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Too many standards rant

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by qbee42, Aug 27, 2009.

  1. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    This is another one of my technical rants, or to be technical, a rant about technical issues. :eek:

    I just purchased a new Katadyn filter for my sailboat. I use a Katadyn ceramic filter to make the lake water microbiologically safe for drinking. For the past few years I've used a small one cobbled together from a small expedition filter. It worked okay, but it wasn't really designed for permanent installation and eventually the plastic fatigued at the tubing connection. Since it worked well, I decided to do a professional installation using a larger and more robust Katadyn filter.

    The new filter features a stainless steel threaded fitting on the end, used for mounting and water flow of the filtered water. I could tell by inspection that is wasn't a tapered fitting, so I knew it wasn't normal pipe thread. Katadyn is a Swiss company, so my first assumption was metric threads. I tried all of my metric nuts and none fit. I shrugged my shoulders and reached for my English fasteners. None of them fit. "What the frak kind of fitting is this?" I mumbled, while looking for my collection of thread gauges. I went through all of the metric and all of the English gauges and came up blank. Jumping Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, plumbing isn't supposed to be this hard.

    My next tactic was to drag out the calipers and measure the darn thing: 1/4" x 19 TPI. What sort of a fastener is that? Imagine my surprise when I discovered yet another standard: 1/4" x 19 TPI is 1/4" BSP, or British Standard Pipe. In particular, this fitting is 1/4 BSPP, or British Standard Pipe Parallel, which means the threads are not tapered as with NSP. I ordered a tap, knowing no hardware store within 100 miles would have one.

    :mmph:

    I now see that BSP is used in a number of areas, including hydraulic fittings. I probably should have gone to the tractor supply store. Bother.

    Tom
     
    #1 qbee42, Aug 27, 2009
  2. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    We have TONS of fun when our American engineers are working with our Swiss engineers! For laughs we throw in some Germans and Italians. It's a blast!!

    Ok, it's not as bad as all that, but even though we all work for the same company, we do still trip from time to time. We laugh and get over it.
    Right now, I'm leading a team to develop a training curriculum. The team is two Americans, two Swiss and an Italian. We pilot in Asia Pacific. What could possibly go wrong?
     
    #2 TonyPSchaefer, Aug 27, 2009
  3. hobbit

    hobbit Senior Member

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    british standard pipe, huh? Does that have Whitworth size
    hexes on the outside too?
    .
    _H*
     
    #3 hobbit, Aug 27, 2009
  4. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    <grin>
     
    #4 qbee42, Aug 27, 2009
  5. Stev0

    Stev0 Honorary Hong Kong Cavalier

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    The great thing about standards is you have so many to choose from!
     
    #5 Stev0, Aug 27, 2009
  6. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    :frusty:
     
    #6 qbee42, Aug 27, 2009
  7. jayman

    jayman Senior Member

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    My advice to you is to strongly consider heavy drinking. Then throw a match to the boat.

    That's an easier and cheaper alternative to figuring out all the "standards" you're now immersed in

    Having done consulting engineering literally all over the world, I will agree that "standard" is more a matter of perspective, than a *true* standard. When in Rome, you do as the Romans do, period

    Did I ever mention that BACNet = :sick:??

    Though I still can't wrap my head around a Swiss made water filter using obscure BSPP threads
     
    #7 jayman, Aug 27, 2009
  8. RobH

    RobH Senior Member

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    And then there's JAVA, the write once, debug everywhere computer language.:spider:
     
    #8 RobH, Aug 27, 2009
  9. Scummer

    Scummer Eh?

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    Metric! Nothing else matters. :D
     
    #9 Scummer, Aug 27, 2009
  10. RobH

    RobH Senior Member

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    If metric were the ultimate answer, then you could put Italian parts on a French bicycle. About all the Italian and French parts have in common is the ruler used to describe the part. The numbers are still different.
     
    #10 RobH, Aug 27, 2009
  11. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    You should see what the Swiss do to BACnet! :D

    Just kidding, my loving and merciful masters.
     
    #11 TonyPSchaefer, Aug 27, 2009
  12. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    But if there was only one standard, how would people know it's the right one? Isn't it better to try a few first? ;)
     
    #12 hyo silver, Aug 28, 2009
  13. patsparks

    patsparks An Aussie perspective

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    BSP has been around like for EVER!
    BSP is the plumbing standard in Australia I think and as you say a lot of hydralic stuff is BSP.
     
    #13 patsparks, Aug 28, 2009
  14. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    The legacy of Great Briton continues.

    When I did a Google search for BSP parts, I got lots of hits for British websites, and a number of hits for hydraulic parts. I have a machine shop, and now that I have a 1/4" BSPP tap I'm in good shape.

    You have to love these projects where you spend six times as long assembling the parts as actually building anything. Now my problem is that I need a short piece of 2 1/2" schedule 40 PVC pipe. All of the big box stores carry 1 1/4", 1 1/2", 2", 3", and 4". They skip the 2 1/2" as it isn't commonly used. I'm going to have to make a trip to Traverse City during business hours to visit a proper plumbing supply shop.

    Tom
     
    #14 qbee42, Aug 28, 2009
  15. jayman

    jayman Senior Member

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    You forgot to do this:

    :hail:

    It's fun to get Swiss and Italians together at a party. Even though Italian is one of the three official languages of Switzerland, you sure wouldn't know that fact, at the party.

    Yes, it is. Since the confusion will cause you to engage in heavy drinking, then you will forget about whatever seemed so important at the time, and all will be well again

    Never caught on here, with the exception of hydraulic fittings. First time I tried to make my own hose and fittings, I had plenty of "Wth?" moments. Fortunately, heavy drinking solved those moments

    It's not too late to throw a match to the boat
     
    #15 jayman, Aug 28, 2009
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