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pauluk Offline OP
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Prompted by this thread on the IEE forum:

old wiring colours


The deadline of April approaches, after which only use of the new "harmonized" colors will be deemed to be in compliance with IEE Regs/BS7671.
So how many still have any stocks of the old cables? Large quantities? What do you intend to do with them?

1. Carry on using them until you run out.

2. Keep them for doing just odd wiring jobs around your own home, or for friends.

3. Stash them away so that one day you can tell your grandchildren that there was a time when we had a sensible color-code to our wiring? [Linked Image]

4. Or....... ????

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Interesting, hmmmm

In NZ we still have the old UK colours for fixed wiring in TPS cables, but the new European colours for flexible leads, so we seem to have one new standard adopted while retaining the original UK standard too.

About 4 or 5 years ago the colour yellow was supposedly phased out to be used for the 'B' phase and the White colour was introduced.

It was envisaged that yellow may be used for earthing conductor, although I have never seen that happen.

There were quite a few objections from within the industry because of old stock, so the deadline was lifted ?? not sure what date it was, and the colour Yellow can still be used in 3Ø circuits.

Perhaps Mike can fill me in re this NZ colour coding issue.


The product of rotation, excitation and flux produces electricty.
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What are the new 'harmonised' colors going to be Paul?

Alan


Wood work but can't!
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pauluk Offline OP
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Quote
What are the new 'harmonised' colors going to be Paul?

You mean you haven't seen all the discussions about it here before? I guess we haven't talked about it enough! [Linked Image]

L1 - Brown
L2 - Black
L3 - Gray
N - Blue
E - Green/yellow

Check out this old thread:

New U.K. color code

Quote
In NZ we still have the old UK colours for fixed wiring in TPS cables, but the new European colours for flexible leads,

That's how it's been here since about 1970, when we adopted brown/blue for flex.

Quote
About 4 or 5 years ago the colour yellow was supposedly phased out to be used for the 'B' phase and the White colour was introduced.

Which is the opposite of the change which took place here 40 years ago. The old phase colors were red/white/blue (very patriotic!), until B-phase was changed to yellow in 1964/65.

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Don't we live in a strange world Pauluk.

Instead of standardising wiring colours we seem to be changing them every 20 or 30 years or so for the sake of changing it.

Who invents these new "harmonised" colours anyway. [Linked Image]

It looks more logical to me that any Ø colour or colour of danger is something like RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, PURPLE, BROWN, WHITE, PINK and a colour for neutral or earth are BLACK, BLUE, GREEN perhaps.

It can only create more confusion, especially with people moving around a lot more freely around different countries.

Ok, electricians will have to deal with regulations and will need to know the local code if going abroad, but the normal home owner who has to replace a plug on a damaged power lead, will probaly have more chances of wiring up something wrong.


The product of rotation, excitation and flux produces electricty.
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Pauluk the way the yellow-white changeover worked here was that the cable manufacturers and importers were given a date on which to change and then the market did the rest. It was pretty smoothe really.

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I'm doing some work at an apartment house (upper class) built around 1960, just to find out back then people didn't stick to _any_ kind of color coding! The only consistent thing in there are the red ground wires. Everywhere else they coded the individual circuits... but they always took the same color for two circuits...
i.e. there are two circuits with yellow phase and neutral, 2 purple, but only one white and one dark blue... they stuck to that throughout the place. Mostly. I also found some wiring with black, black and red... switched phases are commonly dark blue or yellow...

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pauluk Offline OP
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Quote
Who invents these new "harmonised" colours anyway. [Linked Image]

Committees! You know -- Lifeforms with 12 heads and no brain! [Linked Image]

Actually, the gray for phase C is there at the UK's insistence. Most other European countries had already standardized on some combination of brown and black phases -- Two brown plus black or two black plus brown.

We insisted that any new harmonized code must provide for proper identification of all three phases. Thus the choice was then just what the third color should be. Personally, I think we were right to insist that we would not accept a system which didn't provide proper phase identification. But I think the whole bunch were wrong to agree on gray for phase C.

(Of course, it would have better to have just left everything alone in the first place!)





[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 03-11-2006).]

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pauluk Offline OP
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I just finished a lighting wiring job yesterday in a kitchen: Two triple spot fittings for each half, each controlled on its own 2-way arrangement from both doors. The switch at one doorway is a 3-gang, the third being for a supplementary spot above a worktop. The switch at the other door is a 4-gang, the extra two switches there being for lights in a little utility area and a "mud room."
Obviously that little lot involved a fair amount of switch wiring, all with new brown/blue and brown/black/gray cable.

I have one word to say: Aaaaaarrrrggggghhhh!

O.K., I feel better now...... [Linked Image]

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Upon tearing out the old panel (the ancient breakers must have been the Austrian equivalent to FPE, in most cases the 25A main fuse blew before the 10A breaker tripped) I found the black, black red wiring... it was an abandoned circuit, most likely originally for an infrared bathroom heater.

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