show either "in", "mm" or the "symbol

dlaporta

I am wondering if there is a way to indicate the unit of measure in the actual dimension in a drawing like 1in. or 1". I have a client that requires this annotation and the only way I know to do it now is to change each dimension on a drawing and that is a real pain in the ...

hank_debey

I would also welcome the ability for OnShape drawing dimensions to indicate the unit of measure.

john_mcclary

I agree, that should be an available option.
Make sure you browse the improvement requests or create your own. That is how features get added to Onshape's to-do list.

Here are some work arounds until then.

What we have always done is to put a units designation in the title block.


Otherwise changing your document properties to feet and inches will add units,
unfortunately, inches fractional does not.


Otherwise, window select the entire drawing, then change the units at the dimension all at once.
shouldn't be as big of a pain in the... if you do it that way.


But it's strange how messing with both of the document units and the override units will change how the unit is displayed.
Here you can see the 5" is set by the drawing standard feet and inches, and the 112.00 in is overridden to inches.
But one has " and the other says 'in'.



That and the "show/hide units" button only appears when the dimension is overridden...
So, the option exists, it just needs to be added to the document properties slide out as well.


So, there is a lot of clean up Onshape needs to do to dimension callouts still.
But at least there is some way of achieving what we need until they can do this correctly.

S1mon

ASME and ISO standards do not require this. What are these drawings for that you need the units?

john_mcclary

It sounded like it was customer preference... Which I can see happening. Some of our customers can be like that for strange things 

robert_stiles

I think this is really important. I can't believe there is not a tick box to "show units in all dimensions".
I mean, most sensible people work in mm right?    but what happens if we send stuff over the pond. There is a disaster lurking here, waiting to happen, I know it. 
Can anyone direct me to a feature upvote? there must be one? 
Thanks

S1mon

Standard practice is to put something either in the notes or the title block with what units are on the drawing. Even if you’re using dual dimensioning, you note it in one place not all over the drawing. 

john_mcclary

I assure you, sending unit less drawings is not an issue. We deal with mixed units every day. Sometimes we get drawing references from across the pond, and it's usually pretty obvious what is what. You know roughly how big something is. If your dimensions look about 25x larger or smaller than you guess, it's a mm drawing, so all numbers in [ ] must be inch. 

That and nominal numbers and precision are more clues. 

So if you see a bunch of dimensions like, 20, 10, 6, 1500 that's surely mm

If you see 1, .38, 5.25, 120 then that's surely inches

With Inches the standard is 2 place decimal
With mm the standard is 1 place decimal

Honestly I rarely even look at the units call out in the title block.

What's worse is, our customers like this thing called soft metric. Where we use metric fasteners, with metric hole centers, with inch steel, cut to metric length. 

So the stock size callous look like this

.134" x 200 x 560
Which is 10ga sheetmetal cut to 200mm x 560mm

[1/2 x 4] x 127
Which is .50" x 4" bar stock cut to 127mm long

Sometimes you can still get metric material here so throw that in the mix too
12 Dia x 50.8
Which would be a 12mm round bar cut to 2" long

eric_pesty

@john_mcclary I know the pain, the imperial system needs to die already!

Meanwhile all European users reading this are like:

 

S1mon

@eric_pesty

Tell me about it.

I once did some design/engineering consulting on some roto-molded playground equipment (slides, ladders etc). Not exactly the most high precision product or production method. The very traditional US client told us that they switched to metric and their quality improved because it was easier for their workers to check things to the mm rather than deal with inches.

john_mcclary

We have to release everything to the shop in inches because nobody wants to learn how to read a metric tape measure... 

Yes.. I want inches to die.. 
Stupid American shop personnel working twice as hard and stocking double the tools, just to not read mm