Several days ago I came to an old Villa in Vienna soon to be demolished (In fact demolition started yesterday, so nothing of this is left) looking for oak floors. I got permission to take whatever I want, but the floors were rotten. So I only took some vintage light switches (replicas as I found out later)
The main fuse box ahead of the meter was open. It contained two rows of fuses ( in those panels phases/neutrals are gathered in vertical rows, so the line terminals can be linked with brass straps) The upper row contained two 32A fuses and an unfused neutral, the bottom row a single 32 A fuse not linked to the upper ones at all and 2 independent 10A fuses. On the panel door it was printed 220V and 440V.
Obviously this was a supply similar to American ones, that had been later converted to standard 220/380 3 ph by hacking in a 3rd phase. No one I asked has ever heard of this!

My guess would be that the original service was 220/440V 3-wire DC. Many early supply systems were DC, and this being Vienna it's quite probable that electricity was introduced into the district fairly early on. Many older parts of British cities had DC supplies that continued until well into the 1950s.

It could have been 1-phase 3-wire AC, but I think these systems were rare to non-existent on this side of the Atlantic. I don't know whether Austria could have been an exception, but I'd place my bet on DC.



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 08-22-2002).]

DC could be correct. Vienna HAD DC services until 1965. I'm going to do some investigations at our PoCo which has had a monopoly on power in Vienna from 1902 to 2001.

Finally got a reply. It was a +220/-220/0V DC system, converted to 3ph AC around 1950.
BTW the janitor's appartment (kitchen, 1BR) had 10 A MAIN FUSES!
Not much juice!
maybe less risk of electric pouring out of our receptacles with their big holes...

Thanks for posting the reply Tex. Looks like I won the bet!

I lived in a flat last year which only had a single 10A main fuse. Never caused any problems. The sockets were fused 4A...

Could cause a problem for the average Brit who is firmly attached to his trusty electric kettle.

C-H,
I heard that some parts of Scandinavia used a 220V system operating from a xfmr which was center-tapped to ground so that each leg was only 110V to earth (i.e. similar to the American 120/240V 3-wire system but without the neutral extended to the house).

Do you know if any such arrangement existed (or indeed still exists) in Sweden?

In the 1950's there were three systems in use: 110V, 127V and 220V. (DC was also used in some places.) I'm too young to know when these were converted to 220V only.

The system you describe is rather uncommon these days, but I worked in an office a few years ago where every room had a blue CEE 17-socket with this system. The rooms had been used as labs (or something similar) previously, so I suppose it was a safety feature. (The wiring was rather new, with a consumer unit with RCD:s and MCB:s in every room)

Also, a small number (perhaps single digit) of buildings with their own transformer still use this system for general purpose sockets. In some cases a 127/220V system (3-phase) is used for safety reasons. (I've seen it in labs with their own transformer.)

However, I would guess that 99.9% of the houses are supplied with the standard 230/400V.

4A fuses? They've been discontinued here in Austria years ago, replaced by 6A ones that also have been discontinued or at least aren't sold in bigger hardware stores any more. Smallest fuse size commonly available is 10A.
16A for higher rated residential circuits, 20 and 25A for main fuses.
Do you fuse the neutral in sweden as it is done here?

Thanks C-H. I hadn't realized that 127/220V 3-phase was also used in Sweden, although I know it was employed in some other parts of Europe, e.g. France and Spain.

I've seen references which indicate that some areas of Norway actually employ an non-earthed 230/400V distribution system. Has any such arrangement ever been used in Sweden too? The electrical regulations in the U.K. have specified that all public supplies must have one pole solidly earthed since at least the 1930s.

These weren't even the "modern" Diazed II fuses, but the ancient Diazed I. Much smaller, with a maximum fuse size of 15A. When I found a store who still had 4A fuses in stock, the clerk refused to sell them to me. Instead he sold me 6A fuses and new "keys"... (He failed to convince me to go for 10A fuses)

No.

BTW. Do Austria use the TT or the TN-C-S system?

Now for Paul's comment:

I think it must have been used quite widely in Europe, since it has managed to spread to a number of former colonies.


A non earthed 230/400V system? I have never heard of such a thing. This of course doesn't mean it doesn't exist. AFAIK Norway uses both the standard earthed 230/400V system and a 230V unearthed system. The latter has 230V phase-phase and hence no neutral. The transformer is unearthed (a so called IT system) and the earth conductors are only used to prevent electric shock in case of a double fault. I.e. two appliances that has become live and are on different phases. By earthing the system a short circuit between the two appliances will develop, blowing the fuse(s). (The houses do have a earth rod and an RCD.) Unfortunately I know toolittle about this system to present any closer details.


Well, "ever been used" is a rather wague in this case. Everything that the twisted mind of an engineer can come up with has probably been used at one time or the other.

(The first Swedish generator refused to work since it had one earth conductor too many. It took days before they found the error.)


You can say that the UK has always been very down to earth when it comes to grounding...

{Edited only for brackets. Paul}


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-22-2002).]

ooops... Used wrong brackets! Moderator, feel free to correct!

Diazed 1? Don't think I've ever seen this.
When was it in use?
"6A fuses and new "keys"..."
I found out that 6A Diazed II fuses fit 4A keys. What wire size was used with the 4A ones? here in Austria I've only seen 6A ones with 1sq. mm cloth covered single wires (commonly overfused with 10A, I've also seen them fused with 16A, washing machine hooked up to them! The keys were replaced with 16A ones on one circuit and completely removed on the other one.)
TT, TN-C-S-System: I'm not an electrician, but I think both systems are used. Originally a seperate ground rod was required or the water piping was used as a ground rod and tapped for each Schuko receptacle (Have installed such a system myself in an appartment without ground at the panel, so at least the kitchen receptacles were grounded). Has been taken out of code 01/01/01 because of the increasing use of pvc water utility pipes.
PS: Did I mention that the appartment with the overfused circuits nearly burnt down while I worked there because of a loose splice on the line to the 2kw infrared bathroom heater? The wires were wound around a screw, secured with nut and washer and finally wrapped with PVC tape. This assembly started arcing on the phase in some junction box. Fortunately we heard the noises and screwed out the fuses.

C-H,
Brackets corrected for you! (By the way, you can edit your own posts if you wish by clicking on the little paper & pencil icon in the message header.)

It was only a passing reference I read to the Norwegian IT system some time ago, so it may well be just 230V 1-phase rather than 230/400V 3-phase.

The 127/220V system does indeed seem to live on in some ex-Colonial countries. We had somebody from Brazil in here a while ago and he still had 127/220 at his house, although other parts of the country are 220/380.

Tex,
On the earthing/grounding arrangements, if you look at the U.K. systems here, , diagram #1 is TN-S, #2 is TN-C-S, and #3 is TT.

The 1st letter indicates the grounding on the supply conductors (i.e. the neutral), "T" if solidly grounded, "I" if isolated or impedance-grounded.

The 2nd letter indicates how the protective ground is derived, "N" if it is bonded directly to the neutral, "T" if grounded separately to an earth rod.

The 3rd & 4th letters, if present, indicate whether the protective ground path is Separate or Combined with the neutral, or a combination of both.

("T" from the French "Terre" for earth).

By the way, what exactly are these "Diazed" fuses like? I'm assuming they're some sort of cartridge fuse, but it's not a name I ever recall hearing before.



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-22-2002).]

Ahh! There it was! Thanks! I'm one of those people who fail to understand symbols :-(


It's 230V 3-phase. (Yup, one voltage only. If they had used a neutral I suppose the voltage would have been 133/230V)


The name is rarely used. Usually they are called DI, DII, DII or DIV. (Increasing in size and rating)

The small DI fuses come in sizes from 4 to 15A, and were used in the 1920:s and 1930:s.

DII 4, 6, 10, 16, 20, 25A
DIII 35, 50, 63A
DIV 80, 100A.

Types DII and DIII are very common.

People also drive nails through the fuses or wrap them in copper wire.

I don't know the size, but I would guess at 1 mm2 or 1.5 mm2. The cloth brittle and starting to fall off. Oddly enough the wires were in pairs: i.e. one thin layer of cloth for each conductor and then another thin layer around both. A true nightmare when fitting a new ceiling lamp. Lots of electric tape and a prayer...

C-H thanks for posting the pics! I wanted to post something like this myself but couldn't get to it, glad you did this for me!
Yes these are common ways to get power when a fuse blows and no replacement is available. I've seen people pulling one strand out of an old cord and wrapping it around the fuse body.
Diazed II fuses are still pretty common here for residential/small commercial panels and are newly installed for appartment mains, DIII are used about everywhere for single family mains.
Thanks Pauluk for posting the link to the diagrams, yes, TN-C-S and TT are the systems used here.
In the 1920ies and 30ies (maybe earlier) we had fused receptacles here. The fuses were small cardboard strips (about 3/16" to 1") with brass sleeves on each end, the fuse wire visible through a round hole on one side. TWo of them (hot/neutral)were inserted into the receptacle. They were typically 1A (orange) or 2A (brown), though the color coding wasn't the least reliable. I've also seen 6 and 10A ones (the latter pretty useless as no receptacle was rated higher than 6A)
The only common wiring systems apart from the surface mounted knob and tube (2 rubber and cloth covered conductors wound together to a cord and mounted on glass or porcelaine insulators) were single wires, either directly plastered in (a nightmare) put in plaster and lath ceilings (even more of a nightmare, imagine one of these burning off, had this in our house some years ago!) or used in conduit mostly made of cardboard impregnated with some asphalt stuff, the better, though rare version with a very thin steel covering. These wires had a base rubber coating, then they were covered with cloth and finally impregnated with smelly asphalt. 1. sq. mm solid tinned copper conductor. Today some of these are still in decent condition, but most on of them the rubber crumbles away, especially were they are exposed, e.g. where they come out of the ceiling. As about 3/4 of Vienna's houses are pre-WWI this stuff is used and abused about everywhere. I once got bit when wetting a wall to remove wallpaper because of those wires. I didn't even know there were wires in that wall, they were abandoned, yet still hot!
In the 50ies PVC covered wires came up.
The wire type I like best is something like double-sheathed zip cord with more space between the conductors, directly buried in plaster. It's very easy to handle (way easier than modern stubborn round Romex, which is listed for the same use). It's still available, but for 73 cents/metre (roughly 3ft) compared to 8 Euro ($8) for a 50m (165 ft) coil of Romex, i. e. 16 cents /m

The illustrations and discussion about the Diazed fuses answer some longstanding questions. About 10 years ago I was called to a machine shop hi-bay room that contained an PLC-controlled lathe with an ~eight-foot bed, and the control console contained about half-dozen sets of Diazed fuses in the range of 1-to-63 amp…a control power transformer to semi-fat motors.

The machine was sporadically frying Omrom-brand open-board PLCs. The regional vendor was happy to provide ~$1100 boards for replacement.

The building’s service was via a then-new padmount 300kVA secondary-unit substation with 480V 3-wire ∆ ungrounded secondary windings…an accepted {and somewhat popular} practice in the US.

Console was furnished with a ~250VA control-power transformer rated 440-to-220V and not until another failure was it realized as being an autotransformer, even with four leads connected {two were strapped common on the opposite side of its integral terminal block.}

The phase voltage was well balanced, but routinely peaked at around 490V at night. PLC was labeled for 200-220V, but transient voltage-to-ground could be way beyond that with the autotransformer lack of isolation. That’s what happens when widely differing ”routine and expected” practices collide.

The permanent fix was to install a pair of 150VA 480-to-120V control-power transformers in open-delta [3ø 3-wire 480V] primary to open-wye [208V “1ø” 2-wire wye-grounded] secondary arrangement. This kept PLC power at 215V maximum, but more significantly it was now isolated and solidly grounded.

Not having the correct spare parts, the “DI” 1-ampere fuse pair was replaced with a 3-pole cartridge-fuse pullout block. The new configuration provided isolation of PLC power from the building 480V system, curing the recurring damage.

Thanks for the diagrams -- I've seen those bottle-shaped fuses before but had no idea what you called them on the Continent.

Unfortunately, a couple of strands of wire from a flexible cord are also sometimes used to bridge the cartridge fuses in our 13A fused plugs. Aluminum kitchen foil is another favorite, although that seems to be more common on the fuses in cars.

C-H, I don't like icon-based systems either, but then I grew up using computers pre-Windows!

>
>The wire type I like best is something like
>double-sheathed zip cord with more space
>between the conductors, directly buried in
>plaster. It's very easy to handle (way
>easier than modern stubborn round Romex,
>which is listed for the same use). It's
>still available, but for 73 cents/metre
>(roughly 3ft) compared to 8 Euro ($8) for a
>50m (165 ft) coil of Romex, i. e. 16
>cents /m

16 cents/m? Is this 1.5 mm2 three wire? Hell, I pay 80 cents/m for that!

I've got an idea: A common cable type for entire Europe. Or rather three different:

1.) Plastic cable
2.) Cable with metallic shielding
3.) Cable with reinforced metallic shielding for direct burial.

All rated for 450/750V, stranded wires only, rated for 90°C. Preferably of some plastic that can stand sunlight and be used directly outdoors. (Smallest size 1.5 mm2)

Stranded only since solid wires are difficult to work with and easily broken when repetedly connected and disconnected.

The 90° would give about 20% extra current carrying capacity compared to 75°C cables. Hence, 2.5 mm2 could almost always be used for 20A, even when the cable had to be derated.

The price would be low thanks to the huge quantities sold.

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 09-23-2002).]

Yes, it is! Found at BauMax, one of our HomeDepot equivalents, flyer dating from September 16th 2002, 50m coil. same thing 50m coil 3x 2.5sq. mm is 19 Euro (38 cents/m). Single wires 1.5mm2 solid, PVC sheathed are 3.70 per 100m coil. 4 3-way switches or 10 Schuko receptacles without frames 9 Euro.
Breakers (F&G brand, well-known in Austria) 13A single pole 4.63, double pole (strongly recommended, clerk once told me "works like an additional GFI!") for fusing the neutral as well, 8.79. 16A single pole 5.19, DP 8.79.
Anything else you want to know?
PS: there are also switches that are much more expensive: retrofit knobturn switches with glass wall plate are 25 Euro each. I nearly fainted when I heard the price, yet I think the palazzo series w/ brass/marble wall plate are even more expensive.
I prefer solid wires for one reason: It's much easier to get them into our strip connectors, and it's almost impossible to get stranded into backwires which is the only connector type available here (When i found recpetacles with screw terminals I bought the whole stock, because i like them better than the backwires)
Plus I mostly use flex conduit (much nicer to handle an empty flex conduit than a hard cable)

>Yes, it is! Found at BauMax, one of our
>HomeDepot equivalents, flyer dating from
>September 16th 2002, 50m coil. same thing
>50m coil 3x 2.5sq. mm is 19 Euro (38
>cents/m).

Well. Perhaps one should start importing cable from Austria. I could make a nice little profit. (3x2.5 sqmm is 1.5 Euro/m here)

>Single wires 1.5mm2 solid, PVC sheathed are >3.70 per 100m coil.

Ummm... The shop I worked in sold it for ten times that a few years ago..

>4 3-way switches or 10 Schuko receptacles >without frames 9 Euro.

That will buy you one Schuko receptable here. (Double with frame) Or one 3-way switch. (I think we sold the Schukos at 15 Euros a piece.)

Scandinavia is a monopoly market. If you ever see a company called Lexel (a Schneider subsidiary), watch out. There are going to take over the market, buying all competitors. They have turned Sweden, Norway and Denmark into complete monopoly in the past years and are now going for Poland and Germany.

>Breakers (F&G brand, well-known in Austria) >13A single pole 4.63, double pole (strongly >recommended, clerk once told me "works like >an additional GFI!") for fusing the neutral >as well, 8.79.
>16A single pole 5.19, DP 8.79.

A no name single pole 16A breaker 4 Euro, double pole 6 Euro, three pole at 9 Euro...
(Lexel isn't active in this market)

>Anything else you want to know?

Yes! Do Austrian switches and sockets fit Swedish boxes? Ours are round, 70 mm in dia. with 60 mm between the screws.

>I prefer solid wires for one reason: It's
>much easier to get them into our strip
>connectors, and it's almost impossible to
>get stranded into backwires which is the
>only connector type available here (When i
>found recpetacles with screw terminals I
>bought the whole stock, because i like them
>better than the backwires)

Echo that.

>Plus I mostly use flex conduit (much nicer >to handle an empty flex conduit than a hard >cable)

Do you use solid core wires in flex conduit?

>Do Austrian switches and sockets fit Swedish boxes?

They do! Ours are the same dimensions. Sometimes used as junction boxes, along with 12 cm square. Some switch boxes are also octagon, gangable. All designed to fit masonry walls. Boxes for use with cavity walls (plaster and lathe, sheetrock) slightly smaller in diameter, red or orange in color, with clamps to be secured in any wall between some mm and several cm.
The switches and receptacles are modern Kopp brand backwires (Germany) available in ivory, white and brown.
Only thing I definitely wouldn't recommend are the "Safemat" GFIs they sell. We bought one and the electrician already warned us when he hooked it up. At the first test it tripped and couldn't be reset, even when completely disconnected. We got our cash back and bought a solid F&G (Felten and Guilleaume).
Yes, I use solid core in conduit because it's the only available here. Stranded is only available as SVT and zip cord, i'm not even sure it is listed for fixed work. (Really have to get a copy of our code book "Code for low-voltage installations")
In Italy this is pretty different. They even use stranded wire with wirenuts. I'm not sure if I like that thought.

Bye everyone, I'm going on a 1 week travel to Rome. Will be back on Sunday.
Greetinx from Austria

While we're comparing cable prices, here are some current figures from my BDC catalog (converted to Euro as I don't expect you're familiar with the British pound!):

100m 1.5mm twin & earth, e19.22
100m 2.5mm twin & earth, e25.42
100m 1.5mm single, e7.62
100m 2.5mm single, e12.07

All plus VAT at 17.5%. These are trade prices; they're slightly higher in the big DIY places and much more expensive for those who buy at the local hardware store!

By the way, in "twin & earth" all sizes up to 2.5 are solid conductors, 4mm upward are stranded. Single cable is the same, except that 2.5mm is available as solid or stranded.

Hope you enjoy your vacation Tex!

P.S. A note for our American friends: The new "Euro" is almost the same as a good-old American greenback. Exchange rate at the moment is 1 Euro = $0.98 U.S.




[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-24-2002).]

Too bad the UK colour coding is wrong.

I've heard you cheat on the Earth conductor in the UK, i.e. use 1.5 mm earth with 2.5 mm live and neutral. Is this true?

Yes, it's true. In our "twin & earth" cable the earth/ground wire is one size smaller than the other conductors, e.g. 4 sq. mm cable has a 2.5 earth.

The exception is the smallest 1 sq. mm cable which also has a 1mm earth. I assume that Sweden follows the rest of Europe in specifying 1.5 as the smallest allowable cable ???

Re the color codes, the British system at the moment is a mess. Blue in a flexible cord is neutral, but blue in a fixed cable is a phase. Black in a flex is a phase, but black in fixed wiring is neutral. Crazy, isn't it?

I'm curious now. When did Sweden adopt the brown, blue. green/yellow system> What did you use before?

Yes, 1.5 sqmm is the smallest and most common size. (Socket outlets are on 10A circuits)

I think the colour code changed ca 1970. Previously the earth was red, but this was made illegal in 1972. I don't know if the rest of the old colour code was outlawed or simply not used anymore. Anyway, it was (when wired to code):

Live: black, blue, yellow, green or grey. (Other colours may have been used too.)
Neutral: white
Earth: red

I've seen red used as both live and earth in the same junction box. But then, I've seen green/yellow used in the same way.

Please define: Neutral


[This message has been edited by Joe Tedesco (edited 11-18-2002).]

A rhetorical question?

The terms Earth and Neutral is a way of avoiding the use of the confusing terms Grounding and Grounded.

I'm sure there is an official definition of Neutral. In fact, I thought the answer was obvious until I tried to write it down. After three failed attempts, I came up with this:


Neutral is a conductor used for carrying current under normal operation, which has a defined and limited potential to the surroundings and the Protective Earth.

If there is no Protective Earth, Neutral is the conductor which is intentionally connected to the surroundings. In most cases this will be the surface of the planet Earth, but it can also be e.g. the superstructure of a spaceship.

If there is no defined potential to the surroundings (e.g. a room with plastic walls) Neutral is the conductor with a defined but limited potential to Protective Earth.

If there is neither Protective Earth nor a defined potential to the surroundings, the term neutral is not applicable. In the case of a center-tapped system or a polyphase wye system the common conductor is then only a return path, not to be referred to as Neutral.

That seems to differ somewhat from the accepted American definition (see other threads) in which such a conductor is a neutral, whether grounded or not.

Interesting on the color codes that another country (in addition to Germany & Austria) used red for ground. Do you know if other Scandinavian countries followed this practice?

>That seems to differ somewhat from the
>accepted American definition (see other
>threads) in which such a conductor is a
>neutral, whether grounded or not.

Don't get me wrong. What I wrote was in no way an offical definition or something taken from a book. It was simply what I would define as neutral, from the top of my mind.

What happens if you use a center-tapped transformer and connects one side to ground instead of the center? You will have one wire with 120V to the grounded wire and one with 240V to ground. Which wire is then the neutral?

I will look up the other thread.

>Interesting on the color codes that another
>country (in addition to Germany & Austria)
>used red for ground. Do you know if other
>Scandinavian countries followed this
>practice?

Yes, there were other countries using red as ground. I've seen a list at some time, but I can't remeber which. Just about every colour has been used for every purpose. The Soviet Union used black as PE. (Although I doubt they ever used very much PE...)


[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 09-27-2002).]

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 09-27-2002).]

Wow, old USSR color codes; there's something I knew nothing about! Do you know anything else about old Soviet wiring practices?

My one experience of Russian color codes was with an imported USSR-made transistor radio in the 1970s. The wires to the battery compartment were pink and blue; I assumed that the blue would be negative and the pink positive.

Wrong! (Although I realize now that I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions, I can only plead that at the time I was only about 10 years old and had never come across such a strange color code.)

Regarding colour coding: After some searching I located the source of the information. The text below is a slightly edited and shorted version of the following NG posting. Although it claims to apply to mains cords only, it seem to be valid for fixed wiring too.

-----
Andrew Emmerson (midshires@cix.compulink.co.uk)
Safety or heresy
rec.antiques.radio+phono
1995/10/17
------
Mains Cords
By this we mean flexible appliance wiring or line cords, not the fixed cable or wiring inside the walls. All colour code combinations are given in the order L, N, E: In other words line (live), neutral and earth (ground).

The current general standard is Brown, Blue, Yellow/Green striped and this is mandatory in most European countries and on items intended for sale in those countries. The colours were chosen not for their association (otherwise brown would be earth!) for reasons set up below.

Elsewhere in the world and also in Europe in previous times, these colour codings vary widely. The following combinations can be encountered. Again the order is L, N, E and the list is not intended to be exhaustive.

Belgium: Red, yellow or blue, Grey, Black.
Germany: Usually Grey, Black, Red.
Great Britain: Red, Black, Green.
Netherlands: Any colour but grey or red, Red, Grey.
Russia: Red, Grey, Black.
Switzerland: Red, Grey, Yellow or yellow/red.
USA, Canada: Black, White, Green.

The foregoing should make it clear why a unified colour coding of wires was necessary. Green is by no means the obvious colour for earth either:
before standard colours were adopted, earth was red in Austria, Finland, Germany, Norway, and Sweden; black in Belgium and Russia, grey in the Netherlands and Poland, yellow in Switzerland and green in Britain and North America. Three cheers for standardisation!

The choice of colours for the world-wide system was not arbitrary either; earth (ground) had to be distinguished and making it striped was an inspired choice. The other two colours had to be clearly distinguishable, even by people who suffer colour-blindness, and blue and brown were judged the most clearly different shades by experts in this field.


[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 09-28-2002).]

Ouch!
Didn't know there were THAT much color codes. Hungary and the GDR also used the black/grey/red scheme. In Austria this was the official color coding and always used for flexible cords, but for fixed wiring any available color was used. I've seen 2 white wires, 2 black ones, 2 greens, 2 yellows, 2 browns... violet, orange (no ground), red, white, yellow/green, red for ground, 2 green ones tagged black and white for L and N,...
Red for ground, some rusty reddish brown,
All I can remember now, but I think I've seen some more. I've also seen cables with 2 black conductors (above I only meant single wires)
Today colors other than red (completely banned for any new work, acceptable to remain in use) and yellow/green are used for circuit identification, switch loops, ect.
What a mess!

Well, the self-appointed electricians still use whatever is available. In my kitchen they used green/yellow only when they wired the lights last year. Live, neutral and earth are all green/yellow. Which wire is which is anyones guess.


[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 09-29-2002).]

Interesting quote there. Andrew Emmerson is a name quite well-known in England to those of us with an interest in old radio, TV, & telephone equipment.

I remember reading an article once about the association of colors in different cultures. It's interesting that before the days of international standardization almost every English-speaking country had adopted green for earth/ground and, from that list, practically no non-English-speaking place used green for that purpose.

From the header of the quote, the article must be talking about the question of whether to replace the mains cord when renovating an old radio set. This is something I've heard about before, and I've seen some people state that it is absolutely necessary in the name of safety to install a new cord with the current color code.

I disagree. So long as the original cord is in good condition, I don't see it matters that it has the old colors (and bear in mind that in the U.K., anything made before around 1970 would have the old red/black/green code, so a lot of 1950s/1960s equipment will have perfectly serviceable PVC-insulated cords).

A neighbor runs a small antique shop in town (loosely antique; she also sometimes sells 1950s radios, telephones etc., which is where I enter the scene!).

The leaflets issued by our Trading Standards Dept. actually suggest that old-color cords be replaced with modern equivalents because "the old system may be confusing." Note that it is their suggestion; it is not a requirement.

What is a requirement, however, is that electrical equipment sold second-hand in shops now has to be fitted with the modern 13A fused plug.

Now if the equipment has to be sold with a plug properly fitted, how could the color of the wires be a source of confusion to anyone?




[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-30-2002).]

I can understand choices red, green, brown and black for earth. Green, brown and black can all be associated with soil and hence earth. Red is an obvious candidate for live or earth since it's a warning colour. Grey or yellow remains a mystery...


I agree, but although some old PVC cords are in excellent condition, many are not. It's easier to tell common people to replace old cords, than to inform them of what signs to look for.


[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 09-30-2002).]

Replacing the cord...
Myself I know enough to see when a cord is too damaged (and my father taught me darn well not to mess around with any stuff like that other than pulling the plug (in severe cases after throwing the breaker/unscrewing both H&N fuses or throwing the main GFI(present in nearly all work done mid-70ies and after) and replace it.) I've never seen a PVC cord that was damaged due to anything else than severe mechanical stress. Much different with rubber sheathing. It usually crumbles with time or gets soft. I once bought a ca. 1950ies vacuum cleaner with a cord which insulation looked and felt almost like plastiline (some soft playing and modeling mass for kids). Plus the 5m cord was spliced FOUR TIMES! The old cord got weak near the appliance, so they only left about 30 cm (1ft) of it. Then they spliced an equally long piece of PVC sheathed flat SVT (commonly used with Europlugs). Now the result was still too short. Add a 4m piece of SVT 2w+ ground. Now they lacked a plug. They took the rest of the (white) flat SVT with an Europlug and spliced the last time. Didn't even bother to tape each conductor seperately, just wrapped it back along the cord in opposite direction and gave everything one tape wrap. They even dared to show me how great it was working!
Any old radios after 1950 I've seen were fitted with 0.75 sq. mm (18 AWG) brown zip cord. (sometimes white, I've also seen flat SVT with 2 white conductors inside)
However, I've seen some rubber cords dating back to the 1940ies that are still in perfect shape (hard to tell it apart from a new one).
Fitting all second-hand appliances with new plugs? I doubt this would work here. First, second-hand is one of the worst businesses I know here. You have to look darn close what you're going to buy here! There's a reason for the proverb: "The balkan starts in Vienna!"
Second, even if somebody attempted to do this they would do it themselves and only make things worse. (The guy I told about somewere who plugged in the loose prongs was a second-hand-dealer)
Most stuff on the market is still with the original ungrounded plug, some have a Schuko plug. The later devices with zip cord almost always had a premolded contour plug which is still perfectly legal here and used for any ungrounded devices consuming more than 2.5A.

Red for ground was chosen here because it's a signal color and thus completely different to the black and grey wires. One reason I like the old color coding better and try to keep it everywhere I find it is the beautiful dark red of some old ground wires.

I suppose the logic behind the British choice of red was "red for danger," or the live/hot wire. To a Brit, the use of red for ground seems very strange, but I can just about see the association.

On neutral colors, I can understand the British choice of black. I can also see the reasoning behind the American (and other) use of white or gray. What just doesn't make sense to me is the new Euro-neutral of blue.

The green/yellow for earth here doesn't cause too much concern, as it at least contains green that most people were used to. But even 30 years after the new colors were introduced, there are still people who understand the red & black but don't know the correct way to wire brown & blue.

I've heard of the color-blindness angle before, but I've always been led to believe that the most common form of color blindness is the inability to distinguish red from green. O.K., obviously that could be a problem with the old British code, but as I understand it, to somebody with red-green color blindness both colors appear to be the same. Now, if you were color blind, knew that the three wires were different colors (red, black, green) and yet two of the three appeared to be the same color to you, wouldn't you get somebody who can distinguish the colors to help you? Would you really just guess at which wire is red and which green?

On the replacement cord issue, the Trading Standards Dept. "advice" seems to be more along the lines of forcing everybody into the new standard rather than any concern over the condition of the cord. Sure, I take the point that training the average person to recognize the hazards of a damaged or worn cord is not always easy. But then the advice continues that the replacement cord (new color code) should be installed by a suitably qualified person. Why not just suggest that said qualified person inspects the existing cord and replaces it only if necessary?

The plug angle here is also a case of bureaucracy at its extreme. The rules specify that the latest type of BS1363 (13A fused) plug be fitted. That's the one with insulating sleeves partially covering the line & neutral pins. According to Trading Standards, you can't now legally sell an appliance fitted with the older type of 13A plug.

Here's an extract from the appropriate on-line guidance note issued by U.K. Trading Standards:


The full note is here: http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/bglitem.cgi?file=BADV018-1111.txt

This link is all the garbage about CE marking: http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/bglitem.cgi?file=BADV022-1111.txt


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-30-2002).]

Ok, I've never heard of such requirements or recommendations here in Austria, and as I already said I really doubt they could be enforced. Probably it would cause the prices for 2nd hand ware to go up so much no one would buy it anymore. At least if this conversion had to be done by licensed electricians, which would be a good idea.

BTW, as we're already talking about radios, does any of you guys have an idea where to obtain information on a mid-1960ies? Austrian-made Eltz 551U radio?
All the valves (4 in total, probably 3+rectifier) are missing, some soldering joints are open (ripped off?), maybe it has some other problems as well. I don't have any schematics or other materials on this one, but it looks so incredibly old (much older than it can be, would've guessed mid-30ies, but it is a FM receiver, so it can't possibly be that old, also the phono in is labelled "Phono" which came up here in the mid-60ies.

The "must have a modern plug" rule here can be gotten around by selling equipment as "collectors' items, not for use" or some such phrase. The way that some of the auction places do it now is to cut off the old cord close to the apparatus so that it would be impractical to fit a plug and just use it. That really annoys me, because their stupid rules mean that sometimes perfectly good old equipment is vanadalized by the auction-house prior to sale.

Those who advocate replacing the cord with a modern one at all costs say that such a minor thing is of no consequence, but believe me, some collectors want to go to extraordinary lengths to maintain the originality of a rare item in good condition. As an example, where an old paper capacitor needs to be replaced, rather than just fit a modern polyester equivalent directly they will have the wax melted and internal contents removed from the old tubular sleeve and a modern unit installed within it, so that when refitted to the set it still looks like the original.

On the Eltz radio, I'm afraid I can't help there, as I've never heard of that make. I've tried a quick search, but can't locate any details on this one.

Do you know when FM broadcasts started in Austria exactly? I believe the first regular FM broadcast stations in the U.S. opened around 1941. In Britain, the BBC opened the first ones in 1955.

One update on this: During the 50ies and 60ies the 220/440V Edison DC system was replaced by a 127/220 3ph system w/o neutral. In the 60ies/70ies this was finally upgraded to a standard 220/380 3ph system.

Hmm.... This sounds fascinating. If the new system was 127/220 then I assume the xfmr secondaries had the star-point grounded.

If the neutral wasn't extended to each house, then all appliances must have been 220V. Did each house take only two phases, or all three?

As there was no neutral to bond, then all houses on this system must have been TT with earth-leakage breakers (GFI).

In the only house with remnants of this system there was no grounding at all, maybe some receptacles seperately bonded to the next cold water line serving as a ground rod. The rooms I saw (house was close to falling down, in some rooms the ceiling had already come down) there was 1 ungrounded outlet per room. No GFIs either, the panel consisted of an impressing amount of Diazed fuses and nothing else. (it was about 40x40 cm at least, all cramped, mounted high up on a wall, way out of my reach (and I'm 1.90m), close to the ceiling).
This house had a third line added, I don't know when this happened. Probably they ran 2 phases on the old +/- wires and disconnected the neutral. Then they added a 3rd phase and reactivated the neutral. The 3rd phase was obviously hacked in. Finally the service was 220/380V, 32A 3ph, most wiring dating from the 1930ies or earlier, some maybe 50ies. (the house was badly remuddled back then, ripping out all the beautiful old doors, putting in new floors, etc, the upper hallway for example was fake mahogony paneling and green wall-to-wall carpeting)
Originally the house was 1850ies or earlier, a beautiful large house, located in a small village back then, now in an upper-class neighborhood. Previous owners made it ready for demolition by letting the water run all winter long until it fell apart, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten demolition permit for such an old house. A real pity. Now they're erecting concrete appartment blocks on the site (8000 m2, most of it was garden when the old house was still standing).

Here in the republic of Ireland.

Older wiring : (usually very old at this stage)

E - Green
N - Black
L - Red

Newer installations follow the flexible cord colours: (required for quite some time)

E - Green & Yellow striped
N - Blue
L - Brown

Diazed fuses are the only type you'll ever see over here on distribution boards. Even modern MCB based boards have at least one main Diazed fuse just incase

Older boards would have mix of 10 and 20 amp diazed fuses (10amp - lighting, 20 amp sockets) and a RCB (inter-differential) / ELCB.

and very old would only have diazed fuses in the same configuration. ELCB/RCBs were usually retrofitted on a seperate panel by the ESB during metering upgrades though.

DC was never really used and the supply has always been very standard at 220 V @ 50 hz (380 V 3ph) Old systems would have exsisted in very limited urban areas at the turn of the century but were ripped out when the ESB (electricity supply board) began to emerge and completely took over. I think Cork City used DC for a while as power was taken from Tramway supplies until the 20s. the system was replaced and no traces exsist at all.

I noticed that Eire uses brown/blue in fixed cables as well. Do you know when the change was introduced? As you're probably aware, although in the U.K we adopted the new colors for flex in 1970, we still use the old red/black system for fixed cables.

How about current 3-phase systems in Ireland? If you have the color coding we could get Scott to add it to the list in the technical reference area.

New regs are now in place and standardise fixed cable in Ireland as follows:

Earth - Green & Yellow Striped
Neutral - Blue
Ph 1 - Brown
Ph 2 - Grey
Ph 3 - Black

lol!
AFAIK in Austria the phases are just the other way round:
L1 black, L2 brown, L3 grey?.
However, all cables I've seen at the store still have L1 black, L2 brown and L3 black, L1 IIRC being the black one located between blue and gn/ye in a round cable. A recent 3ph CEE plug I just took apart was labeled as follows: R1 S2 T3.

Looks like they're covering all bases there by combining numbered phases with the old Continental RST labeling.

Thanks for the Irish colors. I'll forward them to Scott to add to the list. What was used under the old system? Was it the standard British phase colors?

The standing Irish colours are as follows:

Earth - Green & Yellow striped.
Neutral: Blue
L1 : Brown
L2 : Red (Cenelec system will be black)
L3 : Yellow (Cenelec system will be grey)

Cable sheath is normally light grey.

As part of a Europe-wide CENELEC harmonisation and the phases are :

Earth: Green/Yellow
Neutral: Blue
Phases: Brown (L1) Black (L2) Grey (L3) (First Phase will be Brown)

This has just been approved and will phase in over the comming years as yet is not the norm.

Old domestic wiring would have been the same as the UK [Green (E), Black (N), Red (L1) ] 3 phase was extremely rare in domestic installations and I'm not 100% familar with what was the industrial norm in the past.

http://www.lappcable.com/products/bs_cables/xlshieldfixedcable.htm

shows the Irish and UK core colours compared

Core Colours: (Excludes Earth Green&Yellow striped)
UK:
2 core - Black and Red
3 core - Red, Yellow and Blue
4 core - Red, Yellow, Blue and Black
Ireland:
2 core - Brown and Blue
3 core - Brown, Blue and Red
4 core - Brown, Blue, Red and Yellow

Thanks.

I guess that when Ireland adopted the new standard it made sense to keep the red and yellow colors from the old British system and jusr replace the blue with brown, albeit with the phase order changed.

and to stick in a blue neutral!