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Joined: Aug 2001
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One aspect of the green/yellow earth which seems to have changed over the years (at least in the U.K.) is the proportions of the colors. Look at the early use of this system here and the insulation is predominantly green with a yellow stripe, or at worst, 50/50. The proportions seem to have shifted so that now we have mostly yellow with just a thin green stripe. (I believe there is an IEC specification which says that one color must be no less than 30%, but this seems to be ignored frequently.)

The yellow/green sleeving used on fixed wiring here has the green stripe lengthways, so if the sleeve is turned at certain positions it can look as though it's plain yellow. It's only a minor point and it soon becomes obvious as to which wire is earth, but it's annoying to see this in a packed box where plain yellow is also used as a line color.

A similar change seems to have taken place with the neutral in appliance cords here. The original specification called for light blue, but the shade of blue used by many manufacturers seems to have become much darker in recent years.

C-H,
You mentioned the possible difficulty in disguishing between some colors, but I would also add that black and brown (particularly if dark brown) can sometimes be hard to tell apart as well. We already have 4-core flexible cords used for wiring heater controls and the like, and these are generally brown, black, blue, green/yellow. I've often been in dark corner and had to get some extra light to distinguish the two line colors.

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Make it light brown, then. Orange can be made almost "flourescent".

Joined: Dec 2001
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In Austria grounds used to be yellow with several thin green stripes, nowadays cheap wires is often 50:50. One halsĀ“f green, one yellow. Especially nice withold systems where both yellow and green have been used as a ground wire.
Personally I prefer dark colors. For example in our remodel we had white and light grey, and they were sometimes almost impossible to distinguish. Dark grey is much better here.
Plus the dark colors look much nicer. Just think of the old grounds! I have some that are a wonderful deep bordeaux!

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Color confusion is one of the reasons I like the US color code. White and black are not easily confused! (Although you would be surpirsed sometimes at what people do! And the other colors we use, like red, and blue, are easy to tell apart as well.

Personally, I don't like the Euro brown/blue/green-yellow system. I don't think it would ever catch on here. Just MHO though.


Peter
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I have to agree with Peter on the U.S. black/white/green colors. Easy to identify, been an accepted standard for many, many years, and used over a vast area of North America and beyond.

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Oops CTwireman, it's found in the US too. "For jacketed cords furnished with appliances, one conductor having its insulation colored light blue..." from 99NEC 400-22c. IIRC, this is to allow for the brown-blue-green/yellow scheme.

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I agree with CTWireman. Except that I don't mind the ground conductor being green/yellow. In fact, I think it makes a very good contrast with the black and the white conductors for use in flexible cords. Isn't there a whole colorblindness issue where there are some people who can't distinguish green versus red? Since I have numerous things that weren't made for the US market, I'm probably one of the few Americans now comfortable with the European "harmonized" scheme.

I've noticed that the harmonized cordage is ever so slowly catching on in the USA (brown live, blue neutral and green/yellow ground), particularly in imported cords (like some Chinese computer cord-sets I've dissected). Same holds true with the wiring inside some computer power supplies.

Next time you find a computer in the garbage, take the power supply apart and you'll see that most of the times the wires connected to the power inlet follow the European color coding. [Linked Image]

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LOL Sven and Bj! I had an experience with a Euro-colored computer lead some years ago.

I needed a cord to hook up some home-made project, so I grabbed one of my friends extra computer cords. I cut off the end and opened the jacket, and out comes brown, blue and yellow/green wires.

My first thought was "Huh?!? Why does a North American cord with a 5-15 plug have Euro colors?" [Linked Image]

I proceeded to hook up the project using brown = neutral and blue = live because I had no idea which was which. Turns out I guessed wrong!



[This message has been edited by CTwireman (edited 11-21-2002).]


Peter
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Quote

"Huh?!? Why does a North American cord with a 5-15 plug have Euro colors?"

The reason is simple. Manufacturers feel that it's easier to have one common colour code for all countries. The international g/y, blue, brown can be used in any country, but the NA white, black, green can only be used in a limited number of countries.

Or, you can express it this way:

11/7/2002 -- UL 1950 to require green/yellow color code for ground wire of powercords
All new submissions under UL 1950 will require the grounding wire of powercords to be green with a yellow stripe. All products previously listed under UL1950 will have until April 1, 2005 to change to the new grounding color for power cords. With an eye to the future, MEGA suggests customers consider changing to the international standard of blue, brown, green/yellow for conductor codes. This eliminates the need for separate wiring instructions when manufacturing for domestic and international shipping.

[Cut and paste from Mega Electronics.]

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 11-22-2002).]

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Quote
With an eye to the future, MEGA suggests customers consider changing to the international standard of blue, brown, green/yellow for conductor codes.

Are they referring to portable wiring (flexible cords), permanent wiring, or both?

Again, I don't support these changes for North America. I think the introduction of an additional color code here would be unnecessary. As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

</trying to imagine Romex with blue/brown conductors>


Peter
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