Ray_li

Been using Metric all my life and now my work place has got me designing for the yanks but they want it all in fraction.
Does anybody have a table to covert mm in to fraction?

Ray

Brendan Hughes

Google blocked at work Ray?

SJ_Skyline

hit 1 fromm google:
http://www.highlandlighting.com/conversion.htm

ajm

mm to fractions? Do you mean fractions of an inch?

Divide mm by 25.4 to get inches.

Ray_li

its working but i cant find what i want

Hanslow

What do they want it as a fraction of? Keep multiplying/dividing by 10s and then start cancelling out values (which makes no sense whatsoever).

i.e. 4.235mm = 42.35 mm / 10 = 423.5mm / 100 = 4235mm /1000

If you want it in metres, divide again my number of mm in a metre, i.e. 4235 / 1,000,000 which gives 0.004235m.

So your fraction is 4235 / 1,000,000, now start cancelling down numbers, so you can at least divide both top and bottom by 5 => 847 / 200,000 until there are no common divisors.

Probably a bolloxy way of doing it, but that's how I'd do it (given your brief requirements). You can knock up a macro in excel or something to do it for you

So, 4.235mm is 847/200,000 metres

darts_aint_sport

Are you sure they aren't after fractions of imperial measurements , i.e 1' 13/16" etc..

Apparently it's quite common for the yanks to do that too.

SJ_Skyline

Just remembered about the Stonehenge US conversion issues in "This is Spinal Tapp"

Hanslow

Wasn't that the cockup they made with one of the space probes? Where the brits and yanks were working in different units (imperial and metric) assuming each other was working in the same. Hence why it just disappeared into space....

Brendan Hughes

Ray, try this table:

http://www.silverenchantments.com/co...on-charts.html

OllyK

It doesn't help that a US gallon is not the same as a UK gallon either!! Nothing like making things difficult!

Ray_li

thats what they want.

Hanslow

Tell them to use a calculator

ajm

Are you actually designing in metric but supplying dimensions in imperial? If so you will end up with some pretty random fractions that will be accurate to varying degrees.

darts_aint_sport

Well there was the Ariane 5 which crashed just after takeoff because the computer that recorded its height above ground was working in the wrong units, causing too big a number which overloaded the cpu and the rest is history. LOL.

Ray_li

Designing in metric then coverting in to imperial.

the world should work in metric

hoskib

iTrader: (1)

try this one,http://www.hpceurope.com/vgb/fichtec...onversion.html

don't know what sizes you're working with but converting to fractions of inches doesn't always tally up to and exact mm size, hence the decimal inch (just read you're a designer so you prolly know that already )

agree that everyone should use metric though, it's poxy when i get an old drawing and have to dust off my imperial rules

Ray_li

so whos a designer and what do you design?

Ray_li

know what? Im 24 and iv been trying all my life to stay away from imperial and yanks

matt.bowey

<<flame suit on>> I'm worried......a designer that cant perform the conversion......!?<<flame suit off>>

the yanks i deal with talk in "mils".......!!

carl

Unfortunately that just isn't true. There was some software in Ariane 5 which recorded velocities and accelerations. It worked on Ariane 4, so they put it in Ariane 5 untested. Unfortunately, Ariane 5 was subjected to much higher accelerations in a certain part of the flight, which caused a buffer to overflow. There was no exception handler in that routine, nor the one nested above it, and so on, so the program ended up with an unhandled exception. The rule implemented was that if there was an unhandled exception, the program should be restarted. Which is what happened on both the primary and backup processors, within 1 clock cycle of each other.

So Ariane 5 is a lesson in the importance of testing and QA, not the importance of SI units

hoskib

iTrader: (1)

umm, was that aimed at me? if so, not a designer mate. pattern maker by trade, i work from technical/cad drawings and produce wood and resin patterns for metal foundries.

MJW

Well get whoever it is who dishes the drawings out to switch the units in Autocad - an entire drawing can be converted in about 2 clicks of a mouse

Ray_li

Worries about a designer that cant do convertions?
Dont loose any sleep over it. its not like I designing a new weapon for the US.

We use a pattern maker but the old school way. Work dont fancy moving on. New manager dont even what to renew the subscription for solidworks 2005.

Changed the units from mm's to inch but they dont want 1.5" they want 1, 1/2.
try converting 1.67" thats not fun for some1 that didnt do much fractions at school.

Its ok for old people to say it p1ss easy but they cant do metric.

carl

I can do both

The problem you have is obvious if you've ever used a socket set. The AF sizes are very similar to the metric sizes, but not quite the same. For example, if you have a 12mm bit of metal with a 4mm hole in it, you'd say the hole was 1/8 inch and the remainder was 5/16 iinch. The trouble is 4mm + 8mm = 12 mm which is 1/2 inch, but 1/8 inch + 5/16 inch = 7/16 inch so you're 1/16th out.

PS: 1.67" is like this.

1 1/2 inch = 1.5" (too small)
1 3/4 inch = 1.75" (too big)
1 5/8 inch = 1.63" (a little too small)
1 11/16 inch = 1.69" (a little too big)
1 21/32 inch = 1.66" (probably as close as you will get -- you tend not to go past /32)

fast bloke

Nah - the probe went into the sea near Barbados. IIRC it cost about 26 billion for the entire mission which lasted about 13 seconds