Argos, mutter, grumble...

[Man at B&Q]

Only where the user is too simple to understand the difference between precision and accuracy.

MBQ

[The Medway Handyman]

Because whole numbers are easier to read off a tape. Therefore makoing it easier for everyone. It's called good design.

[Man at B&Q]

All my tapes have clear graduations every mm. You should be aiming for at least mm accuracy, i.e., 91.5/2 use 45.7 or 45.8mm. 92/2 would be

46.0mm, not 46mm.

MBQ

[Nightjar]

Far from it, as a look at any road sign with distance on it will show. All we did in 1973 was to promise the EU that we would adopt metric within five years, which we eventually did for selling goods some 27 years later, after a corruption scandal in the EU prevented legislation that would have allowed us to continue to use imperial from getting through the EU parliament in time. Even now, it is only a legal requirement that pricing units are expressed in metric. A shed can still, quite legally, be sold as 6' x 8' without any need to give metric equivalents.

Colin Bignell

[F]

A few years back I fitted a Bathrooms.com washbasin. It wasn't until I came to hang the brackets I'd fixed using the supplied template that I found that said template had been drawn with the holes for them out of position by 180º.

The guy at the shop couldn't understand what the problem was...

[Tim Streater]

Turn the template over.

[Roger Mills]

Doesn't your tape rule also have feet and inches?

Think of it this way. They've got your best interests at heart. If it was *too* easy, no-one would need to employ you to do it for them!

[F]

The way the holes were spaced, it was impossible to get the template into a position that would get them into the correct position.

[Ian Jackson]

Uh? If you couldn't get the template into a position that would get the holes into the correct position, presumably the washbasin wouldn't fit either?

[Tim Streater]

Blimey, there's another one!

[F]

They had to supply the correct template. The way the brackets fitted wasn't symmetrical...

[The Other Mike]

With the exception of DIP packages and a few connector series, most electronic components are now metric. 2.54mm = 0.1" but 2.5mm != 0.1"

[Man at B&Q]

It might have been in the dark ages.

MBQ

[charles]

Standard DIL package 0.1 inch hole centres (or centers)

[Man at B&Q]

at

:

ndyman

The vast majority of new production is surface mount where lead pitches of 0.5mm, 0.65m, etc are very common.

MBQ

[Dave Plowman (News)]

0.5mm is so close to the 10ths scale of the inch to make little difference in practice with most surface mount components. Of course with vast microprocessors, things may be different. But given many PCBs will still make use of at least some non surface mount stuff - like large capacitors

- you'll be into some very odd metric measurements there.

[Bob Eager]

Your mention of vast microprocessors is very apposite, since MBQ was talking about 0.65m lead spacings!

.-)

[Man at B&Q]

That's certainly not the general rule. More likely standard sub- modules being integrated in different combinatiuons in different models.

MBQ

[Man at B&Q]

Non-metric are usually spec'ed as such, e.g. 2.54mm or 5.08mm. The ones I quoted *are* metric, as are virtually all new components.

MBQ