CR4 Section for Specifications and Standards?

Yes. Allot of the standards are protected and copies sold or licenced to a user. Some are protected by law to ensure non-licensed workers do not get access to them and do unlicensed work. Some are protected for safety, (but we know it is to protect their income and trade secrets). If you have been contracted to do a job to a certain standard, the access to the standard should always be in the negotiations. Either they must provide the standards or pay for you to obtain them. Some standards are public knowledge. For every new job, a new copy of the standards should be obtained since they sometimes change. This is the other reason they are not easy to get. If you have many sources, it is difficult to know if you have the latest version.

It is always best to go directly to the organization that controls the standard.

Specs and standards? This is supposed to be a fun site!

Specs and standards are fun! They control the fun, so we know we're doing it right!

C'mon, digging through dusty boxes to find old specs that haven't seen the light of days since the last time you dug them out, endless web searches for obscure specs, customers who can't tell you what a spec says or contains, let alone get you a copy, but still demand you produce according to this mystical spec! What could possibly be better?!

Excuse me while I crawl into the corner to cry myself to sleep.

And it makes this site a legitimate place to be working.

If I hadn't been looking for specs of certain circuit cards I would have never found this place.

I'm with both of you guys on this issue. Contractors face numerous rules, regulations and special work practices that are NOT public knowledge or attainable without paying a big fee.

Sticks in my craw that work being done for public entities that are funded by public monies ( taxes ) are subject to regulations that we must pay for. Its a racket as techno says. Rules and regulations for government funded projects should be on the internet.

As far as private entities, well that's good old fashioned capitalism !

JakeF:

Having worked (and still work) with specs/standards, the best places to refer you to are (that is, if looking for standards one at a time, and potentially free):

1. IHS (which you do have to have a subscription for) http://www.ihs.com/ I used this at my former job, but as stated, there was a fee.

or

2. Assistdocs http://www.assistdocs.com/search/search_basic.cfm (a free search & download of many MIL-STD, NASM, SAE, and so on). This is what we use at my current job, in searching for countless MIL-STDs. This is more basic, but free nonetheless.

Hope this helps-sometimes it's a lot of digging, but can't be helped sometimes. Feel free to message me or email if you need-

OF COURSE!!!!

Specially those who have worked in international companies know what's this.

I've faced a lot of times strange designations for anything that after a hard work resulted to be a GOST standard (former USSR standards). Obviously, you can't get the standard without paying for it. Here in Spain we have a national standards institution (like ANSI in the USA) called AENOR. You can get from them almost any standard even from foreign countries (paying, of course), Then you have another problem.... You have some pages in a language absolutely strange for you and you are practically in the same situation, because in my experience, technical translations should be done for people familiar with the specific technical matter. There is few things funniest than reading a technical paper translated by a non technical people.

An example for those english speakers: In spanish, we use the same word to designate a pump and a bomb ("bomba"). I let to your imagination the results of a mistranslation.

Most of standards are written by commitees grouping all sectors involved in the activity standardized: manufacturers, users, engineering companies, local/national administrations, etc.

Theoretically, standards should be useful for everybody, so... Why then must I pay to know its content?

I think to consult the content at least of National Standards should be free. If anybody wants to have a golden hard copy, o.k. he should pay.

Everybody pays taxes and I think this could be included.

Warning: I'm not talking about internal companies developped standards and specifications.

FREE STANDARDS FOR ALL!!!!