billd766

I know how you feel having spent 25 years in the RAF as an aircraft radio fitter. Luckily I was never sent to any active service post. The guys who taught us rifle drill and the annual range firing suggested that if it came to an actual war, the best thing I could do would be to give all my ammunition to my mates, then beat the Russians to death with my rifle. On a 25 yard rifle range, if I managed to hit the target it was more by luck than judgement.

I managed to get one of my cheap and nasty solar lights up and running last night, and it came on as it should do, but when it came on the side passage seemed to get darker. It must be a black hole light. Later my wife came in with 3 x 60 solar spot lamps, so this morning I started to set one up where I had the 10W? old one was. I will finish it after my afternoon nap when is is a bit cooler. Plus at 79 years old, climbing step ladders, my arthritic knee takes all the fun out of it. I can just about handle 3 steps, but at 4 steps, trying to drill a hole in a concrete beam, one handed, is no fun at all.

That is simply my opinion, as your comment is simply your opinion.

Is it true that no dentists work in the NHS? It seems that according to the Independent newspaper https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/nhs-freedom-of-information-government-data-covid-b2343780.html that there has been a drop in the number of dentists working for the NHS. They are down to 23,577 dentists performed NHS work in the 2022/23 financial year, down from 24,272 the previous year. Not quite the same figure as your claim that none will work for the NHS. There has been a drop in the number of dentists working in the NHS in England, new figures suggest. Data obtained by the British Dental Association (BDA) shows 23,577 dentists performed NHS work in the 2022/23 financial year, down from 24,272 the previous year. The last time these figures fell below 24,000 (apart from during the Covid pandemic) was in 2014/15, the data suggests. The most recent year’s findings were obtained by the BDA from the NHS Business Services Authority using Freedom of Information laws.

Only if you take the pretty route. Surely there were airports in Myanmar they could have diverted to which were closer than Bangkok?

Back in the 1950s in the UK, dentists used nitrous oxide as an aesthetic, It used to give me terrible daymares and I would be puking up for what seemed like hours.

Neither do the generals who commit coups, or politicians or unelected senators, HI So's, extremely rich people, police or civil servants. So why are you so concerned about Thaksin?

Why does it throw the whole justice system down the toilet? It is not as if he has killed anyone, dealt in drugs, consuming drugs other than medical drugs, drunk driving etc. If he is anything at all, he is a white collar criminal. Assuming that the ankle bracelet works all it means is that he would be out on parole as many other white collar criminals are. The cost of his medical treatment would then be borne from his own funds, and in fact if that did happen, then the cost to the country would be much less.

And IMO also.

Thank you for that useful link. I have bookmarked to read later.

Yet in reality there is still not one single general that has ever been punished for a military coup yet because Thaksin was deposed BY a military coup, you think he should be punished. A coup de tat is treason against the elected government. Just suppose for a moment that every general that held a coup was punished. Do you think that would be fair and legal, even if they were punished by the government that they attempted to overthrow?

I wanted it to cover an area of about 10 x 15 metres but I have given up on that idea now.

Which is fine, until your journey takes you off the main highways and you can't find a charging station within 50 km, and then it becomes a big issue.

Thank you for that information. I am/was trying to cut back on my electricity bill which is the reason for looking at solar power.

That should mean that it will consume 6 KWH per night and need at least a battery storage of 25,000 milliamps from the solar charger. I am screwing myself into an ever decreasing circle now.

But from my electrical training of many years ago to get the power consumption you need the voltage as well, There is a large difference between 115 volts used in the USA, 240 volts as used in the UK and in Thailand where the nominal voltage is 230 volts.. In reality, having looked at my clamp voltmeter it is currently 226 volts. During a brownout it can drop as low as 170 volts which buggers up the time calculations enormously. If you know the wattage of the item that you are using and you know the voltage, you can work out the length of time it takes to burn through 1KWH. That is the way I look at it and I would rather over engineer and have too much battery storage than not have enough and have the light go out earlier. 500 watts for a lamp is just a nominal figure. From what I have read so far, it seems that the number LEDs will give the correct brilliance. The more LEDs, the brighter the light.

Thank you. The solar battery storage is where I am stuck at the moment.

I left secondary modern school at 15 in 1959 with no qualifications. My first job was bottling milk in a dairy, My second was in an electric meter factory testing household meters. I got sacked from both of them. My third job was in an electric motor factor. riveting the labels on the motors. I resigned from that job and joined the RAF as a Boy Entrant trainee Air Wireless Mechanic and stayed in the RAF until I was 40. I came out and got a job as the entire workshop staff (there was only me) of a satellite ground tracking station and quit that after 7 months of boredom. I joined the Home office as a police radio engineer in Surrey and that lasted 3 years or so until I went to Vodafone installing and commissioning cell phone base stations in the UK. That lasted a year before I quit. Working 70 to 80 hours a week and 2 weekends in 4 is no fun. I went to Motorola UK doing the same job with better working conditions for 3 years before they lost the contract with Celnet. After that I stayed with Motorola for another 7 years doing similar jobs but offshore. I was UK based and tasked by Chicago. I quit them to become a self employed contractor working offshore for my last 19 years as a site manager, project manager, regional manger until I retired in 2009. I had a great life but I worked hard for it. Yes I am doing reasonably well, but not as well as I planned or hoped My biggest problems nowadays are the forex rates, my frozen state pension and the pillocks in the Conservative party who seem to be intent on ruining the UK. They have just managed to stop me from bringing my wife to the UK, not that either of us actually want to live there, by doubling the income requirement to GBP 38,xxx, which is more than 75% of the UK earn per year

Not everybody is fortunate in life to have a good free education followed by 3 to 5 years at university to gain a degree.

NOT stupid people, that would be you. Desperate people who have nowhere else to turn to survive. People, who through no fault of their own, who have never been taught what to do before they get to that stage of desperation.

And how many years in jail were given to the all generals involved in the military coup that illegally deposed him? In fact, how many generals have EVER been punished for making illegal coups and stealing the whole country?

By a court convened by an illegal coup. Thailand has far bigger problems than worrying and witch hunting Thaksin. Corruption within the police, military and civil service is costing Thailand multiple billions of baht every year. Pollution is costing billions more. Yet still they are chasing Thaksin.

Not correct at all. Yes they do go camping in tents. Most weekends groups of Thais on motorbikes and scooters go up to the Mae Wong national park, 20 km up the road from our house and camp overnight in their tents perfectly legally. Some even go another 40km to the end of the road at Chong Yen, and camp up there too.

Absolutely brilliant. It still makes me laugh after all these years and not a word spoken.

Thank you for the information. What I am trying to do is to convert the wattage of a LED spotlight into something that I can understand. I do understand that the more LEDs in a spotlight means that it is brighter. Then I need to work out that if the wattage is for example 500 watts and the Voltage is 230V, I can work out the power consumption per hour. What I then need to do is multiply that figure by 12 for the overnight usage and then try to size the solar panel from that. What I think I need to know is how many (I use the term LED as I don't know the correct term) I will need to power each spotlight for 12 hours plus 10 or 20%. The bigger the solar panel theoretically determines how much charge it will hold in milliamps and that I think is the figure that I am looking for. It is easy to get the correct size spotlight but the problem, at least for me, is sizing the solar panel.