Solved Need help with number as text (1 Viewer)

[Ken Sheridan]

Cases in point.

Not to mention the mirror on the Hubble telescope.

 

[RonPaii]

Since CAD has been mentioned, just as a caution from someone who is constantly in touch with CAD, converting dimensions is very risky, and I've never seen anybody who works in CAD, converts.
I suggest sticking with the system your country mainly use (Imperial/metric), and stay away of converting dimensions, specially mass property of your design, while entering your data in a database.

I agree, work in your native units. I mention convert because we do get models from customers / vendors / suppliers that are in another dimension, which in most cases are automatically converted on import or link. Also some customers require drawing dimensions to be in Inch or Foot - Inch, or Centimeter or Millimeter or sometime in both Imperial/Metric, making conversion required.

 

[KitaYama]

I agree, work in your native units. I mention convert because we do get models from customers / vendors / suppliers that are in another dimension, which in most cases are automatically converted on import or link. Also some customers require drawing dimensions to be in Inch or Foot - Inch, or Centimeter or Millimeter or sometime in both Imperial/Metric, making conversion required.

But our discussion is not about CAD. It's about database. Your #17 post, if I'm understanding it correctly, is suggesting to convert the dimensions/mass property when saving it in a database. That's where the error occurs.

Imagine you have a part that says it need 3.125lb ABS material for manufacturing. When you convert it to input it in a database, what do you input? 0.60100989025 kg or 0.601 kg?
That's the start point of things falling apart. if you input 0.601, you have a 0.0098 gram difference per part.
You start manufacturing 5000 pieces of that part each day, after 30 days you have 1.470kg difference between what your database shows and the amount of ABS that your shop has actually used to manufacture that part. And after a year, your shop has almost used 1.7 ton of ABS more than what your database shows.

Spoiler

I understand some customers need their drawings being on imperial, some needs on metric. But in my 30+ years on this job, never have seen nor heard someone needs both metric and imperial dimensions on a drawing.

We have both metric and imperial templates. Based on customer need, we choose one one of them.
Out of curiosity, why a customer needs both dimensions on their drawings?

 

[RonPaii]

But our discussion is not about CAD. It's about database. Your #17 post, if I'm understanding it correctly, is suggesting to convert the dimensions/mass property when saving it in a database. That's where the error occurs.

Imagine you have a part that says it need 3.125lb ABS material for manufacturing. When you convert it to input it in a database, what do you input? 0.60100989025 kg or 0.601 kg?
That's the start point of things falling apart. if you input 0.601, you have a 0.0098 gram difference per part.
You start manufacturing 5000 pieces of that part each day, after 30 days you have 1.470kg difference between what your database shows and the amount of ABS that your shop has actually used to manufacture that part. And after a year, your shop has almost used 1.7 ton of ABS more than what your database shows.

Spoiler

I understand some customers need their drawings being on imperial, some needs on metric. But in my 30+ years on this job, never have seen nor heard someone needs both metric and imperial dimensions on a drawing.

We have both metric and imperial templates. Based on customer need, we choose one one of them.
Out of curiosity, why a customer needs both dimensions on their drawings?

I used CAD as an example, now you are talking about rounding. In your example, convert lb to gram and round to your needs.