Another nightmare of "quality mechanics" in LOS...

[lostinisaan]

 

  Sawasdee khrap,

 

              The nightmare continues. After my pick- up truck was redone at two shops, one was the one the insurance company had a deal with, the other one was Mitsubishi in Sisaket. The whole truck was totally in parts twice and it took 18 months to get it finally back.

 

   Yesterday I experienced some problems with my left headlight, it was pretty much loose. After taking the only still existing screw out I saw what they're using to hold a screw. The cap of a Pepsi bottle.

 

        I'm at Mitsubishi now and I really had to try hard to stay calm. Please see attached image. The Pepsi cap was under the metal part where it's now and the screw was holding it. 

 

     Congratulations !!

 

   

 

     

[transam]

Sorry I am.......

[lostinisaan]

45 minutes ago, transam said:

Sorry I am.......

 

 

 

 Our son's currently attending the local "technical college" in his third year "studying electronics" ( what a joke to call something like that a college, BTW)/ 

 

          I just recently bought a so-called "Smart TV" and a new satellite receiver to connect the receiver via HDMI port.

 

   When the TV didn't " see the HDMI cable connection" our son Googled it and told me that I'd need a box to connect it. I've told him that such a box isn't needed because the video, as well as the audio signal will be transferred via HDMI, but he didn't get it.

 

   Then I bought a few meters ordinary coaxial cable to connect our old TV to the old receiver ( cable was already in our bedroom, but too short) I've told him to put the connectors on the cables which is ( in my eyes) as easy as making Somtham.

 

      When I saw him putting the outside of the cable which is a sort of minus and the lead wire together, all I could say was to stop. 

 

   Almost three years of studying electronics, but he didn't know that the two- the outside coat and the actual copper wire may not get together, made me so speechless and sad that I don't have the right words now to express my feelings toward the educational institutions.

 

  Please see attached photo, he really used the outer cable and drilled it together with the copper. I'm glad that I saw him doing that, thinking that he'd know stuff I knew when I was 12. 

 

      Minister of education, whoever and wherever you are, I  deeply congratulate you for doing such a good job to the teenagers who'll soon be the adults who have to be good in what they've studied?. 

 

    

 

      

 

   

 

  

[fredob43]

Must say I'm not surprised at anything you have found.

A tad off subject but when we got our? house I changed all the wiring. 5 of the light switches were connected to the neutral wire not the live. For those that don't know when you turned the switch off the light was still live. Can be fatal. TIT Never trust a Thai with electric.   

[JAS21]

6 hours ago, fredob43 said:

Must say I'm not surprised at anything you have found.

A tad off subject but when we got our? house I changed all the wiring. 5 of the light switches were connected to the neutral wire not the live. For those that don't know when you turned the switch off the light was still live. Can be fatal. TIT Never trust a Thai with electric.   

I didnt think the ceiling rose being live when the light is off is that unusual. Pull the fuse' before you fiddle up there ...

 

[canthai55]

6 hours ago, fredob43 said:

 Never trust a Thai with electric.   

 

BS - never trust the man who did yours. There are some very good electricians here

[fredob43]

3 hours ago, JAS21 said:

I didnt think the ceiling rose being live when the light is off is that unusual. Pull the fuse' before you fiddle up there ...

 

Sorry to say that you don't know what your talking about. If you think that a live rose is normal once you have turned the switch off. Better you stick to the car bit.

Merry Christmas.

[fredob43]

3 hours ago, canthai55 said:

 

BS - never trust the man who did yours. There are some very good electricians here

Sure there are that's why there's so many fires caused by bad electric's in Thailand.

Do hope that you all have at least Fire insurance???

E/G. Had a so called electrician fit my remote gate, after I checked I found that he had just wound the wires (several) together and stuck some black tape round them. That was in a box outside.

Now been sorted soldered with waterproof shrink wrap +++.

 

Have you checked your set up??? and noticed the wires being stuck in a plastic connector strip "the only thing available here" also with Black tape plastered round them. As said fire waiting to happen. 

Might be time to also have a look at your fuse box and see what isolators are fitted. I have seen 30amp one's in the light system, they should by the way have 5amp:  

If you believe what you posted best of luck.

Merry Christmas.

[xylophone]

3 hours ago, JAS21 said:

I didnt think the ceiling rose being live when the light is off is that unusual. Pull the fuse' before you fiddle up there ...

 

 

True, because Thais don't seem to follow any rules/regs with regard to this and you often find that the neutral is the one which is used at the switch, so when the switch is "off", sure the light goes off cos the circuit is broken, but there is still a live feed to the ceiling rose and the lamp....be careful.

 

I know it is slightly off topic, but you really never know here with the electrics in a house....... one which I was renovating had an air con in the main bedroom which I wanted to change and no matter how many of the circuit breakers I tripped, I could not get the supply to the air con switched off, so eventually decided to switch off the main breaker because that would have to work wouldn't it?

 

No, no such luck.... that Aircon and its switch were live all the time irrespective of what steps I took inside the house; and the reason was that it was wired directly from the meter outside of the house on the pole. Never seen anything like it and was so lucky that I kept testing for voltage even after I'd tripped every circuit breaker in the house.

 

Quite understand about your anger and your Mitsubishi "fix", however unfortunately its fairly par for course here as you probably know.

[Don Mega]

What was wrong with the pickup to be at the mechanics of 18 months ?

[JAS21]

17 minutes ago, fredob43 said:

Sorry to say that you don't know what your talking about. If you think that a live rose is normal once you have turned the switch off. Better you stick to the car bit.

Merry Christmas.

We are talking about the light switch and not the circuit breaker are we not.Or do we have our wires crossed ...no pun intended...

 

In the UK we use ring mains . lighting rose always has a live up there. 

 

I do have a little experiance of electrics ...mainly in Power Stations ...although in the past I have rewired houses.

 

Part of my job was switching/isolation of electrical equipment from 50V up to 400kV, earthing as necessay and issuing Safety Documents for work on that equipment.

 

And a Merry Christmas to you ☺

[fredob43]

22 minutes ago, JAS21 said:

We are talking about the light switch and not the circuit breaker are we not.Or do we have our wires crossed ...no pun intended...

 

In the UK we use ring mains . lighting rose always has a live up there. 

 

I do have a little experiance of electrics ...mainly in Power Stations ...although in the past I have rewired houses.

 

Part of my job was switching/isolation of electrical equipment from 50V up to 400kV, earthing as necessay and issuing Safety Documents for work on that equipment.

 

And a Merry Christmas to you ☺

The UK is another thing and yes we do have ring mains. With Earths. They the Thai's if you haven't noticed don't have that set up. They also don't have any good connectors. Only those plastic connector strip + if your lucky black tape.

 

Whatever you still shouldn't have a neutral wire in the switch.

I have now sorted a ring main in my place, using UK MK bit's. Earth is still a problem though you have to use their copper rods. OK if you don't have lighting hitting it as it blow the lot. As happened to a Chum of mine. Buggered his Shower IE melted it. Yes it was fused but that didn't blow. Thai Electrics???. You can keep it.

[Aggressive]

There is an extreme amount of misinformation in this thread regarding electronics. Ring Mains are outdated. Barely even used in thailand. If you are wiring a house using ring mains in Thailand you should stop and seek professional advice or read up on codes. Nothing wrong with electrical tape as long as its done with common sense. Same with wire nuts and strip connectors. 

 

5 amp for a lighting circuit? Nope. 

 

The only real correct thing I have read in this thread is that "L" or line power should be switched, not "N" or neutral. Same with single pole circuit breakers, connected to "L" 

[xylophone]

2 minutes ago, Aggressive said:

Nothing wrong with electrical tape as long as its done with common sense. Same with wire nuts and strip connectors

 

I think the poster may have been referring to the Thai way of just twisting a couple of wires together and taping them up, without any means of fixing whatsoever. I have seen these cause no end of burnouts in ceiling spaces here and whenever I see this I redo the joint with either wire nuts and/or a strip connector and then use tape.

 

There are some extremely good wire connectors on the market now, much more so than when I was practising my original trade, however, shoddy Thai electrical practices continue to frighten me.

[JAS21]

18 minutes ago, fredob43 said:

The UK is another thing and yes we do have ring mains. With Earths. They the Thai's if you haven't noticed don't have that set up. They also don't have any good connectors. Only those plastic connector strip + if your lucky black tape.

 

Whatever you still shouldn't have a neutral wire in the switch.

I have now sorted a ring main in my place, using UK MK bit's. Earth is still a problem though you have to use their copper rods. OK if you don't have lighting hitting it as it blow the lot. As happened to a Chum of mine. Buggered his Shower IE melted it. Yes it was fused but that didn't blow. Thai Electrics???. You can keep it.

Yes as the next post says ... be careful with ring mains ...read the topic running in the electrical forum.

 

For connecting wires ...ask Crossy how his house wiring went ...after he comes down off the roof! ... he may explain

[Aggressive]

1 minute ago, xylophone said:

I think the poster may have been referring to the Thai way of just twisting a couple of wires together and taping them up, without any means of fixing whatsoever.

 

Nothing wrong with this if using solid core wire and pliers to twist the wire together. Just as tight as a wire nut. Of course you don't want a connection to be flopping around open to the world. They burnout because there is too much resistance creating a hot spot. Thats just bad technique. 

 

Agreed there are way better and easier ways to connect wire than tape, but its perfectly fine with common sense. I never use tape with wire nuts but they should be in an enclosure, not open. 

 

Thai electrical practice is very shoddy. Dangerous too. 

[JAS21]

18 hours ago, lostinisaan said:

 

 Our son's currently attending the local "technical college" in his third year "studying electronics" ( what a joke to call something like that a college, BTW)/ 

 

          I just recently bought a so-called "Smart TV" and a new satellite receiver to connect the receiver via HDMI port.

 

   When the TV didn't " see the HDMI cable connection" our son Googled it and told me that I'd need a box to connect it. I've told him that such a box isn't needed because the video, as well as the audio signal will be transferred via HDMI, but he didn't get it.

 

   Then I bought a few meters ordinary coaxial cable to connect our old TV to the old receiver ( cable was already in our bedroom, but too short) I've told him to put the connectors on the cables which is ( in my eyes) as easy as making Somtham.

 

      When I saw him putting the outside of the cable which is a sort of minus and the lead wire together, all I could say was to stop. 

 

   Almost three years of studying electronics, but he didn't know that the two- the outside coat and the actual copper wire may not get together, made me so speechless and sad that I don't have the right words now to express my feelings toward the educational institutions.

 

  Please see attached photo, he really used the outer cable and drilled it together with the copper. I'm glad that I saw him doing that, thinking that he'd know stuff I knew when I was 12. 

 

      Minister of education, whoever and wherever you are, I  deeply congratulate you for doing such a good job to the teenagers who'll soon be the adults who have to be good in what they've studied?. 

 

    

 

      

 

   

 

  

Do you know what you started by bringing wiring up .......

 

That bottle top repair is not up to spec...they should have at least picked it with toilet tissue (preferably unused) to give it more strength ... see it has deformed and that is not right ....

[xylophone]

6 minutes ago, Aggressive said:

Nothing wrong with this if using solid core wire and pliers to twist the wire together. Just as tight as a wire nut

 

I agree with just about everything you say, however I just don't like that way of operating and it was something which I was never taught during my five year apprenticeship. As if to prove a point, there are so many instances where I've seen this happen and rather than the two wires being twisted together (together being the operative word) one wire is twisted around the other and after a while that becomes loose with normal expansion and contraction in the ceiling space and problems occur.

 

I would much rather have the wires twisted together and then held that way tightly with something like a wire nut or even a connector – – but possibly that is just my way of operating.

 

Anyway, we both agree that wiring standards here are pretty abysmal and apart from the one I quoted earlier where my Aircon was fed directly from the meter on the pole outside of the house, another one I came across in the same house was where the in-bench oven was fed by a small  twin cable (the sort you get on small table lamps here) which then proceeded to meander its way behind the tiles above the kitchen bench, to a small strip light and this was where it was getting the oven feed from. Quite how a fire had not occurred from that is remarkable, however it does explain why we would get the occasional shock from the metal oven – – obviously I had to change all of that, which I did.

[Aggressive]

3 minutes ago, xylophone said:

I would much rather have the wires twisted together and then held that way tightly with something like a wire nut or even a connector – – but possibly that is just my way of operating.

 

No you are right. Its not just your way at all. Im just pointing out that tape can be used safely. Wire nuts are wholeheartedly better. But as it pertains to Thais they don't have safety in mind a lot of the time so it becomes a serious issue when done improperly. 

[lostinisaan]

5 hours ago, JAS21 said:

I didnt think the ceiling rose being live when the light is off is that unusual. Pull the fuse' before you fiddle up there ...

 

 

 

     I almost killed my wife at our old place when fixed the ceiling light in the bathroom. I had all breakers off told my wife to hold the light for a sec when she had a little shock. 

 

I said something about rest electricity and grabbed the lead wire. That was before my artificial knee joint, gotta be careful not to do such things again.

 

It turned out that all lights were live when switched off. Quality education automatically creates specialists who are too special to do easy things as they should be. The main fuse was a 30 AMP that wouldn't even blow after my body's grilled.

 

You really need a meter to check if there's power and switch the mains off. Right, where the power cables come into your house/apartment/flat.

 

    Would anybody of us die such a stupid way then we died of a heart attack. Stay safe. 

 

  

[lostinisaan]

25 minutes ago, JAS21 said:

Do you know what you started by bringing wiring up .......

 

That bottle top repair is not up to spec...they should have at least picked it with toilet tissue (preferably unused) to give it more strength ... see it has deformed and that is not right ....

 

 

 What really made me angry was that they didn't even take a Coke cap. Cheap Bastards. 

[transam]

1 minute ago, lostinisaan said:

 

     I almost killed my wife at our old place when fixed the ceiling light in the bathroom. I had all breakers off told my wife to hold the light for a sec when she had a little shock. 

 

I said something about rest electricity and grabbed the lead wire. That was before my artificial knee joint, gotta be careful not to do such things again.

 

It turned out that all lights were live when switched off. Quality education automatically creates specialists who are too special to do easy things as they should be. The main fuse was a 30 AMP that wouldn't even blow after my body's grilled.

 

You really need a meter to check if there's power and switch the mains off. Right, where the power cables come into your house/apartment/flat.

 

    Would anybody of us die such a stupid way then we died of a heart attack. Stay safe. 

 

  

My A/C and showers are live when the main switch is off..................

[watcharacters]

5 hours ago, JAS21 said:

I didnt think the ceiling rose being live when the light is off is that unusual. Pull the fuse' before you fiddle up there ...

 

 

 

 

Without question the live/hot wire should be switched so when switch is off there is no live wire connecting to the fixture

[lostinisaan]

Just now, transam said:

My A/C and showers are live when the main switch is off..................

 

 Get an electrician who knows what he's doing and get it fixed. If that's true the breaker might not go off if there's something wrong.

 

   And that in the bathroom with water is highly dangerous. Please see attached screenshot . Only a "few" foreigners who got killed by high voltage. 

[transam]

They did NOT wire the big loads through the consumer box......I fitted ("live") replacement wall switches for these items that detect stuff...

[fruitman]

Don't you know that the boys from the technical universities become excellent security guards???

 

They can use this tool even when driving a motobike

 

[Happy Grumpy]

1 hour ago, Don Mega said:

What was wrong with the pickup to be at the mechanics of 18 months ?

 

There was 1.5 liters of Pepsi in the oil.

[lostinisaan]

1 minute ago, transam said:

They did NOT wire the big loads through the consumer box......I fitted ("live") replacement wall switches for these items that detect stuff...

 

 

   I bought a little screwdriver size tool that not only detects high voltage. I can also use it to check my car's electrical system.

 

  I'm only trying to survive until my retirement cash flows. And that's a couple of moons away. 

 

   

[lostinisaan]

3 minutes ago, Happy Grumpy said:

 

There was 1.5 liters of Pepsi in the oil.

 

 

 Nope, 15 liters of coke in the tank.

A red light and speeding Kathoey almost killed me on my way to school near the coppers. The impact was so tough that I had broken ribs nobody knew of, except me, it took three hospitals to find out that my spine was seriously injured and my truck was dead.

 

The garage the insurance company was dealing with- the freak had the same company- redid the whole truck, but they didn't fix the chassis/frame.

 

When I got it back after only one year I had very serious issues with the steering and the brakes, so I drove to Mitsubishi and even the insurance guys could see the damaged frame with their eyes.

 

It was clear that the car wouldn't go back to the cheating company in Kanth., so Mitsubishi did the whole truck again, including getting the chassis straight.

 

They told me it would take 3 months, but I had to wait a little bit more than 6 months. When I got it back and went for an alignment it turned out that 5 ball joints were so loose that I could take one out with a screw driver.

 

That was the first time when I really lost my temper, drove to Mitsubishi and really yelled at the foreman how they can not inform me of such incredible problems. His answer was so weird that I found myself speechless.

 

Nobody gave the order to do so were his words. Then I had to tell him to sjmuifhrgughrtuhtiphthmth

 tgittihjtih tihu ih myj ijyiyojyjoytjy[jy[jojoyjky

 

I finally ended up paying for all the parts, because they didn't understand that the impact that pushed my truck far away also had an impact on the ball joints.

 

  It fits with the Pepsi cap. 

 

 

[mettech]

 I understand that we are in Thailand and there is no need to fix a car because from what i am seeing daily on the news they sure know the way to destroy their vehicle old or new.

All the vehicles here are very expensive and no wonder there is many repair shop but a few qualified mechanics.

So my best guess if any further with repair problem any of us should go to dealership and get it fix this is what i have done not long ago and got the car fixed at a good rate of 500 tbh/hour plus the parts it all worked good by the way it was MAZDA.in Buriram.