Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
Mains cable size
Mr. Scram:
--- Quote from: TimFox on August 05, 2020, 09:30:05 pm ---One last thing about American usage, to avoid confusion if the pandemic ever allows us to visit each other again:
"mils" for 0.001 inch is common usage for wire, and is a standard technical term (not slang). My KiCad (from CERN) has mils as an option for dimensions, as well as US paper sizes.
"thou" for 0.001 inch is common US slang for sheet metal thickness and machining tolerances, but would never be spelled that way on a blueprint.
From that comes the very confusing US slang of "tenth" = 10-4 inch, when machining tolerance is tighter than 0.001". Our best instrument maker at my University was asked to achieve a tolerance of 1 micron, which he translated to "half a tenth".
--- End quote ---
The problem is that the rest of the world will see "mil" as shorthand for or an abbreviation of millimeter. It's really the most unfortunate choice for a competing term. The whole doing metric within imperial seems odd anyway but I'm not about to start another systems debate.
langwadt:
--- Quote from: Benta on August 05, 2020, 09:08:01 pm ---Zero999, I'm with you 100%, couldn't have said it better myself.
Now we just have to teach the marketing people to say "picofarads" instead of "puffs" (No kidding) :(
--- End quote ---
here it is "piff"
TimFox:
Back in 1960, I heard it called "micky-mikes", for micro-micro-farads.
Benta:
@TimFox: you skipped my favorite unit in American machining tolerancing: the RCH :-DD
TimFox:
I have only heard it quoted as "R", never the other colors. Some claim that the BCH is finer. Actually, it is about 4 mils or 0.1 mm, so not good enough tolerance for precision work. Many blueprints have +/- 0.005" as the default tolerance, unless otherwise specified. The instrument shop at my university usually shot for +/- 0.001 inch.
Europeans think that Americans only measure distances in "football fields".
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