Does anybody know an Electric Gate Resaler and Fitter in Khon Kaen City area?

[kannot]

14 hours ago, gdhm said:

 

 

Thanks again fredob43 and especially for the photo of the inside of the box.

 

We have been told to use MOS2 Oil for rack pinion and wheels. No ideas which is better or longer lasting between use.

 

The ONLY alternative supplier and fitter I have found in Khon Kaen sells Roger Gate Motors only (Italian Brand). If anybody has any knowledge or experience with that Brand any information would be very much appreciated.

 

 

gawd , that wirings a  right mess, wouldnt be a Thai installation "expert"  would  it? dont see an earth?

Edited February 23, 2019 by kannot

[kannot]

On 2/22/2019 at 9:01 AM, gdhm said:

never thought of that, and am surprised companies who make gates and fit gate motors (as mine who made the gate and sold and fitted our two motors) have not come up with this great (and logical) idea to avoid weather and debris issues

a  correctly designed drainage  system and concrete surround  negate  all this  but has to be done before doing your gate. All my water runs into my pond down carefully designed and sloped  concrete  gulleys, also helps to not have leaf dropping trees .

[kannot]

The  only slight problem I had was  locally finding a  decent sized  earth wire, could  only get 6mm I think, the NYY cable was two core and 10mm  but this does  feed a  few  other things as  well not  just the gates, it  also feeds  the small house down by the water which has an electric  water pump + lighting and  a outlet socket inside.I also encased it in a large stainless   box the local metalwork knocked up for me just to keep the sun/weather off it, its  open at the back so doesnt get too hot and is  out of the sun by 10am anyway.

I  bought TWO motors for the gate, I usually buy two of everything here as  when it  breaks ( not  if) I can easily swap  out parts and at 9900 baht each it saves a  lot of  mucking around trying to find parts, I also bought a  spare micro-switch control as reckon this  will expire  first and 4  remotes direct from China. The brand was  "Foresee" been in for about 2-3  years  now.

Back up service from them is useless ie asking for parts  supplier or in fact any interaction at all but the thing works fine, also has the sensors to stop/reopen incase anyone cloese it whislt their car is  in the path of the closing gate etc

[fredob43]

11 hours ago, kannot said:

Motor a  foot  off the  floor ........... but your electrical  box isnt

My electric box is 10" off the ground with the first lot of electrics being a foot. If you cant see the snaps clearly, or you don't know, why put in stupid posts? My post was referring to fitting the Motor off the ground because of the heavy rain we can get here. It's called LOGIC. That some on TVF don't seem to have.

 

N/B we do get floods here so why take chances, just put it higher in the first place and you'll be fine. I see that you haven't, that's up to you.

Edited February 24, 2019 by fredob43

[fredob43]

11 hours ago, kannot said:

gawd , that wirings a  right mess, wouldnt be a Thai installation "expert"  would  it? dont see an earth?

Yes doesn't look very good Must admit, but when I had it fitted I told the fitter to leave me lots of extra wire just in case I ever wanted to change anything. That's what he has done. It is earthed but as it comes out of the rear of box you cant see it.

[gdhm]

Fitter came to us privately on his own time today as he is very busy (he said two other fitters have left the company he works for ). To be honest he failed to come yesterday having promised to do so, because he was miffed I would not accept his word that the motor jamming is due to it being underpowered (sole reason he considers reason for the jamming issues).

 

He checked out and fixed locking issue.  Now the gate can be locked.  I do not fully understand mechanics/electronics issue, but he advised my wife that the fitter with him last time had set the lock to operate when gate fully open instead of when fully closed. Now it locks when fully closed but when fully open it bleeps 4 times if we try to lock it to tell us Gate is not closed (which makes sense to me).

 

He advised the LED flashing light on the wall is faulty and that's why its not working any longer and that he would come back tomorrow. I advised that we do not consider the light an important issue so no need.

 

He also checked out our second bleeper (taken from our old Focus 548) which we had his company fit into the light box (because our bleeper in our Focus 428 is MUCH quieter than the bleeper our old Focus 548 used. So much so, we could not hear bleeps at night when locking gate with remote from house unless I opened window. (I like to check locked from bedroom just before I go to bed, so hearing Locked gate Bleep is important to me). That is now working (maybe fitter with him did not know about the second bleeper and disconnected and did not reconnect its cable wires to the Motor's circuit board).

 

The fitter today adjusted the rack again, whilst trying to find why gate would not lock when closed so I am now praying he has not made the gate more sensitive to jamming again when it fully closes, as it has worked for the last 9 days since it last jammed (after we were advised to always open gate to at least half each time).

 

The fitter does tend to assume the most likely reasons for issues are the only reason IMHO. For example my wife's remote did not respond today at first when he used it (not first time in last few weeks) He said it needs new battery. However when I looked at the remote a few weeks ago the main button sticks and does not always move up fully after being pressed. I have tried to sort that out and it is better, but I think the switch on the remote control's printed circuit board is failing).

I checked battery at that time and it was 11.24V (12V when new).  My multimeter cannot check batteries under load so I cannot tell if Volts drop dramatically when remote is operated so to be fair it MAY be battery. My wife uses here Remote many times a day and it is 3½ years old.  She has worn out 3 remotes to my zero in last 10 years but use mine much less). so I'm leaning towards remote control failure being the reason (not battery) - we shall see as my wife has just gone out to buy a new battery.  

 

Hopefully (more than confidently) I will now have nothing to report for many months/years.

 

Edited February 24, 2019 by gdhm

[kannot]

7 hours ago, fredob43 said:

My electric box is 10" off the ground with the first lot of electrics being a foot. If you cant see the snaps clearly, or you don't know, why put in stupid posts? My post was referring to fitting the Motor off the ground because of the heavy rain we can get here. It's called LOGIC. That some on TVF don't seem to have.

 

N/B we do get floods here so why take chances, just put it higher in the first place and you'll be fine. I see that you haven't, that's up to you.

Maybe my snaps arent clear enough for you, why put in stupid answers, I clearly said I made sure any rainwater would NEVER be an issue by sloping the correct way EVERYTHING and it  all runs into a  lake. Logic  dictates  not to buy land on flat ground.

Golly  really you get floods............who would  have known in a tropical country...........amazed, huh u learn  summat knew everyday eh

[kannot]

56 minutes ago, gdhm said:

(after we were advised to always open gate to at least half each time).

 

comical...............theyre  winding you up big  time, someones done a  <deleted> installation and now youre  getting the usual BS excuses

[gdhm]

2 hours ago, kannot said:

comical...............theyre  winding you up big  time, someones done a  <deleted> installation and now youre  getting the usual BS excuses

 

I do agree I'm getting some B/S from the fitting company (something regretfully I often get from workers in this country after Warranty is gone and they do not know how or want to bother to sort out things). There does seem to be a too common attitude if its not working get a new one (from us). Yeah sure!. The fitting company's fitter of our motor says our motor during its 3½ years of use can no longer cope with the weight of our gate BUT he is trying  sell us a Somfy which is rated for exactly the same maximum 800Kg. Of course, when I pointed this out he said but the Somfy is better and I guarantee it will work OK (yeah right, no doubt for 3 years maybe). He also seems to have forgotten he has told my wife and I on a couple of occasions us that many people who had the same Motor fitted as us are having issues. I suppose I am to assume they all have heavy gates and jamming issues too.

This all make me think the fitters are not getting the recommended gap between rack and pinion correct or consistent along full length of rack. Watching them on several occasions make adjustments to rack it all seems very trail and error to me with them mainly being concerned where parts of Rack connect to each other rather than rack and pinion gap being to spec.. they certainly are not doing any measuring

 

Now with regard to your "comical...............theyre  winding you up big  time".  I have to mention that the advice came from another installer/fitter from a different company who came to take a look at my wife and my request.  He suggested that by us only opening the gate enough for a motor scooter to get through could sometimes fool the gate motor/sensors into not slowing gate upon closing and may therefore bash into the upright and jam.  When he suggested that, I immediately recalled that only the day before when I closed the gate from a 1 metre gap approx. it did NOT slow down as it should and it did bash into the end upright. I actually mentioned to my wife at the time that it had not slowed down as it should and I said to her I bet its jammed and sure enough it had).

 

Additional to that incident after the second company fitter had gone we decided to try out his suggestion (after all what did we have to lose).

I forgot on one occasion the same day he had come and I only opened it a very small amount. Sure enough when we closed the gate it again did NOT slow down as it should, and bashed into the upright and it jammed.  You say comical (which I understand where you are coming from) but since being given that advice (I repeat from a competitor to the installing company and who actually advised he felt motor was still OK and no need to buy a new one from him yet) the gate has never jammed in 9 days many times used except the one occasion I forgot to open it half way. 

 

In support of your view, I readily admit we have never had to do that with our original motor or the current one during its first 3½ years. The competitor also felt (like many on this forum) that the real issue is the rack and pinion gap. IMHO I think his suggestion is probably based on a view that IF the gate is not allowed to close too fast and bash, that it may well not jam IF rack and pinion gap is not too different from recommended min/max. He used to work for the original company so he will be well aware of my particular motor and is strengths and weaknesses.

 

Regards

 

 

Edited February 24, 2019 by gdhm

[kannot]

10 hours ago, gdhm said:

but since being given that advice

all  well and  good  but it  should  not need  to have this  done to work correctly, a  temporary solution maybe but not how it  should  function

[gdhm]

2 hours ago, kannot said:

all  well and  good  but it  should  not need  to have this  done to work correctly, a  temporary solution maybe but not how it  should  function

I 100% agree with you Kannot ????. 

Seems to me in Thailand one to often has to reluctantly settle for these type of workarounds/fixes to offset lack of expert skills of personnel purportedly called experts by their companies (or self proclaimed self employed "experts"). I have yet to meet good electrician who really knows his onions (sad when an ex office clerk knows more than the "supposed" self proclaimed expert electricians do). Additionally the number of times I get asked if I have for tools of their trade by these "experts" ). Even yesterday I was asked by the installer/fitter if I had a multimeter so he could check if volts were being received to the Motor's flashing light - they were which is how he diagnosed LED light component faulty ). 

Maybe the problem is worse for those when not living in Bangkok area as there seems little interest by companies to expand service centre or agents outside Bangkok. In UK there is a term "North - South divide" but in Thailand it seems like a "Bangkok - The rest of Thailand Divide".  This is probably why so many Thais have a "if it breaks throw it away and get a new one" because after sales service in the provinces is often very lacking and need to be sent to Bangkok.

 

At least in THIS single case of my motor jamming, the workaround may buy us some time (maybe not). At least an offered workaround is better than the all too often habit of workers/companies walking away or not answering phones when they do not have any solutions or workarounds or cannot be bothered.

 

I certainly will never buy this Motor again (428) in its various brand labelling versions, nor will I buy any new ones from Same company as I do not believe in rewarding lack of service ability.

 

Regretfully, although I found the one alternative contact I mentioned in previous posts nobody has been able suggested any others in this Thread (maybe there are no others in Khon Kaen City or, readers of my OP do not live in these parts).

 

[kannot]

3 hours ago, gdhm said:

Maybe the problem is worse for those when not living in Bangkok area

yep cant get anyone to come here for anything usually so gave up  about 5  years ago and started to learn to do it  all  myself..............pathetic  really isnt it.

[kannot]

3 hours ago, gdhm said:

I 100% agree with you Kannot ????. 

Seems to me in Thailand one to often has to reluctantly settle for these type of workarounds/fixes to offset lack of expert skills of personnel purportedly called experts by their companies (or self proclaimed self employed "experts"). I have yet to meet good electrician who really knows his onions (sad when an ex office clerk knows more than the "supposed" self proclaimed expert electricians do). Additionally the number of times I get asked if I have for tools of their trade by these "experts" ). Even yesterday I was asked by the installer/fitter if I had a multimeter so he could check if volts were being received to the Motor's flashing light - they were which is how he diagnosed LED light component faulty ). 

Maybe the problem is worse for those when not living in Bangkok area as there seems little interest by companies to expand service centre or agents outside Bangkok. In UK there is a term "North - South divide" but in Thailand it seems like a "Bangkok - The rest of Thailand Divide".  This is probably why so many Thais have a "if it breaks throw it away and get a new one" because after sales service in the provinces is often very lacking and need to be sent to Bangkok.

 

At least in THIS single case of my motor jamming, the workaround may buy us some time (maybe not). At least an offered workaround is better than the all too often habit of workers/companies walking away or not answering phones when they do not have any solutions or workarounds or cannot be bothered.

 

I certainly will never buy this Motor again (428) in its various brand labelling versions, nor will I buy any new ones from Same company as I do not believe in rewarding lack of service ability.

 

Regretfully, although I found the one alternative contact I mentioned in previous posts nobody has been able suggested any others in this Thread (maybe there are no others in Khon Kaen City or, readers of my OP do not live in these parts).

 

AS  mentioned the reason I  bought an identical spare  motor was to fix  it  myself at my leisure by  totally swapping them out then dismantling the old  one if  needs be to find the problem.

[gdhm]

2 hours ago, kannot said:

yep cant get anyone to come here for anything usually so gave up  about 5  years ago and started to learn to do it  all  myself..............pathetic  really isnt it.

Not pathetic at all kannot. I admire you for that. 

 

I have learnt so much from having a house built here (some the painful way) and from helpful people like yourself and the others on this Forum who have posted on this thread and others Threads I have started in the past seeking advice and guidance.

 

Unfortunately for me I am extremely obese 160 Kg, not young, have High BP  and am having difficulty with breathing these days partly due to deceasing lack of exercise and made even worse during the last month due to awful air quality here in KKC. There are things I used to be able to do and things I know are easy to do but not for me as I just do not have the energy or puff to do them any more. Being so obese even ladder that will support me are very hard to get, so I cannot even change easy to do tube lighting etc. myself. If I do risk a ladder it is very unstable (top heavy ????). Anyway that's all down to my weakness in not being strong willed enough to diet and increasing age and declining health.

 

[gdhm]

2 hours ago, kannot said:

AS  mentioned the reason I  bought an identical spare  motor was to fix  it  myself at my leisure by  totally swapping them out then dismantling the old  one if  needs be to find the problem.

 

I often feel I find the problems with issues, but identifying them and fixing them myself are completely different things.

Convincing "experts" that they are mistaken and should investigate what I believe to be the issue is near impossible due to their pride and not being willing to listen (or maybe just not able to understand logical deductions at times). I feel all too often the "experts" are used to customers accepting all they say without question. Even my beloved wife who has seen me proven correct many, many times over the years, STILL has a mindset that the "experts" must know what they are talking about and I should accept what they say.