Aug
22
Electric Stuff
August 22, 2007 |
We got ourselves installed in the hut, and all the stuff we bought were taken out of boxes and put in it’s places. I was of course eager to test the TV and DVD surround setup.
Okay so I plug it all in, switch everything on and…the sound coming out of the speakers are crap. Okay, reading the manual then. Plugging in everything again, and still no go. One of the main speakers is a dud. That is only the tweeters are working. So we are looking at a 2 hour drive back to Korat to get that sorted…
Okay, but I continue to fiddle with the thing. And discover that I get electric shocks when I touch the buttons on the amplifier. The thing has a metal chassis. So something must be wrong with the grounding. I look at the plug. It’s a European 2 prong thing. No grounding.
I follow the extension cable back to the central socket where it’s plugged in…no grounding there either. Looks like I have to have a serious look at the wiring such as it is in the house. But for now, a quick fix. I attach a wire to the chassis of the amplifier and throw it out the window. The outside end is attached to a piece of copper plate and dug into the wet ground. And no more shocks as the thing is now grounded.
To be on the safe side I do the same with the fridge, although I can touch this without getting electrocuted. Everything else is insulated stuff, plastic all around so no need to do anything for now.
It’s now getting late, and as we have no bed, the first night in the village will be spent in the house of Mae. So we make our way over there and Nan cooks us some omelets and rice, and then we go to bed.
The next morning we venture in to Putthaisong however and find a large furniture store just outside of town. Where we test various beds and mattresses for farang back compatibility. And we finally pick out one for 11000 baht. It will be delivered to the house the same afternoon. We also get a new bicycle for Heart. We also get a metal counter type thing to put the double gas burner for cooking on, another 500 baht for that one.
Now Nan gets seriously worried about all the money we spend. So we head back to the village. The rest of the day I spend being lazy and getting pampered by Nan, who is unpacking our stuff, and generally just dances about, looking happy and singing for herself.
It’s good to be home!
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Comments
2 Comments so far
ummmmm, now I may be out to lunch on this but isn’t the grounding plug just there ‘in case’ there is a problem and voltage is shorted to the chasis? I mean it shouldn’t be designed so that the chasis is electrified, should it? (Although, from my observations, the Thais do seem to have a different idea of electrical safety than I do.)
Well, they do indeed do things different there, something to do with how they make the switch from 3 phase into your wall and then make it 2 phase. In most countries in Europe I belive the 3 pahse is in a delta configuration, while in Thailand and many other countries it’s configured in a star…blah blah… I’ll rewire the whole house anyway…