What happened to Standardization?

March 29, 2020

When I was young, there was a great deal of standardization, some because of monopolies (remember the black telephone with the dial), but more to ease the processes of manufacturing and repair.  Boy is that gone.  In the U.S, a tremendous cost is involved by not using the metric system, so we start out with the need for two sets of tools and the need to remember two sets of dimensions to fit our dizzying choice of fasteners, metal thicknesses, and other such things. I complained about the number of screw configurations in a previous post.But this is true at many levels level.  A very good friend of mine died a few months ago, and I inherited a whole garage full of tools.  Among the material were several hoses for compressed air.  I have a compressor in my garage, but had always carried hoses around to get where I wanted my compressed air to go.  I decided to take my new wealth of hoses (which were better than mine) and install them permanently, with couplings where I needed the air. For this to work I needed more couplings, since I wanted to have one each location,  but playing around with the existing couplings, as I suspected, there were several models involved.   Compressed air hoses are usually l/4, 3/8/or i/2 in size in the U.S., and there is a large difference in air delivery, but for home use I have found out that the 1/4 size is adequate for me.  But I had forgotten that many products these days have slight changes over older ones, perhaps because the manufacturer thinks they have improved them, or possibly wants to get around existing patents.  A good example the resulting confusion and a heroic attempt to describe them all can be seen at https://toolguyd.com/quick-guide-to-air-line-couplers-plugs. The author of this explanation of different types of connectors did a heroic job of attempting to explain the differences, but did not convince me that there is much of a difference between brands.  In fact he drew many outraged stories about keeping track of connectors for compressed air. If the owner mixes the connectors, he/she is doomed, because  it is almost impossible to tell them apart by looking at them.  It is necessary to first see if they fit each other, and then turn on the pressure and see if (a) the connector stays connected, (b) it stays together but leaks, or (c.) miraculously it works.  The two photos below show  two of the old connectors.  Look similar?  They don't fit each other.

Since the connectors were not that expensive, I ordered a whole bunch of color coded ones over Amazon, and redid them all.  Nice for the capitalistic system, but a real pain in the neck for me.   I could not help but feel a fondness for people who make garden hoses, and have had the sensitivity over the years to standardize the couplings.  In fact I was so pleased with my garden hoses I bought them all new gaskets.