Sophon

2 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

 

Just called the call center 9am - 4pm is off-peak

I think you got that the wrong way round.

The 37 Baht seems to be the fee for arranging the compulsory insurance.

I believe 5 million is more than most banking apps will allow for QR payments or transfers.

From https://www.nordea.com/en/news/why-has-the-nok-weakened-so-much

Quote

Over the past year, the NOK has lost about 20% versus both the USD and the EUR. Until last autumn, the weakening was most pronounced against the USD. Since then, the NOK has also weakened sharply versus the EUR. We believe that the main reason for the past year’s NOK weakening is the clearly narrower interest rate differential against our main trading partners. Over the past year, other central banks have hiked interest rates more aggressively than Norges Bank. The NOK has gone from a high-yield currency to a low-yield currency. 

The NOK performance against the EUR since the autumn is illustrative. Very high inflation and better eco-nomic development than feared have led to a rate spike in the Euro area that was almost unthinkable a year ago. Since July, the ECB has raised its policy rate from -0.5% to 3.25%. Despite the rate hikes, also from Norges Bank, the favourable yield differential for the NOK has eroded. While Norway’s key policy rate was about two percent-age points higher than in Europe, the gap is now close to zero (chart A).  When the relative return on NOK positions is reduced in this way, the NOK becomes a less attractive investment currency. Other currencies that have weakened almost as much as the NOK against the EUR include the AUD and CAD (chart B).

11 hours ago, Pib said:

The wife and I did our longest trip so far in our Atto....a 158Km roundtrip from western Bangkok to a seaside seafood market named Don Hoi Lot in Samut Songkram province.  On the way back it started raining like cats and dogs on Rama II Road....lots of road construction as they are building the elevated portion of the highway....very poor drainage along the construction areas....bumper to bumper traffic in some locations...and at one time we drove thru approx 2Km of flooded highway...water depth about 100 to 150cm (twice that on the edges of the road that we stayed out of)...absolutely no way to pull of the road....had no problem at all driving thru the flooded area.  This was a good example of how sometimes the rain comes so fast and you are in a location where there is just no way to pull off the road and wait it out....you must continue on.  

<snipped>

I guess you meant 100-150mm? No way you could drive through a meter and a half of flooding.

2 hours ago, Crossy said:

 

Do you have any appliances where it actually makes a visible difference?

 

Anything electronic will likely be constant-power so nothing changes.

Resistive heating will be marginally better at 230V.

 

No, we just have the normal stuff water pump, shower heater, kitchen appliances (rice cooker, electric pot, induction cooker). Nothing where the difference in voltage (at this scale) will make a difference. I have chosen 230V just because it's closer to our PEA supply not for any other reason, and is just curious what others would have done.

Something I would like the forum members opinion on.

I live in Lamphun so in PEAs area, which I believe technically means that our supply should be 220V. In reality our supply varies between on the low end 222V and on the high end 233V, and generally it stays around 226V-228V. I can choose between 220V and 230V output in the inverter settings, and because the PEA supply is closer to 230V I have so far had the inverter set to 230V (which gives me 228V-229V at the house).

What would you do? Set the inverter to output 220V, which corresponds with the theoretical PEA supply voltage, or would you set it to 230V, which is closer to the actual voltage of our PEA supply?

It's now been 7 months since my system went online. The last 3-4 months the weather have been terrible, many days with whole day thick cloud cover and very little solar production. Some days I only managed to produce enough to cover the day time usage, with next to nothing going into the batteries.

This is the monthly production since going live:

So despite the bad weather over the last 4 months my system has covered 81.3% of our electricity usage. It's reasonable to project the weather to be much better over the next 5 months, so over the first year I expect my system to have produced 85-90% of our usage. So with limited potential further savings, upscaling my system would make absolutely no financial sense.

With that being said, I have just ordered 10 more 390w panels. My primary goal when deciding to install solar panels was never about saving money, but rather not having to rely on PEA for our electricity. With my current system there are too many days when we don't have enough production to cover our needs causing the batteries run out during the night/morning. If that coincides with the PEA having a power outage then I am back where I started. I also have to plan carefully when to charge the EV, to make sure I still have enough in the house battery to tide us over until I can recharge them the next day. And on cloudy days I have to rely on PEA when charging the EV.

Buying more battery storage makes even less financial sense than buying more solar panels, but despite that I will probably still add another 14kWh later this year. I haven't decided yet, but I am leaning in that direction.

Someone on another forum thinks it's Scaly breasted Munia:

The beak and size (small) matches. If that is correct, then they feed on small seeds (grass) and insects and need protein when young. 

Just now, Liverpool Lou said:

I apologise for my facetiousness, then, well done.   But I am curious, how do you know that "it did fine" after you released it, did it keep in touch?

No, I don't know if it were able to survive on it's own, when I said "it did fine" I was referring to it flying.

Sure, there is a good chance that it will have difficulty foraging and surviving in the wild, but if we manage to raise it until it can fly at least it will have a chance. The alternative is to let it die now.

4 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

As honourable as your intentions are, what's the point...are you going to teach it to fly also or will you just release it to the mercy of the 200 cats?

Birds don't really need to be tought how to fly, once they are big and strong enough they will fly away from the nest on their own. And we obviously wouldn't release it on the neighbors land.

This is a bird we had a few years ago (I had to take it out of the mouth of one of dogs). It did fine when we released it after about a month

The neighbor has about 200 cats (no I'm not exaggerating), so putting them back in the tree where they came from or anywhere close to there is unfortunately not an option.

The neighbors cats pulled down a Birds nest from a Longan tree. One of the baby birds died but two survived, so now we have the task of trying to keep them alive. Can anyone help us with identification of the birds species, and what kind of food they should be fed?

To my completely uninformed eyes their beaks look quite short and strong, perhaps signifying that they are seed eaters? They are willing to eat banana, but I\, not sure that is a suitable food for them.

This is what their nest looks like

Any help is much appreciated.

8 hours ago, connda said:

The primary IO down there is a bureaucrat but a fair guy.  How long did it take you to get seen?  Many people?

Quite busy, probably because of Monday being a holiday. Eight to ten people ahead of me, but most came two or three together, so probably four "groups" to be served before me. Almost everyone seemed to be missing some kind of document, so it took about an hour of waiting before I was seen.

Just a little heads-up.

I did my annual retirement today at the Immigration office in Lamphun. My extension is based on money in the bank, so like in previous years I supplied:

• Copies of relevant pages in passport
• Bank letter confirming todays balance
• One year account statement
• Copies of account passbook documenting transactions and balance since last years extension

They also wanted copy of TM47 and TM30, which I didn't volunteer but had with me.

What was different to previous years, was that they wanted TWO original TM7 forms and TWO sets of all the supporting bank documents (one original and one copy), so i.e. they treated my application for a retirement extension like they normally do with an application for a marriage extension. There was no hint of this being a tactic to push me towards using an agent, the officer was friendly and helpful enough. They just seemed overly cautious about what documentation they needed.

As we all know, the reason for two sets of document for a marriage extension is that one set is sent off to the regional Immigration head office for approval (in this case Chiang Mai). I did get my extension on the spot today, so it obviously didn't have to be sent off to be approved in Chiang Mai, but I have a sneaky suspicion that maybe Chiang Mai Immigration are looking over the shoulder of the provincial Immigration offices under their command, and have demanded copies of all long term extensions. Perhaps as a consequence of the scandals earlier this year concerning Chinese nationals bribing their way to extensions they didn't qualify for.

I expect business to be back to normal by the time I have to do my next extension, but for now it might be a good idea if you prepare to be asked for dokumentation beyond what is normally asked for when doing your retirement extension.

11 hours ago, Red Phoenix said:

The Imm Officer there did not tell her the  reason for the non-approval, but provided her with a retro-active '7 days to leave the country' permission. 

As that does not provide her with sufficient time to organize for that situation which arose completely unexpectedy, she will leave Thailand in 4 days as required

Even if the seven days had been enough time for her to organize matters, she would still have had to leave the country within the seven days. The "seven days to leave" is just what it says, no further extension is possible after getting such a stamp. Off course, after leaving and reentering she can start over again, the "seven days to leave" stamp has no negative connotations for future extensions.

2 hours ago, Stanvac said:

Will need a return anyway as I’m planning to leave on nov 23 and return feb 21 but was gonna purchase closer to return but can get now no problem. Just not sure if 3 k is enough. Obviously will have more when going. Not sure if I should wait a week or 2 to have more on bank statement.  Yes a little surprised to be pulled at Phuket airport. Female IO had one look. Seen I had been out country for 2 nights and told supervisor. Yes could have done land entry but was easy to jump on a flight. There was 6-7 people pulled with me. I did have return flight and with all my other documents they let me through.

If you also arrive in Thailand on November 23rd and leave on February 21st, you will be in Thailand for 91 days. So a single Non O will leave you one day short.

I haven't used the PEA Volta app yet, but these are the payment option for topping up the balance on your account:

After selecting payment method you then get these options for top up amount:

2 hours ago, Pib said:

For any of you that has used "QR/Promptpay" method that might be offered by an app/charging station, does the QR payment process occur before or after charging?   And if occurring before do you have to pay a "specific" amount before the actual charging even begins like saying I want to make payment for Bt100 worth of charge?   

 

I use QR/Promptpay payments several times a month and in all those cases you are paying a specific/set amount "before you get any product/service you are paying for."   Like hey, here's Bt100 for the vegetables I'm buying from you.   But with a charging station I looking for details on how the QR payment process works...done before the charging begins or after the charging is completed.

 

With a charging session where you vehicle might rack-up a charge of Bt160.23 before the charger cuts off are we saying the app will then start the process of you authorizing a QR payment of Bt160.23 "after" you have got all of that fresh electricity transferred into your EV battery?   I wouldn't think the app would be that trusting of the person following thru with payment or the QR payment would clear/might reject.   So, I'm guessing any QR payment method is completed "before" the charging process will even begin?

 

Sorry to harp on the specific verification/payment process details used by the different charging apps but like I mentioned before I don't even want to register for a certain app by giving them a bunch of personal info during the registration process and then after being registered you find out the payment process prevents you from easily or even using the app at all unless you are a Thai citizen.   You then wish you had never registered especially if it's one of those registrations you can not delete.

 

 

With Elexa you pay after the charging is finished so you know the exact amount you are paying .I don't know what they will do if you fail to pay, the first time I almost drove away without paying because I assumed they would just debit the card I had registered with them. You can pay via QR, bank transfer or with a credit/debit card you have saved in the app.

10 hours ago, Pib said:

Have you been able to set up a payment option within the EV Pluz app?  If so, what?   Thai credit/debit card, foreign credit/debit card?  

I used my Bangkok Bank MasterCard debit card. When I signed up for Elexa, the app didn't accept that card so I used my foreign MJC debit card, but with Elexa you don't need to use a card for payment, as they also have the option of QR code payment and bank transfer. 

50 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

 

re the above: I am now in the process of transferring my account to this broker https://www.aoc-insurancebroker.com/

 

Based in France but (at least so far) easy to communicate with via WhatsApp and email. They specialize in expat policies and have an ongoing contractual relationship with April (as well as other providers).

 

The person I have been dealing with is [email protected]

 

I can't hope to get the level of service I previously had with H+Jenny at AA but I am hopeful to get ate least annual reminders of premiums and help with claims as needed. Will be (hopefully) a while before I can report on the latter though.

If you don't mind me asking, why are you moving your account to a new broker? Did something happen so that AA is no longer working as a broker for April policies, if so I haven't heard anything about that yet?

2 hours ago, Modern Coding said:

Business owner here.

So, fresh graduates are to be paid a monthly target salary of 25k.

People with no degree would be at a daily wage of 0.04k, which means a monthly wage of 12k on a 30-day monthly basis as per law.

Well, I would be better off waiting for kids to finish their school, then give them a proper training, instead of hiring fresh graduates, to whom proper training is also needed!

0.04k is 40 Baht.