Electronics > Beginners
Smd 0402 / 0603 assembly considerations
I wanted a rude username:
"The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from." -Andrew S. Tanenbaum
I'm all for consistency. Older SMDs were specified in imperial, e.g. 2512 imperial (which would be 6332 metric), but that flipped at some point and newer packages like 5050 LEDs are specified in metric. Same happened with ICs. Presumably it will all metricate eventually ... made2hack and I are just helping the process along. ;)
Siwastaja:
--- Quote from: Nerull on January 10, 2020, 06:52:59 am ---Whoever decided that smd components should have two completely different but identically formatted unitless size identifiers should be slapped.
--- End quote ---
There wouldn't be any issue. They are primarily names, i.e., identifiers, not measurements. They uniquely convey the meaning of the correct footprint, which can be looked up.
Anyone who uses the "metric" versions is just so totally and utterly misled that they must be ignored. Usage of "metric" version is, luckily, almost nonexistent.
Creating a new standard is not a big issue, because a new standard has a new name. Creating a new standard and borrowing a name of the old is just totally nuts.
There is a reason people say "1 kg", not "1 lb (metric)", or just "1 lb" (assuming metric without saying anything). There is no metric lb, similarly there is no metric 0402. Whoever says otherwise is either completely nuts, or has a malice intent to confuse, and is not suitable for engineering.
Any manufacturer is free to come up with a new, descriptive identifier for SMD components, and use metric system for that. For example, "0.4x0.2mm" would do the job pretty nicely; or "M004002" would work with 0.1mm resolution up to 99.9x99.9 mm without any dot characters if that's a problem.
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