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What is it with Americans and imperial units?

Posted: Sun May 20, 2018 10:24 pm
by MarkR
Honestly,

I thought we'd all grown out of this insane inches, feet, 0.10" stuff by now.

Anyone else look at materials and components on US-based web sites or manufacturers and just want to cry?

Ok, so some components have datasheets only available in Chinese, but at least their mechanical schematics can be understood (in God's own millimetres)

Re: What is it with Americans and imperial units?

Posted: Mon May 21, 2018 10:25 am
by EddieJ
100% :lol:

Was looking for end mills yesterday and kept finding things like 6.35mm diameter ... oh quarter of an inch well that's useless to me :-?

Just remember an inch is split into 16ths, 12 inches to the foot, 3 feet to the yard, 220 yards to the furlong, 8 furlongs to the mile and 3 miles make a league. And that's just length, lets talk about imperial weights! ... :roll:

Re: What is it with Americans and imperial units?

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 12:02 am
by LimaHotel
Honestly, I visualise distances in feet. It comes from working with scaffolding I guess. Inches are lost on me, I'm entirely metric for precise measurements, but if you ask me how tall a building is or how long that house is, my guesstimate would always be in feet.
Hoo boy, Imperial weights.
250lb is about 113.something kilos. That's all you need to know, right? 😂

Re: What is it with Americans and imperial units?

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:03 pm
by Kyro
all i know is 2.2lbs makes a kilo...

i know feet... but when they start talking about 3/16's or 12 thousandths of an inch, im lost...

i have to Google "whats blah blah in millimetres" or "whats blah blah in grams"

annoying...

Re: What is it with Americans and imperial units?

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 11:32 pm
by MarkR
Unfortunately things get really difficult when you start doing PCB design.

A lot of components are traditionally pitched in inches. Popular pin pitch is 2.54mm and 1.27mm (1/10 and 1/20 inch). Also, there is a copper thickness standard called "1oz". I have no idea what that even means, but 2oz is twice as thick (Hey, that's better than the crazy AWG wire gauge which is inverted because of reasons)

Couple that with the problem that some components are actually pitched in mm, which means that stuff just doesn't really fit conveniently. Every PCB has a compromise of fitting with imperial/metric grids.

There is a unit known as a "mil" (in American, I think) which is not a millimetre, which in English was called "thou" - which is thousandth of an inch. So we have these components like ICs which have widths of "150 mil" which (for those still reading) is about 3.8 mm.

So yes, I just made a PCB and everything is all weird, but it's good, it seems to work, the tools have built-in conversions and we can just about tolerate it.

Peace and tolerance :)

Re: What is it with Americans and imperial units?

Posted: Sat Mar 30, 2019 12:31 am
by Kyro
well im currently driving at 125kmph in a car that weighs 2054lbs to fill up with 3 gallons of gas and pick a quart of 40 weight... then i plan on returning home, turning my ac on to get my apartment to a nice cool 68°f and cracking open a cold bottle of p*sswater erm i mean beer... then im going to eat a full pound of burgers in a can with spray cheese... if i can be bothered to walk the 22feet 11inches to my kitchen...


where the hell is my 3/8 socket???

Re: What is it with Americans and imperial units?

Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2019 10:54 pm
by LimaHotel
I love how you went and used metric speed there as opposed to the standard imperial

Re: What is it with Americans and imperial units?

Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2019 7:56 am
by peterwaller
There are some of us who are old enough to have used imperial units even in the UK and if they are like me they really do appreciate the improvement going metric made once you got used to the idea.

Re: What is it with Americans and imperial units?

Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2019 11:01 am
by Kyro
i was just using every measurement thats uncommon in the uk...

its strange how we use mm,cm,m primarily but not kilometers for distance or speed...

we do what we want here in the uk! :p