Show HN: Unit Prefix Sanity Checker – Catches 10×/1000× errors in datasheets

chromewebstore.google.com

2 points

4 months ago

I built a Chrome extension that flags suspicious unit prefix combinations in web pages. The kind of typos that cause engineers to order the wrong components or spend hours debugging.

Try it on these (install extension first):

  Capacitor: 10 mF ceramic
  MCU clock: 16000 kHz
  Board width: 0.005 m
  Battery: 3.7 mAh Li-ion
  Download: 100 Mb storage
  Surface finish: Ra = 1.6 mm

If the extension is working, you'll see inline highlights with explanations on hover.

It currently has 89 rules across electrical, mechanical, HVAC, data, chemical, optical, and angular units. Runs entirely locally, no data collection, no accounts, no backend.

The idea came from catching these errors in component datasheets and wondering how many I'd missed over the years.

Looking for feedback on what it misses, false positives, and unit conventions in fields I'm less familiar with. Looking to build it for Firefox next.