Re: Awesome Quarter Shrinking Capacitors on EBAY

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: Ed Phillips <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net> 

Tesla list wrote:
 >
 > Original poster: John <fireba8104-at-yahoo-dot-com>
 >
 > It could be, I really don't know the dielectric. The only thing it must
 > conform to is the 4000vac rating otherwise. I'm clueless as far as that
 > issue goes. I'll be able to measure it in a week or two.
 > Cheers,
 > John
 > P.S why is the U.S. still using the customary system

	I'm still betting on the units being microfarads.  As for the question
at the end, "why fix it if it ain't broke"? Are you seeing electrical
components (resistors and capacitors) being labeled with "nano and
milli"? In some cases we do and some cases we don't and I haven't seen
such designation for capacitors.  Change for change sake isn't
necessarily progress.  As far as I'm concerned the units we use now are
perfectly fine and unambiguous and I guess a lot of others must agree.
I can go to the local hardware store and buy replacement parts (screws,
nuts, pipe threads, etc.) which fit stuff built before the turn of the
20th century.  With the increasing use of metric screw fasteners I find
that an additional stock is required, increasing the cost of doing
business and thus ultimately the price I pay for something which is no
more useful.  You use what you like and I'll use what I like and the
results should be the same.

	The case is often made that the U.S. is losing lots of potential export
business because we aren't using the metric (really the SI) system of
units universally.  Over the past 40 years I've done business with
several foreign customers, bidding to their specifications.  The system
of units has only come up in connection with fasteners, where SAE and
metric machine screws are not interchangeable.  As long as our
dimensions were correct it didn't matter if the drawings were in inches
or mm or lignes or whatever.  I think there are very few, if any, TC
"nuts" who can't handle whatever dimensions (wire size, coil dimensions,
etc.) come along.  Any more of this and Terry will consider the whole
note "off topic" and of course he'd be right.

Ed