What did you do to your Volvo today? Topic is solved

[bmdubya1198]

Well that was easier than it could have been!

[abscate]

I channeled my departed father on that one. He once shut down an engine line for Saturn V when a bunch of engineers were scratching their heads over a bad measurments, told every one to go home and get their equipment recalibrated.

He was right on, everyone was basing their data on a single measurement of one device out of whack

He had a number of lessons about being as careful with your instrument as the device under test

[BlackBart]

^^ Amazing.

That's a question I've never figured out.... Extreme accuracy measurements need to be made by machines, which were measured by some other instruments, which were made by other machines.....

[Chuck W]

I channeled my departed father on that one. He once shut down an engine line for Saturn V when a bunch of engineers were scratching their heads over a bad measurments, told every one to go home and get their equipment recalibrated.

He was right on, everyone was basing their data on a single measurement of one device out of whack

He had a number of lessons about being as careful with your instrument as the device under test

Well, in my defense, while the reading was low, I was getting what seemed to be corroborating measurements from the two different circuits on the meter. (It has 2 fused test circuits)
I was glad to have access to another measurement device in the test lab. I just pulled the bulb when I got home from work, so we should be good for the time being.

[volvolugnut]

^^ Amazing.

That's a question I've never figured out.... Extreme accuracy measurements need to be made by machines, which were measured by some other instruments, which were made by other machines.....

If you are serious about accurate measurements, your instruments are calibrated periodically. The calibration shop has theirs calibrated often to a better standard. If all is done properly, this chain leads to a national/international standard with very high precision.

You probably knew all of this...

volvolugnut

[BlackBart]

No, I did not. It's all fascinating. Who designs, machines, measures, and calibrates the calibration tools? I assume at some point you use light and lasers to measure surfaces....?

I have to get out a magnifying glass to figure out which line on my old non-digital hardware store calipers!

[j-dawg]

In the USA, we have NIST, an agency of our Department of Commerce, which maintains the national gold standards for instrumentation calibrations. We say our measurements are "NIST-traceable" if there's a recorded chain of calibrations from the instrument you hold in your hand back to NIST, or to some other organization which NIST certifies as being capable of calibrating instrumentation to its standards.

Various industries then maintain their own quality standards (ISO9001 etc), which usually state that a manufacturer must use instrumentation making NIST-traceable measurements on the production line. That way when you ask for something to be 2.11025m, it's the same 2.11025m at the rocket company's factory as at the satellite manufacturer's factory, and you can expect the parts to fit together correctly.

[j-dawg]

Oh, you're from Montana! The Swedish flag threw me off.

Doesn't really change anything about what I said, but somehow I feel like it's different writing to someone in another country.

[abscate]

It is another country, one of Grizzlies and Cats..

[volvolugnut]

For more info on NIST
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_ ... Technology

Without standards there would be chaos in industry. At the beginning of the industrial revolution, each shop had their own design for nut and bolt threads. They did not interchange with other shops! I believe this was one of the first industry standards.
volvolugnut