This would explain why I started seeing wire strippers with labeling in mm.  It would be great news. 

This to a degree is the case in computer networking.  IEEE defined cable length limitations in meters, so everyone is familiar with the maximum 100 m length of an ethernet wire.  Network engineers will often talk in terms of meters during the design phase, but once you're dealing with plans drawn up in customary, or when you hand things off to cable pullers, you talk in feet.  When a survey of a cabling plant is done, again the distances are expressed in feet, and all the cable analyzers I've come across default to feet, though meters are available.  So, everyone knows about the 100 m limit, but they think of it as 328 feet.

Metricating the electrical to the degree you've described would go a long way towards getting people to think in metric.  A local electrician who deals with the local code is more of a blue-collar worker, so it looks like this gets metric down closer to the grassroots level.  Hope it's true.

On 5/31/06, Mike Millet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I've had 2 friends of mine who are electricians say that the electricians codes for the local and state levels are changing from AWG (American wire guages) to the same measures in mm. They said that the national and international building codes required lengths to be in meters and guage in mm but that the local codes hadn't changed until now when the national body of electricians decided to change the standards.

Can anyone confirm this ? The guys both said that switching to metric was no big deal as they had to learn all the metric equivalents back when they were first taught and preferred them, although some of the older electricians have had problems adjusting.

If true it would represent one more step in the gradual metrication of America.

Mike

--
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"

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