paul1970

I have a Toyota and have used both Toyota dealerships in Pattaya, the difference is night and day between the two.

The one on the way out of Pattaya on the West side of Sukhumvit does all my servicing now, the one on thw way in to Pattaya on teh East side of Sukhumvit where terrible to deal with and I will never return to them.

BTW I also have a Ford and bought a brand new car from them which was delivered with a paint chip on the door and despite there big claims of being able to get any part or item in 24 hours, I have been waiting 3 months for them to get the right colour paine delivered. aaaaargh.

Doeas anyone know of a good quality dry cleaner in Pattaya ?

I have an important congress in Japan next week and I just dug out my 1500 quid suit from the wardrobe and it's a bit musty, dreading giving it to a thai dry cleaner, maybe be a better idea to get it dry cleaned when I get to Japan ? unless someone can recommend one in Pattaya ?

TIA

Tried a newish Indian restaurant on Soi Nernplubwaan called My Home Nan & Curry, this is a small open fronted shop opposite the muslim school on Soi Nernplubwaan.

Oh my god...he lives...I thought you (OP) dropped off the face of the earth as I never see you adding to this massive thread you started

If you look back a few posts, you will see that I already reviewed this place. I agreed with your opinion that the food is very good and inexpensive and best ordered for take-away or delivery.

Went looking for this place today, could not find it. Maybe closed for Songkran?

Any more detail on the location?

Many thanks

I ordered from them yesterday and they are open...asked owner if he'll close for Songkran and he said only on Monday the 19th.

It is easy to miss as there is no sign and just on open-air looking resto with a few tables inside. I may have neglected to mention that they are only open for dinner from 4 p.m. onwards. Again, it's located on the the corner of soi 8/1 Nernplubwan - opposite the police-office that's located just before the Muslim school/temple (if coming from Sukhumvit). Good luck finding it as the food is really good (have had the chicken tikka masala twice and the chicken korma...both excellent).

Just an update on My Home Nan & Curry, the place will be closing on the 20th of this month and relocating to new premises and supposed to be reopening on the 1st of Dec.

He is moving further up Nernplubwaan where the 7/11 and family mart are opposite each other on the offset crossroads, he said he would be a little way into the soi on the family mart side.

Pizza Pizza definately the best in Thailand

+1 but I never get a delivery but eat freshly cooked in the shop. Yumee

How about after sales service? How does mazda compare to the ford?

Neither of these brands have a particuarly large dealer network, but there's usually at least one dealership in every major district, even upcountry. Ford offer a 24-hour (or it's free) parts delivery guarantee for most common part groups, which no other brand yet does. Service departments are not as nice as a typical Toyota, Honda or even Mistubishi dealership, but training and equipment levels on on par. Ford also offer their 5-5-5 program which is only rivalled by Mistubishi, and upmarket brands like BMW and Porsche in TH.

I'm looking at getting my missus a Fiesta now that she has to do the school run and the 5-5-5 program looks a good deal but looking at their website it doesn't appear to apply to the Fiesta which is a shame if it doesn't. Only seems to apply to Everest, Escape and Focus

Looks like the place has closed down, was going to go there Saturday as hadn't been in a while and the place was in total darkness. Ended up in the Indian near Subway on Beach Road Shere Punjab I think it's called. 1200 baht for 2 people for some very bland food, wont be going there again.

I've been looking at schools for my 2.5 year old daughter and from what the missus has seen so far Maryvit seems to be the favoured one.

She also looked at Aksorn school on Thepprasit but apparently from what she saw it is a very run down school, so will swerve that one.

Hopefully someone will have more info on Maryvit, fees seem reasonable at least for kindergarten, 7K'ish baht for the first month and 5K'ish each month after.

I just had a laptop shipped from the US to Thailand by FedEx and all I had to pay was the 7% VAT, US$1300 laptop, the company sent it with a value of $300. All I had to pay was 777 baht for VAT

You must make sure the shipper uses the correct HS code, either of 8471.30.00.00 or 8471.30.20.00 works for laptops and both codes are currently exempt of customs tax. Mine was actually shipped under the wrong code of 8471.30.10 which is for PDA's and the like, but it still came through with no problems.

current tarrifs can be checked on the http://igtf.customs..../main_frame.jsp website. Laptops have a ceiling rate of 40% but are currently exempt.

Nice to know.

What type of address was it shipped to? Thai residential, business, APO, etc.?

Shipped to Thai residential address with a farang name.

I just had a laptop shipped from the US to Thailand by FedEx and all I had to pay was the 7% VAT, US$1300 laptop, the company sent it with a value of $300. All I had to pay was 777 baht for VAT

You must make sure the shipper uses the correct HS code, either of 8471.30.00.00 or 8471.30.20.00 works for laptops and both codes are currently exempt of customs tax. Mine was actually shipped under the wrong code of 8471.30.10 which is for PDA's and the like, but it still came through with no problems.

current tarrifs can be checked on the http://igtf.customs.go.th/igtf/en/main_frame.jsp website. Laptops have a ceiling rate of 40% but are currently exempt.

I currently have 2 ADSL lines coming into my office, 8Mb True and 6Mb TOT.

The True line I use on my laptop and the TOT line on my desktop. I mainly use my laptop for work and the desktop for P2P and if my laptop connection dies I physically swap over the LAN cables so that the TOT line becomes mu backup.

What I wan't to do is install a dual WAN router so that the lines do load balancing and also automatic fail over. I believe some routers can also send an email in the event of a line becoming disconnected (that would be neat).

Does anyone on here have any experience of using a dual WAN router and how was your experience ? What model would you suggest and where to find ?

I was trying to find a Syswan Duolinks SW24 as they seem to be getting good reviews but haven't been able to source any in Thailand. The other make I was looking at is Draytek but their products are way overpriced in Thailand compared to the prices they go for in the US or UK.

The ones I have been able to locate is the D-link LB604 LB604 at InvadeIT and also the TP link RT488T Quad Wan router at almost 10k baht but neither of these models seem to have good reviews.

The other question is how easy are dual wan routers to use, do you need to be a network wizard to get them to work ?

I'm not impressed by the amount of night driving visibility with the standard Tungsten headlamps on my Fortuner and was thinking of installing a HID upgrade.

The question is where would I find a good shop that supplies a quality kit (not after a cheapo Chinese no name thingy). I've never really bought any car accessories here in Thailand so I don't now if there is a big chain (similar to Halford's in the UK) or if you have to go trudging through these small mom and pop type places to try and find what your looking for, so any suggestions are welcome.

While I'm at it does anyone know if Rain-X or similar is available in Thailand ?

If you want to check the power output of a microwave oven it can be quite easily done as long as you have a fairly accurate thermometer and a timer. To check do the following;

1. Pour exactly 1000 milliliters (mL) of cool tap water into a microwave-safe container. Using the thermometer, stir the water for about 10 seconds, then measure and record the temperature.

2 Place the container on the center of the oven cooking shelf. DO NOT leave the thermometer in the container. The cooking shelf (tray) or turntable must be in place

3 Heat the water for 62 seconds at full power. Use an accurate digital timer or stop watch if the oven has a mechanical timer.

4 After the heating time is completed, immediately remove the container, stir the water for about 10 seconds, re-measure and record the temperature of the heated water.

5 Subtract the starting water temperature (step 1) from the ending water temperature (step 4) to obtain the temperature rise.

6 To determine the output power in watts, multiply the total temperature rise by a factor of 70.

EG

Starting temperature (T1) = 16.0 deg C<li>Ending temperature (T2) = 33.0 deg C<li>Subtract T1 from T2: 33.0 - 16.0 = 17 (temperature rise)<li>Multiply temperature rise by 70: 17 x 70 = 1190 watts

...electrical supplies can be bought from the Thai branch of RS...

RS Thailand

Wow. Awesome resource! Does anyone know if they have a retail location?

As far as I could find on their website the only address they list looks like an office/HQ location (8th floor of some tower)

They are a mail order only company, they are pretty much a world wide company that deal in electronic/electrical and mechanical components headquartered in the UK. I've dealt with them for around 20 years and they offer a great service.

I haven't had any dealing with their Thai branch yet but I'm confident that the standard will be good if my dealing with them in the UK, Singapore and Australia are anything to go by.

Been a few times to the Orange Indian now and it's definitely a good find, easily the best Indian food in Pattaya and with reasonable prices too.

Only wish they where on Door2Door or another of the delivery services as trying to park nearby is virtually impossible (in a car at least).

I'm absolutely addicted to their lamb samosas.

Homeworks on Suk road ??

maybe true value, they carry a heap of stuff.

I'll give Homeworks a go tomorrow, was in True Value last week, (got myself a nice Belkin 8 way surge protector with Ethernet and phone sockets, don't tell LY ) as I read on another forum that some guy was unlucky enough to have a lightning strike that damages his computers, can't remember who it was know, anyway I don't remember seeing them there but I will look again.

Anyone know where it's possible to get lamps for the inside of ovens and cooker hoods etc ? preferably in Pattaya or Bangkok.

Have two lamps need replacing but checked Boonthavon, Homepro and Amorn in Pattaya but no luck.

Power output is quite sensitive to the AC input - there is no regulation. A 10% drop in line voltage is likely to reduce microwave power output by more than 20%

Magnetrons, the device that creates the microwaves, like other vacuum tubes, can weaken with age and use. An oven that sees daily use may indeed weaken over the course of several years.

My microwave suffered a drop in power over a period of time until one day it wouldn't heat a thing but before chucking it out I decided to see if it was something other than a dead magnetron. What I found was a dry joint that had developed over some time on the relay contact that controlled power to the magnetron. Resoldering fixed it, but you would need someone who knows microwave oven servicing to check it. If you are of a non-technical nature I wouldn't suggest to anyone to open a microwave unless they're 100% confident of what they are doing as there is around 5 to 7 Kv around the magnetron and there is a capacitor inside charged to lethal voltages.

If in any doubt get a new microwave.

Just seen on the link below that pre Feb 2010 Fortuners in India are being given free brake upgrades due to a lot of complaints regarding poor braking performance, surely Toyota should be doing this to all Fortuners and not just in India ?

http://www.velocitimag.com/2010/04/toyota-fortuner-brakes-problems.html

UK electrical supplies can be bought from the Thai branch of RS, if they are anything like their UK parent then they will have a very reliable service. Their website is in THai but if you use Google Chrome it will translate for you or get a thai person to do it.

RS Thailand

UK style sockets

Sockets page

Yes it's an RCBO, Schneider (Square D) QO-MGBX Main Circuit Breaker with Residual Current Protection, model no QO263MBGX30 as shown in the Schneider catologue linked to below

Schneider catologue PDF

Crossy, when I used to do electrical work (many years ago now) I was taught that an earth rod shouldn't be used with the PME system as that there should only be one connection to earth and that if you did install an earth rod that you would be providing an earthing point for the whole grid that could possibly become dangerous during a grid fault or nearby lightning strike. While in Thailand I have seen advice on installing Earth rods on PME systems, what is your take on this ?

I found the fault today, measured continuity between the Neutral and Earth bars in the consumer unit and it was 0.5 ohms.

First I disconnected all the neutral wires from the neutral bar one at a time while measuring the continuity between the neutral earth bars to see when the continuity between the two went away. It only went away with all the neutrals removed.

So next I reconnected all the neutrals and did the same step with the connections to the earth bar, disconnecting one of them made the reading jump to a few megs. What had happened is that whoever had wired this house before he had decided to wire the neutral from the kitchen to the earthing bar in the consumer unit.

Moving the kitchen neutral to the neutral bar stopped the tripping and everything now works but it now only leaves 2 connections to the earth bar, one to a water heater and another that goes god knows where but I really don't think it's to an earth rod despite there being some 3 pin sockets in the house with the earth connected. Will have to try and see if I can follow that one up in the attic to see where it leads.

There is definitely no MEN link and I'm unsure if I should put one in, called PEA to try and find out what kind of earthing system they had in the part of Pattaya where the house is and I may have well been talking martian to them.

^ Thanks for the reply, great link (no pun intended) too, Thanks.

The only test gear I have is a DVM though I could possibly get my hands on other pieces of kit here in Thailand.

I don't see a MEN link installed in the consumer unit but to make matters worse there are 3 white wires attached to the earth bar and all the neutrals on the neutral bar are all white (except for one green, even have 2 greens connected to the live from one of the MCB's, so whoever wired this house did so with no regard to any colour codes). Possible the link has been done in the attic, I'll disconnect the wires from the earthing bar and make a continuity check between each one to the neutral bar to see if any are acting as the MEN link.

I've had a look around the house for an earth rod, but there doesn't seem to be one unless they buried it somwhere (normally I would assume as they've utilized the earthing bar that they would wire it to a ground spike but with this being Thailand, god knows.) I remember once when I lived in a BKK condo that I got a tingle every time I touched the oven only to find that the oven was "earthed" by someone screwing the earth connection into the plaster on the wall.

i tested the polarity with a DVM by measuring the voltage from L to E and N to E and got 230 and about 1V respectively.

I think I'll try to wire a single test load to the RCD to check it in isolation from the rest of the house wiring.

Due to having a small child in the house I decided to have a quick check of my rented house's electrics. When I checked the consumer unit I found that it only had a main switch and no RCD (which I didn't like the thought off considering we have 2 electric showers and 2 water heaters).

Asked the landlord about putting in a RCD and of course the answer was "you hab safety cutout already" while pointing at the 8 MCB's, despite all manner of explanations he wasn't having it.

So I decided to bite the bullet and found the correct RCD for the Square D consumer unit for 2900 baht at Homepro and went to fit it myself.

As soon as i replaced the main switch with the RCD the RCD started tripping, first I thought it may be the AC's but with the MCB's for them all turned off the RCD would still trip. Eventually had everything turned off except the lights and still it was tripping but not instantaneously but maybe after a few minutes.

Then a strange thing happened where the RCD tripped with ALL the MCB's switched off, by now it was getting dark so the main switch has gone back in until tomorrow.

So I'm thinking what the problem could be, now I know an RCD trips by detecting an imbalance in the current between the live and neutral but with all the MCB's off there should be zero current supplied so zero current coming back along the neutral, so I'm scratching my head a bit know as to where the problem could be ?

Any advice appreciated.

I think they get the food from the shop across the road. Was there with a friend not long ago. He had the F&C and was not impressed.

Otherwise a nice enough bar, plenty of talent. Only downside is they allow smoking inside and sometimes it gets really thick with smoke!

Was called by a few mates to go for breakfast in the Pussycat Bar yesterday, didn't go with high hopes but I must say pleasantly surprised.

Only had the 99 baht brekkie, now normally when I see 99 baht breakfast being advertised I run a mile as normally you know it will be crap but this was a very good value for money good quality breakfast.

2 eggs sausage bacon beans (not crappy thai sweet beans) toast and fried bread made with good bread and not 7/11 rubbish, all good quality ingredients.

The food is made on the premises as I met the farang cook yesterday and complemented him on the good quality ingredients for the price.

Not an ideal eating environment but I will definitely go back at least for breakfast and hopefully the rest of the menu items are to the same quality.

can u pls tell me what machine u bought and did u get any extras humidifer, and are u happy with it?

It's the first machine I've used, just recently diagnosed but it's a Resmed S9 and I purchased a humidifier to go with it (H5i). You can see the prices below in USD from CPAP.com. The machine is a lot user to get along with compared to what they tested me in the hospital with. The one I used in the hospital I found I was fighting the machine all the time as it was a CPAP machine, the one I bought is an APAP with whats called easybreathe so it detects when you exhale and lowers the pressure so youre not fighting against the machine.

136005Resmed S9 AutoSet™ CPAP Machine 853.00

136900Resmed S9™ Series Humidaire H5i™ Heated Humidifier with Climate Control 244.00

136995Resmed ClimateLine Tubing for S9 and H5i Climate Control System 51.00

161602Resmed Mirage SoftGel™ Nasal CPAP Mask with Headgear - Large 127.00