Shxt Shxt Shxt Lightening Strike......

[jacko 8,822]

I feel your pain with this incident, I’ve been lucky with lightening only ever lost a modem in ten plus years of renting/owning houses here.

 

Surprised the ink was still visible or readable on your receipt jacko, always a bug bear of mine in Thailand. Always promise myself to take a photo of receipts after buying something new, but never get round to it.

 

Like the quote “the tv is not for you it a smart tv” 555.

 

 

 

Regards

Yes the printed receipts that come out of the tills here do fade off pretty quickly, it is a conspiracy!

 

Now I am looking for somewhere to take a few items to be fixed, electronics. I have one item at Numchai already, hopefully to be fixed free under the extended warranty I got there. As to others, well I read some negatives about both Numchai and Samsung service centre being rip-offs. The latter isn't a great place to park and carry a bloody great TV in either!

 

I was experimenting with my pad and using wireless connect to use my TV as a display (only supported on Win 8.1 and 10), but the time lag when using a wireless keyboard is annoying, and the pad's little processor is struggling with all the work. My Win 7 laptop, with the fried HDMI,, well I will try a VGA to HDMI convertor. I set that up for a friend once and it worked OK... just not sure it will work for UHDTV. Might be a new laptop yet!!!

 

So, I need a good repair place, easy to park and load and fair and reliable. So leave Tukcom, Samsung and Numchai out (or tell me I am wrong!). I have heard rumour of a paraplegic guy up Nerm Plab Wan who does mainly TVs. I got 1 TV, 1 Home theatre and a cheapo DVD player I would like to get fixed for not too much.

Recommendations appreciated.

Edited October 14, 2017 by jacko

[TheFiend 1,181]

I used to get sent to other countries to go fix them! More than a few times!

 

Where are you on this early retirement option you mentioned some months back?

 

Just biding my time.... I've already set a date on which I'm going to retire if the expected job cuts don't happen, but the job cuts will happen and it's just a matter of when. They've already stated 3000 roles will be lost, probably starting in about 2 years time....

 

I'm busy banking credit time as well, each extra shift I work now is one shift less at the end. With carry-over leave added to that total I'm already finishing 2 months earlier than my target date.

[midlifecrisis 4,048]

 

Just biding my time.... I've already set a date on which I'm going to retire if the expected job cuts don't happen, but the job cuts will happen and it's just a matter of when. They've already stated 3000 roles will be lost, probably starting in about 2 years time....

 

I'm busy banking credit time as well, each extra shift I work now is one shift less at the end. With carry-over leave added to that total I'm already finishing 2 months earlier than my target date.

 

What I did before retirement was to stack as much vacation time as I could until I hit the max allowed by the company. I strategically used what would be lost with partial days off. That was over 350 hours they had to pay me when I quit. No layoff in my group or for me.

 

They did not give us a payout for unused sick leave, which I rarely used in all of those years. That would have been a small fortune.

 

If I could I worked holidays at double time.

 

Banked as much as I could.

 

You seem to have a solid plan.

Edited October 14, 2017 by midlifecrisis

[jacko 8,822]

I can;'t belive this shit, had another lightening strike, in a neighbours garden. The tree that got hit last Oct in my garden isn't there anymore! I have lost my cable box, again, a VGA to HDMI adaptor (replacing the HDMI output on my latop tha got zapped last time), and on my new TV there is this 'tidy' external box which receives all the HDMI inputs (One Connect), Optical audio, ariel etc, and has a single cable to the TV.. well that is behaving goofy! So far that is the known damage. The strike scared me and the Mrs to death!

 

Bugger!

Edited April 23, 2018 by jacko

[TheFiend 1,181]

I can;'t belive this shit, had another lightening strike, in a neighbours garden. The tree that got hit last Oct in my garden isn't there anymore! I have lost my cable box, again, a VGA to HDMI adaptor (replacing the HDMI output on my latop tha got zapped last time), and on my new TV there is this 'tidy' external box which receives all the HDMI inputs, Optical audio, ariel etc, and has a single cable to the TV.. well that is behaving goofy! So far that is the known damage. The strike scared me and the Mrs to death!

 

Bugger!

 

And they say lightning never strikes twice......

 

Might be an idea to move to another neighbourhood....

[jacko 8,822]

 

And they say lightning never strikes twice......

 

Might be an idea to move to another neighbourhood....

I thought I was safer after the first one!

Edited April 22, 2018 by jacko

[js007 795]

I thought I was safer after the first one!

 

 

That's what I thought, too. Lightning damaged some equipment and I thought to myself that the chances of that happening again anytime soon were pretty slim. And yet it happened again one year later.

[atlas2 4,329]

Sorry to hear about that..............It's bloody annoying.

 

Every storm will be a worry.

 

Hopefully lightening doesn't strike thrice!

 

 

A much, much lesser problem 'currently' for me.....(I hope)

 

I've been sitting in my condo since Friday playing 'Raindrops keep falling on my head' on my ukulele, to the accompaniment of water dripping from my air-con into buckets.

 

They arrived this morning to fix it. One guy loosening a panel and tipping a bucket's worth of cold water over himself ......along with some dangling electrics for the air-con. They've been blasting the pipes with water and drying the electrics with hot air. Hopefully once back together there isn't a ' shixt shxt shxt short'

Edited April 23, 2018 by atlas2

[Big_Brian 179]

 

And they say lightning never strikes twice......

 

Might be an idea to move to another neighbourhood....

If whatever attracted it in the-first place is still there, why wouldn't it happen again? OK, so there has to be a storm, but there has to be a reason for 2 strikes in more or less the same place.

[atlas2 4,329]

The tree that got hit in Oct has gone.

I would imagine Jacko thought his problem was consequently sorted. .... If he'd even considered his neighbours tree he'd have reasoned that a strike to a neighbors tree wouldnt affect him.

Edited April 23, 2018 by atlas2

[jacko 8,822]

If whatever attracted it in the-first place is still there, why wouldn't it happen again? OK, so there has to be a storm, but there has to be a reason for 2 strikes in more or less the same place.

Actually the first strike was a palm tree in my garden. It remained green for some time and I hoped it would recover, but it slowly died off and only a few days ago, I got my gardener to take it down. The recent strike was in a neighbour's garden some 30 yards plus away. Actually I got the chance to talk to the Thai wife from there last night, and they had similar damage to my first hit! TVs and electronics that are plugged in and these electric gate openers seem to go. The neighbour opposite me lost one TV and another his gate motor last year.

 

Currently my recent damages seem minor BUT, looking difficult to fix. Last year, after the hit, I got a new 55 inch Samsung. It has this One Connect Box where all the peripherals, and ariel get plugged into, and then a single cable goes into the TV. It still works but only partially. Two HDMI inputs no longer do. One of those was connected to the laptop.... the adaptor VGA-HDMI on that one got fried, the other, to my True Cable box, which also got fried. Problem is, I can not find this One Connect Box anywhere on the internet, not the exact part number. It is a single point of failure for the pretty expensive TV. I took it to Numchai service centre. They looked at it like they had never seen one before! Despite there being a few in the main shop. They have no idea about it! So beware, the TV models sold in Thailand don't seem to be sold elsewhere, similarly finding parts is difficult. English language websites deal with those sold in UK, USA, Oz etc. These One Connect boxes, although convenient, are a single point of failure that I have no idea how to get fixed. Moving a 55 inch TV around is no fun too, can't even get it in the cab of my truck! I had hoped to get a replacement One Connect box. They said they will do some research and call me back today, I won't be holding my breath and truly expect I will have to box up the complete TV and dump it on them and just say fix or replace! I will have to take the feet off and get someone to help me move it around. I don't relish the arguments, delay or waiting.

Edited April 23, 2018 by jacko

[Big_Brian 179]

If you can't find bits on English language sites, how about having your missus search the Thai sites?

[TheFiend 1,181]

If you can't find bits on English language sites, how about having your missus search the Thai sites?

 

Unless it's a mobile phone or a tablet, Thai women aren't that good with technology...... :lol:

[js007 795]

When my 60 Sony 4K TV was hit as part of the most recent lightning strike, I took it to a shop and they fixed it for $400. They don't really do much repair these days, I guess. They just replace entire circuit boards. Anyway, perhaps I should have put the $400 towards a newer model TV. Sometimes, by the time you pay to fix something, you could almost buy a new one with better features.

[jacko 8,822]

If you can't find bits on English language sites, how about having your missus search the Thai sites?

Oh she's useless on the computer, might as well ask the cat!

[TheFiend 1,181]

When my 60 Sony 4K TV was hit as part of the most recent lightning strike, I took it to a shop and they fixed it for $400. They don't really do much repair these days, I guess. They just replace entire circuit boards. Anyway, perhaps I should have put the $400 towards a newer model TV. Sometimes, by the time you pay to fix something, you could almost buy a new one with better features.

 

Electronics repair is a dying art these days. Nowadays it's just tracing which board is faulty and replacing it. The move towards smaller surface mount components makes repair harder as well. I work on some equipment that is custom built and can't be just thrown away and replaced we have to repair it... Other stuff tends to get replaced as the repair cost in man hours often exceeds the cost of replacement.

[jacko 8,822]

When my 60 Sony 4K TV was hit as part of the most recent lightning strike, I took it to a shop and they fixed it for $400. They don't really do much repair these days, I guess. They just replace entire circuit boards. Anyway, perhaps I should have put the $400 towards a newer model TV. Sometimes, by the time you pay to fix something, you could almost buy a new one with better features.

Well it is only 5 months old so I was hoping to get a bit more life out of it.

It still mostly works, just 2 of the 4 HDMI inputs don't, and I need one of them,

The Anynet feature also isn't working, ie turning the home threatre on and off with the TV, to use the 5 speaker system. Have to dick around with 2 remotes now or stick with TV speakers.

Of course Numchai never called back, they never do do they! Similar phrase to 'a cheque in the post' or 'in a meeting'or 'I won't cxm in your mouth'....

Mrs thinks I should take it to the Samsung Service place rather than Numchai.

Edited April 24, 2018 by jacko

[atlas2 4,329]

Can you get something that splits the HDMI leads through one box and attach that box to your working HDMI port?

[jacko 8,822]

Can you get something that splits the HDMI leads through one box and attach that box to your working HDMI port?

I don't think I would be able to select between the HDMI inputs from the TV remote with such a configuration. If it was a mechanical switch, well I might as well get up and unplug one connector and put the other in. As I also stated some other features don't seem to be working right. (Anynet). There is frustration in not having things work right with such a new item.

Edited April 24, 2018 by jacko

[atlas2 4,329]

I'm not technical..........and this may be more trouble than it's worth..........Or helpful?

 

 

Info on HDMI switch-boxes with links to products.....

https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/how-do-it-connect-2-hdmi-inputs-to-my-tv-w-only-1-hdmi-port-393865/

Edited April 25, 2018 by atlas2

[jacko 8,822]

I'm not technical..........and this may be more trouble than it's worth..........Or helpful?

 

 

Info on HDMI switch-boxes with links to products.....

https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/how-do-it-connect-2-hdmi-inputs-to-my-tv-w-only-1-hdmi-port-393865/

Thanks for that....

At the moment the TV is in the Samsung Service centre..... easy peasy and far better than Numchai. It is located on North Rd so quite easy for me to get to, you can park there, and TV issues are a separate building to the busy phone dept. Have to wait and see if they can come good!

I currently have 3 remotes, a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse on my little table, and a fly swatter. These devices would add another. Previously I could do most things from my Samsung Smart remote, which of course is with the TV in the shop now. It could control the Home Theatre and the Cable box and of course the TV. I still have to figure out if my Home Theatre/ Blu-Ray unit has some damage as it will not do the AnyNet function anymore but works itself. These lightening strikes seem to result in a plethora of confusing problems.

Edited April 26, 2018 by jacko

[9cisco999 107]

In the US, home owner's insurance typically covers lighting damage. The issue is typically the deductible.

 

I learned long ago home owner's ins. can work the same way as auto ins. Make a claim and the rates may go up.

[atlas2 4,329]

How are things jacko?

 

We all think of you when the sky lights up.

 

Even here I've been unplugging my lap-top.

[jacko 8,822]

How are things jacko?

 

We all think of you when the sky lights up.

 

Even here I've been unplugging my lap-top.

Yesterday afternoon I spent a good hour or so sitting in font of the Tesco Lotus convenienve store, which is located behind Numchai on Sukhumvit. I had a good view of a lot of lightening in the South sky and one time a lightening rod on a nearby building got hit. I did not want to risk riding my bike home knowing how attractive I am to nature. My Mrs had already disconnected things at home. That evening my power went out, well rather it was only 110 v instead of the customary 240v and I sat up waiting for it to come back, so I could put the AC on and retire.

Apparently my TV is fixed, but I am unable to collect it as it would have to go in the back-bed, and it hasn't stopped raining since dawn.

 

Comforting to know someone is thinking of me.

[TheFiend 1,181]

Saw a video on facebook by a mate who is stopping at iRovers.......... he was filming a torrential downpour....