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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

No, You Should Say "Micro Farads" (Not "U F")

One of the guys at work is the most recent, but not the only, one to annoy me with this.

Capacitor capacity is rated in Farads or a portion of a Farad. The symbol for 1/1000000th (micro) is µ. It looks a lot like a u. It is also a special symbol, and some capacitor manufacturers (especially air conditioning & motor manufacturers) mark their products in "uF" instead of "µF". Some mark them MFD or mfd, which is confusing because 1/1000th (milli) is designated with an "m", and the first letter of micro is also (drumroll) "m". Also, "M" is the standard symbol for 1000/1 (mega) and I don't think any one yet has made a 1MF capacitor, so we are somewhat safe in assuming mfd is an abbreviation of millifarads.

Uncross your eyes. They use confusing markings on capacitors sometimes.

But please, please, please: if it says uf, pronounce it microfarads. Not "U.F.".

Also, if you mean Zero, please say Zero, and not "Oh".

Words have meanings and measurements have meanings. Get it right or you might be the subject of someone else's rambling blog postings!

BOO!

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