Arrrggghhh! - Metric Stuff Up!

How many firkins in a butt? 14, or 2 hogsheads.

Reply to
Pete Keillor
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cm.

Reply to
Pete Keillor

I've gotten to the point where I do even trivial stuff on Alibre. It can go back and forth from imperial to metric with a couple of mouse clicks.

Reply to
Jim Stewart

You an those new fanged "Arabic numbers". In my day that would have been I digit by II cubits and III palms by V cubits I palm and II and XXXXIII of LXIIII."

Spans, man, spans.

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

If you can, then do so.

The problem that the OP had is trying to "visualize" how big a sheet of metal is, when the numbers are expressing in System International (aka Metric). If you "grow up" with one system, it is often hard to visualize the other "new" system. We in the US know how big a 3 foot by 5 foot thing is, but a 1 meter by 1.5 thing is 'how big???" (Answer: pretty much the same size). It is an experience thing.

Like watching me paw through the tool bag, with the mix of metric and standard wrenches.

tschus pyotr

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

Jon Anderson on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 10:10:31

-0800 typed >

The hardware survives. To fix it, you need the Imperial nuts, bolts and dinguses.

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

I also make the occasional factor of ten error...

When I'm doing engineering calculations I get everything into metric, and go from there. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that most times I'm doing electrical power conversion stuff, and Volts, Amps, Watts, etc., are all native metric quantities (there are native-English measures of all of these, too, which used to be common -- argh!). So it's natural to have all my distances, forces, torques, etc., in metric, too, as most of the conversion factors then become 1. And it's _easy_ to multiply or divide by 1.

Reply to
Tim Wescott

Order your parts with inch dimensions, and let the shop convert the units if they have to or let them assign the experienced guy to make the part because he understands inches.

When I got a drawing that was in metric, I did several things to make the part. First I would convert each metric dimension to inches, (Often I found that the part was designed in inches originally given the way the conversions came out.) and then if I was the one that would be making the mold, I would then calculate the shrink for the plastic so I knew how much bigger to make the mold. I would draw a pencil line through the metric dimension, yellow highlight the inch (part) dimensions and blue highlight the mold dimensions.

For the times when we had a aluminum casting made, the pattern maker would have to additionally calculate the shrink rate of the aluminum and the plastic so the final casting would come out correctly. (Note: this was at a plastic vacuum forming shop.)

Roger Shoaf

Reply to
RS at work

The Roman empire collapsed because, lacking a zero, they had no way to indicate successful completion of their "C" programs. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

By "imperial," you mean natural units, right? Like the inch, foot, and so on? ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

Well, a few years ago I bought a pick and place machine. It came in set for metric units, although there was a software setting to convert to inch units. I was a little worried that all the internal offsets and alignments might not automatically convert, so I left it as it was. So, my mill and lathe are imperial, although I could work in either system on the CNC mill. Anyway, the only measuring instrument I have that does metric is an electronic caliper. I have never had any real problem using this machine in the metric system. I have to measure the dimensions of boards in mm to compute offsets for the machine when it loads them against its internal stops. Once in a while the coordinate numbers don't look right, and I use the electronic caliper to measure the spot on the board. So, really, it was SURPRISINGLY easy to just use mm on this machine with no particular training, re-thinking, etc. I am now convinced I made a good choice to leave it in metric, as the whole electronics industry has gone totally metric.

I don't, by default, think in metric, but it just isn't that hard to me to jump back and forth. (Never tried measuring my HOUSE in mm, though!) Also, because I support CNC users in a bunch of countries, they all use mm, so I have to translate to speak their language.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

Snip

Good God Andrew! How old are you? I've been in Australia since 1973, and I now find the imperial system a right pain. I volunteer at Scienceworks, and of course most of the stuff we resurrect is originally Imperial measurements. I find that I have to stop and think twice every time I do any machining

Reply to
Grumpy

(...)

...'II and XLIII of LXIV', yes?

I agree. Much more intuitive. :)

(Ooof!)

The Romans invented vi then?

--Winston

Reply to
Winston

I was taught, a lot time ago, to think in your head about what calculation seemed reasonable and when the results differed, go over my calculations again.

I convert all metric to imperial to stay sane.

Wes

Reply to
Wes

That is such an irriation. I maintain automated assembly cells that *should* be metric since that is a company standard but keep running into imperial stuff. It means I need to grab double the amount of tools to work on it and what ever fitting I bring will be wrong.

And just to finish off, 25.4 mm x 254 mm is not a metric measurement imho.

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Reply to
Wes

Not true; I get confused with measuring tapes that give feet and inches instead of just inches. It's easier to use the millimeter scale.

There's some kind of secret organization that has been advertising a decalibration of the cup, they have some wacky idea about making a pair of different units, It's VITAL that this activity be suppressed, lest my reliable 236.6 ml measuring instruments be made into a new source of confusion!

Get the NIST after that bunch of scoundrels, quickest! It was something to do with "two cup sizes" and the organization was called "Victoria's Secret"...

Reply to
whit3rd

Um, since an 11mm wrench is almost always interchangeable with a 7/16" wrench, methinks you have a faulty keyboard there, Tim.

I'm becoming used to using metric numbers from my tape measures nowadays. I seem to make fewer inch-different mistakes.

-- Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling. -- Margaret Lee Runbeck

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Reply to
Rich Grise

I dismissed it as a typo from using a keyboard spaced 19mm instead of

3/4".

jsw, watching Lea Michelle channel Patti Lupone

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

In some case, maybe, in other cases no. Better XXXX than accepting XL - because any one can put an X before the L, reducing the quantity by a fifth. Cuts one's bills down, but ....

If you are converting from decimal.

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

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