Could someone please explain when to use brown, orange, yellow and blue,red, black? Orange is supposed to be for the wild leg, correct? I mostly do residential but I am getting into 3 phase. Where does the wild leg come in and if a phase is orange does that mean it is a wild leg? Please help.

 
Here's a few threads for North American systems...

https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001453.html
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000403.html
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/003049.html
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000474.html
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000576.html

[To say the least, there are regional variations.]




[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 12-29-2004).]

After you check out all the threads keep this in mind ... we (the electricians) invented BK/RD/BL, not the NEC. Nothing in the NEC says you can't use pink, purple and mauve.
Yes, the orange is mandated for a hi leg.

Actually Steve, almost any color may be used for the high Ø. The verbiage says “orange in color or by other effective means”, the other effective means may be purple, blue, red, or almost any other color as long as it’s the same throughout the plant.

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Charlie Eldridge, Indianapolis, Utility Power Guy

If there is a high leg it must be "orange".
But, orange can be used for any phase if a high leg is not present.

For the most part (yes, isolated and hospital systems are special) the only colors with restricted uses are green and white. I am not sure if grey is now restricted to grounded conductors.

JBD, look at Charlies post, his quote is from article 230.56, it is also in 215.8 but with a few more words, “orange in color or by tagging or other effective means".

Grey is now reserved for a grounded conductor.

Roger

A word of caution. Gray was used as a phase conductor until this cycle, “natural gray” was reserved for the grounded conductor. Just because it is gray doesn’t automatically mean that it is a grounded conductor and it is at ground potential.

Along those same lines, red has been used in this area for the high Ø in a lot of buildings. Additionally, other colors may be used for that particular identification.

The bottom line for both of these statements, “don’t assume!" Use the proper testing procedures along with the lock out, tag out procedures. Remember, go home in the same shape that you went to work in so your kids will recognize you.

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Charlie Eldridge, Indianapolis, Utility Power Guy

[This message has been edited by CharlieE (edited 12-29-2004).]

As per 230.56 ... I stand corrected

As Charlie mentioned, ya gotta be wary of color codes.... San Fran' CA high legs are Purple, in direct contradiction to NEC. But I often find RED "B", and BLUE "Hi-C"(Which seemed to live a short life in the 60's), and of course ORANGE from "Out-of-towners", and PURPLE. On occasion all of the above. So every 3 phase panel to me is in question, and gets the meter. Then it gets the giant magic marker on the panel cover, with whatever leg is high in a big triangle. Lets me know I've been there....

e57
Where can I get a copy of the San Francisco Code? I've heard so many claims about their "special" requirements that I'd really like to see how they think they comply with the State's requirements.

Try this link: http://www.bsc.ca.gov/proc_rsltn/pr_proc_amnd.html

Scott, I always wonder the same thing. Here is a link: SF Building Code
Doesn't LA also have their own building code?

Curt

Anybody know when the NEC first suggested orange as the color for a high leg?

I seem to recall from a previous discussion on 4-wire deltas somebody saying that it was common to use red for the high leg back in the 1950s (presumably with black and blue for the A and C phases).

Paul, I think it was in the 80's possibly late 70's, I will check my pre 90 code books this evening if someone hasn't answered by then.

I can remember the high leg being blue in some installations.

Roger

Paul,
Although I have not found the first reference for "orange." The 1959 NEC confirms e57’s recollection of the short-lived "blue."


That makes my head spin. But, at least back then the color coding was all in one section.

 
s-g — §2112 of the 1953 NECH seems to have the same wording as your 1959 verbiage, though I believe that by the 1971 edition specific multiwire color coding had been reduced to an unenforceable “suggestion”/fine-print note. In the 1953 book, I can’t locate any mention of high-leg identification/position in [Article 215] feeders or [Article 384] switchboards.

One thing to keep in mind is that 4-wire-delta feeders and panels are somewhat a modern implementation {40 years?} in electrical systems. At one time, for “240V” building services, 120/240v 1ø 3w and 240V 3ø 3w may have been routinely served from the same utility-owned transformer bank, but were ‘split’ at one end of the service drop, and separately metered typcially with “lighting” and “power” meters (usually under separate rates.) Remember that the 1ø 3w circuit would be a multiwire circuit, but the 3ø 3w circuit would not, so may not have had mandatory phase/color coding or uniform bus positions.

Where 3ø 3-wire boards, panels or gutters serving grouped fusible switches installed by qualified persons, there should have been no 'fourth-wire' grounded-circuit conductor to deal with. There would have been little chance for someone to inadvertently {or intentionally} make an ill-advised high-leg-to-neutral tap or similar potentially hazardous circuit configuration.

It took development and utility acceptance of [self-contained and transformer-rated] 4-wire-delta metering for highlegs and neutrals to “mix” and result in the need for a corresponding code revision.




[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 12-30-2004).]

Yep, I'm looking at the 1971 NEC now:

There's a bar down the whole of 210-5(c), so something there was changed from the previous edition.

Roger, SafetyGem,
I should have mentioned that orange is mentioned in that 1971 code:
A bar indicating a revision extends across the two lines which I've highlighted above. Maybe this was the start of orange, unless something else was changed.

Thank you for the Code, Curt! That's exactly what I wondered about. Very interesting! Sovereign San Francisco. (I couldn't find any Feng Shui ordinances, though)
LA's Code no longer has the many amendments it used to. The copy I got was almost all administrative material.
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When I started out the guy I worked for called 4W Delta system "Red Leg Deltas". He started in '54.

Thanks Paul.

Roger