resistor symbol dilema

I wonder when the Brits and Australians cut over to boxes. I have a British book, Millimicrosecond Pulse Techniques (1959) and the Australian Radiotron Designer's Handbook (1940) and both are squiggles.

John

As I understood it, the original symbol was the zigzag, and it represented a wirewound resistor or heater. The box was adopted for clarity (some conventions put the value inside the box). Some people then took the view that any resistor that's being used as a heater should use the zigzag, and other resistors the block. I haven't heard that mentioned recently though. And I KNOW our products that have heaters in them use the block symbol for the heater :)

Both methods were "taught" in the 80s in Australia but the zigzag was discouraged. I think it was the move from pencils to CAD (I had a Staedtler drawing-board that I really miss; it was fun drawing busses and components by hand and even more fun using Letraset-style symbols) that caused the change to solidify.

Squiggle-in-a-box. I love it - schematic Esperanto.

Pots are drawn differently, too, as are thermistors and probably other parts as well. As someone else suggested, pick one style and use it consistently. They are different, but equally beautiful.

Then you have to decide whether to use the 4K7 or 4.7K style, and whether to write 0.01uF or 10nF. ;-)

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

To make a story short, I need to submit _identical_ schematic to both US and EU. Although this may seem as a mere tomhato/tomato issue, I've had some comments before where people in the US were ___ frowning about -|___|- while UK has a -/\/\/- issue.

So the dilema is, which one is globaly more aceptable? The " make one of each!" approach won't work.

j.

Put the squiggle in the box. No one will like it, but everyone will understand it.

Dwayne

There was a big push when CAD systems first came into use to reduce everything to boxes.

I think that the reason was that drawing anything other than straight lines at right angles was very slow for the computers and plotters available at the time. I remember watching plotters whipping along drawing straight lines but then slowing to a crawl when they had to do a circle or arc. I believe this is why the idiotic IEEE-style symbols were born.

I read in sci.electronics.design that John Larkin wrote (in ) about 'resistor symbol dilema', on Sun, 6 Mar 2005:

Much later; mid 70s IIRC.

Millimicrosecond Pulse Techniques is American (Univ of Kansas, 1959). It uses squiggles, but its schematics are not what I'd call excellent.

If I were going to print the schematic, I'd certainly use the box, because you can put the value inside the box. But hand-drawn schematics work better with the squiggles.

Norm Strong

Sorry, the "Hank" is already in use:

John

We call them "mikes". And "puffs."

John

IIRC it was embodied here in Oz in an australian standard (AS1100 part 2 or something near that) and would date to the late 80's. Prior to that out govco outfit using stencils and drawing board used the zigzag. Then the wise men said we had to go with the "new standard" which seemed to parallel what we had been used to in euro schematics from the likes of Philips.

My copies show the authors as both British, and the first publisher as Pergamon Press, London, and the printer as Pitman Press in GB. It was later reprinted by McGraw-Hill in the US. The one here was printed in

John

I'm equally comfortable with "point-oh-one" and "ten-en". ;-)

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Unless you're dictating what should be written, you don't really need the leading "oh" when you're speaking the value-- it purpose is to keep the flyspeck "." decimal point from being lost. The word "point" is big enough to defend itself.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

lost.

Aught one mike.

Definitely.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Hello Spehro,

Yes. And put earplugs in until the complaint noise has subsided to a acceptable level ;-) I mean, there are more important things to ponder in life than whether a resistor is squiggly or boxy.

How 'bout 0.01mmF? That would be the really classy way.

Regards, Joerg

I read in sci.electronics.design that Joerg wrote (in ) about 'resistor symbol dilema', on Mon, 7 Mar 2005:

Not at all. '1 jar' or '9000 cm' would be REALLY classy!