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HB Instruments
HB Instruments make all kinds of machines and implements that measure things. Think about stopwatches, hydrometers, thermometers and so on, and you’ll get the right idea. They are all precision made to exacting standards so you know when you read a measurement it is going to be accurate.
It might not be the first place you think of visiting when you want to convert your British pounds to US dollars – or any one of a number of other currencies – but as you will see it is well worth taking a closer look.
Take me to the site! How do I get there?
It couldn’t be much easier than this – all you need to do is go directly to http://www.hbinstruments.com/index.php to find out more.
What does the site offer?
Their website is first and foremost a marketing tool to explain their company and products, but contained within their site is a page dedicated to various types of conversion calculators. All of those conversion calculators work on a fixed amount to fixed amount basis - inches to centimetres, Celsius to Fahrenheit, all kinds of distances, volumes, areas and so on.
You can also access their literature library, which has a number of PDF brochures on all kinds of things you might find useful. Typical examples include a number of brochures each focusing on various products they produce.
They also have a comprehensive online catalogue, which shows you their entire product range. You cannot order online but you can ask for more information on their products, and each one does have a very in depth page devoted to it, providing a lot in the way of specifications.
What is their currency converter like?
HB Instruments provide an interesting currency calculator. The relationship between currencies is not normally fixed. They 'float' and change with the vagaries of world trade and local economy.
The layout of the currency conversion tool may take a little explaining. More specifically, it is not laid out in the most logical manner. In an attempt to maintain uniformity with all the other conversion tools on the page it follows a format that does not make it immediately obvious how best to use the converter.
So let’s take a look to see how it works. The top left box is labelled “From:”. This would normally be the name of the box containing the currency you wish to convert from, but in this case it refers to the amount of source currency you wish to convert.
For example, if you were trying to convert 100 Czech Krona (CZK) to New Zealand Dollars (NZD) the “From:” box would be where you would enter the value 100.
The “To:” box on the top right, where you might normally expect to choose the currency you wish to convert to, should be left blank. The converter will fill this box in with the answer itself.
Under “From:” is a drop-down box that lists the choices of currency that you can convert from. There is a selection of 36 that you can choose from. They are not listed alphabetically by country or by three letter country code. The initial five or so appear to be listed by popularity; the next twenty or so seem to be clustered around the fringes of Europe and the remainder are the more popular non-Yen Asian currencies. All currencies are listed with their 3 letter country code.
This drop down box is where you would select Czech Krouna (German spelling) from our example as this box is for selecting the source currency. Immediately to the right of this box is another drop-down box. It contains the same country currency selections in the same idiosyncratic order as the source currency box. This is where you select the destination currency. In our example this is where you would select New Zealand Dollar (NZD).
Immediately upon making any selection in this drop down, the top box labelled “To:” and the lower-most box labelled “Result:” both instantly fill with the answer. The “To:” box fills with a purely numeric result, for example 7.95000. The “Result:” box states the entire results including all the necessary labels, for example 100 Czech Koruna = 7.95000 New Zealand Dollar.
Although initially the converter's layout may be a little confusing, it does convert very quickly and without the page reloading. So in essence you just need to run through how it works a few times; once you have done that you will probably find it a lot quicker than some others available online.
Supposing I need some help and advice – can they help me with that?
First of all there is an FAQ section that you might find helpful. The only setback with this is that none of the FAQs apply to the currency converter. There is an email address at the top of every page however, so if you run into any problems the easiest way to solve them could well be to drop them an email to try and get some more information.
In addition to that it is worth clicking on the ‘contact us’ link at the top right hand corner of each page. This takes you into a dedicated page that reveals all the details for getting in touch with them. They are based in the US, but there is a worldwide phone number and more importantly a whole range of email addresses that could be useful.
In conclusion
HB Instruments isn’t the most likely of choices when it comes to finding a currency converter or calculator to use. However it just goes to show that you can find them virtually anywhere.
If you have an interest in what they do it is worth bookmarking the site as it does provide a number of other calculators too – and they are all on the one page.
Rating (out of five stars)
We’d give this site three out of five stars. The calculator is fine once you get the hang of it, and if you want to use it without having to wade through lots of currency information and news in the process, it will suit you just fine.
- 3 Stars
Link: http://www.hbinstruments.com/converters.php#2
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