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Joined: Dec 2001
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Ugh, that's ugly! Yellow/green for ground and both yellow and green phases!

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Even more clash of colors than the U.K. now using green/yellow for ground and yellow as a phase!

I take it this is the current Russian coding. Any idea how long it has been around, and what was used before?

Joined: Dec 2001
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Our - at lleast questionable - old table offers Russia: Red, Grey, Black (L, N, G) as the old color coding. To me it sounds fatally like the old Austrian coding completely mixed up (hot and ground swapped over).
I remember reading somewher, that Russia didn't have any grounded receptacles in residential.

I'd say common sense and a phase probe are the most important thing when dealing with old wiring anywhere.
Back when we had our 127/220V wye system electricians used virtually _any_ color for the 2 hots. I've seen 2 greens, 2 blacks, 2 yellows, 2 reds(!), 2 purples, 2 grays, 2 whites,...
Where cable was used red was liberally used as a phase conductor (e.g. 2 individually switched phases to a light fixture were black and red, or a switched and an unswitched phase). Even 3ph systems can have the weirdest colors. I recently saw a 1957 main fuse box that had various combinations of 4 yellows, 4 whites, 4 purples and IIRC even 4 reds for the individual apartments. So _never_ trust a red wire to be a ground!

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djk Offline
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The ETCI (Electrotechnical Council of Ireland) and the electrical contractors groups have gotten really strict about one colour coding issue here.

All new properties are required to have interlinked smoke alarms that are non-battery powered, i.e. if one smoke alarm gets triggered it has to sound all of the others. A lot of electricians have been using 3 core cable the brown and blue carrying the power and the earth to signal the other alarms (totally illegal)

A minimum of 2 are legally required in houses but it's standard practice to install a lot more.

If it was a commercial premisis it would have to be a full fire alarm system complete with fire resistant cabling etc.

On another point:

Are there any colour codes in Europe for SELV (12/24 V) circuits?

Low voltage halogen lighting's becoming very common as are other SELV appliences like in-shower fans etc.. meaning that attic spaces are often criss-crossed with cable carrying 12V or 24V. It would be handy if these cable could be quickly identified as non-230V.

It could prevent accidental connection of 230V to 12V or visa versa in a dodgy DIY job!




[This message has been edited by djk (edited 07-24-2003).]

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All new properties are required to have interlinked smoke alarms that are non-battery powered,
As a matter of curiosity, what happens if it's a new house built "off grid" with no mains electricity?

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Trumpy Offline OP
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Paul,
The same still applies as far as I am aware,
as long as there is an Electricity supply in the house, somewhere.
Other side of the coin though, I would not have my own house without smoke detectors, neither should anyone else!
But, I see that there are 12/24/48V smoke detectors out these days and they run on both AC and DC. [Linked Image]

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djk Offline
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There are practically no houses "off grid" over here. The ESB, since the days of rural electrification has a universal service obligation that means it has to connect remote homes. The usual scenario is that the ESB, homeowner and in some cases the government/local athority split the cost of running the line to a remote property.

Rural Ireland, unlike most of the rest of Europe, has a very strange population distribution. Lots of individual one off houses in the middle of the countryside varying from small traditional farmhouses to the now traditional US Style sprawling ranch sytle houses (they were very popular in the 60s). People also like to paint them very bright colours like flourecent pink, bright yellow or a nice electric blue etc. Amazingly enough it actually looks quite picturesque in most cases.

Because of this very low density distribution the ESB's rural electrification projects (1930-1950s) had to provide a very "omnipresent" network. So there are 10kV lines crisscrossing the countryside to tie into all of these scattered homes and farmhouses. If you drive around Ireland you will actually notice that there are quite a lot of quaint looking wooden pole powerlines running cross country (in comparision to the rest of Europe anyway) They're all wooden and generally quite sympathetic to the environment.

(In the northwest there are even 110kV & 220kV transmission lines on wooden poles! [installed recently wood was choosen for visual impact reasons])

Typically each home would be fed with 10kV up to the property's boundry and a pole mounted can transformer would step it back down to 220V or 380V. (nominally 230V/400V these days, but in reality it's still 220V/380V even on new installations.

The use of 10kV distribution with 38kV transmission over medium distances in the rural networks actually gives a really rubust supply that's very free from voltage fluctuations. (I've spent time in Spain and know that the rural network there wiped out my laptop power supply! We used to get flickering lights quite a lot)

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People also like to paint them very bright colours like flourecent pink, bright yellow or a nice electric blue etc
Yep -- I remember seeing places in Ireland painted in a combination of purple and lime green!

It's 5 years since I was over there, but I can't honesty remember noticing there being that many more HV power lines around the countryside than here. I suppose that's proof enough that they do blend it pretty well with the environment.

Joined: Apr 2002
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(Old thread, but…) The North American continent may not be 100% metric, but there is at least one east-of-the-pond custom catching on. Omaha, NB Public Power District requires installers to “identify the phase conductors per the following colors: 120/208V, 3Ph, 4W: Black, Red, and Blue; or Red, Yellow, and Blue.” Earlier this week, I noticed some new local utility riser poles [transition from overhead to underground 12,470Y/7200V] with open, plainly visible phase designations of R-Y-B.]

There are some test leads that use the RYB{+W} 3ø {4-wire} colors… http://www.arbiter.com/catalog/frames/specs/testleads/815at.jpg
A little harder to explain the application, but these current leads use the same… http://www.arbiter.com/catalog/frames/specs/testleads/811at.jpg

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C-H Offline
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I learnt the other day that I had gotten the Swedish phase order backwards. [Linked Image]

'Old' cables L1/2/3=black/brown/black with white stripe but newer cables had L1/2/3=white/brown/black. I - and probably a lot of people - simply assumed that the colours had the same meaning in all cables. I have no idea why they did like this: The 3 and 4 wire cables were identical.

This is the problem with being the only member from a country. There's nobody to tell you "No, stupid, it's like this..."

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