Digital value to engineering units...where should I do the conversion?

TurpoUrpo said:

No religion there, SI is simply better.

And the simply is the meaningful thing there. You have a base unit and common ten based multiples of it.

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what do you do when someone want the rate in h**-1 or d**-1?


what do you when 4ma is 0 counts and 20ma is 16,384 counts?


where is the factor of 10 in those situations?



"power of ten" is useless once you get out of the classroom.


it's simply not better, except for those who struggle when the multiplier is not a power of 10. Not worse either, of course; units are irrelevant other than that they be well documented in their usage.

When I was a kid in school in the 1980's we were told we would all be using the 'metric' system by the time we were adults. For a very short time new road signs were being put up with dual units [miles and km].

40 years later, the only place I have seen significant movement visible to the public is in beverage containers. While we still have 12 oz. cans, large bottles are pretty exclusively 2 liters and many containers are 500ml, etc. Although, milk is still sold mostly gallons/ half gallons/ quarts and pints?

Behind the scenes a lot of things are SI units (with the exception of some fasteners) like automotive, aerospace and probably a lot of other industries I don't know about.

In the end, I think there is just a lot of mental and even more so financial inertia resisting the change. When all the steel mill are set up to make 4"x4" angle iron, and that size will match up with all the other angle iron produced in the last century, there is not a lot of impetus and a lot of cost in changing to a 100mmx100mm angle iron standard. Likewise with all of the wooden building products such as 2"x4" studs, 4ft x 8ft sheets. The entire building and construction industry is set up to produce, transport, store, design to and use these common sizes. Changing to some even SI unit denominations would literally snowball through entire industries with a period of cost and increased build time and mistakes as everyone adapts. And the end customer just wants a house, he doesn't care if the doorways are 32inches wide or 800mm wide. But he does want to be able to go to the supply store and buy a standard door that fits his opening if the old one gets damaged.

This brings up the issue of stocking these types of materials. Does the supply store then have to purchase and stock two of everything? They already do this for threaded fasteners but those are small things. When it comes to lumber, doors, windows etc. I don't see that happening.

A reason I had heard about why our gas/petrol stations did not switch from gallons to liters is lame but probably, sadly true. People thought that the sellers would take advantage of the situation and charge more since people would not be familiar with the new units of cost per liter.

I really wish it did happen but don't see it in my lifetime.

ndzied1 said:

A reason I had heard about why our gas/petrol stations did not switch from gallons to liters is lame but probably, sadly true. People thought that the sellers would take advantage of the situation and charge more since people would not be familiar with the new units of cost per liter.

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That pretty much did happen in the UK when we switched to fuel quantity and pricing in litres. Because of the smaller unit quantity and pricing, increases were unashamedly larger, and it did get difficult to adapt to.

We are currently enjoying (sic) a price per litre of around 117.9p. That is to all intents and purposes that's £1.18, which is around £5.36 per gallon, of which a sizeable proportion (just shy of 50%) is duty !

At today's exchange rate that £5.36 is US$7.24 per gallon.

What's a typical price in the US and how much of that price is duty ?

[Whoops, lotta mistakes to fix; I suppose that will be used to support the "MKS better" delusion.]

daba said:

At today's exchange rate that £5.36 is US$7.24 per gallon.

What's a typical price in the US and how much of that price is duty ?

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I see that that's an Imperial gallon (10lbf of water at 62degF), not US (231in**3); 1.18£/l is price is 4.47£/USgal or 6.03$/USgal.

In Rochester, NY, I see it was 1.94$/USgal at Costco on 01.December; I am seeing mostly 2.24$/USgal around town (on the rare days when I get out).


(what, no :shameface: emoji? ; but then, we don't use those more expensive units ).


So with 50% duty, the pre-duty price in the UK is about one-third higher than the post-tax price in Rochester; according to The Google, the tax in Rochester is 0.456$/UGgal, or about 20%.

drbitboy said:

I assume that's a US gallon (231in**3), not Imperial (10lbf of water at 62degF).



In Rochester, NY, I see it was $1.94 /gal at Costco on 01.December; I am seeing mostly $2.24 around town (on the rare days when I get out).


(what, no :shameface: emoji? )


But then, we don't use more expensive units .

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That's an imperial gallon = 4.546 litres

A US gallon = 3.785 litres

So a comparative price per US gallon would be 117.9 x 3.785 = £4.46 per US gallon, or US$6.01 !! We are paying nearly 3 times as much as the US for our fuel ....

daba said:

What's a typical price in the US and how much of that price is duty ?

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Here in the center of the civilized universe, (OkieLand) we scoff at prices over $2/ us gallon. $1.85 is common.

OkiePC said:

Here in the center of the civilized universe, (OkieLand) we scoff at prices over $2/ us gallon. $1.85 is common.

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What %age is "duty" ?

daba said:

What's a typical price in the US and how much of that price is duty ?

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Duty or what we would call tax on gas/petrol varies widely by state. As a Republic, each state sets its own rate.

The minimum is $0.0895 / US Gallon in Alaska
The maximum is $0.5860 / US Gallon in Pennsylvania

Average is $0.2885 / US Gallon
Median is $0.2740 / US Gallon

The tax on Diesel fuel may be different but is mostly the same or very similar to gasoline.

daba said:

What %age is "duty" ?

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In Oklahoma, duty is $0.20 per Gallon. This part remains constant regardless of the wholesale cost of the fuel.

While we see the duty or tax on receipts for almost everything else we purchase, this is never shown on fuel receipts.
Why? I don't know. It has been that way as long as I can remember.

I think this thread has been hijacked

daba said:

What %age is "duty" ?

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$0.20 in Oklahoma plus the federal tax of $0.183

parky said:

I think this thread has been hijacked

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There's no "thinK" about it.


BitBoy's Laws: 22% of all threads get hijacked; 56% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Ha ha, Bitboys share 70% of the 22%

parky said:

ha ha, bitboys share 70% of the 22%

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yeah, true dat.

You got me at it now lol