselves. We stopped using Round Up to kill the weeds around our baby teak trees. Now we pay 2500 baht to some guys in the village to go out and cut with their weed whackers until someone finds a way to make one of these things electric so we don't have to listen to that awful noise. There are a million things we can do and sure they are expensive but guess what! You will save on your electric bill and <deleted> off the utility companies like the Californians have done. Bankrupting a utility company by not buying their product is a great idea. It might make them mad but it will save the human race, maybe.... guess I should have posted this rant in the alternative energy forum!

9 minutes ago, EricTh said:

@thaisail

 

Unlike most Thai teachers, this Kru Mod can teach well and speak good English. She does online group lessons.

 

http://learnthaiwithmod.com/online-group-lessons/

I am ready start after the new year!

 

14 minutes ago, Formaleins said:

Thanks for the info, someone told me a similar story a few weeks back that here in Thailand that regular "Diesel" (not advertised as Bio Diesel) just regular PTT etc. actually is partly made up from Bio Diesel, is that true? - What about something like Shell Power? If that is the case then it looks like I will be buying some additives to counteract the Eco policy! How much more can these idiots do to prematurely destroy engines in their insane quest to save the Earth? Hell, the Earth is doing just fine. When we eventually wipe ourselves out, it will probably take a fortnight for nature to reclaim the planet. If I don't use weedkiller or cut the grass, it is like a jungle here in 5 days!

I don't think you can buy any diesel fuel in Thailand that does not contain bio fuel. The main issue palm oil is that it will slowly separate from the mineral oil. This takes a long time but if you park your truck for 6 months you could get some issues. This is more of a concern in cold climates but it is getting pretty cold these days in Chiang Khan!

 

As for the pollution issue, there is really not much help by burning bio fuel because we are burning down the big trees in the rain forest to plant these oil palms and I really think we are doing more damage than good. We also need to investigate the source of this palm oil and you will find some wealthy land owners in Thailand that have some sort of sweetheart deal with PTT, Shell and the government agency that controls the fuel quality. It would be good to find out who holds the chanote for the land between the four lanes going from Krabi to the main highway to Bangkok. You may find out why we have made this switch to Bio diesel recently.