micro,pico, and nano

[Mikebits]

In all my years of working in the field, I never encountered nanofarads until this forum. In my past we had microfarads and picofarads. Never nano, although I understand what nano is, it just seems hard to visualize for me. I would much prefer 1000pf to 1nf.

Is using nano a euro thing?

 

[ericgibbs]

In all my years of working in the field, I never encountered nanofarads until this forum. In my past we had microfarads and picofarads. Never nano, although I understand what nano is, it just seems hard to visualize for me. I would much prefer 1000pf to 1nf.

Is using nano a euro thing?

Morning Mike,

Its one of the SI metrication units. [Blame the French ]

SI prefix - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

EDIT: harmonisation of standards

 

[Mikebits]

Morning Mike,

Its one of the SI metrication units. [Blame the French ]

SI prefix - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

EDIT: harmonisation of standards

Can't yell at the French too much, afterall, they did invent that great tasting bread with syrup, and those flakey rolls.

But don't ya think working with two units is easier than three?

 

[Leftyretro]

In all my years of working in the field, I never encountered nanofarads until this forum. In my past we had microfarads and picofarads. Never nano, although I understand what nano is, it just seems hard to visualize for me. I would much prefer 1000pf to 1nf.

Is using nano a euro thing?

No, we use it in measureing time of course, as in nanoseconds. As far as pf vs nf, hell I'm so old I remember where we just used ufd and uufd, so learn to adjust and move on

I think the popularity of the additional different metric units used is so that all values can then be expressed in 3 digits or less.

Lefty

 

[ericgibbs]

Can't yell at the French too much, afterall, they did invent that great tasting bread with syrup, and those flakey rolls.

But don't ya think working with two units is easier than three?

hi,
I prefer the nano unit to pico when the value is an integer of nano and for the smaller decimal caps pico is good.

As you know the UK went metric in the 1960/70's, it was was difficult at first, but it beats the hell out of foot-pounds, farenheit, pounds shillings and pence.

Can you imagine our college work calculations ,
eg: working out the cost of heating water from xFdeg to yFdeg in BTU's at a LSD/therm related to 33,000fps, with a gravity constant of 32ft/sec,, using a slide rule.

I think that electronic calculators accelerated the change to metric.

 

[Mikebits]

No, we use it in measureing time of course, as in nanoseconds. As far as pf vs nf, hell I'm so old I remember where we just used ufd and uufd, so learn to adjust and move on

I think the popularity of the additional different metric units used is so that all values can then be expressed in 3 digits or less.

Lefty

I think the electronic industry went with metric long before I picked up my first circuit board, and this is not an argument with metric, as I think it is the way to go. My beef is using too many units. Pico and micro seems enough. So we have to write one more digit. I don't mind writing that extra digit, but at least I know what I am working with. Everytime I see nano I have to stop and make that mental calculation.

I am lazy and nano just makes me have to work my brain more, and it is just plain tired...

 

[Leftyretro]

I think the electronic industry went with metric long before I picked up my first circuit board, and this is not an argument with metric, as I think it is the way to go. My beef is using too many units. Pico and micro seems enough. So we have to write one more digit. I don't mind writing that extra digit, but at least I know what I am working with. Everytime I see nano I have to stop and make that mental calculation.

I am lazy and nano just makes me have to work my brain more, and it is just plain tired...

I hear you, but I reserve my complaint to the markings used say as on trim pots or small caps, might just say 104 and your suppose to be able to understand what units they are talking about.

 

[Mikebits]

I hear you, but I reserve my complaint to the markings used say as on trim pots or small caps, might just say 104 and your suppose to be able to understand what units they are talking about.

At first this does seem icky, but after awhile it become second nature. A good article on that is found here.

Not to imply that you need to read it
**broken link removed**

 

[dknguyen]

I see it all the time. Maybe not nF, but the nano prefix comes up way more often than either the u or p prefix. I don't really separate out the magnitude of the unit and what it's used for.

Personally, I don't see what's so hard to visualize or being lazy would do. It's just 1000 times bigger. I find it a bit funny you can visualize something 1000,000 times bigger but not 1000 times bigger.

Add on 3 zeroes or take 3 zeroes off. In my mind, I tend to treat nano relative to micro, and pico relative to nano whenever I am using nano or pico respectively (in the same way you think about 1 as being base and 1000). So it ends up that when the thing is in nano, in my head I am working with it in micro, and when it is pico I am operating on it in ym mind with nano. That's how I visualize them.

 

[kchriste]

Never nano, although I understand what nano is, it just seems hard to visualize for me. I would much prefer 1000pf to 1nf.

It took me a while to get used to nano farads also. After years of looking at 0.01uF caps, it was very hard to pickup a 10nF without thinking about it for a bit. Now it doesn't bother me anymore. 103, 10nF, or 0.01uF it's all the same to me now.

 

[Hero999]

I prefer saying 1nF than 0.001µF, it just seems easier to avoid using decimals and it just looks better.

The only prefix I don't use for capacitance is milli-Farad (mF) because it's confusing as older circuits use the letter 'm' as short for micro; does the m stand for milli or micro?

<0.1F I use µF, ≥0.1F I use F.

This seems to be the common practice, I've seen plenty of 0.47F capacitors and 22,000µF capacitors but not many 470,000µF or 0.022F capacitors.