Or maybe a complete free-for-all with everything except the cpc - use whatever colours you like, then nothing could be assumed and testing would always need to be done.
Replacing light - House that jack built!
- Thread starter AnnaA1982
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Where does "use grey for neutral to get out of the habit of using black" come from?
It makes no sense (to me) because instead of being unsure whether black is line or neutral, we are now unsure whether the grey is as well.
If joining harmonised and pre-harmonised in an accessory where black is neutral I would connect black to black.
It makes no sense (to me) because instead of being unsure whether black is line or neutral, we are now unsure whether the grey is as well.
If joining harmonised and pre-harmonised in an accessory where black is neutral I would connect black to black.
Which conductor would you oversleeve in blue?
That would have been nice, and it was tried, but there simply aren't enough colours. Using stripes would mean that a colour-blind person would be unable to distinguish the cpc.
In machine wiring, I always advise people to forget about trying to identify conductors by colour; in some environments they'll all end up a greyish brown after a decade or so anyway. Condutors in control panels should carry a unique identifier. Not quite so easy in a building installation, I admit, but BAS makes a good point that ditching colour coding word force electricians to test - the problem is that many people wouldn't bother.
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If, for example, connecting an extractor fan to an existing (red/black) lighting rose I would sleeve the grey SL with brown at the rose and fan and the black with blue at the fan as required, although the fan terminal markings of PL, SL and N are a pretty good clue as to which is which.
As I said, I suspected that would be the case.
As I said a few messages back, if one had different patterns of stripes, everything would be totally distinguishable even to a totally colour-blind person (albeit that's very rare!). Indeed, even for people with normal colour vision, the colours would then actually be redundant - all conductors could be, say, white, with (differing patterns of) black stripes.
Kind Regards, John
I've seen/heard it many times, I'm sure at least some times here. I'll see if I can find anything.
In the absence of any mandated practice, that uncertainty will always exist - so maybe it's a useful reminder that one has to be uncertain about both.
I can understand both viewpoints about that.
Kind Regards, John
Ah, yes, seen/heard many times.
I just wondered who started it or where it started and if there actually is a need to disassociate black from neutral as any colour can be identified otherwise.
There obviously is not a 'need' if all conductors are correctly identified per the regs. However, we don't live in a perfect world. Mind you, don't forget that I'm just 'the messenger' - I don't think I would ever have come up with this 'need to dissociate black from neutral' idea myself. Indeed, so long as there are old-colour cables out there (and there probably still will be for a very long time to come!), a part of our brain has to remember that, in some situations, black without oversleeving can identify neutral.
Kind Regards, John
seem to recall it was proposed by the people in charge of street lighting, ILE whoever they are.
At the time there was an article in the profesional electrician magazine
http://www.niceic.com/en/account/media/connections/Connections_151.pdf
page four
Ah, NIC - say no more.
The problem was two people working on the same job and not communicationg with each other as to how they were going to do it. Testing before leaving would have shown up this fault.
I have no doubt similar things have happened, where one person has run the cables and connected one end, and then a different person has had to be brought in to finish the job and not checked the circuits of each cable.
Marbo electrium consider grey is the replacement for yellow
And black replacement for blue
In 3c+e cable
And black replacement for blue
In 3c+e cable
It's a free country, so I suppose they are free to be wrong, free to ignore what the actual standard is, and free to lie to people.
Well, yes, and so does BS7671, but that doesn't really help us much in this discussion (old yellow/blue and new black/grey are all line colours). Do they recommend which of them should be over-sleeved blue if one wants to use it as neutral?
Kind Regards, John
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