Thai Electric Cables Mostly Fail Global Safety Standards

[Aussie999]

1 hour ago, lordgrinz said:

 

Holy Crap! We must have had the same electrician, I had that same job done after noticing I would get electrical shocks from my new dryer. Same thing, a raw copper cable screwed to the concrete pad, in the same manner.

Were you, by chance, in the Kathu area

[OneMoreFarang]

11 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

I'd still measure the conductors.  It's pretty easy to counterfeit just about any brand and packaging, even if the genuine article is compliant.  Digital calipers cost just a few $$, and the correct conductor diameter specs are all over the interwebs. 

 

Then it's a matter of making sure you got copper conductors and not copper plated aluminum...  Another common scam.

 

I only buy from reputable dealers. Problem solved.

[black tabby12345]

Minister Akanat's call for heightened regulatory enforcement and quality assurance highlights an urgent need to align local products with global safety measures.

ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー

What an Tall Order.

 

Without systematic Quality Control is in place, Quality Assurance is just the matter of Impossibility.

 

Who the hell can ever enforce it?

 

In case of the foreign multinational business here, there are  people(sent from the home country) to monitor the quality of their merchandises, but probably  not in case of the 100 % local factories.

 

In the land of Fake Goods, they can copy the appearance of the products.

But that's the extent of their reach...

[impulse]

3 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

 

I only buy from reputable dealers. Problem solved.

 

If you say so. 

 

I look at the entire supply chain and all the places it can be subverted.  And what steps I can reasonably take to keep myself safe.  A few bucks for a digital caliper seems a small price to pay.

 

If the airlines can't keep counterfeit parts out of their maintenance warehouses in Europe and the USA, I'm not sure any Thai retailers can keep counterfeit wire off their shelves...

 

[lordgrinz]

12 minutes ago, Aussie999 said:

Were you, by chance, in the Kathu area

 

Nope, Muang Thong Thani here.

[impulse]

13 minutes ago, black tabby12345 said:

In case of the foreign multinational business here, there are  people(sent from the home country) to monitor the quality of their merchandises, but probably  not in case of the 100 % local factories.

 

I made my living as one of those guys, for years.  Mostly in China.  You'd be amazed at how easy it is to keep the int'l QA guys out of the shops with wine and wimmun.  Especially the wimmun. 

 

I wasn't popular with dodgy vendors because I took the oath and quit drinking years before I came to Asia.  The good vendors liked me because I worked with them to solve their problems instead of just ratting them out at the first sign of an issue.

 

 

 

Edited November 13 by impulse

[black tabby12345]

8 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

I made my living as one of those guys, for years.  Mostly in China.  You'd be amazed at how easy it is to keep the int'l QA guys out of the shops with wine and wimmun.  Especially the wimmun. 

 

I wasn't popular with dodgy vendors because I took the oath and quit drinking years before I came to Asia.  The good vendors liked me because I worked with them to solve their problems instead of just ratting them out at the first sign of an issue.

 

 

Hi, Thank you for your post and sharing your unique experien。

You have been a wine taster for a liquor company?

[impulse]

1 minute ago, black tabby12345 said:

 

Hi, Thank you for your post and sharing your unique experien。

You have been a wine taster for a liquor company?

 

Nope.  Mostly oilfield equipment.  Including cable, electric motors and pumps.

 

I've never touched a drop in Asia, so there's no way I could evaluate a wine or liquor.

 

[mran66]

Some years ago I did some cable installations to my house. Bought 1.5mm2 cable and looking at it, it looked thin compared to what I thought 1.5mm2 cable looked like back home.

 

Measured and clearly it was not 1. 5mm2 regardless of the marking in the cable 

 

Thai labeling 1.5mm2 has different meaning than international standard 1.5mm2.

[black tabby12345]

5 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

Nope.  Mostly oilfield equipment.  Including cable, electric motors and pumps.

 

I've never touched a drop in Asia, so there's no way I could evaluate a wine or liquor.

 

 

Thank you for another post.

[Nid_Noi]

6 hours ago, bendejo said:

Just more Thai bashing, as usual.

 

😅
 

 

 

Not only safety is at risk but waste of energy is tremendous.
Adequate cable resistance and short circuitry is the golden rule. To avoid voltage drop due to cable resistance, intensity has to be increased then adding amps generate heat in the circuitry and loss of power. It’a vicious process. 

Who pay for this waste? The consumer.

[Bruce Aussie Chiang Mai]

2 hours ago, Peterphuket said:

Another example are the ground rots. The ones they put in the ground to create grounding are not copper, it is just copper plated.

correct can scrape it off with a knife

[BerndD]

1 hour ago, willi2006 said:

A while ago I bought some solid copper wires to be installed in pipes at a hardware store. I measured the diameters with a caliper and calculated the cross-sectional areas:

• solid copper wire 1.5 mm²:
  diameter should be 1.36 mm but was only 1.1 mm, i.e. 0.95 mm²
• solid copper wire 2.5 mm²:
  diameter should be 1.75 mm but was only 1.5 mm, i.e. 1.77 mm²
• solid copper wire 4 mm²:
  diameter should be 2.21 mm but was only 1.7 mm, i.e. 2.27 mm²
• 7 stranded copper wire 6 mm²:
  diameter should be 3.12 mm but was only 2.3 mm, i.e. 4.15 mm²

Nach IEC 60228 und VDE 0295 genormte Kabelquerschnitte	Durchmesser des Leiters
0,25 mm²	~0,56mm
0,34 mm²	~0,66mm
0,5 mm²	~0,80mm
0,75 mm²	~0,98 mm
1 mm²	~1,13 mm
1,5 mm²	~1,38 mm
2,5 mm²	~1,78 mm
4 mm²	~2,26 mm
6 mm²	~2,76 mm
10 mm²	~3,57 mm
16 mm²	~4,51 mm
25 mm²	~5,64 mm
35 mm²	~6,68 mm
50 mm²	~7,98 mm

[BerndD]

1 hour ago, Tailwagsdog said:

I suspect many materials are made in commo-fascist china with bogey Quality Assurance Certification attached. In Australia I have personal experience along with news reports of substandard materials imported from commo-fascist china having to be replaced or failed to perform. The Perth Children's Hospital was found to be riddled with asbestos from construction materials that were passed by Commo Fascist Chinese Government as 'asbestos free' . ....many more cases like this ...

Everything that comes into the EU from China is tested for health risks. Nobody believes the Chinese certificates. Why doesn't Australia do the same before they use the material?

[lordgrinz]

11 minutes ago, BerndD said:

Everything that comes into the EU from China is tested for health risks. Nobody believes the Chinese certificates. Why doesn't Australia do the same before they use the material?

 

People put too much faith in unverified certificates and guarantees.
 

Quote

 

Customer: But why do they put a guarantee on the box?

Tommy: Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of s**t. That's all it is, isn't it? Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time.

 

 

[impulse]

34 minutes ago, Bruce Aussie Chiang Mai said:

correct can scrape it off with a knife

 

The biggest issue with copper clad aluminum (CCA)  is that it corrodes a lot faster than a pure copper conductor.  Especially in wet environments.

 

Aluminum also carries less current (has higher resistance) than the same diameter copper, but that can be engineered out by using a larger diameter.  The corrosion problem...  Not so easy to engineer away.

 

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), properties installed with aluminum conductors manufactured before 1972, are 55 times more likely to have faulty and fire hazard-deemed connections than a property wired with copper.

 

https://www.electricmauinui.com/older-hawaii-homes-and-aluminum-wiring/

 

[sambum]

He has issued a report, but I wonder how long (if ever) the industry will do anything about it?

 

As usual, no doubt backs will be turned at the appearance of a brown envelope - in the same way as in the recent bus blaze that killed numerous students and teachers due to "faulty installation".

[Peciacake]

5 hours ago, AhFarangJa said:

A large number of the Electricians here also do not meet any standards.

"Electricians"  ????  In name only in many, many cases.

[Hardcastle P]

5 hours ago, flyswat said:

Thailand does not use International standards for cable colors, and the whole elctrical standards in the country require review and major changes, plus retraining and certification of electricians trained in international safety standards.

.

They don't seem to understand load baring qualities of cables. 1.5 mm for a 6kw electric shower then ptotrct it with a 50 amp braker, it's nothing to do with the cable is it. This guy talkes about of the back of his head,not a clue about the subject. 

[DualSportBiker]

From 2010 to 2015 I had a company that delivered industrial cleaning services - high end stuff. The process we used creates large static charges and the equipment we used would only work if there was sufficient ground. A ground-check system was built in to the equipment. We would normally tether the work piece to the equipment to discharge the static to ground. All well and good... We'd ask for confirmation from the maintenance team - you have good grounding all around your factory (and expensive kit) right? Sure!

 

Except, factories designed and built after building regulations required a ground would often not have one. I am talking about units on large and well known industrial estates. Not that the estate mgmt were to blame, but the designer and contractor would often not see the need and try and save a few thousand Baht...

 

We carried a drill, very long bit, big hammers and a 1.5m copper bar to create our own ground more times than I can remember.

 

There are standards in Thailand, it just seems none are enforce and nobody cares until someone dies.

[Fruit Trader]

6 hours ago, flyswat said:

Thailand does not use International standards for cable colors, and the whole elctrical standards in the country require review and major changes, plus retraining and certification of electricians trained in international safety standards.

.

 

Thailand has many written standards that are rarely followed.

Example TIS 11-2553
 

[Sydebolle]

Surprise surprise. Apart from making sure that a builder puts in the cheapest of the cheapest brands in most cases the copper diametre is insufficient. 
A good report would list those brands which passed and a skilled electrician (yeah, I know, Thailand.....) will not only insert the third yellow/green ground wire but also ensure that normal sockets run on 4mm coppers and heavy duty equipment (oven, stove, hot water heater, air conditioning etc.) are wired with 6mm copper wire; solid copper and not threads. 
The colour of the casing is also not for funny decorative reasons but of life-saving importance. In a previous house I built, the electrician wired rooms per colour, i.e. light blue was one room, solid red another room and the kitchen got green. 

Education is the key as well as the liability issue by the people doing the job! 

[smew]

sub standard wires/cables in addtion to shabby workmanship = accidents 

[J Branche]

Regarding the ground or earth wire.  It is common to buy the normal two wire and then single wire preferably green for ground or earth wire.

 

When we were upgrading electrical in girlfriends Mothers house I went and bought what electrician consider unnecessary thick/gadgets.  I'm no expert or electrician but know the basics.  Thinner wire = more resistance and heat depending on the load.

[Rampant Rabbit]

probably some out there but yet to meet any electrician here who doesnt skip something major  or  minor from earthing to grometts............so I do my own as I feel safer that way. My incoming cables form the road , but even then the local streetlighting man manages to screw things up as there used to be 20v down earth which took them 6  years to fix every time the street lights switched on at night  near my land. In the day fine at night 20v madness

[Gottfrid]

Who could have thought that? 

[digger70]

9 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Additionally, the concept of having an earth wire seems to be considered luxury by many in Thailand.

When I started my renovation, I looked in HomePro for cables. They had lots of cables, sizes, colors. But all only with two wires inside.

Sad.

I ordered cable online from a reputable brand.

 

One can use PVC Electrical Conduit and wires .Many different sizes.

Conduit and wires is a lot more work to install .

There's no need for cables. cables is an Easy way out.

[RedRoadRunner]

This is another Thai farce !

I had to rip out all electrics in my house and replaced them with European standard, cables, outlets, sockets, switches, etc. and did it myself.

 The problem is not the cables but the highly experienced Thai electricians...... see photo in another post.

 Rule of thumb in LOS.... want it done right?... do it yourself 😏

[newbee2022]

9 hours ago, impulse said:

I think a lot of the posters are are missing a key part of this. 

Depends where you're coming from. UK?

Well, then read it😂

[still kicking]

10 hours ago, stix40 said:

Safety standards Thailand 

Few examples 

 

Family of 4 on a moped 

No helmets 

 

5 ton on the back of a 1 ton pickup 

 

Lamp posts laced with bare wires 

 

Pavements with mandatory angle iron protruding upwards at ankle height 

 

Please add examples !