Hi again electrical,
The weather has been great here, however because of all of these lakes, the mosquitoes have been hell! LOL I know what you mean about strong coffee being good coffee.
Well I guess I can only add that it seems clear to me that the evolution of 200.7 into requiring the reidentification of the white conductor was an attempt to further eliminate confusion, and was in addition to the long standing requirement that it only be used as the supply to the switch.
To the untrained person, white wire = neutral = safer to touch. When a trained person sees a white wire connected to the terminal of a switch, he knows that it is probably not a neutral, whereas the untrained person still may see a neutral. I believe that this is the reason that CMP #5 added the requirement to reidentify.
It is obvious to me why they wanted the return conductor to be black. You have a choice of two conductors, a black and a white. Since one conductor is no more or less difficult to use than the other, why not use the black as the return so that at that outlet you have a black hot, and a white neutral? If the white wire were truly reidentified along its entire exposed length at all splice locations it may not be a problem, but a small strip of tape could be overlooked or may not mean anything to an untrained person. A mixup here would reverse the polarity on a lampholder or receptacle, whereas from a safety standpoint it doesn't matter if the wires are reversed on a switch. Matt
[This message has been edited by Matt M (edited 08-01-2002).]
