It’s really been a very long time since I’ve dabbled in electronics and things have really moved on in that time. Sure I’ve kind of kept up with things over the years but only at a higher level. Getting back into it I’ve found some newer nomenclature (I suppose for a lack of a better name for it) and had to do some quick Googling for confirmation of my suspicions.
So back in my day (yes, I’m old enough now to be able to say that) values were written with s decimal place .. ie: 4.7K Ohm etc .. however, things have changed a bit and for better (as is usually the way). It was always a pain to read the decimal place depending on the manufacturer and the font selected. The new method is much better! However while doing some research I find that there are some errors that can be made (or inferred), let me show the simple table below collected from various sites and forums.
| New abbreviation | Old method |
|---|---|
| 0R25 | 0.25 Ω |
| 350R | 350 Ω |
| 4k7 * NOTE lower case k | 4700 Ω / 4.7k Ω * NOTE lower case k |
| 5M8 | 5.8M Ω / 5,800,000 Ω |
| 4L7 | 4.7 milli Ω (apparently used in current shunts) |
| 1V6 | 1.6 Volts |
| 1n5 | 1.5nFarad |
| 4u7 | 4.7µFarad |
| 293K15 | 293.15 Kelvin - Don't mix up K with k, see notes above |
I know it’s not earth shattering news to a lot, but this posting is hopefully helpful to someone if nothing else it’s a place for me to document some of my findings while rediscovering something I once really enjoyed.
Thanks for reading folks and until the next posting.. I’ve got a number of draft posts I’m working on that relate to my journey into the world of home automation and Internet of Things (IoT) that I’m building out. You would have had a glimpse into some of this in previous posts recently.
