US Customary Electrical Units

[Ozark Tinkering]

We actually do use metric for everything here in the US.

We do? Guess I should toss my old 6' folding rule then.

 

[Lt.Dan]

Haha, this doesn't relate exactly, but where I work we deal in Imperial units (inches) almost exclusively. We have a customer that sends us prints that are in metric all the time, (as they are originally from New Zealand), and we constantly give him shit and tell him we only use "Been to the moon units", and we can't accept drawings in commie units ????.

 

[Rednecktek]

All the ships I work on are pure metric and flagged by Americans. I regularly give them $h1t when they ask me for a 20ft cord and I ask them what that is in meters.

Of course, when I get home I really have to work to remember how to measure everything in Imperial again and American 110v power is WEIRD!!!

 

[Ozark Tinkering]

Okay I'll go along if everyone agrees that English will be the official global language even though right now only 1.5 billion people speak it. Bilingualism is just too hard.
End Western Imperialism Now!

 

[Don B. Cilly]

Oh, English already is. Not officially, but in practice.
-

 

[Don B. Cilly]

we deal in Imperial units (inches) almost exclusively.

Funny that, considering your country fought a war to gain independence from the British Empire...

we can't accept drawings in commie units

Well, maybe you should deal with Liberian and Burmese customers exclusively ;·)
-

 

[justgary]

We do? Guess I should toss my old 6' folding rule then.

I guess you didn't get the memo!

In actuality, converting units never bothered me except for mass. Slugs work out better than Stone for engineering, but when I had to use those I converted to metric, did the calculations, and converted back.

 

[Don B. Cilly]

A funny thing, in most of Europe, inches are used (pretty much exclusively) for plumbing connections.
Nobody seems to know why... my guess is (an inch being the width of a thumb) it was easy enough to stick your thumb in a tube to see how it fit ;·)
-

 

[justgary]

5p. Has been since 1971. See post #10 .
-

But was 12p before that. You made me go off and look it up. So a Shilling was 1/20 pound, which I suppose is where we got the idea for a nickel.

It is very interesting how nearly every combination of small denominations had a name, e.g., you couldn't just pay somebody 4p, you owed him a "Groat."

http://projectbritain.com/moneyold.htm

 

[Don B. Cilly]

Yeah well. Imagine what they were called in London's rhyming slang :·)
-

 

[Danke]

I ordered a beer in the UK. Got one in a imperial pint…


Imperial measures are still in use, especially for road distances, which are measured in miles. Imperial pints and gallons are 20 per cent larger than US measures.

 

[Ozark Tinkering]

I guess you didn't get the memo!

Damn secretary...ever since covid she just sits there filing her nails and making smacking sounds with her chewing gum. She acts like there's nobody to replace her. Every time I catch her on the phone it's with one of her friends and she never, I mean never writes anything down. I don't know what to do with these young people today?

 

[Warpspeed]

One curious thing is tire sizes, which are truly international.
For example a 205/60/15 means:

205 millimetres wide
60% aspect ratio (the difference between wide and high)
And the rim, wait for it, inches in diameter

How is that for crazy ?

 

[Shimmy]

A funny thing, in most of Europe, inches are used (pretty much exclusively) for plumbing connections.
Nobody seems to know why... my guess is (an inch being the width of a thumb) it was easy enough to stick your thumb in a tube to see how it fit ;·)
-

Much of Europe still refers to dimension lumber as a 2x4 or whatever. My brother-in-law in Sweden has a folding 6' ruler with inches and cm markings. Some things just don't die.

My only real hold-out is AWG/KCMIL... which I will fully admit is about the dumbest set of measurements out there, but I know them by rote memory.

 

[MattiFin]

46.5 Per Cent?? That's a pretty commie-metric-sounding measurement there buddy. Maybe convert that to a ColoradoDriveway Grade.

Don't forget the Jackson which is the amount of Teslas required to move a muscle car from here to Yonder.

Also, make sure the representative symbols are logical, like the Edison being Q, the Franklin being Z and the Tesla should be represented by the @ symbol... because screw letters!

1:12 or 14:64 slope would be much more fitting for US system.

You should also stop using British Thermal Unit.
How about 'Murican Thermal Unit or MTU?
US std liquid barrels (don't confuse with oil barrel) of sperm whale oil needed to burn to boil and vaporize (US)(liquid) gallon of water at 200F and 12 PSI SDC (standard denver conditions).

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

ya gonna measure something liquid you need to measure it in WTB or in 400OE. thats wild turkey bottles, or 400 old english. all other measurements are liquid measurements are worthless. for length go with MC vs YC I will let you sort that out.

 

[Goboatingnow]

We changed over in 1990s from miles to Km. The country adapted quickly and moved on , the road signs guys made a fortune.

By the way it’s a metre , a meter is a thing that measures things.

Mind you I’m a pre decimal guy , so plumbing timber etc is in inches. But then I learned pounds shillings and pence at school.

In the US where I lived and worked in engineering almost everything was metric, unless it was exclusively for the us markets.

Even the us military uses klicks

 

[Danke]

Aviation it is knots and nautical miles. Some charts have feet, some meters, and many both.

Altitude is usually in feet, but some countries use meters.

 

[Don B. Cilly]

Knots and nautical miles are the only units that make sense geographically.
-

 

[Warpspeed]

Yes indeed, for navigation, knots and nautical miles are the logical unit, and will always remain so.

The nautical types also have fathoms, and other very mysterious units of measurement.