Metric Vs Imperial

[Bushranger1]

Even worse when you got work on an american machine with a metric engine!!! The body or frame is standard and engine is metric!!!
Makes you warm and happy going to from the tool box!!!!

Absolutely!
As I said our company purchase most of our equipment from the U.S.A & because sometimes various components come from different suppliers we end up with a piece of equipment with a mix of metric & imperial.
Very frustrating!
I bet there would be less oil mix (I cringe using this term in case someone changes this to an oil mix thread) queries if you used the Metric system.

 

[Fish]

You Commie Bustards can have my 12 inch ruler when you pry it from my cold, dead, hand.................................................

My Snap On Metric wrenches, keep away from them too.

I remember as a kid our social studies teacher proclaiming that when we got to college, metric is all we would see......

Boy was he wrong. We could always blame it on Carter, everyone blames everything on him, poor guy.......

 

[Bushranger1]

Stone age !! i like that !! addressed to the most progressed country on the planet too !!

Good point. I will wear that one. I guess thats why our company buys our High Technology equipment from you guys in the USA.

Still does not change my view on the stupid Imperial measurement system though!

 

[tdi-rick]

Stone age !! i like that !! addressed to the most progressed country on the planet too !!

As a system, maybe not stone age, but at least iron aged as for the rest of that sentence, I think we may have several different definitions of 'progressed'

What we are saying is that everyone else being metric, it really does cost a lot of time, money and agro having two competing systems worldwide.
Australia, Canada, The UK (mostly) have gone metric, it's doable, it's just that people hate change.

Just think if Jefferson had have got his way in 1790, you'd be pointing the finger at the rest of us, and rightly so.

 

[Freehand]

Inch/Foot/Pound imperial measurements are by design to keep the masses ignorant of simple mathematics.....

Even in ancient times how in the hell did it make sense to quantify everything by 8's 12's and 16's......madness.....

 

[roncoinc]

Inch/Foot/Pound imperial measurements are by design to keep the masses ignorant of simple mathematics.....

Even in ancient times how in the hell did it make sense to quantify everything by 8's 12's and 16's......madness.....

Blame it on the MASON's !!! LOL !!!!

 

[CGC4200]

I like the simplicity of the metric system

Every measure increases by x10 to next increment, not 12" in 1', or
3 feet in a yard; but I don't think the Imperial (English) system is going to
go away soon.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

Australia, Canada, The UK (mostly) have gone metric, it's doable, it's just that people hate change..

Yep.


Now if we could just get Japan & Germany to use the same thread pitch on their metric fasteners!

 

[tdi-rick]

Yep.


Now if we could just get Japan & Germany to use the same thread pitch on their metric fasteners!

Now that's almost a step too far

Imagine the crap we've had to put up with here over the years.
Thanks to being so closely aligned with Britain till the fifties, all our fasteners were Whitworth, which uses a great (radiused) thread form, but stupid, stupid, stupid head sizes.

Then most fasteners went towards NC and UNF, so mostly the bolt threads were compatible, although Whitworth heads carried over far too long....
There are still a lot of Whitworth bolts and nuts around, so we have to have AF, Metric and occasionally Whit sockets, ring spanners, etc.
I've become lazy and generally jam a metric socket onto a Whitworth head to get it undone, then throw the bugger away when working on stuff.

I won't even touch on the really old stuff that crops up from time to time like BA, BSF, etc

 

[Bushranger1]

Yep.


Now if we could just get Japan & Germany to use the same thread pitch on their metric fasteners!

Now that you have bought up that issue can I also gripe about the times I have damaged some of our companies American equipment by plugging it in to our 240 volt supply without realising that it was set for 115volt! Even our electrician has done it.
The world is getting a smaller place so some sort of across the board standardization would be great.

 

[Fish]

Yep.


Now if we could just get Japan & Germany to use the same thread pitch on their metric fasteners!

Just think, what if they won the war.....................

would there be anything to discuss?

 

[heimannm]

Blueridge has pointed out a bit of a sticky wicket in the metric argument, there is no real world wide standard for hex sizes or thread pitch.

We use a lot of 10 mm fasteners on some of the equipment we build, originally all of the bolts were 14mm across the flats, then with change in specification they became 15 mm across the flats. Some are still 14, most are 15, and the nuts are 17mm across the flats.

Now we ship one of these machines to Japan and there is no such thing as a good quality 15 mm wrench so we are basically out of luck when we have to work on one of those machines.

Yes the metric system can be simpler to use, but for those of us that have been exposed to the Imperial system from the beginning is probably makes just as much sense.

Mark

 

[tdi-rick]

Now that you have bought up that issue can I also gripe about the times I have damaged some of our companies American equipment by plugging it in to our 240 volt supply without realising that it was set for 115volt! Even our electrician has done it.
The world is getting a smaller place so some sort of across the board standardization would be great.

hahahaha, you're on a roll mate

Don't forget the drop in speed that can sometimes be a pain when going form the US/Canada 60Hz to our 50Hz supply.
Most of the world is 220-240V single phase, 380-415V three phase except for where the US has had a fair old influence.

Then there is absolutely no standardisation worldwide on household electric plugs.
Apparently China copied ours (Aus/NZ) but then made the pins 1mm or so longer so it would be different again.

Then what can we talk about, there isn't a standard railway gauge between any of the states here, and that's just in one country.

 

[tdi-rick]

[snip]

Now we ship one of these machines to Japan and there is no such thing as a good quality 15 mm wrench so we are basically out of luck when we have to work on one of those machines.

[snip]
Mark

I agree with the rest, but you've lost me on this bit Mark ?
Are you saying there aren't any 15mm ring or open end spanners in Japan ?

 

[CGC4200]

Don.t forget about the 50 Hz- 60Hz issue

Even if the voltage is right, a lot of the world uses 50 Hz. frequency.
A lot of of our single phase motors in US can be switched from from 120 to
240 by changing connections in the connection box on motor.
I have changed 240 3 phase to 480 3 phase by changing wires there,
but if you try to adapt motors to a different frequency ???

 

[heimannm]

tid-rick - My experience in Japan was that at the normal shops where you can get good quality tools, there are no good quality 15 mm box end or combination wrenches. Plenty of 14 and 17mm, in fact I picked up a couple of their "Lobster" ratches with 14 mm socket on one side, 17mm socket on the other side, and the handle is a nice line up bar/punch like would be used in structural steel work.

In other places like Thailand you can find almost any size Imperial or metric wrench or socket, the lack of 15 mm seems to be peculiar to Japan.

Mark

 

[Bushranger1]

hahahaha, you're on a roll mate

Don't forget the drop in speed that can sometimes be a pain when going form the US/Canada 60Hz to our 50Hz supply.
Most of the world is 220-240V single phase, 380-415V three phase except for where the US has had a fair old influence.

Then there is absolutely no standardisation worldwide on household electric plugs.
Apparently China copied ours (Aus/NZ) but then made the pins 1mm or so longer so it would be different again.

Then what can we talk about, there isn't a standard railway gauge between any of the states here, and that's just in one country.

Now thats VERY funny!
But it's true. I had totally forgotten about the Hertz change. This just gets better all the time and to think it started with an oil mix thread.

Next thing you know is that the water will rotate the opposite way down the plug hole in the Southern Hemisphere. Oh I forgot it really does! You will know it's getting really bad when someone says that all the analog clocks should go in the opposite direction than the rest of the world too.

 

[tdi-rick]

E
[snip]
but if you try to adapt motors to a different frequency ???

As I mentioned above, it just changes the motor speed.
On refrigeration/air condition gear for example, you lose capacity, which is why Carrier introduced R500 to replace R22 refrigerant in large commercial packaged systems for Australian use in the late sixties/early seventies. It gave the system back what it lost with the motor speed drop.

 

[flxblx]

While this can of worms is open.

Why don't we have a "standard" hydraulic fittings.
NPT, O-Ring Boss, Flat Face, Komatsu (some one was really trying to confuse people with that one).


How about roller chain.
50 chain is 5/8 pitch, 60 chain is 6/8 pitch. What are the metric equivalents for these?

 

[heimannm]

Most 60 Hz motor will run on 50 hz, they just turn slower, and vice versa. You do need to pay attention to frequency if you are buying stuff like analog clocks that work with gears. A 4 pole motor at 60 Hz turns (approx.) 1800 RPM, at 50 Hz turns (approx) 1500 RPM. Many larger motors will be labled for dual frequency as well as multiple voltages.

Voltages are not very well standardized either, in North America we use 120/240/480 as a base, but in many parts in Canada the high voltage is 575. In Brasil the frequency is 60 Hz but high voltage motors are generally 380 volt.

In Japan, the West (South) is 60 Hz and the East (North) is 50 Hz, but throughout the voltages tend to be 100/200/400.

And just to make it even more interesting, India and Pakistan, plus a few other places in the region have time zones that are 1/2 hour off from the rest of the world.

If you want to confuse your not too bright foreman at work some day, ask for a metric conversion chart for RPM.

Mark