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Electrical problems

spookysully

By spookysully
in The Electrical Forum

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spookysully Rookie Member

spookysully

Posted
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Hello all!  I've been living in Thailand for almost 8 years now and have had trouble with the power the entire time. Up north to the south, east or west, it's all ridiculous. It matters not the device, I get a shock from everything I plug in. My PC is a valuable asset and I don't want it getting damaged.

 

Any advice from any electricians?

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Crossy Star Member

Crossy

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OK now we are in the correct forum.

 

Getting a tingle off your PC is almost definitely a bad / no earth.

 

Do you have 3-pin outlets? If not (or even if you do) you can run a temporary ground from a screw in your PC case to a metal rod (a big screwdriver) stuck in the garden. That should kill the tingle.

 

Then let us have some photos of your electrical installation for directed advice.

 

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alan grice Explorer Member

alan grice

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Great, thanks. This site is full of smug old men. I've got an electrician here now but thought I'd ask this.. community as more of a gesture to share experience but your brilliant contribution really saved the day.

Its mainly fragile puppies with a few Coffin Dodgers who can actually afford quality electricians, hence post to pass the time.!????[emoji481]


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
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legend49 Silver Member

legend49

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For the computer and good HIFI gear buy a Linear Line Conditioner basically a black power box that protects from surges plus its useful it tells you the line voltage. Electricians I have had many come by that i test. I give them an AVO meter and ask them how they use to check phase neutral voltage for 3 phase power. When i get that dumb look I send them away.

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TGIR Senior Member

TGIR

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When we remodeled our condo in 2007 I had the electrician redo the B-box and all the outlets to allow for grounding.  I still hold my breath every time I get in the shower though.  

 

Our condo has  a couple of big fuses on two poles right outside the entry.  One windy day a power line broke and fell onto the street in front of the condo....right at the condo entry.  There is a small shop near the entry way also.  I went downstairs to see what was going on as our power was out and saw the cable laying on the ground, occasionally arcing and spitting electricity.   People were walking and driving by without even paying any attention to it.  I got a couple of chairs and benches and blocked off the cable so no-one would touch it........they seemed to have no idea of how dangerous it was.  After a while, our manager and I got the idea that we should move it off the concrete to the side......as we took a tentative step toward it, it sparked and jumped about three feet off the ground......we gave that idea up Quick and just waited for the power company to fix it.  

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Curt1591 Platinum Member

Curt1591

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Your shocking computer problem is from a lack of ground (earth).

I bought a ground rod and ran a ground wire to the outlet that my computer is plugged into. I also added a UPS. between my computer at this outlet

Edited by Curt1591
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newcomer01 Advanced Member

newcomer01

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For the computer and good HIFI gear buy a Linear Line Conditioner basically a black power box that protects from surges plus its useful it tells you the line voltage. Electricians I have had many come by that i test. I give them an AVO meter and ask them how they use to check phase neutral voltage for 3 phase power. When i get that dumb look I send them away.

For those not British. Avo meter is a brand of multimeter. Haven't seen on since my Australian military days. Owned by Megger now. They made the earth leakage meters. Thanks for the memories. Have to go and Hoover the carpet now.

 

Sent from my [device_name] using http://Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

 

 

 

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sammieuk1 Diamond Member

sammieuk1

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6 hours ago, spookysully said:

Great, thanks. This site is full of smug old men. I've got an electrician here now but thought I'd ask this.. community as more of a gesture to share experience but your brilliant contribution really saved the day.

Smug old men with a working phone and electrics you should add sonny ????

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atyclb Platinum Member

atyclb

Posted
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7 hours ago, spookysully said:

Great, thanks. This site is full of smug old men. I've got an electrician here now but thought I'd ask this.. community as more of a gesture to share experience but your brilliant contribution really saved the day.

 

theres also smug young guys, like me

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ifmu Silver Member

ifmu

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1 hour ago, Chazar said:

and  another and  another and  another etc

boy that is a fact ......... they don't understand the principal of grounding things ......  to verify that your electrician is doing the job correctly  .. buy yourself a plug in tester (3 prong) to test for neutral power and ground .. it will light up certain lights to tell you if you have a prob or if all OK ...  you don't need to understand just show the hmm electrician what you want .. luck to ya 

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Alex2554 Senior Member

Alex2554

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3 hours ago, newcomer01 said:

For those not British. Avo meter is a brand of multimeter. Haven't seen on since my Australian military days. Owned by Megger now. They made the earth leakage meters. Thanks for the memories. Have to go and Hoover the carpet now.

 

Sent from my [device_name] using http://Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

 

 

 

Isn't it Ampere-Volt-Ohm meter?

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tjo o tjim Silver Member

tjo o tjim

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Personally (as an American) my go-to solution if you have one thing that gives you problems is an isolation transformer that can make sure the one device is properly grounded.  Poor grounds are hard to reliably address with too many things interconnected.  Bonding the enclosure to a new ground might solve one problem, but create another somewhere else.

 

Fixing everything is GREAT, but sometimes isolating things has a better ROI.

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mosan Senior Member

mosan

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27 minutes ago, tjo o tjim said:

Personally (as an American) my go-to solution if you have one thing that gives you problems is an isolation transformer that can make sure the one device is properly grounded.  Poor grounds are hard to reliably address with too many things interconnected.  Bonding the enclosure to a new ground might solve one problem, but create another somewhere else.

 

Fixing everything is GREAT, but sometimes isolating things has a better ROI.

I hear you.  Had a new bathroom added to the house and personally ran the wires for the shower heater--to include a separate wire for grounding straight to a 1 meter copper pole that I pounded through the concrete into the dirt outside of said bathroom. I just couldn't bring myself to trust anybody else to do it as the red lights on the shower heaters in the other two bathrooms occasionally kept popping on and need to be reset.  Didn't stop until I completely rewired them also...

Edited by mosan
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emptypockets Gold Member

emptypockets

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To the OP. am I understanding you correctly in that you have been to many different places in Thailand and get a shock wherever you go? 

Is it only when you use your PC? Or is it when you use any electrical equipment? 

If you can clarify that it may lead to some sensible comments. 

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Crossy Star Member

Crossy

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1 hour ago, newcomer01 said:

Or a multimeter or a Flute.

 

Damn you autocorrect (my bold)????

 

Fluke are the defacto No1 supplier of multimeters and other test gear, a flute is a musical instrument.

 

The history of the AVO company 

https://www.radiomuseum.org/dsp_hersteller_detail.cfm?company_id=5571

 

It was always my understanding that AVO came from Amps, Volts, Ohms.

 

Anecdote.

 

Many years ago I used to work in the Royal Navy Calibration Lab in the depths of the Wiltshire countryside. One of my tasks was to calibrate AVO Model 7 and 8 multimeters (shows how long ago it was if they were in general use in the RN).

 

We had a multimeter calibrator that did 20 or so at a time. Hook up 20 meters and run the cal. procedure, long winded but pretty mindless stuff, ideal for a bod right out of training.

 

The meters came in protective "leather" box-like covers which had space for the test leads etc. Something like this:-

 

test_set_multirange_no_1_test_meter_1814

 

In one batch was a box which rattled rather suspiciously when picked up. Inside was what looked like a kit for an AVO-8, a large number of parts in a bag.

 

It seems that the device had been dropped from a great height and rather than scrap it ,which would have required paperwork and a possible charge for the Jolly Jack who dropped it, someone decided to return it for "calibration" with a note that the meter was "innacurate".

 

 

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