Adding Ohm symbol to schematic

I feel somewhat compelled to weigh in but I guess my opinion is a lonely one. I like to use engineering notation, so 4K7 becomes 4.7e+3 and 22 nF becomes 22e-9. The advantage to those is that a spreadsheet (at least Microsoft Excel) can directly read it as a numerical value. In my lab, the components are grouped according to numerical value so this facilitates the build process. Also…if you do stick to some sort of numerical value then that eliminates the issue of your spreadsheet considering 22 nF as distinct from 0.022 uF as different from .022 uF (dropping the leading zero.)

I don’t understand why humans would use cryptic 0.022uF/.022uF instead of 22nF, sounds like modern C++ where cryptic syntax has become innovation.

I don’t know enough about C++ to understand the reference, but if you browse ceramic chip capacitors at Mouser Electronics you see this. I am not defending it, but I have seen worse. We know that capacitors are rated in Farads and resistors in ohms, so why not drop the unit and just use a real number?

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Given that choice, I do prefer 22 nF over 0.022 uF. (Oh but what about 22 nF versus 22n and 22nF?) But my point is that there is a real lack of standardization in nomenclature, and for a non-programmer such as me, my computer will take all of them as different text fields.

If your job is 150 kM from your house, you might rent a cheap room and drive ohm on Faraday, right?

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The mods don’t really like to silence people (Discourse jail), but you are pushing your luck here. :smiley:

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I think it might be due to historical marking of physical capacitors. Larger capacitors like electrolytics were marked in micro-farads and the smaller, disk ceramic capacitors were marked in pico-farads using either colored notches (really old caps) or a number code read in the same way as resistors but as a quantity of pico-farads. The physical capacitors were never (or hardly ever) marked in nano-farads so the early electronics references that I learned from rarely used nF so I (and I would presume my contemporaries) never got into the habit of using nF. Granted, I’m no EE, I only have an Associate’s degree in EET.

Same here. I worked for a large multinational that offered tuition reimbursement to all employees. They never really though us low life, non-management worker bee types would actually use it though. They paid for ‘hobby’ in my case. :smiley:

Historical or hysterical?

Years ago the term “micro micro farads” was commonly used. Pretty obtuse, huh?

I think that Bob Pease (or was it Jim Williams) also had no 4 year degree. Incompetent, all of you! (I am kidding.)

On macOS (Monteray) you can use fn-E to enter emoji and symbols in many applications. The Ω and µ are on the “letterlike symbols” page. However, it doesn’t seem to work in most of the KiCad text entry fields even though the “Emoji and Symbols” item appears under the Edit menu in the KiCad applications

I remember nano becoming common in the 70s. My older colleaues used micro-micro and 0.001 micro. Very hard to read.

The exponential version would be useless in the component shops and I struggle to interpret them in my head

e-12 pico
e-9 nano
e-6 micro
e-3 milli
e+3 kilo
e+6 meg
e+9 gig
Is this all so e+12 tera (bul)? :slight_smile:

I continue to be impressed with how niche-y knowledge and expertise can be. I typically use spreadsheets for my electronics calculations, (or my old HP11C calculator) and use engineering notation either way. (Microsoft as typical obfuscates by not calling it that.) But anyway I go back and forth with the above equivalents without thinking. However I am very limited in the digital realm and find that I am bad with any programming. Python is either Monty or a snake.

Yea, right:
provided there’s no delay time except to collector some flowers to rectify resistance otherwise…choke, noise, and you’re fluxed.

This is good! I suspect that you are touching on some…family issues! :slight_smile:

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If they stuck to 3,6,9 I would have no problem
It’s when I see 47e-7 that I have to stop and think

Yes I would agree with that. I wonder if the person doing that was too lazy to convert from scientific notation (from a spreadsheet for example) to engineering notation. I used to use scientific notation (including 5,7,8 exponents for example) in Excel before I learned how Microsoft had hidden the option for engineering notation:

image

I am using Excel from 2007 and it is possible that newer versions have improved this…but I would not bet on it.

When I was a student I found caps with the legend 10k. I asked the teacher and he told me it meant 10 nF because it was 10 kilo pico farad.

K could also mean ±10% tolerance…

EIA-96 SMD resistor codes are even worse, 30B = 2k0 … obvious :persevere:

I think that is probably more likely. My bet favors 10 pF 10%. I wonder what was the physical appearance of the capacitor. 10 pF would be a very small capacitor such as a 2-3 mm diameter 100 - 500V disk ceramic? To be 10 nF it would probably be somewhat larger and/or multilayer and lower voltage.

I would expect to see 103K to indicate 10 nF = 10,000 pF 10%. Obtuse nomenclature, huh?

I have never seen anything like that. Did that come from the WW2 Enigma code machine?

I STAND CORRECTED! Hmmm I wonder who dreamed that up?

https://www.hobby-hour.com/electronics/eia96-smd-resistors.php